Years have passed and Siegfried, child of Siegmund and Sieglinde (Sieglinde having died in childbirth), has been brought up in the care of the dwarf Mime, Alberich’s brother.
The climax of Act I is a forging scene when Siegfried, with Mime plotting and scheming in the background, reforges his father’s sword, Nothung.
(Conclusion of the first act of Siegfried, with Siegfried Jerusalem in the title role and Heinz Zednik as Mime. James Levine leads the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra – 1990 production directed by Otto Schenk.)
But, before this, Mime is visited by a mysterious ‘wanderer’ (Wotan in disguise) and they play a game of question and answer in which the price of failure is death.
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