Controversies and Viewpoints

by Alain de Benoist

  In accordance with Wagner’s own wishes, the performances commence every day at 16:00, the sole exception being The Rheingold (the first part of the Tetralogy), which starts at 18:00. They all end around 22:00, with none of the intervals lasting more than an hour each.

  Shortly afterwards, artists and members of the audience meet for supper in restaurant halls which are always filled to capacity and where Franconian wine flows in torrents.

  On the days when no performances are held, foreigners are seen enjoying their trips to Bamberg, Nuremberg and the villages of the Fichtelgebirge.

  One also visits the (Wagner-Gedenkstätte) museum, where the stage production scale models, the couch on which Wagner passed away, his manuscripts and portraits, and the (French) letters which Liszt sent his daughter ‘Cosimette’ (who would later become Cosima Wagner) are all kept. A comical exhibit can also be seen there — the letter sent by the management of Der Spiegel, the German weekly, to ‘Mr Richard Wagner, Bayreuth’, dated 31st July, 1974.

  Wagner himself proclaimed that Bayreuth was indispensable when it came to the accomplishment of his work’s ‘mystery’, an opinion that is shared by all of today’s Wagnerians.

  In an essay on Post-War Bayreuth, Mr Hans-Jürgen Nigra723 writes:

  It is solely in Bayreuth, or, at least, through the latter, that the Wagnerian myth exerts its most profound fascination and evokes most intensely a world and humanity that remain at odds with our current world and humanity.

  Historically speaking, no musician has ever aroused as many polemics and passions as Wagner himself did. Both during his lifetime and after his passing, his adversaries and defenders have never ceased to clash in a display of extraordinary violence. This is specifically due to the fact that Wagner was not merely a musician, but also a poet, a playwright (‘The greatest theatrical genius of all time’, according to Egon Friedell724 ), and a philosopher, and even the herald of time’s regeneration.

  Musical Path

  A dramatic poet — that is precisely what Wagner was already in his youth, before even desiring to become a musician. He would later state:

  In my case, the poetic (“male”) element has fertilised the musical (“feminine”) element.

  To which Houston Stewart Chamberlain adds:

  What I maintain is that in Wagner’s works, one cannot truly comprehend the music, the poetry, the stage production, the character interaction, or anything at all unless one first consents to consider the whole from the perspective of dramatic action.

  This action, however, is not a matter of pure entertainment, as is the case with Italian opera, whose music only acts as a sort of support or prop. Indeed, it constitutes a whole in itself, one that precedes the actual musical composition.

  On 19th January, 1859, Wagner penned the following words:

  My poetic conceptions have always taken place at such a distance from experience that I find myself compelled to consider them the very source of my spirit’s entire moral development. The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Die Nibelungen, and Wotan had all been present in my mind before the actual visual experience.

  On 21st December, 1861, he makes the following declaration to Mathilde Wesendonck:725

  All I see are inner images, images that long to be realised through sound.

  There are some who have perceived Wagner’s Tetralogy as the musical equivalent of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, works whose recitation had also enjoyed a sacred sort of character in ancient Greece. Such a comparison may sometimes be rather farfetched, since the Wagnerian drama constitutes the ‘culmination’ of all Western music, just as Homer’s work represents the ‘culmination’ of epic poetry during the period of classical antiquity.

  There is, in fact, a musical path in European history that stretches from Bach to Wagner and whose counterpart in the mental domain begins with Luther and extends all the way to Nietzsche.

  Jean-Edouard Spenlé726 writes:

  Bayreuth is the symbol of a certain Germanic Reformation of Art. Just like Luther’s religious Reformation, Wagnerian art acts as the artistic protest of German consciousness against a corrupt sort of tradition, as the protest of living Faith against dead works, routine repertories and a sacrament offered for a miserable price. What Bayreuth symbolises is mankind’s Regeneration and Redemption through German Art. (La pensée allemande.727 A. Colin, 1934)

  This ‘German notion’, however, of which Wagner is the representative figure, bears no connection to nationalism in the modern sense of the word. On the contrary, it originates from the conviction that it is henceforth necessary to guide all of humanity towards a new adventure.

