The darkness is palpable. All that is unwalled and unroofed is enveloped in a thick fog. By sheer will and adrenaline, alone, Siegmund seeks shelter. Droplets of water roll off of an overcoat that covers his sweat drenched undershirt. Extreme fatigue threatens to drop him in his tracks.
Her evening was as peaceful as could be. Always watchful of her husbands return, Sieglinde lit a fire at dusk, boiled a hot cup of tea, and knitted until sleep overcame her. Usually, she wakes with each crunch, whoosh and tap in the night; sounds warn her that Hunding might enter through the door. But tonight she falls into a deep sleep.
Totally incapable of discreetness in his weary state, the cabins door swings open. The night is still, and so the door swings open just short of a bang. Most improbably it is then pushed shut with the exact amount of pressure, closing with a click. Like a floored blanket, he drops and is still as soon as his body reaches a parallel position.
It was not the change in pressure, nor the scent, nor the sound that wakes Sieglinde in the early morning hours, but thirst. Midway through a row on her toque she had fallen asleep without the chance to fill her skin. Half asleep, she falls out of bed, and makes her way towards the kitchen. The fire crackles and releases a flittering light across the living room. The shadows are long, steam rises from a man who lays at the hearth. She reaches for the ladle…and then she double-takes. A man!
In preparation for her husband’s return she had left the door unlocked. There is nothing worse that could enter in from the night than Hunding himself, she had thought. This stranger was unknown to her; a terror rises in her heart. But then as suddenly as the terror rose, a sense of certainty replaced it, and the fear was replaced with frustration, frustration towards a man who dared to enter without welcome.
Siegmund wakes with a start as a water skin bounces off of his chest.
“Who’s there?” he stammers, distressed to be awake so soon after he fell asleep.
“You have some nerve to ask such a question in my home, stranger.” Sieglinde retorts without hesitation.
As his eyes quickly adjusted to the dim, orange light, Siegmund saw what had struck him. Pained by a dry tongue, he reaches greedily for the skin and before saying another word finishes the bottle.
Satiated, Siegmund rises to his feet to face his host. After the throw Sieglinde had moved away from her brother, positioning a table between them. He now looks into her eyes and registers a demanding expression.
“Explain yourself, man. By whose invitation do you find yourself at my hearth? Are you a friend of my husband?”
Upon receiving his first invitation of the evening Siegmund explains. His story wrapped from womb to forest vale, sparring only the most minute details. He had been chosen by the gods and, so, cursed.
“Call me Woeful. For woeful I have been all my life.”
By the story’s conclusion, and as soon as Sieglinde began to know him, the door opens again. Only this time it opens expectantly; Hunding enters.
Already suspicious of his wife, who is way out of his league, Hunding reluctantly shares a meal with Siegmund. As they eat they learn that Hunding’s clan had set a price on Siegmund’s head. It was Hunding from whom Siegmund had escaped that same night. The husband vows to end the manhunt in the morning, and, without a weapon, the visitor’s fate is decided, or so it seems
Infatuated by this familiar man, Sieglinde passes Hunding a sleeping potion and follows by volunteering her story to Siegmund: on her wedding day a man, with one eye, pushed a sword deep into an oak tree in her garden and there it was stuck; no man had fulfilled the prophecy. Their respective stories weave together effortlessly, and only when Siegmund released the name of his father does their relation become clear, they were twin siblings.
By dawn they had consummated their love. He was chosen and so Siegmund pulls Nothung from the oak. A duel begins.
If this story was written by the screenwriters at the Walt Disney Corporation one could assume victory would come to Siegmund. Yet, the Norse were more harsh, and in Wagner’s retelling the queen god, Fricka, most disturbed by divorce and incest convinces, the king god, Wotan to permit Siegmund’s death. Nothung brakes into pieces and Hunding slashes the hero to death.
This tale is a rendition of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walkure. Inspired by Norse mythology, Wagner wrote a trilogy of operas, four hours apiece. (Ah yes this segment is only one and a quarter acts of three… of the first opera…in the trilogy. Oooof.).
As you might have noticed, Wagner abhorred social conventions, as his depiction of twin lovers makes clear. I had the fortune of sitting on the most unforgiving seats ever made by man through four hours of the Pacific Opera Victoria’s fall performance of this opera. Late into the third act it was the seats alone that prevented me from falling asleep, though the drama and taboo of the first two acts struck a strange chord.
What lessons can be learned from such a mythic and transgressive love story? More than might first reach the eye, in fact. Despite Wagner’s fetishization of the perverse, this love story holds some of the ingredients to lasting and fulfilling love. Hidden beneath the grime, I will reveal that Sieglinde and Siegmund demonstrated the immense courage that love demands, curiously revealing each other’s essence. Even while fate forced them together, they demonstrated a supreme willingness to go the distance and do what love required of them.
