Temple of the Scapegoat

by Alexander Kluge

  — That’s what I assume.

  — But he doesn’t belong in the twentieth century.

  — A timeless genius is used to picking up everything musically valuable. Do you hear that? That’s brass group 4 with a kettledrum and three cellos from the right-hand side of the orchestra. It sounds very like Giacomo Meyerbeer, La Juive, Act V, scene I. Wagner has it from there, and here it returns to the right space: back to Meyerbeer. Music cannot be expropriated.

  — It sounds “interesting.”

  — “Captivating.” That’s the right word.

  — It’s dark here.

  — Yes, a series of near hits has destroyed the electric cable. Some of the flashlights are lying on the floor. Look, infantrymen running up the cellar stairs to repair the electrical connections. You can see something with the help of the pocket lamps, which are now being attached to the music stands again. And there, candlelight, a candelabra with twelve candles as general light. Useless for reading notes at the individual stands, but comforting for the room as a whole. There’s the conductor coming in. He whispers instructions to the first violin and to the two singers. He’s carrying a basket with twelve new flashlights and provisions.

  — The other cellars know nothing about the temporary loss of this group of musicians?

  — They do. They’re told by radio. On the left there you see an army radio operator. There are also female prompters distributed between the cellars. This one here has a Hungarian accent and has been borrowed from the operetta.

  — Would it not have been a better idea to play Rheingold rather than Götterdämmerung? It would have been a hopeful beginning. Better propaganda than a drama of doom.

  — The people in Vienna were no longer prone to exaggeration and couldn’t lie any more either. The people who organized this were desperate and full of grief.

  — An unconscious work of art with a claim to truth?

  — To the extent that every intention came to nothing, and that something else was produced that no single person wanted. No one ever imagined that air-raid shelters could become art workshops.

  — Difficult to believe.

  — A find. The main achievement consisted in making this find in the cellars of the museum in Sochi.

  — Do you think there are many more such finds to be made in the world?

  — Many. You have to assume, that for six thousand years now, something is always lying hidden somewhere or has been lost.

  In the Last Year of His Life

  In the last year of his life, Christoph Schlingensief — who was being bombarded with offers and whom the director of the Bavarian State Opera had asked to direct Tristan as his next-but-one project — began planning a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. He was only prepared to take on staging the work if he was allowed to perform the sequence of its operas in reverse: beginning with the GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, then SIEGFRIED, then the VALKYRIE and finally the RHEINGOLD. At the end, however (since the RHEINGOLD is short), “dreamlike” renditions of the TODESVERKÜNDIGUNG from the VALKYRIE and SIEGFRIED’S DEATH from the GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG would be repeated concertante. And really SIEGFRIED’S DEATH should be heard first, and only then the TODESVERKÜNDIGUNG. The ending should be composed of a moment of great anticipation and complete openness of action. He was convinced that this sequence — in sensory terms, utterly satisfying — would become the established one for Wagner’s Ring. The waves of the Rhine, which overflow their banks in the third act of the GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, and the scene of Valhalla in flames should visually transform themselves into the star masses of a galaxy, so that it becomes clear that Wagner is not only describing the drama of a race of gods and their great fall from power, but that this work is also about the history of time on earth, namely 4.5 billion years, which moves backward as well as forward, and which is not an arrow but a circle, and which, like the serpent, inhabits Mount Kailash. Wagner was definitely a Buddhist, and merely concealed this in a private religion decked out with the trappings of Christianity. Schlingensief was in a hurry. He sensed that his body was in revolt. He was counting his days.

