About the work
Sigurd is an opera in four acts and nine tableaux by Ernest Reyer to a libretto by Camille du Locle and Alfred Blau, drawing on the Nibelung legend and the Eddas. After initial sketches from 1862 and a version essentially completed by 1867, the elaborate orchestration was considerably delayed; the opera did not premiere until 7 January 1884, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.
Plot
Unlike in Wagner's "Ring", the supernatural plays a subordinate role in Reyer's telling of the Nibelung legend, largely replaced by the workings of fate. At its centre is the tragic love between the hero Sigurd and Queen Brunehild, caught up in intrigues of loyalty and betrayal.
Cultural significance
After early attempts to stage it at the Paris Opéra failed, the work found success via Brussels: within a year it was performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, in Lyon and Monte Carlo, before Sigurd finally reached the Paris Opéra on 12 June 1885. Alongside "Salammbô", it is considered Reyer's principal work; as a critic, he had championed Berlioz and Wagner early on.