Wagnerism - Book Summary

Embark on a journey through Wagner's lasting legacy

Imagine a composer whose melodies do more than just linger in concert halls; they infiltrate literature, cinema, and even the murky realm of politics. This is the world of Richard Wagner, an artist whose life's work has echoed through time, shaping cultural currents long after the final curtain call.

Wagner wasn't just a creator of operas; he was a force that swirled around the whirlpool of society's evolution. Though his music was revolutionary, stirring up controversies and shattering norms, the spectacle of Wagner doesn't end on stage. His presence loomed over the grim chapters of history as well — with the Nazis, notably under Hitler's adoration, enshrining him as their cultural icon.

But what of the man behind the myth? Wagner was a study in contradictions: a proponent of anarchy, a beacon of nationalism, and unforgivably, a staunch anti-Semite. These insights will delve into how his complex persona sowed seeds across various artistic and political landscapes.

As Wagnerism unfurls its rich tapestry of connections, we explore questions that go beyond mere biography. When his music fills the air, whose spirit resonates in the harmonies — is it Wagner, or does the listener bring a part of their narrative to his compositions?

In this exploration, you'll uncover:

- How Wagner's shadow looms over modernist literature,

- The surprising influence Wagner had on the Spaghetti Western film genre, and

- The diverse fanbase of Wagner enthusiasts, including those of Jewish, Black, and gay communities, who find solace and inspiration within his controversial art.

The world felt a tremor with the passing of Richard Wagner

In the winter of 1883, the streets of Venice echoed with whispers of grief. One of the most provocative composers, Richard Wagner, had taken his final bow, leaving a legacy as tumultuous as his music. Tributes poured in from every corner of the globe — from heartfelt eulogies celebrating his musical masterpieces like "Tristan und Isolde," "Parsifal," and the "Ring" cycle, to radicals in America heralding him as a symbol of anarchy. The impact of his death even incited an anti-Semitic riot among Viennese students, a chilling precursor of Wagner's pervasive posthumous influence on art and politics.

Wagner's life was a mosaic of controversy. He lived as a fugitive after participations in Dresden's insurrections, and his notorious essay "Judaism in Music," though penned under a pseudonym, resonated with inflammatory implications. Yet, the heart of Wagner's identity always beat in time with his compositions — his "music dramas." The grandiose tales he spun, the audacious harmonies of "Tristan und Isolde," and the mystic grandeur encapsulated in "Parsifal," are his true monuments.

His music carved channels into the bedrock of culture, influencing not just symphonies, but the realms of literature, visual arts, and the burgeoning world of cinema. Beyond that, his specter cast long shadows over the political arena, haunting it with potency — as seen in the Nazi party's adoption of his image.

Indeed, Wagner's essence seemed inseparable from the very fabric of modernity. Friedrich Nietzsche, having renounced his former comrade yet unable to escape his orbit, declared Wagner as synonymous with contemporary culture. According to Nietzsche, Wagner was not merely an artist to be appreciated; he was an enigma to be grappled with, an essential passage in the journey to understand the modern world. One must, he implies, traverse the emotional and intellectual landscape that Wagner shaped to truly inhabit our age.

Wagner's harmonies resonated through the pages of international literature

Once, a letter found its way to Richard Wagner. It penned a confession — the writer had been utterly enveloped by the composer's entrancing melodies. That writer was none other than the French poet Charles Baudelaire, moved by a Paris concert to confess a rare auditory indulgence. Baudelaire wasn't alone in his captivation; Wagner's allure snatched the minds of many French creatives, including Emile Zola, Paul Cézanne, and Stéphane Mallarmé, all seduced by his bold modernism and the intoxicating allure of works like "Tristan und Isolde."

The pull of Wagnerism leaped across the channel, where in Britain, George Eliot penned "Daniel Deronda" — an expansive narrative mirroring the scale of Wagner's musical epics, even featuring a character that mirrored the German composer.

Wagner's magnetism stretched even further, across the Atlantic to the United States, where his embracing of heroic myth resonated with a country craving its own legends. The resolute Siegfried of the "Ring" cycle became the prototype for the American hero.

In Owen Wister's "The Virginian," a nod to Wagner's "Lohengrin," the main character remains enigmatic, nameless, setting the stage for the Spaghetti Westerns to come, and for the stoic "Man with No Name" that would one day stride on screen in the silhouette of Clint Eastwood.

American novelist Willa Cather channeled the Wagnerian spirit in her works, like "The Song of the Lark," creating a narrative echo of the famous Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad. Cather transformed Wagner's mythical aura into a distinctively American narrative force.