No love story is complete without each partner embodying a healthy and uninhibited dose of courage and curiosity. The affair above ended short of lifelong commitment, as is sometimes the case, though they held the ingredients for lasting love, or so we shall see.
In the few hours that Siegmund and Sieglinde knew each other, one virtue of theirs shone through. At every moment in their affair, they humans, fictional or not, chose bravery in the face of uncertainty. Sieglinde woke the strange man, nourished him, listened to him, and went as far as to drug her own bloodthirsty husband in order to share in his brotherly presence. He in turn, trusted her hospitality, revealed his story, unsheathed Nothung, risked death, all for the chance to remove her from her state and to taste her genetically related lips once again.
Let me distract you from the ick with this. Love without courage, is like a sandwich that is missing a slice of bread. An open-face sandwich is not a true sandwich, much the same as a love without courage is not true love. When two lovers are brought together things start to slide if courage is absent; courage holds things together.
To act courageously is to act in a way that may appear foolhearty when the act is removed from its context. On the surface, Sieglinde’s choice to debilitate her husband is a wrong and deceitful act, without the foreknowledge of the cyclopes prophecy on her wedding day. In the same way, an understanding of Siegmund’s courage to pull Nothung from the tree is possible only in the light of his own chosenness.
To act courageously is to take a broad view, it is to escape from the allure and aversion of pleasure and pain, respectively, in the present moment, and to trust in courage’s promise. A promise of trust, strength and love. Courage is to speak truth to power. Courage is to believe in a better future. Courage is kindness. Courage is love. Love without courage just doesn’t have the same chew, you may even be forced to eat it with a fork and knife.
Through courage, a bond is formed, from slice to slice, but it is through curiosity that the first bite is taken. To be courageous one must escape the restraints of our instinct to self-preserve. Curiosity, on the other hand, demands something more.
Curiosity demands selflessness. Allow me to explain. Our current beliefs and perceptions offer us an amount of comfort and stability. These ideas, ambitions, and, essentially, the thoughts in our mind are what define us. Beyond what we currently experience lies the fuel that threatens to loosen our grasp on who and what we believe we are.
As she escaped the limitations of fear with courage, Sieglinde took one step further and began to wonder. In other words, she opened herself up to Siegmund’s differences and influence, only to learn how much they shared in common.(..) Siegmund, too, observes, listens, and is transformed by what he heard, deciding to risk death only a few hours after he fled from it. Curiosity brings with it the risk of loss and of death, but, to put it tritely, if we are afraid of death we never know what it feels like to, truly, live.
By curiously and courageously engaging with the people we love, just as Siegmund and Sieglinde opened their hearts to one another, we learn why. This openness leaves us vulnerbake to uncertainty, but without it, love is impossible. In our curiosity we can escape the restraints of our own beliefs and learn how to best love each other. Usually, when you seek, you find; people will tell you how they want to be loved. Go ahead. Take a bite.
Everything falls apart. For as courageously as you approach your relationships with others, for as often as you check your assumptions and seek understanding, eventually you err and things degrade. In times of deficiency, it is constant and never ending improvement (CANI) that allows you to reset and move into a better future.
There is little, if anything in life that is linear. Where courage is the bread and curiosity is the bite, CANI is the recognition that we cannot live on one sandwich alone. CANI puts things back together when we allow fear, selfishness, and hubris into a relationship. It closes the lopsided loop and puts us back in a place where courage and curiosity are needed again and again for as long as the relationship lasts.
Love crystallizes when it is exposed to difficulty. Love requires that, even in the most placid of circumstances, lovers lean into necessary challenges, and despise unearned comfort. In Wagner’s opera these virtues shone under highly volatile and dangerous circumstances. In today’s world, a more peaceful world, these threats can be stimulated in the emotional realm. It is dangerous, it requires trust, to have difficult conversations, express regret and failure, provide and receive feedback, but all are necessary components of a flourishing and sustainable love.
When lovers approach their relationship with courage, curiosity, and constant and never ending improvement, the result is rewarding. Some say “Love is complicated”, but perhaps that is a self fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps, love is more simple than our culture, or our own thoughts, makes us believe. Love is perhaps quite simple if we are willing to courageously open ourselves up to the other, non-sibling, person in a spirit of curiosity. Oh and by the way, Sieglinde becomes pregnant with Siegmund’s six-toed child. That Wagner…
I thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog post but I cannot take all the credit, for this would not have been possible without the amazing performers and Pacific Opera Victoria’s effort to bring Wagner to the island. Joking aside, it was a powerful, albeit long, performance.
Pacific Opera Victoria returns in one week (February 21st-27th) for the Spanish opera – Ainadamar. An opera that showcases a queer relationship, but a far less strange relationship than that of the twin lovers.
Buy your tickets here: https://pacificopera.ca/event/ainadamar/
Becoming Superhuman 
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