Wagner's Valhalla

[bigshot]

So, which aria from the Ring is as well known and beloved as Ach, ich fühl's?

That's easy! "Kill da wabbit" is without question the most famous and beloved aria in all of opera. It's more famous than "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda". It's even more famous than that old Neopolitan song, "It's Now Or Never".

[Luke]

You got the title wrong on that last one.



It's called Just One Cornetto, actually    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biL6zAMkOQs

[MishaK]

Do you really mean to claim that composers before Wagner did not write catchy tunes?

I never said that.

So, which aria from the Ring is as well known and beloved as Ach, ich fühl's?

You're comparing apples and oranges while looking for pears. As I tried to explain above, Ach ich fühl's doesn't even meet your expressed criteria for catchy, memorable tunes because of its complexity, lack of repetition and non-strophic nature. Secondly, if you're looking for arias in Wagner you are wedded to disappointment. May I propose that your dissatisfaction with Wagner has a lot more to do with your expecitations, which stand in the way of your enjoyment of his music, rather than the nature of the music itself? Mature Wagner did not write arias in the traditional sense and had no intention of ever doing so. To blame him for not accomplishing what he never sought out to do is a bit disingenuous. That said, I would submit that Brünnhilde's immolation scene (Starke Scheite) is at least as beloved.

It's funny that you keep mentioning the Magic Flute but keep looking at the wrong parts. Please listen again at the second half of the first act: The entire stretch from Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn, up to Führt diese beiden Fremdlinge in uns'ren Prüfungstempel ein and the chorus that concludes the act, is one uninterrupted stretch of music, that completely breaks up the traditional operatic concepts of aria, recitative/spoken scene, duet, etc. It is composed through as a single piece with a continuous harmonic development. This is Mozart at his most audacious, prefiguring mature Wagner by decades. In particular the entire scene between Tamino and the Speaker (Wo willst du kühner Fremdling hin?) is basically proto-Wagner. No arias, duets, no nothing. Just staged musical action without interruption.

This is, frankly, what I find most interesting in Wagner: when he writes uninterrupted musical drama, as he does in his mature operas. His earlier stuff like Holländer is basically Carl Maria von Weber on steriods. I can understand the criticism that Wagner *can feel* overlong, especially in turgidly staged productions with singers who can't act the parts and a conductor who doesn't know where he's going. But a) not all of his operas are necessarily like that (though the Ring and Parsifal have some exceedingly long stretches of pure narration), and b) it's more a matter of performance challenges, I think. If you do at some point feel like giving Wagner another chance, I might indeed recommend starting again with Lohengrin. It's in my opinion the most dramatically concise of Wagner's mature operas and is not too hard to bring off successfully on stage. There is little static narration at all, almost everything that is sung is dialogue that is in immediate furtherance of the plot.

[Scarpia]

You're comparing apples and oranges while looking for pears. As I tried to explain above, Ach ich fühl's doesn't even meet your expressed criteria for catchy, memorable tunes because of its complexity, lack of repetition and non-strophic nature. Secondly, if you're looking for arias in Wagner you are wedded to disappointment. May I propose that your dissatisfaction with Wagner has a lot more to do with your expecitations, which stand in the way of your enjoyment of his music, rather than the nature of the music itself? Mature Wagner did not write arias in the traditional sense and had no intention of ever doing so. To blame him for not accomplishing what he never sought out to do is a bit disingenuous. That said, I would submit that Brünnhilde's immolation scene (Starke Scheite) is at least as beloved.

I'll speak for myself, since I have somewhat similar dissatisfaction with Wagner.  It is not that I want tunes or arias.  I want him to do what he does, but get on with it.  I would say Strauss in Salome did what Wagner did, but he did not let the drama grind to a halt while some character gave a half-hour narration of the previous act.  The characters were doing and the symphonic music was depicting their frame of mind and we could figure out for ourselves what their motivations were.  If Walkure was constructed as a tight bit of drama, we would know what was motivating Wotan better than Wotan did.  Isn't that what makes gripping Drama, when the characters are swept up in forces they don't understand, and we see?  How much more boring can it get than when the character has to stop and lecture you on what is going on?

[DavidRoss]

That's easy! "Kill da wabbit" is without question the most famous and beloved aria in all of opera.

  Now we're talkin'! (Sure helps to have a sense of humor!    )

[MishaK]

I'll speak for myself, since I have somewhat similar dissatisfaction with Wagner.  It is not that I want tunes or arias.  I want him to do what he does, but get on with it.  I would say Strauss in Salome did what Wagner did, but he did not let the drama grind to a halt while some character gave a half-hour narration of the previous act.  The characters were doing and the symphonic music was depicting their frame of mind and we could figure out for ourselves what their motivations were.  If Walkure was constructed as a tight bit of drama, we would know what was motivating Wotan better than Wotan did.  Isn't that what makes gripping Drama, when the characters are swept up in forces they don't understand, and we see?  How much more boring can it get than when the character has to stop and lecture you on what is going on?

