Light On Dark Water

Is Wagner Bad for You? (revisited)

In a comment on the previous discussion of Wagner, Rob G mentioned a book by E. Michael Jones called Dionysius Rising, in which Jones discusses various unhealthy tendencies of modern music (or so I understand–I have not read the book but I remember seeing reviews when it came out). That reminded me that a magazine article by Jones appeared in the discussion of my first encounter with Wagner (which I'm disturbed to see was over five years ago). The post is here. It says some of the same things I've been saying recently about Wagner, though overall the judgment is somewhat harsher, due in some part to my dislike of the production I had watched on DVD. 

But what really struck me was not the post itself but a comment by (presumably Jeff) Woodward, which I think pinpoints one of the things I most liked in The Ring this time, and which I didn't get at all in that first encounter:

…try instead thinking about the Ring as the tragedy of Wotan and his daughter Brunnhilde – Wotan who is haunted by the terrible consequences of his past sin (the theft of the Rhine Gold) and his knowledge that it will have to be his own daughter and grandson (Brunnhilde and Siegfried) who pay the final price for that sin….

Yes, that's exactly what I missed the first time, in my general impatience and exasperation, and saw this time. And this:

 But Brunnhilde is a true tragic heroine, and a great one. Punished for having once done the right thing (helping Siegmund in his fight with Hunding), she is given a chance at the cycle's end to do the rightest thing of all: – restore moral order to the world and, in the process, redeem herself and the man she loves. And she does it, through self-sacrifice. 

I wasn't quite so keen on that resolution, I think because the redemption involved has so much of that death-love thing in it. But it did move me, which it didn't on the first go-round. But I think Woodward is right that this is the real story. 

Maclin Horton

13 responses to “Is Wagner Bad for You? (revisited)”

  1. Ryan C

    Quick Thoughs:
    Wagner was a dirty rotten scoundrel, but unless he’s coming back as a zombie in the near future I don’t think we need to fear him or his music. And he did end up converting back to Christianity, much to the chagrin of Nietzsche.
    I’ll take Bruckner’s opinion of Wagner over Jones’s anyday.
    What’s worrisome in Wagner is his repellent anti-semitism, not his harmonic daring, which was put to quite orthodox and healthy uses later.
    Also, see Parsifal (the celebration of holiness, virginity, and chastity that unfuriated Nietzsche).

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  2. Mac

    Did he really become a Christian? I thought–rather, I had the vague impression–that he only sort of appropriated some of the ideas for artistic purposes.

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  3. Grumpy Ex Pat

    Ryan C, glad to see you again, recommendations for movies about love warmly appreciated.
    As a paidup member of the tone deaf community I could not in conscience lecture on Wagner! But I have to agree in principle with Ryan C, that Bruckner counts for more than Jones.

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  4. Ryan C

    There’s a letter I recall from Nietzsche to Wagner where he says something along the lines of “you’ve fallen to your knees.” But I don’t know for sure. Suffice to say, I don’t think health or Christianity and Wagner’s art are mutually exclusive. N’s disapproval and Bruckner’s affection are enough for me. Liszt’s and Franck’s opinions also count for something, being that they were, like Bruckner, devout Catholics who responded deeply to Wagner’s muse.
    Actually, in terms of atonality and what not, Liszt the mystic is far in advance of Wagner:
    http://youtu.be/b29qCN3rFIE
    http://youtu.be/tYKl41e_hoU
    Grumpy, I’ve responded above to your query.
    – Sneezy