  Faithful to a tradition that dates back to Fichte,728 Wagner dismisses any and all preoccupation with nationalism and, what is more, defines every man ‘who acts strictly in accordance with his own convictions’ as ‘German’.

  Schopenhauer perceived the world as ‘realised music’, adding:

  What results from the fact that music lies at the very heart of things and feeds on their essence is that it has a hold over all objects, whatever they may be.

  With both Wagner and Nietzsche, the Kantian discovery of the limits of pure reason undermined the ‘Socratic illusion’. By the same token, it has brought to light the radical powerlessness of language to attain and describe the ‘thing-in-itself’ (Ding an sich). Hence one’s recourse to music, to this ‘language of languages’, this ‘Sanskrit of the soul’, this metalanguage that retains the unique ability to express the thing-in-itself of phenomena, without, however, rooting them in any kind of present.

  In Wagner’s case, Music, Drama (meaning tragedy) and Myth are all closely related. Music, he says, ‘is an idea of the world, more specifically an idea of the world that encompasses everything’.

  Tragedy is born out of music, as if it were a maternal bosom. It re-presents, i.e. realises (on stage) this ‘idea’ of music; and it does so by regenerating the myth, which is the only possible form that allows us to reach and reclaim the purity of the origins. This is what Wagner calls the ‘purely human’ (Rein-Menschlichen).

  Wagner does not explain this idea of the world; instead, he realises it by means of the Wort-Ton-Drama, meaning the association of words and musical tones within dramatic action. This idea consequently organises space-time in a radically novel manner, by instituting mankind’s historical becoming in the shape of a tragedy governed by the law of Return. At every given moment, the past, present and future coincide with one another. The Becoming is at hand. Only its centre is subject to change, and along with it all resulting perspectives. Wagner replaces the unilinear conception of time, which he rejects, with tridimensional time, which represents the specific time of humanity’s becoming.

  Mr Giorgio Locchi writes:

  Within the Wagnerian drama, scenic “representation” constitutes a scenic realisation of both the present’s tridimensionality — meaning the simultaneous presence of the past, present and future — and the change of perspective established by each present upon the entire represented becoming. (L’ “idée de la musique” et le temps de l’histoire729 , in Nouvelle école number 30, winter 1976–77)

  The image of the Nibelungen Ring, the very Ring that gave the Tetralogy its name, is the living symbol of this ‘spherical’ conception of history, of this music of Eternal Return. And the perfect E-flat major chord, unfolding over 136 measures730 and opening the prelude of Rheingold, is, to use the words of Thomas Mann731 , the musical representation of the very ‘idea’ of time’s birth.

  The Immensity of the Wagnerian Myth

  In his effort to represent the idea of music, Wagner does not solely require the support of the audial element; for he resorts to all forms of art. What he aspires for is ‘total art’, which he almost views as the religion of the new age.

  Not only does he connect notes, words, music and poetry in an indissociable manner, thus discouraging in advance any and all translation efforts, but by resorting systematically to chromatism,
also breaks with the diatonic system, an excessively ‘analytical’ system that affirms more than it generates genuine musical emanations. Last but not least, he demands the presence of the ‘fusion of timbres’ which once led Abel Gance732 to ask, when referring to the cinema:

  Who shall be able to orchestrate, within the seventh art733 , the music of sounds?

  In Bayreuth, the covered orchestra pit would be specifically designed to facilitate such ‘mixing’: redirected towards the stage thanks to the presence of a resonant ceiling, the music subsequently reaches the hall in unison with the singers’ voices. That is how the ‘infinite melody’ comes into being, a melody that is responsible for making the Wagnerian drama the very opposite of a ‘classical’ opera.

  This ‘total art’ is heir to an ancient tradition. Indeed, already the Middle Ages, German music strived to attain an ‘integral art’ that would achieve both the synthesis and the transcendence of the various forms of expression.

