There’s a scene in the first act of Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried in which the titular character stands before a flaming smithy and forges a great and magical sword from the shards left to him by his father. Destined to become one of mythology’s legendary warriors, here Siegfried is young, supernaturally strong, and ebullient; the three qualities together breed a certain and deserved arrogance.
For singers, the key to playing him is a certain mirth in the eyes, a wildness in the smile, a strong face uplit by molten metal. The scene is heady, loud, full of raw energy. (And, much to the chagrin of the orchestra, it takes a rather long time to forge a sword.) Yet despite the heat and exertion, our Siegfried laughs and laughs – heihei hoho! – and his laughter is punctuated by the strike of the hammer against the anvil, the braying of brass. Of course Siegfried is laughing. Pain and exertion are foreigners to him. According to legend, no one can forge this sword but him.
While this may seem like one of the more obscure references I’ve made in these pages, most of us are, in one way or another, familiar with the story of Siegfried because it has been sublimated a thousand times over in various fantasy franchises throughout the years. (Wagner himself adapted it from Old Norse and Germanic sources.) After Siegfried forges his magical sword, he will go forth into the forest, slay a mighty dragon, and win for himself a great treasure, including a cloak which, depending on the version, grants him either the power of shapeshifting or invisibility. (This will later be his downfall, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Tadej Pogačar has long reminded me of Siegfried, in personality and in practice. It is not only that he is youthful and unassailably strong. He is the boy who knows no fear. After Siegfried forges the sword, he asks his adoptive father, the malicious dwarf Mime, to take him to the forest and teach him fear. And if Pogačar were to learn a lesson in fear, it would be from Paris-Roubaix.
Did we do a good job with this story?
