Coming to Terms with Wagner

On Friday, at the suggestion of many of my friends and colleagues, I made a commitment via ticket purchase to sit through what I thought would be a long winded, self-important, repetitive and overly psychologically dramatic Wagner opera: Lohengrin. Although I have played a couple, played incidental music, and watched a concert version of Tristan and Isolde, my cultural and musical life had not given me the opportunity to watch a full production. I was a Wagnerian virgin.

Gesamtkunstwerk, we learned in school, is a term used by Wagner to describe the complete work of art: one which sythesizes all the art forms to create the ultimate form of deep expression. So playing incidental music or watching the concert version does not give one proper experiential material to assess Wagner.

I have to admit I had pre-programmed prejudices. Coming from a Jewish background, the topic if Wagner's music was treated as taboo. Hitler saw Wagner's music as an embodiment of the new German regime and nationalistic "pure" ideologies. Wagner's music was not performed in the modern state of Israel until 2001 conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Previous attempts to stage productions were halted by protesters.

In his "Jewishness in Music" essay published in 1850 under a pseudonym, Wagner accused composers Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer of being harmful and dangerous to German culture. He claimed Germans were repelled by Jew's appearance and were detached completely to the German spirit. As they were only capable of producing shallow and artificial music, its purpose was to be popular and financial rewarding, and devoid of any aesthetic merit.

As I write this, I realize that I use the third person pronoun "they" to describe Jew's above as a way to separate myself from the gross misguided representation by Wagner above. Freud would have a field that with this I am sure.

We studied Wagner in school. Tristan and Isolde is epic as music theorists and musicologists revere the symbology of the Tristan chord due to its tonic ambiguity, it's perplexing sonority and instrumentation, and it's ability to morph. We learned Tristan and Isolde as a long yearning for resolution work as there isn't a resting point, cadence, or tonal resolution until the end, after which it quickly ends. Like sex our professor explained. Orgasm, you are done. My friends and I had our share of cigarettes following the lecture.

So, I purchased a great seat and I did what I usually do not do. Although I usually like to research the work prior to seeing, I refused to and decided to really watch this purely with virgin ears. From the beginning of the overture to the end, I got it. I understood the fascination. I had the epiphany that my professor was attempting to instill in me back at school: a perfect combination of relatable narrative with enough musical and physical symbology to over talk this over gallons of coffee.

Two days later, I am still perplexed by the performance and I haven't even addressed the HGO production. It's a must see if you can catch the last couple of performances before the run ends. Epic is the best way to describe it. Almost like watching a most sublime and relatable story of found and lost love with middle earth and Grail myths mixed in. The music presented additional information not found on stage. Themes were easily recognizable.

I think I am a convert. I am quite willing to explore Wagner. I actually think I may be enroute to liking and accepting my ability to like Wagner. The guilt to do so will have to be worked on over time.

In this video, Elsa (the wrongly accused damsel in distress) summons a rightful stranger she met a while back.

In this scene, Lohengrin (the wonderful rightful stranger) and Elsa (the wrongfully accused damsel in distress) discuss the proclivities of their arrangement. He would defend her honor and marry her if she never asks his origin, name, and lineage. Deliciously romantic.