Is Wagner divine?

Hudson Review, The, Summer 2002 by Disch, Thomas M

AMONG THE GODS IN THE SUPREME PANTHEON OF ART, in its latter-day role as a religion for the unchurched, none is worshipped with more reverence than Wagner. A composer, of course, cannot compete at the auction block, so in that regard Michelangelo, van Gogh, et al., command more fabulous prices, but in terms of man-hours of serious attention, of sheer devotion, not even Shakespeare can compete. Shakespeare, even at his most sublime, does not offer the esthetic equivalent of the Beatific Vision such as is to be found in Tristan and Parsifal and long stretches of The Ring of the Nibelung. Shakespeare has his Stratfords to which one may make pilgrimage, but there is only one Bayreuth, the Mecca of the Decadent West.

Do I exaggerate? Then so, and to no less degree, does Bryan Magee in his tribute to the greatness and wisdom of Richard Wagner, The Tristan Chord.1 Magee's regard for Wagner's artistry could scarcely be higher, for he begins his book by proposing that opera in its very nature "goes deeper than non-musical forms of drama," and thus the greatest operas, those of Mozart and Wagner, "are among the very greatest works of art that there are." Note further that "Wagner remained unique among the truly outstanding composers of opera in that he wrote all his own libretti." Add to that that in his "mature" operas, those written after Lohengrin, Wagner was creating works that "constitute a revolutionary development not only in the history of opera but in the history of music." For almost 400 pages Magee, who is a university professor, music critic, television pundit, and Member of Parliament, sets forth the reasons for Wagner's preeminence as though it were a demonstration in mathematics. At the same time he is never less than eloquent as Wagner's panegyrist. The Tristan Chord is easily the equal of the raptured critiques of George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Mann, and Michael Tanner, whose slim treatise, Wagner (Princeton, 1996), had been, before Magee's book, the single guidebook I would have recommended to anyone setting out on a lifetime's pilgrimage.

Tanner is still an indispensable companion, offering an idealized version of Cliffs Notes to each of the operas, but at the trickier business of shining light into the darkness of Wagner's sublimity, of explaining the nature and grandeur of his accomplishment, Magee is simply more illuminating-and for the unlikeliest of reasons, because he examines in detail the debt that Wagner's music owes to philosophy; in particular, the philosophy of Schopenhauer. Tanner (who is also a philosopher by profession), in a review in the February 2002 Gramophone, takes exception to Magee's precis of Kant and Schopenhauer but gives no reasons. I can only protest that Magee's account struck me as entirely comprehensible and even, in this context, interesting. More importantly, I put the book down persuaded that all the epistemology was not just trimming but essential to getting a handle on the music.

Wagner is one of those great conceptual elephants that will mean something different depending on where you first take hold of him. Few opera-goers or record-listeners will have the good luck or the pedantry of purpose to experience his works in the order of their opus numbering (as both Magee and Tanner deal with them). My own first taste was Toscannini's 1954 farewell radio broadcast of the Prelude to Die Meistersinger. Soon after that, cued by my algebra teacher, Miss Allard, I listened to the "Liebestod" on 78s at the St. Paul Public Library. I was already living in the era of recorded sound, when the entire musical literature of our civilization was only a phonograph away, and since that time TV and VCR technology have further democratized the actual experience of watching the best singers sing at the world's top venues. To be accounted a Wagnerian haji these days no longer demands a trip to Mecca; it only requires steadfastness of purpose.

Where to begin? Theoretically, one could begin at the beginning, with Wagner's three apprentice operas: Die Feen (The Fairies), Das Liebesverbot (an adaptation of Measure for Measure), and Rienzi, operas that take as their operatic models Weber, Rossini, and Meyerbeer, respectively. In them Wagner "does" opera in the German, Italian, and French manners-and very well at that, though one can always hear the quotation marks, just as one hears them in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta (which Liebesverbot uncannily resembles).

With The Flying Dutchman, at the age of twenty-nine, Wagner came into his own, but of how he did it, and what exactly he did, Magee has little to say. In this respect, and with regard to Tannhauserand Lohengrin as well, Michael Tanner is the better guide. Perhaps, in these cases, there is little need for guidance, or none beyond what a good conductor can provide. Levine's performances of Dutchman a year ago at the Metropolitan Opera were a wonder to behold, though I confess that in retrospect, while I marveled as the contending choruses, within and without the ship of the damned, vied with each other in another Wagnerian singing contest, I could not, the next day, have told you what exactly their problem was. And I am in the same state of admiring bemusement with regard to Lohengrin: No more than Elsa do I know who the man is or where he comes from.