Schneider-Siemssen on Die Walküre (Salzburg Easter Festival and the Met, 1967-72)

The inspiration for Hunding's hut:
"Right around this time I was driving through the USA and came into California with the idea of Wagner in the Red Woods. These giant trees are the tallest and largest trees in the world. ...I (drove through one) and all of a sudden I thought that this could be in the first scene for "Walküre".

Wagner's idea to build his dwelling around a tree is a beautiful picture. I therefore put a really impressive tree at center stage in whose darker area glistened the sword Notung, as if lit by the last glimmer of the flickering glow illuminating the room. I attempted foliage to form parts of my ellipse, which should not only be visible on the floor, but partially in the air.

And as Siegmund sings his love song Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond, the walls of the cottage disappear. But as it happened nobody noticed it. It dissolved in darkness and at the same time looked as if spring appeared on the stage. A wonderful spring night appears with bright moonlight in the forest, where Siegmund and Sieglinde stand now in the midst of nature. I do not understand, how today's stage directors, are able to completely renounce this great moment... What right do they have? For me, each scene indicated by an author should be considered correctly, just as each note in his orchestral score and in each sentence of his poetry.

I had the giant tree built in Pressburg, where the workshops are very good. Transporting it to Salzburg was by no means easy. We needed a flatcar from the Austrian Railroad, but everything went so well, that I gradually built almost the whole ring in Pressburg.

The second act we divided so to speak, into an environment of light.
Achieving intimacy on a giant stage
And the ellipse helped, to squeeze out the action. After the dreadful scene between Wotan and Fricka, this marriage clash, which at the same time decides the fate of the world, both move apart. Now spatially, after they themselves have lived emotionally and irrevocably apart, part of the ellipse becomes broken and fate takes its course.

Then Brünnhilde steps in from the back of the stage towards Wotan. She already suspects that something has gone wrong. Now comes the scene, which for me is one of the most beautiful in the work. It plays on the intimacy between father and daughter. Intimacy on the giant stage of the Großesfestpielhaus in Salzburg! A wide rocky landscape was built on the stage, huge moves are played out on it. But Wotan has one of the most tragic, crucial moments in the work. His darling daughter Brünnhilde has a long, intimate conversation with him. At no other point are his heart and feelings more exposed. An enormously concentrated scene, in which the surroundings, the environment and landscape play no role. A concentration on both these characters (Wotan and Brünnhilde) became necessary, with no distracting details. It was clear to us, that this concentration, this intimacy be reached without a reduction of stage space and be achieved only with lighting ...

Transforming the Todesverkündigung into a supernatural phenomenon
The two figures alone in the wide cosmic space: an enormously strong picture, a kind of transformation... of course without a curtain. Only with projections could an invisible stage floor be achieved. To some extent it seemed to hover in the air. This yielded a fantastic effect of weightlessness, as if everything was happening in an alien space. Through scrims and clouds the Todesverkündigung played and appeared to be at an almost inaccessible height, as one of the most wonderful moments of the drama.

A certain constriction gave me the feeling of inescapability. Brünnhilde steps toward Siegmund, on whose lap the head of the restlessly sleeping Sieglinde lies. He protects it lovingly. Also here again lighting plays a strong part: the armored Walküre steps from the darkness. Siegmund's head is about the only part of him visible...again two figures in a decisive moment of their existence.

Brünnhilde did not appear in battle armor, but to some extent as human figure. (A)nd it worked as a supernatural phenomenon. I wrapped her in a kind of wing, death wings, made from light gauze, which allowed her not to become too human. When lit from above, it worked really very beautifully.

Then the battle between Siegmund and his pursuer Hunding came. Scenically this is one of the most difficult moments in the opera. One must wrap it with clouds, haze and mist. If it were to be played in clear view, the engagement between Brünnhilde and Wotan would immediately appear somewhat awkward. The noise of weapons, perhaps the angrily barking dogs, which accompany Hunding, then Brünnhilde's figure, now in battle dress, and immediately Wotan's mighty spear flashes like lightning from above in the direction, of Brünnhilde momentarily lighting up Siegmund.

Then calm, grave calm... the clouds clear a little, the drama is finished. Hunding steps tottering towards the nearly invisible Wotan, commands his death and he falls down beside Siegmund's corpse. Then the Walküre becomes visible for a moment, and snatches up Siegmund's smashed sword in raging urgency and hurries to Sieglinde, who is helplessly in despair wandering in the mists.

The third act of Walküre (which according to Kurt Pahlen was "...the most cosmic of all. It filled the entire giant stage. One believed himself to be high above the world where people are no longer accessible. A step before Valhalla, the seat of the Gods, the cosmos, the universe itself opened up....")

Yes, the "Ring" ellipse was again complete. Above the Valkyrie's rock, clouds formed fatefully. Wotan makes a spectacular entrance from upstage in a cosmic spiral nebula. Further in the foreground the Valkyries look for their threatened sister Brünnhilde and her human protégé Sieglinde, who stand full of emotion very far from him to protect her... you suspect right away that her fate is sealed. Basically everything was very simply executed, all of it done with light and projections.

If one wants to produceThe Ring, one must read Wagner's orders very exactly, not only the text, but also his very exact and clear stage directions.

[From G. Schneider-Siemssen in conversation with K. Pahlen: Die Bühne, mein Leben , Selke Verlag 1996; (The Stage, My Life - English translation by James Mulder, in press)]