第 4 章
Victorian Sensibilities: Wagner in Britain and America
Wagner's reception in Victorian Britain was complicated by the era's view of music as a medium of moral uplift. Critics initially resisted him, with J.W. Davison of the Times deriding him as a "desperate charlatan." His anti-Jewish sentiments, particularly his criticism of the beloved Mendelssohn, further complicated his British reception. Nevertheless, by the early 1880s, Wagnerism had become "phenomenal" in Britain, with the 1882 London performances of the Ring drawing the Prince of Wales and William Gladstone.
The Pre-Raphaelites developed a sudden interest in Wagner's material around 1861. Burne-Jones created a watercolor titled "Laus Veneris," Swinburne wrote a poem with the same title, and Morris began "The Hill of Venus." Despite these parallels, Morris loathed Wagner, calling it "desecration" to bring such material "under the gaslights of an opera." Yet Morris's epic "The Story of Sigurd the Volsung" seems influenced by Wagner's Ring, though Morris's more flowery language contrasts with Wagner's directness.
In America, Wagner's music first reached audiences through the Germania Musical Society-radical-minded musicians who formed a collective in Berlin in 1848 before emigrating together. German-born conductor Theodore Thomas became Wagner's most decisive American advocate after the Civil War. His 1872 performance of "The Ride of the Valkyries" caused audiences to jump on chairs and shout with excitement. Wagner's influence extended to American composers like John Philip Sousa, who arranged "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Tannhauser style.
The Chicago School architects embraced Wagner's ideals of unifying the arts. Louis Sullivan became "an ardent Wagnerite" after hearing Thomas conduct Lohengrin, finding in Wagner "a Mighty Personality-a great Free Spirit" who gave him tenfold courage in "this raw city by the Great Lake." The Auditorium, designed by Adler and Sullivan, represented a democratic alternative to the Met's elite boxes, using a more egalitarian fan-shaped seating plan inspired by the Festspielhaus.
第 5 章
Mystical Transformations: Wagner and the Occult
Wagner's Parsifal opened a realm where "time becomes space," as the sage Gurnemanz tells the foolish young hero. This enigmatic work, which Wagner called his "stage consecration festival play," belongs to no single religion. Despite its Christian elements, it incorporates Gnostic teachings, pagan nature worship, and Eastern influences including Buddhism. As philosopher Ernst Bloch summarized, Parsifal is "Christian-Buddhist-Rosicrucian art-religion."
The work became a supreme, enigmatic symbol during the fin de siecle, when artists everywhere sensed an imminent revelation. Pilgrims to Bayreuth sought private quests toward hidden worlds-Catholic mystery, Gnostic riddle, Buddhist enlightenment, or even Black Mass. This era of esotericism saw the rise of occultism, Satanism, Theosophy, and various reinventions of medieval sects. Wagner blended perfectly with this mystical milieu. Edouard Schure called him "the greatest unconscious occultist who ever lived," while Rudolf Steiner declared his works contained "a very large measure of occult power."
Belgium proved fertile ground for Wagnerian mysticism. Belgian cities, with their Gothic and Baroque architecture mingling with Art Nouveau, created dreamlike settings reminiscent of Wagner's operatic worlds. Georges Rodenbach's novel Bruges-la-morte captured this atmosphere, while Maurice Maeterlinck's plays echoed Wagnerian themes of forbidden love in decaying kingdoms.
The notion that Wagner's music tapped into devilish forces gained wide currency among both detractors and disciples. Fin-de-siecle culture attributed supernatural powers to artists, with Wagner supposedly capable of administering an aural "potion of death." Superstitious observers noted a string of misfortunes befalling those close to Wagner: tenor Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld died shortly after creating the role of Tristan; Ludwig II drowned in 1886; pianist Joseph Rubinstein committed suicide in 1884. Even Wagner himself worried his music might drive people insane, writing after Schnorr's death: "My Tristan! My beloved! I pushed you to the abyss!"
