The Wagner-Dippers

[Karl Henning]

You know who you are. Want to talk about it?

[Brian]

What exactly are we dipping Wagner into?

[Gurn Blanston]

What exactly are we dipping Wagner into?

Boiling oil?   

[Karl Henning]

Ah, the very thought eases the heart, doth it not? Justice in this world or in the next, wot wot . . . .

[Elgarian]

You know who you are. Want to talk about it?

It's like this Dr Henning. (Reclines nervously on the couch.)

I do it all the time. I tell myself no, no - do the thing properly. And sometimes I do, but mostly I just ... well, just dip. Worse, I revel in my dipping. Worse still, I try to rationalise my dipping. Look here, I say, I've done it all properly, long ago, and I've earned my dipping rights! But we all know, ever since David Hume, that we can reason our way to any conclusion that suits us, and this is no different.

I'm no respecter of persons, either. Solti, Bohm, Goodall, Boulez, Karajan - they all get dipped into, and dipped into again, and again. I raise my eyes to heaven and cry - I don't dip into Beethoven, or Elgar! So why am I a Wagner dipper?! And the reply comes back: 'You are weak and feeble.'

There. How much do I owe you for the session?

[Karl Henning]

The term had not occurred to me, until Alan happily suggested it.  I cannot think when last I listened to (or viewed) a Wagner opera in its entirety, in one go;  so, I must be a Dipper, myself.  Though even but an entire Act is threatening to stretch the verb dip, meseems.

Oh! Post crossed with the amiable chap on the couch . . . .

[Brian]

The term had not occurred to me, until Alan happily suggested it.  I cannot think when last I listened to (or viewed) a Wagner opera in its entirety, in one go;  so, I must be a Dipper, myself.  Though even but an entire Act is threatening to stretch the verb dip, meseems.

Oh! Post crossed with the amiable chap on the couch . . . .

I saw a live broadcast of 'Meistersinger' from Glyndebourne with the exceptional Gerald Finley as Hans Sachs and Vladimir Jurowski presiding. It was a lot of fun, for quite a few hours, but enough Wagner to keep me sated for another year or so.

[Elgarian]

I just realised after reading Brian's post that I am not a Wagner-dipper after all. I'm a Ring-dipper.

But does this mean there is less hope, or more?

[Karl Henning]

A comic opera that runs for four hours and a half is certainly (on one level) an exquisite prank, isn't it?

I keep meaning to check out Meistersinger in the Cube. Perhaps this summer.  All summer long . . . .

[Karl Henning]

I just realised after reading Brian's post that I am not a Wagner-dipper after all. I'm a Ring-dipper.

But does this mean there is less hope, or more?

The doctor says, there is certainly hope for you.

You mean you don't dip any of the other operas music dramas?

[Elgarian]

You mean you don't dip any of the other operas music dramas?

Correct. The Ring is a particular kind of obsession. The others - well, I tried 'em a long time ago, but apart from Tristan they fell by the wayside. A great deal of my Ring-dipping is non-musical; or rather, the myth and the music are so entwined for me that I can't separate one from t'other, and that makes (for me) an overall experience that nothing else can compare with, really.

[Leo K.]

I used to be, but this year I am making an effort to hear Wagner's operas in their entirety, and now loving it! They don't seem as imposing as they once did. They are grand and mighty and make me feel like a god.

[springrite]

I used to be a dipper. Now I listen to Wanger 3 or 4 hours at a time.

[Leon]

Oh, I'm a dipper; can barely finish one act ... and I have no plans to change.  In fact the dips get farther and farther in between.

[mjwal]

I grew up dipping, since the only available recordings were 78s, of which my father possessed quite few (only the Ring). I listened to lengthy broadcasts from Bayreuth and Covent Garden on the extension loudspeaker in the kitchen though (the front room was reserved for the new television), and waited for the juicy bits, as I had little idea what they were singing, despite having read Shaw on the subject. Later experiences in the opera house and on record have tended to prove the truism that great Wagner singers no longer exist. So I eke out a borderline existence, occasionally going to so-so performances in weird counter-intuitive productions (great fun if you do not care for the music), dipping into ancient recordings and wishing I could be back in Covent Garden or the Met in '36 or '40. With Lohengrin & Co. I have always been a dipper: the most melodious and ambivalent dramatic passage Wagner ever wrote is the whole sequence with Ortrud and Elsa in the second act, and there is only one recording, that with  Margarete Klose and Maria Müller in a live 1943 performance which has been handed down to us thanks to radio, and for my Lohengrin experience I dip into this, not bothering with the rest of the work (except when I put on The Marx Brothers at the Circus, at the end of which the unspeakable prelude to Act III is played as the musicians drift out to sea while the brothers monkey about on the stage). Ortrud is my favourite Wagner character, and this bit is all you need. I also, as an afterthought, enjoy the Vorspiel (which translates from German as "foreplay", believe it or not) of Rheingold, and that might fairly be regarded as a description of (skinny-) dipping.

[Karl Henning]

. . . (which translates from German as "foreplay", believe it or not) . . . .

It's something of a social accident, I suppose, that foreplay has come to be associated specifically with sex (similarly, it is a sad thing that the pure adjective gay is forever lost to American English).  But of course, that is the etymology for præludium.

[Karl Henning]

[ In titling this thread, I confess to having had a certain Ealing comedy in the back of my alleged mind. ]

[springrite]

I have been Wagner-Soaking lately...

[nico1616]

Funny topic, since I recognize myself 
The only Wagner opera I can listen to for hours and hours is Die Meistersinger.

A night in the opera house with Tristan or Die Walküre seems to last forever. Wagner is a composer for whom the highlights CDs were invented 

[eyeresist]

^ Not Stockhausen?