WagnerianI have a friend, Matthew, who is a Wagnerian. For those of you who don’t
know what that exotic species is, “Wagnerian” denotes someone who
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listens to the operas of Richard Wagner and loves them to a degree
bordering on the unreasonable. And he’s continually amazed by the fact
that I don’t get off on Wagner to the degree that he does. He also hit
me once when I referred to Wagner as a proto-Nazi. Granted we were both
a bit drunk at the time, but even so, you may get a bit of an idea how
much respect and love Matthew has for the various works of Richard W.
Nonetheless, I stand by both of those statements. There’s no point
denying the proto-Nazi thing, since handsome Adolf said it himself:
“whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must first
understand Wagner.” Michael Tanner tries to minimise Wagner’s effect on
the development of Nazi Germany by saying Hitler was the only one in the
Nazi hierarchy who actually liked Wagner, and all the others had to be
dragged to Wagner productions under protest, but even so I don’t think
he denies Wagner’s influence outright. And even if anti-Semitic views
were less unfashionable in the earlier part of this century than they
are these days (certain quarters like the KKK notwithstanding) so that
Hitler could really have picked them up from anywhere, he himself speci
fically referred to Wagner as his source. So let’s stop quibbling on
this point.
I’m also going to stand by my other statement about Wagner not really
doing it for me. I don’t have problems with 19th century Romanticism.
(of which Wagner became by common consent one of the greatest exemplars
and proponents) per …
…’s still obstacles in the way of my greater enjoyment of
Wagner’s work. Still, despite the difficulty, I’m willing to make an
effort to understand him better. Having finished with the Ring, I’ll now
give Tristan and Parsifal another go, and make an attempt on Die
Meistersinger. And perhaps one day I will indeed learn to love the
Tristan prelude, as Matthew has ordered me to do. Meanwhile, Karlheinz
Stockhausen is pressing ahead with his Licht series of seven operas, due
for completion in 2002, whereupon even the Ring will be dwarfed in time
scale‹the four parts currently available already fill more CDs than any
Ring cycle I know, and there are still three more parts to be written
and/or recorded. Wonder if anyone will ever hold Stockhausen responsible
for a war? I’m sure Wagner would never have expected that honour either.