As the embers of modernism ignited, Wagner's essence lingered and morphed within the literary movement. Figures such as D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust, wove his spirit into their narratives. They borrowed Wagner's signature leitmotif technique, using recurring musical phrases to deepen storytelling.

T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" not only borrowed Tristan's harmonic fragments but followed the spiritual pursuits akin to "Parsifal." James Joyce's "Ulysses" was also laced with Wagnerian subtext — Molly's overflowing monologue subtly echoed Isolde's passionate farewell in "Tristan."

As Wagner's influence echoed through these literary landscapes, in his own German-speaking world, an intertwining of art and politics began to cast a new shadow over his legacy.

Wagner's shadow blended art with nationalism in his homeland

Toward its denouement, Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" veers toward an ominous coda. Hans Sachs, the beloved cobbler and minstrel, warns of peril looming over the German people, a veiled call to guard against external influences. Within the fertile artistic soil of Austria and Germany, Wagner's notes resonated with a timbre of national pride, intertwining his artistic genius with a burgeoning sense of nationalism.

In the cultural milieu of Wagner's homeland, his artistic sway was expansive and multifaceted, mirroring his international impact. Yet amid the diversified artistic inspiration, a nationalist undertone surfaced — the one expressed in the climactic moments of "Die Meistersinger."

Wagner fans could indulge their enthusiasm by purchasing figurines and other Wagner-themed memorabilia, a testament to the adulation he inspired. The fervor grew in magnitude following the debut of his purpose-built theater in Bayreuth, which set the stage for increasing fusion between Wagner's work and German identity — an identity he confidently proclaimed as his essence.

Yet, this portrayal of Wagner as the paragon of Germanness was debated. The writer Theodor Fontane, for instance, viewed Wagner's operas through a lens of skepticism, even mocking the overzealous Wagner devotees in his literary works.

Conversely, several Austrian artists embraced what they perceived as Wagner's progressive artistic vision. Max Klinger and Gustav Klimt of the Viennese Secession movement found solace in Wagner's ideals of the "total artwork." Klimt's opulent "Beethoven Frieze" is a stunning exemplar, depicting Beethoven as a titan in a Wagnerian universe, sword in hand.

However, as the twentieth century unfolded, a politically infused view of Wagner took center stage, difficult for many to overlook. A notable figure in this wave was the Italian writer Gabriele d'Annunzio. Originally a novelist, crafting narratives with the grandeur of Wagner's operas, d'Annunzio's fascination with nationalism led him down a radical path. He emerged as a protofascist figurehead in the city of Fiume and eventually became a prominent muse for Mussolini, thus indirectly shaping Hitler's ideology.

Wagner’s influence had a profoundly direct impact on Hitler, especially through shared threads of anti-Semitism. This complex web between art, nationalism, and politics would forge a dark legacy for Wagner’s work, as we will see in the explorations to come.

Wagner's melody transcended his prejudices, resonating with marginalized communities

Richard Wagner's legacy is stained with the ink of his virulent anti-Semitism, epitomized by the inflammatory "Judaism in Music." This essay, which lambasted Jewish composers and hinted at a nebulous concept of Untergang, has left scholars grappling with interpretations — does it suggest assimilation or something much more sinister?

Even so, Wagner’s sumptuous musical tapestries managed to captivate individuals from the very communities he maligned. Jews, Blacks, and members of the gay community found themselves enchanted by the power of Wagner’s operas, discovering in them a resonance that transcended the composer's prejudices.

Though his operas never explicitly featured Jewish characters, some seemed to echo stereotypical portrayals. Characters such as the dwarves from the "Ring" cycle, Beckmesser in "Die Meistersinger," and Kundry in "Parsifal" were painted with ambiguous strokes of morality. Despite this, Wagner found admiration among Jewish figures, notably Theodor Herzl, a visionary of the Zionist movement. The operatic strains of Wagner's "Tannhäuser" even echoed through the halls of the 1898 Zionist Congress.

In shades of irony, Wagner's melodies also harmonized with the struggles of Black Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois, a founding figure in the battle for African-American civil rights, saw a transcendent quality in "Lohengrin" that rose above the racial enmity of his day — a dichotomy that challenges today’s associations of Wagner with Nazi ideology.

The realm of forbidden desires in Wagner’s narratives spoke volumes to the gay community of the late nineteenth century. Wagner's opera brimmed with intense, unspoken yearnings that mirrored the experiences of those living outside heterosexual norms.

Interestingly, Wagner's "Ring" offers a feminist icon in Brünnhilde, a female warrior with depth and complexity. She symbolizes a union of passionate love and formidable strength, challenging the era's gendered expectations.

Thus, Wagner's music became a beacon — albeit a complicated and contentious one — for individuals from diverse backgrounds, some of whom were targets of his abhorrent views, uniting them in their appreciation for his artistic prowess.