第 6 章
The Dark Shadow: Wagner and Antisemitism
Anti-Jewish sentiment had deep historical roots in Germany long before Wagner's time, with influential figures like Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expressing various forms of prejudice. However, Wagner played a pivotal role in transforming traditional religious anti-Judaism into a more insidious form of racial antisemitism. His personal hostility emerged in the 1830s during his early career struggles in Paris, where he began blaming Jewish financiers and composers for his commercial failures. This antipathy intensified dramatically after 1849 when both his musical aspirations and revolutionary political hopes collapsed following his exile from Dresden.
Wagner's infamous essay "Jewishness in Music" appeared in September 1850 under the pseudonym K. Freigedank ("Free Thought") in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. Written during his first sketches for the Ring cycle, it articulated his belief that Jews were cultural parasites incapable of creating authentic art, being merely imitators of European culture. The essay contained particularly disturbing physiognomic descriptions of Jewish speech patterns, which he characterized as "hissing, shrill, buzzing, grunting." Wagner claimed to hear these same qualities in the music of Felix Mendelssohn, whom he had once admired. He introduced the loaded concept of "Verjudung" (Jewification) of modern art, suggesting Jewish influence was corrupting German culture. The essay concluded with the notorious suggestion that Jews needed "redemption" through "Untergang" (going-under) - a deliberately ambiguous term that has sparked intense scholarly debate over whether Wagner meant cultural assimilation or physical destruction.
Though Wagner's operas contain no explicitly Jewish characters, musicologists and scholars have identified numerous antisemitic caricatures in figures like Alberich (the greedy dwarf), Mime (the scheming craftsman), and Sixtus Beckmesser (the pedantic critic) from Die Meistersinger. Wagner's 1848 Ring sketch describes the Nibelung dwarves "burrow[ing] with shifty, restless activity (like worms in a dead body)," language that directly parallels his pamphlet's description of Jews as a "swarming colony of worms." While Wagner never explicitly identified these characters as Jewish in his writings, his contemporaries readily made the connection. Gustav Mahler, himself Jewish, poignantly remarked, "I know of only one Mime, and that is me," acknowledging the painful recognition of antisemitic stereotypes in Wagner's work.
The complex phenomenon of Jewish Wagnerites found its most prominent and paradoxical example in Hermann Levi, the Jewish conductor whom Wagner selected to premiere Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882. Despite Wagner's initial discomfort with a Jew conducting his most "Christian" work, he recognized Levi's exceptional talent. Wagner had suggested Levi be baptized before the premiere - an deeply insulting proposition that Levi firmly rejected. Yet remarkably, Levi maintained an almost religious faith in Wagner's genius, writing to his father that the composer was "the best and noblest person" and that his anti-Jewish stance "springs from the noblest motives." This cognitive dissonance exemplified the complicated relationship many Jewish musicians and intellectuals maintained with Wagner's art, separating the composer's repugnant personal views from his revolutionary musical achievements.
第 7 章
Forbidden Desires: Wagner and Sexuality
Wagner's works center on the redeeming power of love, yet his personal attitudes toward women were complex and often contradictory. While idealizing feminine spirit, he imposed subservient roles on women in his life. He told Cosima that women "have nothing to do with the outside world" and should not try to "turn into a man." Yet Wagner himself exhibited non-traditional masculine behaviors-fetishizing pink silk and satin fabrics, wearing feminine gowns and undergarments, and using rose perfumes in what some scholars call a form of cross-dressing.
Women's relationship to Wagner's music created a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Female attendance at Bayreuth was remarkable-one observer noted "one wealthy papa to six daughters and retinue of young ladies." American women, particularly Southern groups, traveled together to the festival, often focusing on the morally improving Parsifal.
Wagner's music offered women self-expression otherwise discouraged by social norms. Soprano Lillian Nordica connected her operatic experience to suffragist activism, declaring the stage "the only place where men and women stand on a perfect equality." She performed at suffragist pageants in 1913, accompanied by Wagner's music.
By the end of the nineteenth century, campaigners for gay rights had incorporated Wagner into their cultural genealogy. This "queering of the Meister" drew on the sexually transgressive elements in his works and his proximity to Ludwig II, who became a gay icon of the fin de siecle. Wagner himself showed an open if sometimes confused understanding of same-sex love. In "The Artwork of the Future," he praised Greek Mannerliebe (love between men) as "the noblest and most selfless expression of the human sense of beauty."
