Raymond Furness - Richard Wagner

It is more than probable that one should regard him as the greatest genius that the theatre has ever known.

Egon Friedell

To write succinctly and objectively on Richard Wagner, arguably the most controversial figure in the entire history of Western culture and, in the distinguished musicologist Deryck Cookes words, one of the greatest minds the world has ever known, is no mean task, for Wagner is a musician unlike any other in his all-consuming desire to impose upon the world his vision of what art and life should be.characteristic pugnacity, putting forward views of considerable originality. He remains a unique phenomenon, the only musician to have given his name to a nineteenth-century movement, and was determined to confront the world with his immense achievements in the theatre and with his intellectual concepts: the world must take heed of what he had to teach it. And it was not slow to react.

Dieter Borchmeyer neatly sums up the situation: Just as he [Wagner] wanted to have his say on everything, so the whole world now demands to have its say in turn.

Eduard Hanslick, mercilessly lampooned, as we shall see, as Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg, suggested mischievously that the Holy Ghost, should it descend again as a dove above the twelve apostles in the modern era, would pose the inevitable question: Well, gentlemen, what do you think of Richard Wagner? And as a genius with the deepest theatrical instincts he bequeathed the world vast Gesamtkunstwerke that exemplified the fusion of the poetic and the musical, creating striking situations which amaze by their expression of feeling, excitement, awe and exaltation.

The Wagner fever reached its climax in the years preceding the First World War, but at the turn of the century dissenting voices began to be heard who objected to the hegemony of German music, and that of Wagner above all. As early as 1905 Debussy, who had earlier acknowledged the genius of Wagner, particularly in Parsifal, objected to what seemed to be Wagners unwholesome influence, describing him as a man whose music was a dangerous opiate; Wagner was also seen as ruthlessly pulling music like a refractory The war-cry was now A bas Wagner! (Down with Wagner! Darius Milhaud). Bayreuth closed its doors from 1914 to 1924; the 1920s, with their Neue Sachlichkeit (New Realism) and Verfremdungseffekte (alienation effects), had little patience with the theatre of illusion and mythical archetypes, inundated by overwhelming music, and when Ernst Keneks Jonny spielt auf was all the rage it seemed that Wagner had had his day.

It was then his misfortune to be deified by a psychopath whose monstrous regime may have, for some, tainted his music for ever. Wagners son Siegfried forbad the singing of Deutschland ber alles after the triumphant panegyric to German art (not politics) at the end of Die Meistersinger had been greeted as the national anthem from a standing audience giving the Nazi salute; after 1933 his Welsh-Danish wife Winifred skilfully encouraged Hitlers demented Wagner enthusiasm to keep the Bayreuth Festival solvent. After the collapse of Germany in 1945, the bombing of Wagners home, Villa Wahnfried, and the desecration of the Festival Theatre by Anything Goes and other entertainments for American troops it did seem that Wagners rule was finally at an end, but his rehabilitation was remarkably swift. In 1945 an article by one R.W.S. Mendel in Musical Opinion argued that it would indeed be perverse to share the Nazi view that Wagner had been one of theirs. He had never been: despite the exceptionally high profile he had enjoyed in Nazi propaganda Wagner had actually suffered a steady decline in popularity in German opera houses. In the 19323 season he came third in the list of most popular opera composers, after Bizet and Weber; in the 19389 season he came twelfth (with Lohengrin); in the 193940 season he was ousted by Verdi.

Richard Wagner. Hher gehts nimmer (Cant get any higher), a 1913 caricature by Olaf Gulbrannson.

In 1951 the new Bayreuth opened with a performance of Beethovens Ninth Symphony conducted by Wilhelm Furtwngler, eight Ring cycles, six performances of Parsifal (which had not been performed there for twelve years) and seven of