Wagner's Valhalla

[jlaurson]

It astonishes me that Wagner nuts seem to think that complex characters and ambiguous motivations are unique to Wagner.  I can see complex characters and ambiguous motivations in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (wow, I've mentioned that show twice today).

First of all, it's like totally widely known among any self-respecting Buffyrist, that Wagner was like one of the major inspirations for the show.

And even if you should assume that I just pulled the above statement out of my athin air, it's a generally agreed upon point that Wagner preceded Buffy. Talk was in any case not of "unique for all time", but "unique at his time". And whatever else his operas may or may not be, they're still pretty damn unique.

[DavidRoss]

I'm confused.  Isn't Buffy the sequel to Die Meistersinger?

[karlhenning]

Both times in this thread, Scarps?

[Walther von Stolzing]

I've seen similar claims here and elsewhere but have yet to find an answer to the obvious question: What are these significant insights?  Craftsmanship aside (after all, craftsmanship is a vehicle, and no matter how elegantly wrapped the package may be, if it contains a cowpie then we may find the offering uninspiring), what makes the great poets, dramatists, and novelists resonate so deeply with so many through the ages is their insight into the human condition.

It's one thing to say, "I love Wagner's music and drama and for me it's the bee's knees!"  It's quite something else to say that The Ring offers staggering insights into human nature.  If the latter is a true statement, then it shouldn't prove difficult to describe those insights, should it?

Hmmm, ok, I'll try. Although I have to say that this is something that hits home with me intuitively, and it is difficult to try to explain through words. But I think in general his insights have to do with revealing the larger reality of the world beyond what we experience. Revealing that there are larger forces at work, that there are patterns that reoccur over and over again throughout the course of humanity. His dramas are attempting to depict characters who are coming to terms with that greater reality, and he is investigating how we can find peace and satisfaction in such a world. I mean that's a very crude abstraction, but that's the general sense I get of what is happening. In the case of Wotan during his monologue in Die Walkure, he is facing the fact that there are some things which are simply out of his control. He had this whole grand plan about setting things right with his "independent" hero Siegmund, only to realize Siegmund isn't so independent after all. He thought he had developed a plan, a loop-hole, to cement his power forever, only to find disappointment. He realizes for the first time that his rule over the world, and more-so his life will one-day have to end. There's not much he can do about it, and there's not much he can do to change the way of the world in the meantime. So it's a scene of frustration, despair, and a feeling of hopelessness at being caught up in the way the world works without seeing a way out that I think everyone feels at times.

As an interesting caveat, long before I was familiar with Wagner's work I was introduced to the philosophy of Schopenhauer. In a somewhat superficial manner to be sure (I never undertook reading The World as Will and Representation), but what I got from the philosophy really struck a chord with me. There was something about Schopenhauer's world-view that just made sense to me. And when he is at his best, Wagner's dramas are like a perfect artistic representation of that world-view, and help me understand and come to terms with my life. I guess the music dramas tap into that sense of alienation I have with the world, something that Wagner obviously had as well. So maybe I'm just more pre-disposed to them than other people to begin with.

[Walther von Stolzing]

It astonishes me that Wagner nuts seem to think that complex characters and ambiguous motivations are unique to Wagner.  I can see complex characters and ambiguous motivations in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (wow, I've mentioned that show twice today).

I didn't mean to imply they were unique to Wagner. That's just part of what makes his work compelling for me.

[Scarpia]

Both times in this thread, Scarps?

Previous was a reference to Schubert's Winterreise.   

[A.C. Douglas]

In the case of Wotan during his monologue in Die Walkure, he is facing the fact that there are some things which are simply out of his control. He had this whole grand plan about setting things right with his "independent" hero Siegmund, only to realize Siegmund isn't so independent after all. He thought he had developed a plan, a loop-hole, to cement his power forever, only to find disappointment. He realizes for the first time that his rule over the world, and more-so his life will one-day have to end. There's not much he can do about it, and there's not much he can do to change the way of the world in the meantime. So it's a scene of frustration, despair, and a feeling of hopelessness at being caught up in the way the world works without seeing a way out that I think everyone feels at times.

I know I said I was bowing out of this discussion, and I apologize for interrupting here, but you've missed the central psychological and dramatic point of that monologue; the thing that in large part makes it the lynchpin not only of Die Walküre but of the entire tetralogy, as I've written. And that is that Wotan, for the very first time, realizes that what's gone wrong with his plan to create a "free hero" who, of his own free will, will do what Wotan himself is prohibited from doing, has gone wrong because he (Wotan) has himself manipulated and stage-managed everything every step of the way while deceiving himself into thinking he played no part in things once they got moving ("Zum Ekel find ich ewig nur mich in allem was ich erwirke!" — With disgust I find always only myself in all I create!).

Again, apologies for the interruption.

ACD

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

To add to what A.C. Douglas just said - it is Fricka who puts Wotan on the spot with that uncomfotable truth in an earlier scene. 'If Siegmund is so independent from you, don't defend him.' Reluctantly, Wotan has to accede to the death of his own son. It is this which makes his monologue, in which he retraces his steps to the very beginning, the lynchpin of the Ring.