  In old German, the word Leich (corresponding to the French ‘lai’) bears the simultaneous meanings of ‘music’, ‘dance’, ‘singing’ and ‘sacrifice’. The Wartburg Tournament, which dates back to 1207, marked a parallel development of poetry and melody which Wagner glorified in Tannhäuser. The very same phenomenon would be encountered in popular ballads and songs. Heinrich Heine734 writes:

  One would have to have lived in Germany to comprehend the popularity of poetry through that of singing, as well as the intimate alliance which unites the two.

  Experiencing a brief deceleration in the 18th century as a result of the spreading Aufklärung and the simultaneous dominance of the analytical way of thinking, this march towards the fusion of artforms would once again triumph during the Romantic period with Hölderlin, Eichendorff and Novalis.735

  Ever identical yet constantly renewed, Wagnerian discourse is structured around a certain number of ‘guiding images’ or Leitbilder: the affirmation of Becoming (in contrast with Being), a foreboding of a ‘rupture’ in historical time (Zeit-Umbruch), a withdrawal into a mythical past associated with an impetus towards the future, a prescience of the necessary connection between the people and the ‘genius’, nostalgic desire (Sehnsucht), and others.

  What corresponds to these different images are Leitmotivs (i.e. ‘guiding motifs’), which act as the former’s musical transpositions, with the overture already offering us a certain prefiguration. Thanks to them, the ‘idea’ can be felt not only as an impression of the present, but also as a ‘memory’ (Erinnerung’) and a ‘premonition’ (Ahnung).

  There is a number of key-figures that return on a regular basis: the god-father; the master-sovereign of the world (Wotan); the hero, symbolising the warring function (Parsifal, Tannhäuser, Siegfried); choirs (Tannhäuser’s knight-singers, the Master-Singers and their craft, the knightly brotherhood of Parsifal, the Valkyries of the Tetralogy); and so on.

  As for the themes, they undoubtedly lie beyond good and evil: the theme of inner tragedy (whose outer conflicts are but the reflections), the theme of superhuman desire, the theme of the popular genius, the theme of nightly truth and the power of destiny, the theme of contradictory loyalties, and the theme of the beginning and end of a time that is to undergo an eternal return.

  The Wagnerian myth thus attains a power of extraordinary immensity, a power so great that it would lead Nietzsche to harbour a secret jealousy of it and reproach Wagner for having only given rise to ‘superhuman feelings’ so as to channel them towards the realm of the imaginary, while preventing the specific realisation of an idea that was henceforth to remain restricted to the fictions of the stage.

  A Secret Etched in Stone

  It is, however, also because of the essentially ‘mythical’ aspect of Wagner’s work that the Bayreuth Festspielhaus has managed to become a sanctuary.

  This stately building stands tall alongside a wood, on the ‘green prairie’ (die grüne Wiese) so often evoked by Wagner. At its foot lies a shaded park. The Master’s bust is displayed there, in white marble sculpted by Arno Breker (a second bust created by Breker and depicting Franz Liszt was inaugurated in 1976). A flag can be seen fluttering outside, bearing a red ‘W’. On the balcony of the main building, a marching band performs, three times before the start of each act, a Leitmotiv indicating the resumption of the performance.

  Wagner laid its very first stone on 22nd May, 1872, on the day of his fifty-ninth birthday. Enclosed within the stone is a metallic cylinder containing a roll of parchment inscribed with the following words:

  Herein have I enclosed a secret — may it rest for many centuries to come. As long as it remains protected by stone, it shall reveal itself to the world.

  Owing to a lack of funds, the construction process was a long and difficult one and was only completed in 1874 thanks to the aid provided by Ludwig II, the young king of Bavaria, one of the most surprising figures of the Romantic saga and a sovereign who had been supporting the construction financially since 1864.

  During that same period, Wagner had the ‘Wahnfried’ villa constructed, moving into it a little more than a century ago, on 28th April, 1874. The importance he attached to it was as great as in the case of the theatre itself. It is a two-storey house built in Renaissance style and surrounded by a vast garden. A fresco depicting Wotan surrounded by his two ravens can be seen on the pediment.