  Napoleon and Love

  Rossini composed two operas (at once) for the 1820 season: The Return of Odysseus and The Italian Girl in Minsk. The count sat in one of the boxes of the Opera, accompanied by his pretty daughter, whom an impartial observer could have taken for his lover; in another box, without greeting the count, sat Marie and her second husband (the first marriage had been dissolved). She had not, like the wife of Ulysses, waited twenty years for a husband believed dead, nor had she bravely defended his property against the suitors. The count had not shot the stranger, who had besieged and conquered his wife: a world of irresolutions. All watched their own fate, which filled the stage, inimitable and confirming the muteness of their private feelings. Marie remained paralyzed. Only Sophie wept bitterly, because she believed she had to express the emotion of her beloved father.

  Resolution: It has occurred en masse ever since Napoleon’s consulship. It requires hysteria to drag it away from the muteness of mere forces. Where are there opportunities to free oneself by a swift decision? WHAT IS AN 18th BRUMAIRE OF THE EMOTIONS? WHAT IS A BONAPARTIST OF LOVE?

  In France the century is such that in the years up to 1812 all energies of resolution have been used up, an “entrepreneurial,” “occupatory” (proprietorially expansive) decade. It is succeeded by a further swamp of irresolutions (Ancien régime) and of “ostensible decisions” (Second Empire): attentism.

  Love, Recognizable for Having the Beloved’s Interests at Heart

  In the presence of Emma Saskissjan, who sang Carmen, the award-winning conductor Dimitri Kitayenko replied to questions submitted by the Western European correspondent:

  Our “Carmen Interpretation” is the fruit of a close creative cooperation with the director F. The work’s musical and dramatic form was explored not just with his support, but with the support of the entire collective. In a manner of speaking, we fell back on the groundwork performed by numerous artistic collectives that have grappled with Carmen’s form in the past, etc.

  According to the director, it is an emotional odyssey, a switching of love objects. Micaela loves José, José loves Carmen, Carmen loves Escamillo, Escamillo loves no one but himself. This sequence would logically lead to a “fatal” series of events, i.e., the deaths of the protagonists.

  Why Escamillo’s death? Or Micaela’s?

  — Escamillo is killed by the bull, Micaela ends up in her village as a kind of zombie.

  — But now the collective of the Moscow Stanislawsky-Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater has developed a counterconcept?

  — That’s right. And the director F. picked up on this concept and implemented it with our collective assistance.

  — And the premise is?

  — The premise is that Escamillo loves Carmen. Trying to impress her, he is killed in the bullfight. Meanwhile, as we know, Carmen does not love José (at least in the end). But José doesn’t love Carmen either. Micaela, left over from a previous village marital project, doesn’t love Don José. None of this provides any grounds for dramatic developments. It’s possible for the three to reach an agreement.

  — And that’s a better version?

  — We worked it out that way.

  — Meaning that you act out all the characters’ various errors, poker-faced?

  — That’s the message of the opera. It’s about those sorts of delusions. The characters in the opera act like amateurs as far as the ideal of love is concerned. They don’t understand a thing about it.

  — Or they aren’t in love.

  — That’s probably it. Otherwise they’d consider the interests of the beloved.

  — Isn’t that what Micaela does the whole time?

  — Yes, but so amateurishly. If she were in love, she’d find ways and means. Human beings are capable of learning.

  �
� Is that the opera’s message?

  — In our interpretation.

  — Isn’t the plot a bit over-elaborate for that?

  — That’s our view. Each of these errors could be cleared up quickly.

  — The opera would end up being shorter?

  — Yes. Then more contemporary pieces could be included in the repertoire.

  The Great Welaschka

  Of lowly rank —

  highly gifted.

  The soprano Hanni Welaschka was far better known, more disciplined and thus more diligent than her long-time lover David F.; she even seemed more persevering and inspired in her pleasures, in applying art and pride to her style, life, etc.

  All the same, she was unable to improve on her initial standing; indeed, her position with respect to David, already severely diminished in the first moments of infatuation, slipped several notches. She stood no chance of competing with David’s longstanding friend and colleague. She always saw the two friends’ broad backs in front of her. They went on ahead, and she, the star, was expected to follow.

