In her own words...

The following quotes were culled from interviews in the published literature on Hildegard Behrens and one of her signature the roles, Brünnhilde in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. (See Suggested Reading for complete citations.) They give us an idea of the thought processes of a diva as she immerses herself in her work, preparing to become the character she plays on stage. The insights are uniquely Behrens' and reveal an incisive mind, a strong dramatic instinct and superior musical intelligence.

From the book "DIVA" by Helena Matheopoulos:

On portraying Brunnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen:

She chose to learn all three Brunnhilde roles for the operas in the Ring tetralogy (Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung) all at once instead of the usual one-at-a-time approach because it"made it easier to show it is the development of the same spirit and, especially the same heart, beating through all the changes and transformations Brunnhilde undergoes in the course of the three operas.

"In Act II of Die Walküre, she is still a proud, carefree, high-spirited young goddess in her element, a fish in water. She makes her entry with a jubilant "Hojotoho" but this is the only happy moment for a very long time. Soon after, things begin to go wrong: Wotan issues her with orders she cannot obey and even in her carefree first entrance it is important to show that, despite her youth, she is ready and able to follow her own conscience and take responsibility for her own actions. Like Leonore in Fidelio who also believes in the universal Law above, Brunnhilde's total integrity is the only guideline for her actions. She is also a very warm emotionally responsive nature with an enormous capacity for love, which is what prompts her, at each instance, to act as she does. She knows Wotan loves Siegmund and Sieglinde even though he feels compelled to reject them and, in her dramatic confrontation with him in Act III, one senses from her answers that she doesn't agree with him but has her own views on justice. And when confronted by the love between Siegmund and Sieglinde, her heart responds at once: she gets emotionally involved and defies Wotan's orders."

In the finale of Act III, Behrens feels it important to portray Brunnhilde on learning of her punishment, as being shy, frightened and resigned to her fate yet strengthened by the courage of her convictions. "For her kind of moral strength and courage doesn't just happen by itself. It is earned the hard way, after one has outgrown one's doubts and fears."

Correlating the tessitura (i.e., the range covered by the main body of the TONES of a given PART) with the various dramatic situations in The Ring, Behrens contrasts the highest tessitura in Die Walküre which is confined to the joyful Hojotojo of the opening scene, with that in Siegfried where it is generally high, bright and light, because "it heralds a new beginning, Brunnhilde is greeting the light, being in the light and not aware, at first, that she is no longer a goddess. When she realizes she is now a woman, a mere mortal at first she is desperately afraid. By the end, when she is ecstatic in her love for Siegfried, the tessitura is at its highest, and her voice blends with his in a way that reminds me of the waters of a fountain, shooting upwards...." ,and with that in Götterdämmerung where "the colors are slightly muted, burnished, autumnal rather than silvery because this is a Farewell and Siegfried is off on his journey. Unlike the preceding two operas, the highest tessitura in Götterdämmerung is to be found in moments of deepest despair, as, for example, in "falscher Gunter" in Act II, where Brunnhilde finds herself in an inferno of humiliation and you have high outbursts alternating with low, chesty notes. In the Todesverkundigung scene at the end of Act II, the tempo is very slow, and at this point I go for a shiny, yet almost unreal sound, like a shimmer of light on a distant horizon: serene, godlike and unphysical yet at the same time very definite because Brunnhilde is taking part in a solemn ritual."

On the power of the Immolation scene in Götterdämmerung, which to her is the most rewarding of the operas in The Ring, Ms. Behrens has this to say: "She understands why, despite following Wotan's inner wishes rather than his word, she had to pay for it and she is prepared to make her peace with him. She sings "Ruhe, Ruhe du Gott" ("peace, peace, you God"), and the word "Gott" should resonate with everything she has understood about Wotan. It should also be reminiscent of the way he sang it during the Farewell Scene in the finale of Die Walküre, "freier, als ich, der Gott" ("Freer than I, the God"), and resonant of her realization that he, who seems all-powerful, is the weakest of all, the one whose actions triggered off all this misery. But now she understands why and is prepared to help him rest in peace. I find this moment the most poignant in the entire Ring, and feel a deep affinity and love for Brunnhilde."


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From the article by Barry Paris in the "Opera News", April 1997

On the meaning of The Ring:

"The message of the Ring was the destructive force of greed for power. The Ring ends with love, which is why Brunnhilde is the real hero. She acts out of love and pays the price. She takes the responsibility and goes against her beloved father. It is not a destructive gesture at the end when she sets fire to everything. She is like the executor of the will. She gives the possibility for a new beginning. She puts the whole story at rest, not in the inferno but in a purgatory, so the sins are cleansed away and there is a new morning and a new cycle."

On her performance as Brunnhilde in the MET's Ring:

"I stick to the production which is great fun. Where my view of life has changed (since last performing it), I will probably incorporate that in this next interpretation. It might be so subtle that nobody notices, but the more precise my concept is, the more chance there is to convey it to the audience. If the thought is precise for every tone, every word, if it is clear in your own head, it has a chance to reach them.

"I have always been afraid of those moments in performance where I was not totally convinced of what I was doing or what I should feel. In those 'blind spots' on my 'map' I might lose the audience. If there's no inner motive, it doesn't work for me. Taking one step onstage is almost impossible for me if I am not convinced. In the beginning, it was a matter of principle. I argued with some very big directors - 'Give me a motive, or I won't move there!' I'm less radical about it now, but in essence I still feel the same."

On Richard Wagner, to this day a cynosure of controversy, and The Ring:

"I have never never felt that the text is racist. It is a kind of family drama, a conflict of generations. Like A Clockwork Orange and the Beethoven Ninth - you can always abuse something monumental. Beethoven and Wagner can be very close to pompous, and they were abused in the Third Reich, played on big occasions - music on a much bigger scale than Mozart, with whom you cannot decorate fascists and dictators. With Wagner you can, if you twist and bend it. Doctors and lawyers and philosophers in Nazi Germany twisted the truth all over the place. You can distort Wagner. But it was not Wagner's fault.

"I think geniuses are channels - channels from the high Wisdom. How else could Mozart or Shakespeare have done so much? Their personal lives interest me relatively little. If we knew more about Shakespeare's life, what would it prove? Should people really be interested in that? As a German, I have to be interested in who Wagner and Niestsche were, because that's my history and part of my collective karma. But whether or not Beethoven was a nice person doesn't change how the symphony sounds."

On Behrens, the great singing-actress:

"Singers reach and touch the audience and get the message across in different ways. I love theater, and I love acting, and I love the music most of all, but I can't separate them. Opera is music theater, and acting and singing are one thing for me. Music for me comes out of the dramatic context. I never had the temptation to view the voice as a fetish. For me, it's just a vehicle. I cannot consider it as some kind of golden calf."

On being called the "greatest living Brunnhilde":

"It means a lot to me. I love those superlatives if they are spontaneous, because there is no objectivity. It is totally subjective. There is no real 'best'. It is like pitch- you know that there is no such thing as 'absolute' pitch, just conventions and subjectivity."

On law and opera - what's the connection?

"That's the connection with opera. In criminal law, you have to find out if a person is responsible or has special circumstances. If he drives and kills somebody and he's drunk, you take that into account. You go step by step in law, and that's what you do in opera, too - finding motivations, reasons, cause and effect, emotions, guilt, responsibility. The intellectual training and discipline that it takes to solve a juridical case are very good for the approaches to a role."