Wagner's enigmatic ideals found a place on both sides of conflict and change

The enigmatic Richard Wagner left a legacy of contradictions that continues to puzzle and provoke. Was the man who worried about the devastation of modern weaponry in "Religion and Art" a proponent of peace? His bombastic compositions suggest otherwise. As the world descended into the Great War years after his passing, Wagner's name morphed into a metaphor for German military might, with tactics and fortifications bearing the names of his mythical characters — Siegfried Line, Operation Alberich, and Plan Hagen.

Yet, Wagner transcended the dividing lines of political and national loyalties. The key insight to grasp is that during periods marked by war and upheaval, Wagner's genius was claimed by both the right and left — a testament to the universality and malleability of his work.

In Britain, which stood in stark opposition to Germany, Wagner's operas continued their theatrical reign even amid the hostilities. And when the United States entered the fray, Wagner remained undiminished on the American stage.

Thought leaders in Britain sought to untangle Wagner's works from the nationalistic fervor, interpreting the apocalyptic climax of the "Ring" as prophetic of Germany's downfall, rather than its glory.

Conversely, in Russia, the waves of Wagnerism lapped against the new political shores of Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks revered Wagner's treatise "Art and Revolution," placing it on a pedestal alongside the "Communist Manifesto." Director Vsevolod Meyerhold, stimulated by Wagner's influence, revolutionized Russian theater with radical, symbolist productions.

Back in Germany, as the Weimar Republic emerged from the war's shadow, Wagner's call for a fusion of the arts resonated with the visionary architect Walter Gropius. His "Bauhaus Manifesto" echoed Wagner's rhetorical style, championing an interdisciplinary artistic approach much like the composer's vision of Gesamtkunstwerk — the total artwork.

Among the many influenced by Wagner was a young revolutionary who would cast a long, dark shadow over history: Adolf Hitler. In "Mein Kampf," Hitler cited the transformative impact of Wagner's "Lohengrin" and "Rienzi" upon his youth. As Hitler rose to prominence, he shrewdly manipulated Wagner's multifaceted narrative into a one-dimensional tool for his tyrannical agenda.

In a world fractured by war and revolution, Wagner's art became both a battlefield and a bridge, marshalled by disparate ideologies, each finding their own reflection in his profound symphonies.

Nazism twisted Wagner's multifaceted work to fit a narrow, malignant narrative

On the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death, Thomas Mann stood before an Amsterdam audience, poised to dissect the tangle of Wagner's influence on the ideologies of the era. His speech, "The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner," was an act of defiance against the burgeoning Nazi appropriation of Wagner's oeuvre. Mann posited Wagner as a dreamer of socialism and anarchy, challenging the one-dimensional Fascist portrayal that the Nazis were constructing around the composer's music.

The notion that the Nazis' fixation on Wagner sprang from but one facet of his plethora of beliefs is central. While Hitler, a frequent patron of the Wagnerian operatic shrine in Bayreuth, had wooed the composer's descendants with his insights into the music, Wagner's identity became a linchpin of the Third Reich. Yet, contemporary Germans swayed by diverse perspectives viewed Wagner's body of work through their own unique lenses.

Mann, with his daring Amsterdam oration, ultimately became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, finding refuge in the United States. He eloquently claimed his identity as intrinsically German, independent of Nazi ideology, through his saying, "Where I am, there is Germany." This declaration anchored his literary endeavor, "Joseph and His Brothers," as an antithesis to Wagner's "Ring," casting the protagonists not as Aryan symbols but as Jewish figures.

Despite Mann's transatlantic stand, within Germany, the Nazi interpretation of Wagner seemed to dominate public consciousness as World War II erupted. The regime's version became so pervasive that Wagner almost seemed a harbinger of Nazi philosophies.

Mann, himself a profound interpreter of Wagner, acknowledged the composer's bombast and the deep connection his work had with German culture — ingredients ripe for exploitation by Hitler. Throughout the war, the Nazi regime drenched itself in Wagnerian symbolism, aligning the composer so closely with their actions that his music often evokes images of their final catastrophic defeat, which has been likened to "Götterdämmerung," the cataclysmic finale of the "Ring."

Yet, to view Wagner solely through the prism of Nazism is to simplify the complexities woven into his operas. Take the "Ring;" rather than trumpeting the triumph of theft and corruption, it ends with the restitution of the stolen gold and an expression of regret by Wotan for his part in the ensuing chaos. The ambivalence in the heart of Wagner's magnum opus stands in stark contrast to the unequivocal malevolence of the Nazis — reinforcing the notion that Richard Wagner's artistry, however commandeered by dark forces, comprises a spectrum far too nuanced to be confined to any single narrative.

