Word: fafner
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Valhalla by means of a balloon gondola. The Valkyries ride off to war aboard carrousel horses suspended in midair. Wotan puts Brunnhilde to sleep in what appears to be a cluttered attic, full of ungodly bric-a-brac, and she awakens in a starry mausoleum. Siegfried slays the dragon Fafner by chopping at a gigantic crab's claw and then pushing over a flimsy set of painted flats. The forest bird who guides the hero to Brunnhilde is a taxidermist's specimen, carried aloft on a stick by a highly visible soprano...
Such an interpretation is not without its perils, unintended laughter being foremost among them. It is difficult, for example, to understand how Siegfried slays Fafner by wounding him in a horned extremity. Nor is the production immune to directly contradicting the sense of the text. When Brunnhilde tells Siegmund that he must die in his forthcoming battle with Hunding, it is imperative that the exhausted fighter actually look upon her for the scene to make dramatic sense, especially since English supertitles are used. Further, some of the ideas are not very original. The use of 19th century costume (Wotan...