Act II of the new Siegfried with Jay Hunter Morris as the hero taking on a Macy's™ balloon.
For those of you on your way to today's 12pm performance of Siegfried (or to the Met Live in HD broadcast) I thought I'd offer up these YouTube nuggets from other productions of the opera.It's Wagner, the vay it oughta be.
(Oh great. When they scrap the Machine and bring this production back, that'll probably be the slogan. I'll get royalties, which I'll go sleep on in a cave.)
Act I: Part II of the Forging Song. Siegfried Jerusalem in the title role. Heinz Zednik as Mime. Footage from the telecast directed by Brian Large. © 1989 Deutsche Grammophon/The Metropolitan Opera.
Act II: Siegfried's horn-call and the fight with Fafner. (Matti Salminen) Unlike the new staging, nobody in the audience laughs at the dragon. Footage from the telecast directed by Brian Large.
© 1989 Deutsche Grammophon/The Metropolitan Opera.
And finally, 'cos I couldn't find any footage from Act III at the Met, here's a rehearsal of Hildegard Behrens singing Brunnhilde's Awakening, opposite the medium-quality Siegfried of German tenor Reiner Goldberg. He never sang the role in front of an audience, and was replaced for the premiere by veteran tenor Manfred Jung.
This is rehearsal footage from Bayreuth, 1983, with Sir Georg Solti conducting. Enjoy.
"Heil dir, Sonne! Heil dir, Licht! Heil dir Leuchtende Tag!"
