Siegfried

Last night I saw Jay Hunter Morris sing Siegfried. That role is terribly challenging to sing, and Morris nailed it. But more than that, he gave us an engaging Siegfried, a teenaged, impetuous, slightly bratty kid, eager and happy like a big, fearless puppy. You don't feel like laughing when he says "Das ist kein Mann!" (That is no man!) upon getting Brünhilde's armor off her as she sleeps. You believe he's matured enough to tell her she's taught him to fear and then made him forget it, and needs to wake up. And the whole time with that voice! Wow.

(I can't wait for them to put out the DVD. Morris's Siegfried, Terfel's Wotan, and Kaufman's marvelous, marvelous Siegmund: wonderful.)

But I confess I did laugh a bit when Siegfried told Fafner "Nothung liegt dir im Herzen." I couldn't help but think "Und macht dir viel Schmerzen".

(For those who don't know it, there's an old German drinking song that goes "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen, du, du liegst mir im Sinn; du, du machst mir viel Schmerzen: weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin. Ja, ja, ja, ja, weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin." (You are in my heart, you are in my mind, you cause me great pain, you don't know how good I would be for you...)