Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520292758
- eISBN:
- 9780520966130
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292758.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
The Ring, though many years in gestation (1848-74), was essentially the fruit of Wagner’s politically most radical anarchist period concurrent with and immediately following the mid-century revolts. ...
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The Ring, though many years in gestation (1848-74), was essentially the fruit of Wagner’s politically most radical anarchist period concurrent with and immediately following the mid-century revolts. The nineteenth century was obsessed by the Myth of Revolution, the myth that was one of that century’s two most baleful legacies to the one that followed (the other one was the Myth of Nation). In Wagner’s tetralogy this obsession found its arguably grandest artistic expression. Inspired by Feuerbach, Proudhon, and Bakunin, it is a poem intoxicated by the orgy of destruction of the old world in which humans compete for power and riches and by the hopeful anticipation of the world to come, the world of spontaneous solidarity and love—an anarchist utopia.Less
The Ring, though many years in gestation (1848-74), was essentially the fruit of Wagner’s politically most radical anarchist period concurrent with and immediately following the mid-century revolts. The nineteenth century was obsessed by the Myth of Revolution, the myth that was one of that century’s two most baleful legacies to the one that followed (the other one was the Myth of Nation). In Wagner’s tetralogy this obsession found its arguably grandest artistic expression. Inspired by Feuerbach, Proudhon, and Bakunin, it is a poem intoxicated by the orgy of destruction of the old world in which humans compete for power and riches and by the hopeful anticipation of the world to come, the world of spontaneous solidarity and love—an anarchist utopia.
Elaine Kelly
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199998098
- eISBN:
- 9780199394371
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199998098.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter investigates Ruth Berghaus’s rethinking of the canon in her post-Brechtian stagings of Der Freischütz, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Parsifal. Invoking Brecht’s call for historicity, ...
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This chapter investigates Ruth Berghaus’s rethinking of the canon in her post-Brechtian stagings of Der Freischütz, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Parsifal. Invoking Brecht’s call for historicity, Berghaus exposed the totalizing romantic ideologies that underpinned both the socialist canon and the reception of opera in the twentieth century more generally. Rejecting coherence as a dominant principle, she separated text from author, she divested the canon of its positive heroes and unconflicted teleological narratives, and she shattered the myth of the total work of art. Her semiotic approach was symptomatic of the wider shift from content to form that Alexei Yurchak identifies as a defining characteristic of late socialism. As the chapter explores, her stagings had resonances beyond the GDR’s borders. Her Wagner productions at Oper Frankfurt offered audiences a theatrical experience that encoded the irony and alienation of late modernity.Less
This chapter investigates Ruth Berghaus’s rethinking of the canon in her post-Brechtian stagings of Der Freischütz, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Parsifal. Invoking Brecht’s call for historicity, Berghaus exposed the totalizing romantic ideologies that underpinned both the socialist canon and the reception of opera in the twentieth century more generally. Rejecting coherence as a dominant principle, she separated text from author, she divested the canon of its positive heroes and unconflicted teleological narratives, and she shattered the myth of the total work of art. Her semiotic approach was symptomatic of the wider shift from content to form that Alexei Yurchak identifies as a defining characteristic of late socialism. As the chapter explores, her stagings had resonances beyond the GDR’s borders. Her Wagner productions at Oper Frankfurt offered audiences a theatrical experience that encoded the irony and alienation of late modernity.
Gundula Kreuzer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520279681
- eISBN:
- 9780520966550
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279681.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
Wagner’s abundant evocation of fogs and fires in Der Ring des Nibelungen was unprecedented. The water vapor used in 1876 at Bayreuth’s inaugural festival provided Wagner with his most “real” stage ...
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Wagner’s abundant evocation of fogs and fires in Der Ring des Nibelungen was unprecedented. The water vapor used in 1876 at Bayreuth’s inaugural festival provided Wagner with his most “real” stage ingredient. Additionally, the chapter proposes, steam could mediate between bodies and painted scenery and could both enliven and veil open transformations. Yet while onstage vapors became a visual icon of the Ring, steam also drew attention to tensions within Wagner’s works and theories. Although intended to evoke unspoiled mythic nature, this novel and multisensorial technology generated smells and sounds associated precisely with the industrial modernity that Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk was to overcome. Allegorically, steam’s rendering of both fogs and fires anticipated the vanquishing of nature in the Ring by fire, the oldest human technology. Ultimately, its multivalence allowed steam to transcend both scenic realism and the operatic stage to become a cyp her of both modernity and performativityper se.Less
Wagner’s abundant evocation of fogs and fires in Der Ring des Nibelungen was unprecedented. The water vapor used in 1876 at Bayreuth’s inaugural festival provided Wagner with his most “real” stage ingredient. Additionally, the chapter proposes, steam could mediate between bodies and painted scenery and could both enliven and veil open transformations. Yet while onstage vapors became a visual icon of the Ring, steam also drew attention to tensions within Wagner’s works and theories. Although intended to evoke unspoiled mythic nature, this novel and multisensorial technology generated smells and sounds associated precisely with the industrial modernity that Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk was to overcome. Allegorically, steam’s rendering of both fogs and fires anticipated the vanquishing of nature in the Ring by fire, the oldest human technology. Ultimately, its multivalence allowed steam to transcend both scenic realism and the operatic stage to become a cyp her of both modernity and performativityper se.
Nancy Duvall Hargrove
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034010
- eISBN:
- 9780813039367
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034010.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Eliot was already familiar with the opera and operetta before he went to Paris as his older brother had taken him to watch The Merry Widow in 1905. Although Eliot is known to have knowledge about and ...