I know what you mean. It's a certain German poetic style that Wagner was emulating, since he mistakenly thought of himself as just as good a poet as he was a composer. It's also the reason why a lot of romantic German theater doesn't fare well outside of Germany. That said, I do think that Lohengrin does not really have those problems. Holländer, too, but that is an atypical work. I have to confess being less familiar with Tannhäuser and Meistersinger. And among those operas that do have their lengths, I find that often a non-staged concert performance is more compelling than a staged performance in the opera house. E.g. in 2000 or 2001 Barenboim did a concert performance of Tristan with the CSO and Waltraud Meier in Carnegie Hall that was spellbinding. You completely forgot about time.

[DavidRoss]

I never said that.

You said that Wagner practically invented catchy tunes.  The implication of "practically invented" is that catchy tunes scarcely existed before Wagner.  But rather than attributing that implicit claim to you directly, I gave you credit for not intending such an absurdity and asked if that was really what you meant to suggest. 

You're comparing apples and oranges while looking for pears. [etc]

On the other hand, you persist in reading things into my statements that (a) I did not say, (b) I did not imply, or (c) contradict what I have stated explicitly.  I'm not saying anything here particularly novel or difficult to grasp.  If you try understanding what I am saying rather than disputing what I'm not, I'm confident you will see my point.

For instance, that Wagner did not write songs--which most music fans including opera fans both love and expect--is one reason some regard his music as "tuneless."  At least we agree that he did not write songs, even if you doubt that has anything to do with, as Marvin put it:

...why is it Wagner and only Wagner that has to be "deconstructed" in order to become accessible?

[MishaK]

For instance, that Wagner did not write songs--which most music fans including opera fans both love and expect--is one reason some regard his music as "tuneless."  At least we agree that he did not write songs, even if you doubt that has anything to do with, as Marvin put it:

We're back to you blaming Wagner for not doing what he never wanted to do. And I disagree with Marvin, who in any case I think was referring to the extramusical baggage in Wagner, not the music as such. Wagner didn't write "songs" in your narrow sense. But if you'd open your ears, you'd notice that a lot of the composers you admire, already pointed in that directions, as you can see in the example above. Yet it's simply inaccurate to say that Wagner's music is "tuneless", a claim easily refuted with all the many familiar themes and leitmotives, from the Holländer horn call, to "kill the wabbit" to the Tristan chord, to Nie sollst du mich befragen, etc.

[DavidRoss]

I know what you mean. It's a certain German poetic style that Wagner was emulating, since he mistakenly thought of himself as just as good a poet as he was a composer.

More agreement, thank you...and the point goes to the length, turgidity, and self-indulgence that mars the work, at least in the sight of those accustomed to other standards of dramatic success and not predisposed to enjoy the "certain German poetic style Wagner was emulating."  And, as I've said several times before elsewhere, there is a significant difference between post-modern aesthetic standards and the late-19th Century Romanticism conditioning Wagner's approach.

To my mind--and perhaps Scarpia might agree--this touches on something that distinguishes a guy like Wagner from fellows like Beethoven.  Some of us, at least, see Beethoven and some other artists as having created works that transcend the style of their age and are so timeless that allowances need not be made for the conventions of the era for modern audiences to enjoy them. 

[MishaK]

More agreement, thank you...and the point goes to the length, turgidity, and self-indulgence that mars the work, at least in the sight of those accustomed to other standards of dramatic success and not predisposed to enjoy the "certain German poetic style Wagner was emulating."  And, as I've said several times before elsewhere, there is a significant difference between post-modern aesthetic standards and the late-19th Century Romanticism conditioning Wagner's approach.

To my mind--and perhaps Scarpia might agree--this touches on something that distinguishes a guy like Wagner from fellows like Beethoven.  Some of us, at least, see Beethoven and some other artists as having created works that transcend the style of their age and are so timeless that allowances need not be made for the conventions of the era for modern audiences to enjoy them.

Let's try a different tack: if Wagner's style is indeed so narrowly limited to the aesthetic of a bygone era as to require significant "allowances" from today's audiences to be "enjoyed", why do you think his core operatic output has not only endured to the present day, but indeed is among the most performed operas of any composer, and commands an annual summer festival that is sold out years in advance? Where is the global conspiracy that inflicts this "turgid" and "self-indulgent" style on the rest of the world, indoctrinating them into blind minions who willingly part with their hard earned money in order to spend a quarter of a day in uncomfortable seats subjected to this intolerable artifice?