  Seeing this convoy, the journalists in the ballroom regarded her, the celebrity, as a kind of lamp meant to illuminate the two friends’ backs. Yes, people would say, that’s the long-time lover of the famous Welaschka, and next to him is his colleague and friend. They said nothing about her, because it seemed to go without saying that she was Welaschka. But it didn’t go without saying; she had to earn it all over again every day.

  The two men’s friendship, which Welaschka reinforced when she pleasured one of them at night in the starlight, made her remain a sort of thing: a public thing while she worked, and a private thing while she facilitated pleasure, whatever that meant for her as a genuine life-thing.

  Moment of Decision

  “Give Father your consent, and tomorrow he shall be your husband . . .” But of her, the matchmaking father says: “Believe me, she’s as true as she is beautiful . . .” The woman has been sold, indeed recognized, which is more than mere acquisition. Does Wagner have a sense of humor?

  — Would you jump in after me to save me?

  — Jump where?

  — Into the cold water of a harbor on a Nordic fjord?

  — To save you?

  — Yes.

  — Is that the only option?

  — Tell me honestly. It’ll mean nothing for our relationship otherwise.

  — I’d jump in after you.

  — You’re lying!

  She realized that he tended to lie when he saw no other way to make her be quiet. They walked a few steps farther.

  — You don’t have to jump, I’m just asking. After all, I’m not the Flying Dutchman, she says, but what if I were?

  — Then I’d jump in after you to save you.

  — I don’t believe you.

  — After all, replied Emil Mölders, you aren’t the Flying Dutchman.

  His fiancée, accompanying him out of the opera house into the Munich night, was, being a woman, certainly not the Flying Dutchman, who, misinterpreting from afar the conversation between the hunter and Senta, believes his betrothed to be unfaithful and plunges into the harbor. Senta plunges after him. Both rise up into the heavens.

  The story, which moved me, said Hilde, holds no joyful prospects whatsoever. How could I rise up with you for redemptive reasons from the filthy Munkmarsch harbor water, to take an example we’re both familiar with, where we can’t even drown at low tide because it’s too shallow, how could we rise up toward the solid land of heaven, when we both know that what’s up there is the stratosphere, then the Van Allen Belt and the empty air of outer space, with no dwelling place whatsoever?

  — You can’t say AIR OF OUTER SPACE, Emil replied.

  Why do I get agitated, persisted Hilde, when faced with grand, absurd emotions, though I stay cool when the questions are realistic, for instance whether I should buy salami to redeem you from your evening hunger? Does that mean there’s no time and place for grand emotions?

  Clearly that’s what art is trying to tell us, replied Emil, who wanted to drop in for a nightcap at Leopold. He needed to get a taxi, but the argument was getting in the way. Just a moment! said Hilde. You can’t fob me off like that. Inwardly she lingered over the image of Senta standing motionless, her gaze fixed on the apparition of the ghostly man stepping through the door of the merchant’s house, but now the engaged couple had to hurry to the taxi stand to head straight for Leopold. There they’d meet people Hilde had no desire to see because they jarred with the lingering mood of the opera, the spectral sailors, and the Nordic trading depot.

  But next to them and ahead of them other operagoers were hurrying to catch taxis, and so for objective reasons the two had to move quickly to nab one for themselves. This struck Hilde as nonsensical.

  Why, she asked, must we go to the opera if we have to be in such a hurry afterward; to her the opera seemed an ideal exercise in TAKING EMOTIONAL TEMPI MORE SLOWLY. What I mean, she said, is that art wants to tell us something. Surely it doesn’t just mean that we should constantly be seeing ghosts. In this case, God’s vengeance strikes me as too long-term, if anything. The fact that this Dutchman laughed at the wrong moment some time thirty years after Christ’s birth (or around Christ’s death) needn’t condemn him to a journey lasting into the twentieth century. God is tenacious, but not persnickety. The story, Emil replied, is set in 1810, not in the twentieth century. That’s still too long, Hilde retorted. She found Emil’s response superficial. Please focus on my question, she said. I’m asking: What is art trying to tell us, considering that for several hours while watching this opera I was able to accommodate or set in motion large-scale emotions, but now I can’t. At the same time, God’s vengeance is too long. They had reached the taxi stand. There were no more taxis. What kind? asked Emil. What? said Hilde. What kind of large-scale emotions, what direction would yours take? Emil hadn’t been completely unmoved either; he was asking out of kindness. She was unable to reply.

