Siegfried at Nationaltheater Mannheim

Siegmund and Sieglinde's son Siegfried is raised by Alberich's brother Mime. He tells Siegfried that his mother had died when he was born. Mime hopes that Siegfried Fafner is kill the guards in dragon form the Nibelungs treasure, the cloak of invisibility and the ring, and thus gives him the power of the ring. He can not do it, however, to forge a new weapon for Siegfried from the pieces of Siegmund's sword Excalibur. Siegfried himself succeeds because it does not attempt to weld the old parts, but it melts and a new sword pours. He slays the dragon and Mime who is seeking to take his life, and destroyed Wotan's spear. As a "fearless hero", independently, violent and naive at the same time, he awakened the sleeping Brünnhilde and learns to love the fear.

Wagner had conceived the third part of his Nibelungen tetralogy as "heroic comedy" about the young Siegfried and Heroes opera Siegfried's death preceded him (the later Götterdämmerung). The composition of Siegfried, however, draws a historical genesis and musical turning point, which concerns the entire cycle. It was 1857 to 1864 interrupted for seven years, and in addition to the biographical change the composer from exiled Revolutionärzum favorite of the Bavarian King her is inscribed the emergence of two other works: Wagner composed during this interruption Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, whose musical developments also in the further composition of the tetralogy were incorporated.