It wouldn't hurt to have more substantive responses on my comments above re: Magic Flute and Lohengrin. Perhaps one could then at least get an inkling that you're processing what is being written, instead of constantly restating the same knee-jerk reactions.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I know what you mean. It's a certain German poetic style that Wagner was emulating, since he mistakenly thought of himself as just as good a poet as he was a composer. It's also the reason why a lot of romantic German theater doesn't fare well outside of Germany.

Of which writers are you thinking? Wagner's biggest examples were Shakespeare and the Greeks. Of course he knew his Goethe and Schiller. Hebbel was a contemporary, Grabbe already long dead and neglected when Wagner really turned into 'Wagner'. And Kleist - who, to me, is most like Wagner in intensity and sublimity - was only rediscovered in the 20th century. So was Büchner.

To my mind--and perhaps Scarpia might agree--this touches on something that distinguishes a guy like Wagner from fellows like Beethoven.  Some of us, at least, see Beethoven and some other artists as having created works that transcend the style of their age and are so timeless that allowances need not be made for the conventions of the era for modern audiences to enjoy them.

The Wagnerian longueurs are what is 19th century about Wagner. Just like the clowns and the humour in Shakespeare don't always 'work' for us. That Beethoven is pithier than Wagner, and in the final analysis the greater composer, I personally have no doubt.

[DavidRoss]

We're back to you blaming Wagner for not doing what he never wanted to do. And I disagree with Marvin, who in any case I think was referring to the extramusical baggage in Wagner, not the music as such. Wagner didn't write "songs" in your narrow sense. But if you'd open your ears, you'd notice that a lot of the composers you admire, already pointed in that directions, as you can see in the example above. Yet it's simply inaccurate to say that Wagner's music is "tuneless", a claim easily refuted with all the many familiar themes and leitmotives, from the Holländer horn call, to "kill the wabbit" to the Tristan chord, to Nie sollst du mich befragen, etc.

You keep putting words into my mouth as if you are willfully misreading me and reciting your impression of tunefulness as if that refutes the general perception I referenced.  Have it your way:  Marvin's wrong, Wagner is not unique and doesn't require "deconstruction" for most to appreciate him, and the general public adores him with "Kill da Wabbit" only one among dozens of popular tunes known and loved by all. 

[MishaK]

You keep putting words into my mouth as if you are willfully misreading me and reciting your impression of tunefulness as if that refutes the general perception I referenced.  Have it your way:  Marvin's wrong, Wagner is not unique and doesn't require "deconstruction" for most to appreciate him, and the general public adores him with "Kill da Wabbit" only one among dozens of popular tunes known and loved by all.

The highlighted bit is your central mistake. You mistakenly believe that your visceral hatred of Wagner's work is the "general perception", that indeed nobody could possibly find anything tuneful about Wagner's tunes, that this is somehow objective, and that it is those of us who do like Wagner who are the weirdos, the social misfits.

Of which writers are you thinking? Wagner's biggest examples were Shakespeare and the Greeks. Of course he knew his Goethe and Schiller. Hebbel was a contemporary, Grabbe already long dead and neglected when Wagner really turned into 'Wagner'. And Kleist - who, to me, is most like Wagner in intensity and sublimity - was only rediscovered in the 20th century. So was Büchner.

Yes, Goethe and Schiller. Never played outside German-speaking lands with anywhere near the same frequency as other international poets of the same stature. It just doesn't translate very well. But perhaps I was a little off. It's also the inspiration of the medieval writers from whom Wagner gets his inspiration for his epics, like Wolfram von Eschenbach. It is clear that he admired the medieval Minnesang poetry and tried to erect a pedestal to it in the form of Tannhäuser.

But this whole discussion of different aesthetics of different eras is really beside the point. We in our classical music bubble tend to think that Beethoven is so transcendental. If that were the case, we wouldn't have to worry about funding for music education or declining audiences etc. The vast majority of people might remember the main theme from Ode to Joy but would rather commit suicide than sit through the entire 70 minutes of the 9th symphony, most of which is too abstract and indeed "tuneless" to make any sense to the average person. All of this stuff takes some getting used to the idiom, whether it's Beethoven or Wagner or Lully. It's all from a different planet in a sense. There is nothing objectively more accessible in one than the other. It's just a question of whether your immediate surroundings has provided you with something that can serve as an avenue into making sense of some of this. And likewise, authorial intent is not a sacred cow. If we can stage Wagner in a way more accessible to today's audiences that still conveys the drama of the text, I'm all for it. I've recently been fantasizing about a Ring staged as a Anime-style spectacular. Think Princess Mononoke and Akira. 

[bhodges]

If we can stage Wagner in a way more accessible to today's audiences that still conveys the drama of the text, I'm all for it. I've recently been fantasizing about a Ring staged as a Anime-style spectacular. Think Princess Mononoke and Akira. 

I think you're onto something. 