Wagner's enduring artistry continues to dance on the silver screen and beyond

A harrowing scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s "Apocalypse Now" jarringly pairs the savagery of war with the soaring notes of Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyries.” Intended as a critique of war’s grandiosity and horror, the scene became an iconic cinematic moment. Yet, the symbolism was so potent that it was later adopted as a literal anthem of war, blaring across battlefields from the Gulf War to the conflict in Iraq, embodying a stark image of American power.

Wagner’s melodies have tantalized and haunted various corners of the artistic world, proving time and again resistant to any singular interpretation. Whether in the complex narrative of "Apocalypse Now," the racial tensions of the 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation," or the pioneering works of early filmmakers like F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, and Sergei Eisenstein, Wagner's music has etched itself into the cultural consciousness.

The influence of Wagner’s intricate leitmotif system transitioned from the opera house to the cinematic repertoire, cemented by the likes of Erich Wolfgang Korngold in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Today, the legacy is evident in the stately soundtracks of epic sagas like John Williams’ "Star Wars," echoing a distinctly Wagnerian grandeur.

Expanding beyond the realm of film, modern culture has found an enduring muse in Wagner. German artist Anselm Kiefer grapples with his nation’s tumultuous heritage, often through Wagnerian motifs. He juxtaposes symbols like Siegfried's sword or the Holy Grail within stark, contemporary frames of reference, highlighting the enduring yet malleable relevance of Wagner’s mythos.

As the twentieth century waned, Wagner remained an enigma, his work riding the waves of varying interpretations and reinventions. At Bayreuth, the very heartland of Wagnerian opera, the complexities and controversies of his legacy are ever-present, inviting us to reflect on the multifaceted impact of this artistic colossus.

At Bayreuth, Wagner's masterpieces evolve with contemporary visions

Bayreuth, the birthplace of Wagner's operatic marvels, has continued to adapt and evolve, mirroring the ever-changing tides of the time. In 1976, a young French visionary, Patrice Chéreau, introduced a Ring production that initially shocked the audiences but soon ascended to iconic status. Chéreau masterfully interwove threads of historical context through Wagner's tales — Victorian aristocrats, industrial chaos, and a prophetic people peering towards a future intersected with the present.

Wagner's music dramas are an intricate exploration of human nature, embodying the spectrum of our virtues and vices. His artistry compels listeners to confront a reflection of humanity itself, rich with passion and nuance. This reflection echoes Nietzsche's timeless sentiment: "Wagner sums up modernity." Standing in the wake of the Second World War, the world had witnessed modernity take a sinister turn — a shift that inevitably tarnished Wagner's legacy.

Post-war, Bayreuth teetered on the brink of obsolescence. Yet, under the stewardship of Wagner's grandsons, Wieland and Wolfgang, the festival underwent a rebirth, distancing itself from the aesthetic tainted by the Nazi regime. Wieland Wagner's productions adopted a minimalist approach, stripping away the ornate to reveal the psychological undercurrents and a sense of the eternal.

Following in Wieland's transformative footsteps, directors like Chéreau embarked on an ongoing journey of re-examining the operas. Each new interpretation, such as those emphasizing environmental themes, throws light onto different facets of Wagner's vast thematic gemstone. They see the plundering of the Rhine's gold, and the subsequent downfall of the gods, as a parallel to humanity's own exploitative relationship with Earth.

As Wagner remains an enigma — as Nietzsche once suggested, always paired with the word "perhaps" — the true essence of his intention slips through the grasp of definitive analysis. But the visceral power of his work is undeniable. Each experience with Wagner's music becomes a personal engagement — the listener, as much as the composer, shapes the interpretation, finding in it a reflection of either beauty or the abyss.

Wagnerism: a journey through art, culture, and controversy

Wagner's sweeping influence stretched far beyond the stage, entwining itself with the very fibers of art, culture, and politics. Each community, artist, and ideologue has painted Wagner's music dramas with their own hues — be it the French artists seduced by the sensual rebellion of "Tristan und Isolde," or the Germans who saw national pride reflected in his operatic mythos.

Wagner captivated the modernist authors, who deemed him a vanguard of the avant-garde, while later political figures twisted his legacy to their own grim agendas, with Hitler's sinister interpretation casting a long shadow over Wagner's intent. Yet, at its heart, Wagner's work remains gloriously uncertain, a Rorschach test of sorts for listeners spanning generations and geographies.

The resonance of his compositions lies not just in the notes but in how they are received — the listener, as much as the composer, orchestrates the final interpretation. Wagner’s music holds up a mirror to humanity, and it’s in our reflections that his true legacy vibrates.