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  5. Jeff Woodward

    Wow. The words “Woodward is right” have been up on the internet for a full week now without my knowing it! I just summoned my wife into the room to read them. Thank you, Mac.
    That “love-death” business was indeed a troubling obsession of Wagner’s. It gets introduced into the Ring for the first time only in the last act of Siegfried, which Wagner returned to after composing the extremely unhealthy Tristan und Isolde, an opera that is awash in nihilistic, adulterous sensuality (as was Wagner’s own personal life at the time). The difference, I would say, is that Brunnhilde simply knows that she and Siegfried are doomed by the situation into which he was born and which she has freely chosen. She sees their deaths as merely inevitable, not as something that they freely choose, let alone yearn for. Tristan and Isolde, on the other hand, actively seek a more perfect union in death, in a better world where bourgeois notions like marital fidelity and chivalric honor can be transcended. If taken seriously as drama, it is an iniquitous work.
    Your comments on the “Machine” are among the most temperate and sensible of any I have read. The thing made possible some striking effects — at the end of Walkure, for instance — but I’m not sure it was worth the enormous cost. I saw the two previous Met Ring productions, both of which were more conventional, and both of which (in my opinion) served the dramatic action better.
    All that said, seeing the Ring can be a transformative experience, and your vivid description of your own transformation rings very true with me.
    Incidentally, some of the most sensitive and intelligent recent commentary on Wagner’s work has been done by a Catholic priest, Fr. Owen Lee. I really recommend his “Wagner’s Ring: Turning the Sky Round”; and (on the vexing problem of Wagner the man versus Wagner the artist) “Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art.”

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  6. Rob G

    I don’t think that Jones is arguing that Wagner is bad for “you” (the individual listener) but that overall he was bad for music, in the sense that he started its veering in an unhealthy direction. Bruckner’s opinion, while certainly valuable, obviously would not have taken Wagner’s influence on future music into consideration. It would be interesting to see what Jones has to say about Bruckner’s fondness for Wagner.
    Jones’s argument, by the way, is somewhat more nuanced than any summary or condensation of it can convey. To get the full sense of what he’s saying you really do have to read the book.

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  7. Mac

    Interesting comments but alas, I must be off to another day of technical presentations and can’t say much now. The Fr. Lee stuff certainly sounds worth investigating. More later, probably not till this evening.

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  8. Mac

    I was being a bit humorous with “is Wagner bad for you”? Though I do think it possible–well, likely–that at least some tendencies in Wagner are/were unhealthy for the culture. But then I would say that about an awful lot of art since 1800. Not all, by any means, but a lot. And I’m very much afraid that I would like Tristan und Isolde.
    Jeff, did you see this latest Ring in those live broadcasts (or whatever the right term is) in theaters, or actually at the Met? I thought at a number of points that the Machine might well be less effective in a theater than on video, because it seemed to be getting a lot of help from camera angles and such. (and you’re welcome, by the way)

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  9. Jeff Woodward

    I saw the HDcast (or whatever the term is) of the current production, and I agree with you that the Machine benefitted from camera work. There’s a constantly shifting focus in the Ring operas between action on an epic scale (like the end of Rheingold, or the end of Walkure, or the end of Gotterdammerung) and intimate moments of personal interaction (like Wotan’s Narrative or the Siegmund-Sieglinde scene in Act II of Walkure). In a conventional staging, the whole scenic picture — or only a part of it — can be emphasized with scenery and lighting. The problem with the Machine is that it’s ALWAYS there — all of it, dominating the stage and dominating the action even when much of it is not being put to any particular use.
    I’ve complained at times about the overly “inventive” camera work of the Met HDcasts. (Close-ups of opera singers singing, for example, are not always a good idea.) But the Ring broadcasts were effective, I thought, and probably created more dramatic variety than seeing it in the opera house would have.
    And best of all, nobody was injured….

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  10. Mac

    “Close-ups of opera singers singing, for example, are not always a good idea.”
    Indeed. You can’t just smile and tap-dance while you’re singing on that level. I don’t really know how it’s done, but I think it probably requires that the whole body be disposed optimally somehow, which is bound to be at cross-purposes with acting.
    Were there injuries? I saw some things here and there suggesting that there were.

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  11. Mac

    I mean, not in the HDcasts, but in other performances.

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  12. Jeff Woodward

    On opening night of Walkure, Deborah Voigt tripped making her entrance and slid halfway down the steeply tilted Machine. She kept singing, though, and wasn’t hurt. For all the minor malfunctions, I don’t think there ever were any real injuries. Still, when I first saw those beams swivelling and careening around, all I could think of was Laurel and Hardy with two-by-fours.

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  13. Mac

    There were several points where I thought the slope was great enough to make standing on it difficult. It was a bit uncomfortable to watch–seems like would have made the singers uneasy and affected their singing.
    I wonder if there’s a clip of that pratfall on YouTube. I should be ashamed.

    Reply

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