Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

Wagner’s unique position was revealed most clearly in the last phase of his life when he was saved, appropriately enough, by the mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Ludwig, a homosexual, was certainly in love with Wagner’s music, and may just have been in love with Wagner himself. In any event, he told the composer that he could do more or less what he wanted in Bavaria and Wagner didn’t need to be asked twice. ‘I am the most German of beings. I am the German spirit. Consider the incomparable magic of my works.’130 Although he was forced into exile for a while, on account of his extravagance and a scandalous foray into politics, his involvement with Ludwig did lead eventually to the culmination of his career and another culmination of romanticism. This was his idea of a festival theatre dedicated to his works alone–Bayreuth, and to the Ring. The first Bayreuth Festival was held in 1876, and it was here that Der Ring des Nibelungen–the fruit of twenty-five years’ work–was first performed.131 For the first festival, some four thousand disciples descended on Bayreuth, along with the emperor of Germany, the emperor and empress of Brazil, seven other royals, and some sixty newspaper correspondents from all over the world, including two from New York who were allowed to use the new transatlantic cable to get their stories published almost immediately.