  The very first performance of the Tetralogy took place on 13th August, 1876 (on the same day, Wagner wrote: ‘My final wish is for you, my dear friends, to remain faithful to me!’). So as to honour the Master’s directives, the stage director, Carl Brandt, had unfolded several treasures of the human imagination. Lying across boards that had been positioned at the end of five-metre flexible poles, the daughters of the Rhine could be seen soaring into the air with the help of ‘floating chariots’ that transported them from one side of the stage to the other. Likewise, Valkyries were depicted on galloping horses and projected onto a given background using a magical lantern. What resulted was a triumph; and a financial deficit of 148,000 marks. Indeed, the festival has remained ever since under the twofold sign of success… and the gold’s curse.736 Today still, it only succeeds in balancing budget thanks to a thirty percent subvention rate.

  The Circle of Bayreuth and Its Influence

  Wagner passes away in Venice on 13th February, 1883. A few months earlier, with Parsifal being performed at the Festspielhaus, he had surreptitiously entered the orchestral pit so as to conduct the end of the drama. The last text we would ever write is entitled On the Feminine in Humanity. Its closing words? ‘Tragic love’.

  Wagner is interred in the proximity of ‘Wahnfried’, in a tomb that is now covered with leaves and ivy.

  Following his passing, it is his wife, Cosima (1837–1930), who first takes charge of directing the festival, before being replaced by their son, Siegfried (1869–1930), in the aftermath of World War I. In the process, both of them exhibit exemplary faithfulness to his work.

  It is also during this period that Wagnerian cenacles attain their greatest importance. Attracting a crowd of writers and artists during the 19th century, the ‘Circle of Bayreuth’ (Bayreuther Kreis) plays a considerable role in the intellectual and political existence of a German nation that had, at long last, achieved its own unity. What it contributes to, in particular, is the rise of nationalist thought, which reaches all the layers of the German population.

  In an award-winning university thesis published at the University of Münster in 1971, Mr Winfried Schüler describes the history of the Circle from its origins to the end of the Wilhelmine Era, i.e. at a time when its ramifications reached all the way into France, Italy, England and Scandinavia.

  In Bayreuth, the Circle’s organ is embodied by the Bayreuther Blätter, whose first issue is published in 1878. Its founder, Hans (Paul) von Wolzogen (1848–1938), who authored Von deutscher Kunst (1906) and Germanisierung der Religion (1911), would take charge of its management until his own death. Considered one of the fathers of the ‘German
modern cabaret’, his brother, Ernst von Wolzogen (1855–1934), also penned poems and novels of nationalistic inspiration.

  The principal ideologists of ‘Wagnerism’ were, back then, Heinrich von Stein; Carl Friedrich Glasenapp, to whom we owe a significant biography of Wagner; Ludwig Schemann, who, in 1894, established the Gobineau-Vereinigung and, in 1906, the Gobineau Museum at the University of Strasburg; and, most of all, H. S. Chamberlain.

  Born in 1855 in the vicinity of Portsmouth, England, Houston Stewart Chamberlain had already published an essay on Wagner (The Wagnerian Drama, 1892), an essay which was translated into French two years later. It was followed, in 1895, by a text entitled Richard Wagner, which would be repeatedly reedited. Chamberlain had also engaged in a long correspondence with Cosima Wagner from 1888 to 1901. His fame was, however, mainly the result of his Grundlagen des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, a translation of which was released by Payot editions in 1913 under the approximative title of La genèse du XIXème siècle.737

  In 1908, he marries Eva Wagner, the daughter of Richard and Cosima. During that same year, he settles in Bayreuth, where he obtains German citizenship. He would subsequently publish numerous philosophical and political essays, before passing away in 1927.

  Introduced by Alfred Rosenberg in the summer of 1923, Adolf Hitler travels to Bayreuth for the first time, where he is received by Siegfried Wagner and his wife, Winifred. All of this takes place a few weeks prior to the Feldherrnhalle738 putsch. Having become the Chancellor of Germany, the Reich leader would return to ‘Wahnfried’ on more than one occasion.

  With the passing of Siegfried Wagner in 1930, it was to his thirty-three-year-old widow, Winifred, that the formidable task of ensuring the staging of the Bayreuth performances fell during the 1930s. The general consensus is that she conducted herself quite brilliantly and fostered the objective and scientific study of Wagner’s work.