Richard Wagner: Ahasvers Wandlungen

by Dieter Borchmeyer

Richard Wagner continues to be the most controversial artist in history, a perpetually troubling figure in our cultural consciousness. The unceasing debate over his works and their impact--for and against--is one reason why there has been no genuinely comprehensive modern account of his musical dramas until now. Dieter Borchmeyer's book is the first to present an overall picture of these musical dramas from the standpoint of literary and theatrical history. It extends from the composer's early works--still largely ignored--to the "Ring Cycle and Parsifal," and includes Wagner's unfinished works and operas he never set to music. Through lively prose, we come to see Wagner as a librettist--and as a man of letters--rather than primarily as musical composer.

Borchmeyer uncovers a vast field of cultural and historical cross-references in Wagner's works. In the first part of the book, he sets out in search of the various archetypal scenes, opening up the composer's dramatic workshop to the reader. He covers all of Wagner's operas, from early juvenilia to the canonical later works.

The second part examines Wagner in relation to political figures including King Ludwig II and Bismarck, and, importantly, in light of critical reactions by literary giants--Thomas Mann, whom Borchmeyer calls "a guiding light in this exploration of the fields that Wagner tilled," and Nietzsche, whose appeal to "philology" is a key source of inspiration in attempts to grapple with Wagner's works.

For more than twenty years, Borchmeyer has placed his scholarship at the service of the famed Bayreuth Festival. With this volume, he gives us a summation of decades of engagement with the phenomenon of Wagner and, at the same time, the result of an abiding critical passion for his works.

Genres: Music

647 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a brilliant consideration of Wagner's work and I'm not giving the book one star for its work and for its author; the writing here is superb. The one star is for how the book made me feel about Wagner's work and how, having read quite a few books on Wagner in the last week (including a great one by Adorno), the book made me feel about Wagner himself. His anti-Semitism (this word should always be capitalized, as figures like Claude Lanzmann have asked) was truly quite undeniable and repulsive, and its that original sin which makes the lyrics here unbearably hard to read. Even if there's no anti-Semitism in the actual lyrics; they're all about myth and legend. It just makes me feel so ugly and nasty looking at these lyrics and their emphasis on nature and purity. It's like looking at something which, when originally created, was beautiful but it has been used for evil.