"I was one of the Rhine daughters, and also the first Forest Bird in 'Siegfried.'"
Wagner's own Forest Bird! It is a thrilling and poetic statement that would be hard to equal. Of all this great master's characters, including gods and demi-gods, knights and shepherds, dwarfs and giants, his most original, and perhaps for this reason his best-loved children of the brain, were, we believe, his Rhine daughters and his Forest Bird. The former sing under the water laughing strains of mystical import and unearthly sweetness, while the Forest Bird sings in the air—always unseen, but more impressive than the greatest presence.
This bird-music is not very long, but it is of unsurpassed beauty, and the most memorable theme in the opera. The scene too is exceptional and powerful in its simplicity—only one person on the stage. Siegfried, the inspired youth, who knows the speech of bird and beast, is alone in the forest when he hears a bird sing. He pauses to listen, as you in the audience do too, for the song is not a meaningless mocking-bird array of trills and cadences, but a tender strain that bespeaks the bird as a prophet. Siegfried tries to catch the message, tries to see the bird, and tries, too, to imitate its tones. He cuts him a reed from the water-banks, and shapes it and tests it until he can play upon it the music he hears. Ah, we should like to have been in that audience at Baireuth when this Forest Bird took its first flight into the world!
It is a great thing to create a rôle, to set the standard by which all later performances shall be modeled. If the new opera proves to be a great and lasting work, the singers who created the important rôles are always credited therewith and mentioned. They usually have been selected by the composer, and their performance is the result of his best instruction as well as their own inspiration. Madame Lehmann has "created" many rôles, but the most poetic, we deem, is the Forest Bird.
After writing with characteristic abbreviation the foregoing fact—"'75-'76, Baireuth, Rhine daughter, I Forest Bird"—Madame Lehmann handed over the paper and asked "Is there anything more I can tell you?"
Her bright eyes, clear complexion, and magnificent figure prompted a personal question:
"How do you keep your splendid health, and the strength to work so much?"
For this she had a ready answer:
"I have been a vegetarian for the past five years."