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Eliot was already familiar with the opera and operetta before he went to Paris as his older brother had taken him to watch The Merry Widow in 1905. Although Eliot is known to have knowledge about and an appreciation for opera, the influence of the Parisian operatic scene has often gone unnoticed. This chapter attempts to reconstruct the revival of Debussy's only opera, productions of Tristan und Isolde and Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner, the premiere of Ravel's first opera, and other such operatic offerings, to demonstrate several different influences of the opera on Eliot's works. The chapter provides information regarding the performances and the venues in which these operas were held, recent and modern operas, and Wagnerian opera.Less
Eliot was already familiar with the opera and operetta before he went to Paris as his older brother had taken him to watch The Merry Widow in 1905. Although Eliot is known to have knowledge about and an appreciation for opera, the influence of the Parisian operatic scene has often gone unnoticed. This chapter attempts to reconstruct the revival of Debussy's only opera, productions of Tristan und Isolde and Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner, the premiere of Ravel's first opera, and other such operatic offerings, to demonstrate several different influences of the opera on Eliot's works. The chapter provides information regarding the performances and the venues in which these operas were held, recent and modern operas, and Wagnerian opera.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520292758
- eISBN:
- 9780520966130
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292758.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are ...
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The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are pursued here: first, to penetrate the “secret” of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas, the secret the very existence of which was called into question by the composer’s critics, including the most perceptive of those, Nietzsche; second, to see the ideological import of Wagner’s dramas against the background of the worldviews that were current in his lifetime and, in particular, to confront his works with Nietzsche’s critique. What connects the two aims is my conviction that a grasp of Wagner’s large forms affords insights into the dramatic and philosophical implications of his works. The music dramas of Wagner’s later years registered and reacted to every major component in the complex ideological landscape that emerged during his century. Like a number of artists of his time, in his later years Wagner understood himself to be something more than just an artist; rather, he saw himself as a cultural prophet announcing and preparing better, more desirable forms of life for humanity. The specific content of his message never ceased to evolve, but his self-understanding as someone with a message to deliver remained constant. The confrontation with Nietzsche, a rival cultural prophet, takes a particular urgency in this context, since what was at stake in the philosopher’s objections to the artist was precisely the ideological import of Wagner’s works.Less
The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are pursued here: first, to penetrate the “secret” of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas, the secret the very existence of which was called into question by the composer’s critics, including the most perceptive of those, Nietzsche; second, to see the ideological import of Wagner’s dramas against the background of the worldviews that were current in his lifetime and, in particular, to confront his works with Nietzsche’s critique. What connects the two aims is my conviction that a grasp of Wagner’s large forms affords insights into the dramatic and philosophical implications of his works. The music dramas of Wagner’s later years registered and reacted to every major component in the complex ideological landscape that emerged during his century. Like a number of artists of his time, in his later years Wagner understood himself to be something more than just an artist; rather, he saw himself as a cultural prophet announcing and preparing better, more desirable forms of life for humanity. The specific content of his message never ceased to evolve, but his self-understanding as someone with a message to deliver remained constant. The confrontation with Nietzsche, a rival cultural prophet, takes a particular urgency in this context, since what was at stake in the philosopher’s objections to the artist was precisely the ideological import of Wagner’s works.
Hilda Meldrum Brown
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199325436
- eISBN:
- 9780191822360
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325436.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Opera
The Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), once a key concept in Wagner studies, has become problematic. This book sheds light on this conundrum by first tracing the development of the concept in the ...
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The Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), once a key concept in Wagner studies, has become problematic. This book sheds light on this conundrum by first tracing the development of the concept in the nineteenth century through selected examples, some of which include combinations of different art forms. It then focuses on the culmination of the Gesamtkunstwerk in Wagner’s theories and in the practice of his late music dramas, of which Der Ring des Nibelungen is the most complete representation. Finally, the book contrasts the view of the Ring as a fusion of dramatic text and music with the 20th-century trend towards deconstruction in Wagnerian productions and the importance of Regie. Against this trend a case is made here for a fresh critical approach and a reconsideration of the nature and basis for the fundamental unity which has hitherto been widely perceived in Wagner’s Ring. Approaches through Leitmotiv alone are no longer acceptable. However, in conjunction with another principle, Moment, which Wagner insisted on combining with Motive, these can be ingeniously ‘staged’ and steered to dramatic ends by means of musical dynamics and expressive devices such as accumulation. Analysis of the two Erda scenes demonstrates how this complex combination of resources acts as a powerful means of fusion of the musical and dramatic elements in the Ring and confirms its status as a Gesamtkunstwerk.Less
The Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), once a key concept in Wagner studies, has become problematic. This book sheds light on this conundrum by first tracing the development of the concept in the nineteenth century through selected examples, some of which include combinations of different art forms. It then focuses on the culmination of the Gesamtkunstwerk in Wagner’s theories and in the practice of his late music dramas, of which Der Ring des Nibelungen is the most complete representation. Finally, the book contrasts the view of the Ring as a fusion of dramatic text and music with the 20th-century trend towards deconstruction in Wagnerian productions and the importance of Regie. Against this trend a case is made here for a fresh critical approach and a reconsideration of the nature and basis for the fundamental unity which has hitherto been widely perceived in Wagner’s Ring. Approaches through Leitmotiv alone are no longer acceptable. However, in conjunction with another principle, Moment, which Wagner insisted on combining with Motive, these can be ingeniously ‘staged’ and steered to dramatic ends by means of musical dynamics and expressive devices such as accumulation. Analysis of the two Erda scenes demonstrates how this complex combination of resources acts as a powerful means of fusion of the musical and dramatic elements in the Ring and confirms its status as a Gesamtkunstwerk.