[Walther von Stolzing]

I know I said I was bowing out of this discussion, and I apologize for interrupting here, but you've missed the central psychological and dramatic point of that monologue; the thing that in large part makes it the lynchpin not only of Die Walküre but of the entire tetralogy, as I've written. And that is that Wotan, for the very first time, realizes that what's gone wrong with his plan to create a "free hero" who, of his own free will, will do what Wotan himself is prohibited from doing, has gone wrong because he (Wotan) has himself manipulated and stage-managed everything every step of the way while deceiving himself into thinking he played no part in things once they got moving ("Zum Ekel find ich ewig nur mich in allem was ich erwirke!"  With disgust I find always only myself in all I create!). Again, apologies for the interruption. ACD

That's ok. I admittedly glossed over the details of the monologue, and that is what I was referring to when I spoke of the loop-hole he thought he had found. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Mirror Image]

Here's a fun little site about Wagner's operas that might interest those who, like me, came to Wagner late:

http://www.wagneroperas.com

[DavidRoss]

As a newcomer to Wagner you need this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/MQlmXU1zqfc&feature=related

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/Cv7G92F2sqs&feature=related

[Jaakko Keskinen]

What's off-putting are the inflated claims made by Wagner-worshipping fan boys and their irrational nastiness toward those whose response to the work falls short of sheer idolatry. 

Such as many important composers after Wagner/ during his lifetime in some point of their life: Debussy, Bruckner, Sibelius, Wolf, etc. Although in most cases their worshipping without any criticism changed, into more realistic admiration or love/hate relationship. Although following Bruckner's quote sounds to me extremely ignorant (Forgive me Bruckner!) I must mention it, because it still cracks me up everytime:

"Tell me, why did they burn the woman at the end?"

[Florestan]

I think in general his insights have to do with revealing the larger reality of the world beyond what we experience. Revealing that there are larger forces at work, that there are patterns that reoccur over and over again throughout the course of humanity.

The ancient Greeks knew all that long before Wagner...

His dramas are attempting to depict characters who are coming to terms with that greater reality, and he is investigating how we can find peace and satisfaction in such a world.

it's a scene of frustration, despair, and a feeling of hopelessness at being caught up in the way the world works without seeing a way out that I think everyone feels at times.

...and they did all that long before Wagner.

(This should not be interpreted as a dismissive comment on Wagner.)

[jlaurson]

The ancient Greeks knew all that long before Wagner...
...and they did all that long before Wagner.

Well, yes. That was Wagner's aim. To bring it all back together. That's why he so took to this young Nietzsche fellow who had just written the audacious "The Birth of Tragedy" where he outlines all that.

[Florestan]

Well, yes. That was Wagner's aim. To bring it all back together. That's why he so took to this young Nietzsche fellow who had just written the audacious "The Birth of Tragedy" where he outlines all that.

Thus, the artwork of the "future" was actually a return to the "past" --- only too befitting for a follower of "the eternal return". 

[MishaK]

The ancient Greeks knew all that long before Wagner...

Last I checked, Euripides, Sophocles & Co. didn't write opera.

[DavidRoss]

Such as many important composers after Wagner/ during his lifetime in some point of their life: Debussy, Bruckner, Sibelius, Wolf, etc. Although in most cases their worshipping without any criticism changed, into more realistic admiration or love/hate relationship.

Nope.  None of these fellows, nor any other composer but Wagner has his own juggalos.  Wagner worship is an industry, like Scientology.

[Brahmsian]

I don't worship Wagner.  For that, I go to Beethoven and Brahms for my sermons. 

I just love the music.  His orchestral writing in his operas is second to none, IMO.

[DavidRoss]

The ancient Greeks knew all that long before Wagner...


...and they did all that long before Wagner.

(This should not be interpreted as a dismissive comment on Wagner.)

Yes, but some claim that Wagner's work expresses "profound" or "significant" insights.  Things known and expressed in literature for thousands of years, or even hundreds or a dozen or two, aren't insights, so surely there must be something else, something that I'm missing in Wagner...unless those who credit him with such insights may have encountered them first in Wagner and not been aware that they  did not originate with him...?

And, heavens, no, let's not dismiss Wagner.  His achievement was remarkable and he wrote some gorgeous music.  But let's temper our admiration with a rational and realistic appraisal of his accomplishment and not credit him with creating the Earth in seven days or inventing sliced bread.

[A.C. Douglas]

To me the Ring story isn't silly and Wagner's version of it is not off-putting, merely tedious in places. What's off-putting are the inflated claims made by Wagner-worshipping fan boys and their irrational nastiness toward those whose response to the work falls short of sheer idolatry.

To which Alberich replied:

Such as many important composers after Wagner/ during his lifetime in some point of their life: Debussy, Bruckner, Sibelius, Wolf, etc. Although in most cases their worshipping without any criticism changed, into more realistic admiration or love/hate relationship.

To which Sherman Peabody (aka DavidRoss) replied:

Nope. None of these fellows, nor any other composer but Wagner has his own juggalos. Wagner worship is an industry, like Scientology.

Your response is non sequitur as a response to what Alberich wrote which is absolutely true.

Read again what he wrote, please.

Some claim that Wagner's work expresses "profound" or "significant" insights. Things known and expressed in literature for thousands of years, or even hundreds or a dozen or two, aren't insights, so surely there must be something else, something that I'm missing in Wagner....

The profound and significant insights in Wagner's stageworks are largely of the psychological sort. He in fact foreshadowed Freud in these insights into human nature and almost the whole of the underlying Freudian analysis of human nature can be reconstructed by an analysis of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of Wagner's characters in his music-dramas (as opposed to his operas). For just one astonishing example on a meta-scale, the tripartite structure of the world of Das Rheingold is a spot-on metaphoric foreshadowing of Freud's tripartite model of the human psyche made up of Id, Ego, and Superego represented in Das Rheingold's tripartite world of Nibelungs, Giants, and Gods, respectively.

Wagner was not only a master (music-)dramatist, but a master psychologist as well.

ACD