Parsifal has long invited queer interpretations with its imagery of spears, wounds, and fluids. When Kundry kisses Parsifal, he recoils, clutches his heart, and cries "Amfortas!-The wound!-The wound!" gaining instant compassionate wisdom. When Ludwig II questioned this transformation, Wagner mysteriously replied: "That is a terrible secret, my beloved!"
第 8 章
American Dreams: Willa Cather's Wagnerian Landscapes
Willa Cather's Wagnerism stands apart from other literary engagements with the composer, rivaled only by Thomas Mann in depth of understanding, though she possessed unique insight into singers and their artistic journeys. Born in Virginia in 1873, Cather moved to Nebraska at age ten, experiencing a cultural displacement that profoundly shaped her artistic vision and allowed for radical self-reinvention. Despite her outwardly conservative politics, Cather's work contains deeply subversive elements, rejecting American triumphalism and finding in Western landscapes-particularly the towering rock formations reminiscent of Brunnhilde's fire-ringed mountain-a spiritual and artistic refuge from modern materialism and industrialization.
Wagner's influence permeates Cather's early fiction with remarkable sophistication. Her 1905 collection The Troll Garden features multiple Wagner references that demonstrate her deep understanding of the composer's themes and symbolism. "The Garden Lodge" masterfully depicts a woman reliving the passionate Siegmund-Sieglinde duet from Walkure in sensual reverie, capturing both the music's erotic power and its ability to transcend ordinary existence. "Paul's Case" presents a nuanced critique through its young aesthete's superficial attachment to Wagner's glamour, revealing the dangers of misunderstanding art's deeper meanings. Most significant is "A Wagner Matinee," where Georgiana, a former Boston music teacher now worn down by thirty years of harsh Nebraska homesteading, attends a Wagner concert with her nephew Clark. As the Tannhauser overture breaks "the inconceivable silence of the plains," Georgiana undergoes a profound transformation that symbolizes both cultural awakening and personal redemption.
Cather's pivotal 1913 meeting with soprano Olive Fremstad catalyzed her next artistic phase, deepening her engagement with Wagnerian themes. Born in Stockholm but raised in rural Minnesota, Fremstad's life story resonated deeply with Cather's own experiences of cultural displacement. Fremstad conquered adversity through sheer will, studying with the legendary Lilli Lehmann before making her triumphant Bayreuth debut in 1896. At the Metropolitan Opera, she became the reigning Brunnhilde and Isolde, bringing unprecedented intellectual depth and psychological complexity to these iconic roles.
In The Song of the Lark, Cather masterfully blends Fremstad's biography with her own experiences to create Thea Kronborg, a preacher's daughter from fictional Moonstone, Nebraska. Through her transformative Wagnerian experience in Panther Canyon, Thea emerges as a true Valkyrie figure, embodying both artistic awakening and feminist empowerment. The canyon scenes deliberately echo Walkure in their imagery and symbolism: the rim lit with "coppery fire" recalls Wotan placing Brunnhilde beneath protective flames, while Fred becomes "an urban Siegfried" breaking her solitude. This parallel between landscape and operatic mythology creates a uniquely American interpretation of Wagner's mythic themes, connecting Old World artistry with New World spaces and possibilities.
第 9 章
Modernist Transformations: Wagner and the Avant-Garde
Wagner proved crucial to modernism's development. As Nietzsche predicted: "Wagner sums up modernity. It can't be helped, one must first become a Wagnerian." Indeed, many leading modernists began as Wagner devotees, absorbing his determination to "enact a future" that would "annul the present."
Three Wagnerian legacies stand out in modernism: the Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork); the stream of consciousness technique; and the juxtaposition of myth and modernity. Though modernists often defined themselves against Wagner's Romantic aesthetics-preferring hard lines over opulent textures, raw desire over epic passion-they nevertheless adopted his techniques while transforming them.
