This brings us, subsequently, to the matter of eroticism. Unlike most Wagner love scenarios, in which love is as immutable as a brick wall against which his characters throw themselves almost instantly, the Wälsung’s romance, similar to that of Tristan,[5] is slightly more plausible because it exists within the confines of a broader existential construct, one in which it becomes retrospectively clear that the twins, rejected as they are by all the world, could only end up in one another’s arms. Also, despite the immediate attraction experienced between the two, by Wagner standards it actually takes quite some time for him to develop their romantic relationship in full.

If we look at this opening scene from the perspective of Sieglinde (rather than as a whole), the situation is, beyond reasons of mere fate, immediately an erotic one. This is not only because Sieglinde is temporarily free from the controlling gaze of her husband and thereby alone in her house with another (and very handsome) man, but because that man is harmless, devoid of his sword and his shield, i.e. of the heavily symbolic objects of a man’s oppressive power. By extension, he is immediately available to her in a way any other man would not be.

This is, of course, an entirely new set of circumstances for Sieglinde. More importantly, this opening moment is structured around a specifically feminine eroticism, one which places special emphasis not on a man’s strength, on his ability to subdue, but on his weakness, his imperative first to need and be needed, but also, within that need, the furtive possibility of his succumbing to desire. Sexually speaking, this makes it a moment of empowerment rather than a scene of passivity, and, by extension, leaves the seemingly contrived operatic situation of a stranger in the house more open and receptive than it ordinarily would be.[6]