September: Siegfried
Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried and Gerhard Siegel as Mime, from the 2013 Metropolitan Opera production
Here is September: Siegfried. The wild, feral, adolescent month of the Ring, mapped onto Manhattan’s last forests, its iron bridges, and the places where the city feels half-made, half-ruined, and gloriously unfinished.
September is about becoming.
The heat breaks. The leaves haven’t fallen yet. The air sharpens.
And Siegfried—unlike every other Wagner opera—is about a character who does not yet know fear, history, debt, or consequence. He learns them by walking into the world and touching it.
This is your most outdoor, physical, metal-and-tree circuit.
September Frame: Why Siegfried Now
Opera: Siegfried (1856–1871)
Core themes we’ll walk:
The forest as classroom: Siegfried learns by listening, touching, breaking.
Forging identity: The sword Nothung reforged from fragments.
Fearlessness: Not bravery, but ignorance of fear.
Nature vs knowledge: Birds, trees, streams vs contracts, gods, history.
Metal and fire: Forging, anvils, bridges, industrial heat.
Awakening: Brünnhilde’s sleep broken; eros enters the Ring.
Why September in New York:
Inwood Hill Park: Manhattan’s last real forest.
The Hudson & Harlem Rivers: Liminal edges, not civic centers.
Iron bridges: Forged thresholds, not marble monuments.
The Little Red Lighthouse: A dragon-under-the-bridge image.
Early fall light: Clarity without sentimentality.
This month is not about institutions. It’s about learning how to exist.
Essential Listening for September
We’ll mostly rotate these:
Act I Prelude (Forest Murmurs): Waldweben: Forest Murmurs
Siegfried forges Nothung: Nothung! Nothung! Neidliches Schwert!
Inwood Hill Park (Old-Growth Forest)
Act I: The forest teaches the boy
Subway:
A train to Inwood–207 St
Walk west into Inwood Hill Park
This is the only remaining old-growth forest in Manhattan. No grid. No vistas. Just earth, roots, and birds.
Music Pairing:
Forest Murmurs (Waldweben)
How to Walk it:
Enter the park from Dyckman Street.
Take the dirt paths, not the paved ones.
Start Forest Murmurs immediately.
What to Look for:
Roots pushing through soil like exposed nerves.
Wind in leaves sounding uncannily like Wagner’s orchestration.
Birds hopping close without fear, Siegfried’s animal world.
What to Think About:
Siegfried does not learn from books or laws. He learns by listening.
This is the only place in Manhattan where that feels true.
Inwood Hill Caves / Hudson Overlook
The edge of the known world. Climb toward one of the river overlooks.
Music
Continue Forest Murmurs, then fade into silence.
Reflection
This is Siegfried before the forge — raw, capable, ignorant of danger.
Look out over the Hudson and think What have I not been taught yet?
September is for asking that honestly.
The Little Red Lighthouse (Under the GW Bridge)
Act II: The Dragon Under the Bridge
Walk / Transit
Exit Inwood Hill Park
Walk south through Fort Washington Park
Head under the George Washington Bridge to the lighthouse
Why Here
A tiny red lighthouse crushed beneath a colossal steel bridge.
Childlike, mythic, slightly absurd.
A literal dragon’s lair under a metal sky.
Music
Fafner / Dragon Music
What to do:
Stand directly under the bridge.
Let the sound echo off steel and concrete.
Watch traffic thunder overhead like Wagnerian timpani.
Meaning:
Fafner is not evil. He is stagnant power, hoarding without living.
The bridge above him is what comes after the dragon: infrastructure, domination, permanence.
Siegfried kills the dragon not for gold, but because it’s in the way.
Forge & Fire: Highbridge Park
Act I climax: reforging Nothung
Subway:
A or C to 168 St, then walk east/north into Highbridge Park
This area is raw, steep, and infrastructural. Staircases, retaining walls, exposed rock.
Music:
Nothung! Nothung! Forging Song
How to Stage it:
Walk uphill staircases as the hammering begins.
Stop halfway up when the brass really bite.
Look at the iron railings, bolts, rivets.
What to Think:
Siegfried doesn’t inherit his sword. He makes it himself, from fragments.
September is for reforging:
Skills
Identity
Direction
Not polishing something finished. Making something usable.
High Bridge (Harlem River)
Crossing from innocence to knowledge
Walk onto High Bridge, the oldest bridge in NYC.
Music:
Woodbird Song
What to do:
Walk slowly across the bridge.
Let the Woodbird’s melody feel almost too innocent.
Meaning:
After killing the dragon, Siegfried can understand birds. Intuition unlocked.
This bridge is that moment:
Not a destination
A transition
You are no longer who you were in the forest.
Wave Hill (Bronx)
Act III: Brünnhilde’s awakening
Transit:
Cross into the Bronx
Bus or walk to Wave Hill
Wave Hill is terraced, elevated, and expansive — gardens overlooking the Hudson.
Music:
Brünnhilde Awakening & Love Duet
How to Experience it:
Stand in the upper gardens facing the river.
Start the awakening music.
Let the long phrases breathe with the horizon.
What to Look at:
The Palisades across the river.
Late-summer flowers, not yet fading.
Sky opening outward, not upward.
Meaning:
This is where Siegfried stops being about a boy.
Fear enters
Love enters
Equality enters
This is not conquest — it’s recognition.
