Synopses & Reviews
Richard Wagner continues to be the most controversial artist in history, a perpetually troubling figure in our cultural consciousness. The unceasing debate over his works and their impact--for and against--is one reason why there has been no genuinely comprehensive modern account of his musical dramas until now. Dieter Borchmeyer's book is the first to present an overall picture of these musical dramas from the standpoint of literary and theatrical history. It extends from the composer's early works--still largely ignored--to the Ring Cycle and Parsifal, and includes Wagner's unfinished works and operas he never set to music. Through lively prose, we come to see Wagner as a librettist--and as a man of letters--rather than primarily as musical composer.
Borchmeyer uncovers a vast field of cultural and historical cross-references in Wagner's works. In the first part of the book, he sets out in search of the various archetypal scenes, opening up the composer's dramatic workshop to the reader. He covers all of Wagner's operas, from early juvenilia to the canonical later works.
The second part examines Wagner in relation to political figures including King Ludwig II and Bismarck, and, importantly, in light of critical reactions by literary giants--Thomas Mann, whom Borchmeyer calls "a guiding light in this exploration of the fields that Wagner tilled," and Nietzsche, whose appeal to "philology" is a key source of inspiration in attempts to grapple with Wagner's works.
For more than twenty years, Borchmeyer has placed his scholarship at the service of the famed Bayreuth Festival. With this volume, he gives us a summation of decades of engagement with the phenomenon of Wagner and, at the same time, the result of an abiding critical passion for his works.
Review
"Borchmeyer . . . Program annotator for the Bayreuth Festival where Wagner's music dramas are famously showcased each year, considers the whole range of those works--characters, themes, literary sources, political and ideological contexts--in a straightforward yet exhaustively researched and well documented manner."--Symphony
Review
"Dieter Borchmeyer provides unique insights into the Wagnerian outlook and purpose, insights not likely encountered elsewhere."--Clifford D. Alper, Opera Journal
Review
"Borchmeyer . . . program annotator for the Bayreuth Festival where Wagner's music dramas are famously showcased each year, considers the whole range of those works--characters, themes, literary sources, political and ideological contexts--in a straightforward yet exhaustively researched and well documented manner. Symphony
Review
Dieter Borchmeyer provides unique insights into the Wagnerian outlook and purpose, insights not likely encountered elsewhere. Clifford D. Alper
Synopsis
Richard Wagner continues to be the most controversial artist in history, a perpetually troubling figure in our cultural consciousness. The unceasing debate over his works and their impact--for and against--is one reason why there has been no genuinely comprehensive modern account of his musical dramas until now. Dieter Borchmeyer's book is the first to present an overall picture of these musical dramas from the standpoint of literary and theatrical history. It extends from the composer's early works--still largely ignored--to the
Ring Cycle and Parsifal, and includes Wagner's unfinished works and operas he never set to music. Through lively prose, we come to see Wagner as a librettist--and as a man of letters--rather than primarily as musical composer.
Borchmeyer uncovers a vast field of cultural and historical cross-references in Wagner's works. In the first part of the book, he sets out in search of the various archetypal scenes, opening up the composer's dramatic workshop to the reader. He covers all of Wagner's operas, from early juvenilia to the canonical later works.
The second part examines Wagner in relation to political figures including King Ludwig II and Bismarck, and, importantly, in light of critical reactions by literary giants--Thomas Mann, whom Borchmeyer calls "a guiding light in this exploration of the fields that Wagner tilled," and Nietzsche, whose appeal to "philology" is a key source of inspiration in attempts to grapple with Wagner's works.
For more than twenty years, Borchmeyer has placed his scholarship at the service of the famed Bayreuth Festival. With this volume, he gives us a summation of decades of engagement with the phenomenon of Wagner and, at the same time, the result of an abiding critical passion for his works.
Synopsis
"In his well-organized and eminently readable new book, Dieter Borchmeyer investigates in detail the intrinsic forces, as well as the various intertextual references, influences, and connections, of Wagner's libretti, in the course of which he succeeds impressively in developing the literary, historical, and cultural context of the time in which Wagner the librettist and composer worked. Borchmeyer writes without jargon in a comprehensible, clear, and lively style."