  The conversation left her disappointed. Opening a taxi door at last, she had to decide at that moment whether to see Emil as superficial (unmindful of her, and with a hectic disregard of his own emotions too) or whether she might “have some rudimentary basis” to go on living with him. Then she jumped after him into the car.

  You can’t treat us like that, she thought. It took her several days to realize what it meant that she’d followed Emil without a word, though she’d actually wanted to talk about what art was trying to tell them. She had calculated (looking at her watch) that it took seventeen minutes for Senta and the Dutchman to come to an understanding about the first glance they exchanged. Hilde, lacking artistic training, assumed that she herself would have taken thirty minutes to correctly interpret even one of Emil’s harried looks or the movement of his hand to the taxi door. It was unfair, how little time there was for all the movements she performed each day.

  And so that evening she began to doubt whether art had anything to say to them, vacillating in her assessment only because he was so set on going to Leopold, which in turn was only because he’d promised to show up there. When they walked into Leopold, her eyes lingered on no one. For their friends it went without saying that they’d appear as promised. Have a seat, Emil, one of them said. Hilde felt like bursting into tears.

  “Taking emotional tempi more slowly.”

  The Death of Wieland Wagner

  The pounding of a jackhammer either destroys you or toughens you up

  Gertrud Wagner

  The women, Gertrud Wagner and her daughters, had been given a room in the clinic. But they all moved into the dying man’s room. They touched him, listened to his breath. Around 10 p.m. the nurse gave him an injection to ease his death struggle. The GREAT MAN’S breath rattled, he made soft noises.

  A telephone stood on the nightstand. A call from his mistress. Having finished singing a premiere in Vien
na, she was trying to reach the man she didn’t know was dying. At most she sensed danger. He can’t come to the phone, replied Gertrud, her rival. She hung up. How could he have phoned, his breath rattling in his throat? She barricaded the dying man against all disturbances.

  A doctor came and took his pulse. The man died around 1 a.m. The four women, Gertrud and her daughters, felt that just before dying his features had “lit up.” They saw dawn breaking outside. Rain was pouring down. But as the hours passed the light grew grayer, then brighter.

  Around 7 a.m., one of the children looked out the window of the death room and saw the mistress drive up in a car. She walked into the room and started screaming. The children led her out into the hall. An agreement was reached: the family would remain in the dead man’s room until 9 a.m., then vacate it for the mistress so that she could take her leave as well. In barbaric times, the dead man would have been cut apart so that each of the hostile parties would have a piece to mourn, cart away and burn. But now, under the dictatorship of civilization, of day dawning in the clinic, the enemies took shifts, and by 11 a.m. the dead man was moved onto a gurney and transported back to his hometown.

  The conflict between the widows — legitimate and illegitimate, both beloved (the dead man would have liked to be consistent, and live with both women at once) — was waged afterward in the mass media. Neither of them came out victorious; the wife was ruthlessly disinherited by her brother-in-law and the mistress was not entitled to any concrete claims. The “laughing” third party easily disinherited the wife — the media presence of the mistress, “the real wife” (Brünnhilde, so to speak), undercut the naïve spouse obsessed with sheer legitimacy (Gudrun). And so the children and the wife could claim the dying man’s final blessing (or breath), momentary possession of the corpse, control over the funeral, but nothing else. The GREAT MAN himself was disinherited and thrust into temporary oblivion by the banal routines of a mediocre third party.