# Sieglinde: An Unusual Hybrid Role



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sieglinde is a wonderful role with gorgeous music, but to me it is sort of a hybrid role. It is usually cast with a young Wagnerian type of soprano, but if you listen to it, in reality the range is that of a mezzo part, never going higher than an A and it needs a strong lower register. In those ways it is similar to Ariadne. Jessye Norman, who sounded like a mezzo, did very well in both parts, but typically both are done by a bright sounding soprano. Stephanie Blythe, the great mezzo, thought about doing Sieglinde, but Speight Jenkins said she was wrong for the part, although she easily could have sung the role with regards to range. Any thoughts?


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Waltraud Meier also did Sieglinde a lot, although she's sort of on the fence between mezzo and soprano.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Siegmund is the same. A baritone with a good top can sing it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wagner was always sparing with high notes, but wanted singers with strength in all parts of the voice. I believe he called both Ortrud and Kundry sopranos, although mezzos commonly sing both.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

@seattleoperafan
I think it's not the _tessitura_ so much as the _timbre_ of the voice that would convey the character's sound in this case. 
Sieglinde is a _young woman_ and, in general, a soprano would sound younger. Both Jessye Norman and Stephanie Blythe would sound too matronly. Besides, it would take a singularly tall and manly Siegmund to match Jessye. They're supposed to be *twins!*


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

MAS said:


> Sieglinde is a _young woman_ and, in general, a soprano would sound younger.


Yes, this leads to an interesting effect in the 1981 Janowski/Eurodisc recording, which casts an unusually light-voiced, slim-voiced Brünnhilde (Jeannine Altmeyer) against Jessye Norman's sumptuous mezzo Sieglinde. The impression is almost of a contrast between innocence and experience: Altmeyer's Brünnhilde is young and naïve and knows absolutely nothing of the harsh realities of life, whereas Norman's Sieglinde has suffered and learnt the hard way and already knows herself to be doomed.

I see that in 1927 the young Stignani sang Gutrune at La Scala (to Frida Leider's Brünnhilde). Did Stignani ever sing Sieglinde? That would have been a mezzo Sieglinde in a million!



MAS said:


> They're supposed to be *twins!*


One thing has always mystified me: Wagner's libretto says that Siegm and Siegl not only LOOK like twins, but also SOUND like twins. Now, similarity of appearance can perhaps be achieved onstage (in the Levine/Schenk Met Ring, Norman and Lakes look at least reasonably similar in physical proportions; so also Altmeyer and Hofmann in the Boulez/Chereau Bayreuth Ring).

But when did you ever hear a performance in which the twins SOUNDED similar? The closest approximations that I can think of, offhand, are the 1953 Bayreuth Rings (Keilberth and Krauss), both of which paired the extremely baritonal Vinay with the decidedly altoish Resnik.


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