--Bruce

[Scarpia]

I know what you mean. It's a certain German poetic style that Wagner was emulating, since he mistakenly thought of himself as just as good a poet as he was a composer. It's also the reason why a lot of romantic German theater doesn't fare well outside of Germany. That said, I do think that Lohengrin does not really have those problems. Holländer, too, but that is an atypical work. I have to confess being less familiar with Tannhäuser and Meistersinger. And among those operas that do have their lengths, I find that often a non-staged concert performance is more compelling than a staged performance in the opera house. E.g. in 2000 or 2001 Barenboim did a concert performance of Tristan with the CSO and Waltraud Meier in Carnegie Hall that was spellbinding. You completely forgot about time.

I do think there is a significant amount of Wagner which is free of this problem.  Rheingold and Tannhäuser are works I can enjoy unreservedly, without any temptation to skip ahead an act or two.  Tristan, I remember enjoying listening to Bohm's recording, but did not find compelling when I watched one of the DVD editions (a Barenboim Bayreuth video).
 

[MishaK]

I do there there is a significant amount of Wagner which I find free of this problem.  Rheingold and Tannhäuser are works I can enjoy unreservedly, without any temptation to skip ahead an act or two.  Tristan, I remember enjoying listening to Bohm's recording, but did not find compelling when I watched one of the DVD editions (a Barenboim Bayreuth video).

Yes, there is so little meaningful stage action in Tristan, I'm not sure what I would do if I had to stage that.

[Wendell_E]

I think you're onto something. 

--Bruce

corrected 

[MishaK]

corrected 

[bhodges]

corrected 

   

--Bruce

[A.C. Douglas]

For tuneless, see my response to Mike, above.  For turgid, see Scarpia's point about the dramatic flaccidity of "45 minutes of Wotan recapping everything while leaning on his spear."  Yes, I know it's not really 45 minutes...it just seems like it!  Ridiculously long:  50% longer than the average opera, largely because of all the notoriously "dull quarter hours."  Self-indulgent:  Unwillingness to edit himself conscientiously enough to eliminate those dull quarter hours that quash dramatic momentum, or to enlist the aid of a skilled dramatist to write the libretto instead of doing it himself.

Interesting.

First, there are NO "notoriously 'dull quarter hours'" in Wagner's mature works (i.e., the music-dramas as opposed to the operas which are a different matter altogether). If anything in those works comes across as notoriously dull it's the fault either of the performance, the performers, the ignorance of the hearers, or any combination of the above. The example you cite (by reference to another poster's comment) is a perfect example to make my point.

Wotan's Die Walküre Act II soliloquy (which takes about 20 minutes total in performance, not 15) is not only anything but dull or a mere recap, but the dramatic lynchpin of the entire tetralogy — one of Wagner's most brilliant dramatic and musical strokes that's anything but "ridiculously long." It's in fact exactly as long as it needs to be dramatically, and not a measure longer. That's typical of mature Wagner. He is, in fact, one of the most economical composers who ever lived. Of course, if one is ignorant of what's being sung — verbatim — as it's being sung in that soliloquy but has only a general idea of what's being sung, then that soliloquy will most assuredly seem interminable and the sense of it a mere recap of prior incidents. Similarly, if the singer-actor is not of the first water both as singer and actor, it can also seem interminable. Further, any seeming recapping in that soliloquy is in fact no recapping at all but a re-viewing of prior incidents from a different vantage point as are, to use an example from a different medium, the seeming recappings in the film, Citizen Kane. And, of course, the soliloquy covers much that's not been covered before and is essential for an understanding of everything that follows not only in Die Walküre but in the entire tetralogy.

As for Wagner's alleged self-indulgence and his need to "enlist the aid of a skilled dramatist to write the libretto instead of doing it himself," that's patent rubbish and betrays an ignorance of both Wagner the music-dramatist and of his creative "method".

Wagner was one of the greatest dramatists who ever lived, but his genius as a dramatist cannot be found in his text alone as Wagner was not a mere dramatist such as, say, Shakespeare, Wagner's natural opposite in the world of letters, but a music-dramatist. His text cannot be assessed absent the music that was organically linked to it at the moment of its writing even though Wagner hadn't yet written so much as a measure of that music. Wagner's mature creative method — not a method he devised but something that was his uncalculated native way of going about the thing — was NOT to write the words, then compose music to accompany those words. As Wagner wrote the words, he "heard" in his mind's ear the "shape" and sense of the music that was to be linked to those words and, if need be, adjusted the words to suit. That creative method is what's responsible for the unparalleled organic oneness of music and text in mature Wagner, and why one cannot pull apart text and music in Wagner's mature works and hope to get the real sense of either, something Wagner discovered for himself only after writing the music for his first music-drama, Das Rheingold.

Well,  that's enough for now. No charge.

ACD