Joseph Conrad's novels pulse with Wagnerian rhythms despite his claims of "abysmal ignorance" of the music beyond a single Brussels performance of Tristan. His prose style features incantatory repetitions and wave-like sentences that evolve in motivic fashion. In "Heart of Darkness," the word "darkness" recurs like a leitmotif, building toward the inevitable final line about "the heart of an immense darkness."
Conrad's masterpiece "Nostromo" functions as a modern-dress Ring cycle, with the San Tome silver mine wreaking havoc like Wagner's cursed gold. Charles Gould, the mine's master, combines aspects of both Wotan and Alberich-wielding "immense occult influence" while becoming enslaved by his wealth. The novel's title character becomes "master and slave of the San Tome treasure," echoing Alberich's curse.
Virginia Woolf's relationship with Wagner was complex and evolving. Initially entranced, she visited Bayreuth in 1909 where Parsifal "stunned her," writing that Wagner "slides from music to words almost imperceptibly." Yet by 1913, she found Wagner "intolerable," complaining of "bawling sentimentality." Still, she continued returning to Wagner throughout her life, sometimes conducting along to recordings.
The Waves (1931) represents Woolf's most thoroughly Wagnerian work, described by William Blissett as "the most despotically organized, the most 'composite'... and the most pervasively leitmotivistic" of her novels. Its opening evokes the prelude to Rheingold, with the sun rising over the sea until "all round it the sea blazed gold." Through Bernard's final sixty-page monologue, Woolf articulates her ideal of self-transcendence and mystical communion: "I do not believe in separation. We are not single."
第 10 章
Wagner in the Third Reich and Beyond
On February 13, 1933-fifty years after Wagner's death-Thomas Mann delivered his lecture "Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner" at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. The event, part of a brief European speaking tour, became Mann's permanent farewell to Germany, where Hitler had been appointed Reich chancellor two weeks earlier.
Mann's lecture challenged the Nazi appropriation of Wagner, arguing that the composer ultimately belonged to the party of "reform, change, liberation"-the left. He boldly described Wagner as a figure who "would most certainly be called a Kulturbolschewist" today, using the Nazi buzzword for cultural Bolshevism.
Hitler's Wagner obsession began early. In 1919-1920, he associated with Dietrich Eckart, a devoted Wagnerite who introduced him to Bayreuth's "wonderful" atmosphere. By 1922, Wagner excerpts were introducing Hitler's speeches, with Meistersinger's "Wach auf" chorus blending with Nazi slogans of "Deutschland erwache!" His Munich apartment contained Wagner recordings, writings, and biographies.
From Hitler's first days in office, Wagner became ceremonially central to the regime. Hitler attended Wagner commemorations on February 12, 1933, and Meistersinger capped the Day of Potsdam in March. At Bayreuth that summer, swastikas replaced Wagner's autobiography with Mein Kampf in bookstores, prompting Walter Legge to call it "a Hitler festival."
Despite Wagner's official veneration, his works caused ideological trouble for Nazi leadership. Parsifal particularly troubled Goebbels, Rosenberg and Himmler, who thought its compassionate message incompatible with Nazi ideology and wanted it removed from the repertory. Hitler disagreed, telling Wieland Wagner he wanted Parsifal performed "against his own party." The opera's central message of "knowing through compassion" directly contradicted Nazi directives to suppress Mitleid (compassion), which Hitler explicitly denounced regarding Jews in December 1941.
After the war, Wagner's music found a powerful new medium in cinema, where it became shorthand for epic grandeur, aggression, and conquest. The iconic helicopter assault scored to the "Ride of the Valkyries" in Coppola's Apocalypse Now originated with screenwriter John Milius in 1969. Despite Coppola's intended critique of American imperialism, the scene ironically transformed the "Ride" into an anthem of American military might. Black Hawk helicopters blared it during the 1983 Grenada invasion, psy-ops units played it in Iraq during both Gulf Wars.
Today, Wagner remains both celebrated and condemned-a testament to art's power to inspire both humanity's highest aspirations and its darkest impulses. As Ross concludes: "When we look at Wagner, we are gazing into a magnifying mirror of the soul of the human species. What we hate in it, we hate in ourselves; what we love in it, we love in ourselves also."