--Walter Hinderer, Princeton University"This book presents a good deal of entirely new material on Wagner's earliest operas and unrealized opera projects (some of these surprisingly little represented in the vast Wagner literature). Written in a straightforward, nontechnical style free of professional jargon, it provides individual chapters covering the entire Wagner canon, as well as the noncanonic early works, all related here in interesting ways to the composer's literary and intellectual environment."--Thomas S. Grey, Stanford University
"A literary scholar of considerable accomplishment, Borchmeyer . . . offers English readers the chance to share in his erudition on Wagner and his place in German culture of the past century and a half."--Choice
Synopsis
"In his well-organized and eminently readable new book, Dieter Borchmeyer investigates in detail the intrinsic forces, as well as the various intertextual references, influences, and connections, of Wagner's libretti, in the course of which he succeeds impressively in developing the literary, historical, and cultural context of the time in which Wagner the librettist and composer worked. Borchmeyer writes without jargon in a comprehensible, clear, and lively style."--Walter Hinderer, Princeton University
"This book presents a good deal of entirely new material on Wagner's earliest operas and unrealized opera projects (some of these surprisingly little represented in the vast Wagner literature). Written in a straightforward, nontechnical style free of professional jargon, it provides individual chapters covering the entire Wagner canon, as well as the noncanonic early works, all related here in interesting ways to the composer's literary and intellectual environment."--Thomas S. Grey, Stanford University
"A literary scholar of considerable accomplishment, Borchmeyer . . . offers English readers the chance to share in his erudition on Wagner and his place in German culture of the past century and a half."--Choice
Synopsis
Richard Wagner continues to be the most controversial artist in history, a perpetually troubling figure in our cultural consciousness. The unceasing debate over his works and their impact--for and against--is one reason why there has been no genuinely comprehensive modern account of his musical dramas until now. Dieter Borchmeyer's book is the first to present an overall picture of these musical dramas from the standpoint of literary and theatrical history. It extends from the composer's early works--still largely ignored--to the
Ring Cycle and Parsifal, and includes Wagner's unfinished works and operas he never set to music. Through lively prose, we come to see Wagner as a librettist--and as a man of letters--rather than primarily as musical composer.
Borchmeyer uncovers a vast field of cultural and historical cross-references in Wagner's works. In the first part of the book, he sets out in search of the various archetypal scenes, opening up the composer's dramatic workshop to the reader. He covers all of Wagner's operas, from early juvenilia to the canonical later works.
The second part examines Wagner in relation to political figures including King Ludwig II and Bismarck, and, importantly, in light of critical reactions by literary giants--Thomas Mann, whom Borchmeyer calls "a guiding light in this exploration of the fields that Wagner tilled," and Nietzsche, whose appeal to "philology" is a key source of inspiration in attempts to grapple with Wagner's works.
For more than twenty years, Borchmeyer has placed his scholarship at the service of the famed Bayreuth Festival. With this volume, he gives us a summation of decades of engagement with the phenomenon of Wagner and, at the same time, the result of an abiding critical passion for his works.
Synopsis
"In his well-organized and eminently readable new book, Dieter Borchmeyer investigates in detail the intrinsic forces, as well as the various intertextual references, influences, and connections, of Wagner's libretti, in the course of which he succeeds impressively in developing the literary, historical, and cultural context of the time in which Wagner the librettist and composer worked. Borchmeyer writes without jargon in a comprehensible, clear, and lively style."--Walter Hinderer, Princeton University
"This book presents a good deal of entirely new material on Wagner's earliest operas and unrealized opera projects (some of these surprisingly little represented in the vast Wagner literature). Written in a straightforward, nontechnical style free of professional jargon, it provides individual chapters covering the entire Wagner canon, as well as the noncanonic early works, all related here in interesting ways to the composer's literary and intellectual environment."--Thomas S. Grey, Stanford University
"A literary scholar of considerable accomplishment, Borchmeyer . . . offers English readers the chance to share in his erudition on Wagner and his place in German culture of the past century and a half."--Choice
Table of Contents
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER ONE: Love's Madness, Fairy-Tale Enchantment, and a Sicilian Carnival: Die Hochzeit, Die Feen, and Das Liebesverbot 1
CHAPTER TWO: On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for the Music Drama-Grand Opera: Die hohe Braut, Rienzi, and Their Consequences 29
CHAPTER THREE: The Transformations of Ahasuerus: The Flying Dutchman and His Metamorphoses 79
CHAPTER FOUR: Venus in Exile: Tannhüuser between Romanticism and Young Germany 101
CHAPTER FIVE: Lohengrin: The Mythical Palimpsest of Wagner's Last Romantic Opera 147
CHAPTER SIX: Love and Objectification in the Music Drama: Tristan's Isolde and Her Sisters 157
CHAPTER SEVEN: Nuremberg as an Aesthetic State: Die Meistersinger, an Image and Counterimage of History 180
CHAPTER EIGHT: The Myth of the Beginning and End of History: Der Ring des Nibelungen 212
CHAPTER NINE: Redemption and Apocatastasis: Parsifal and the Religion of the Late Wagner 238
CHAPTER TEN: An Encounter between Two Anomalies: King Ludwig II and Wagner 261
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Wagner and Bismarck: An Epoch-Making Nonrelationship 279
CHAPTER TWELVE: Two-Faced Passion: Nietzsche's Critique of Wagner 288
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Parallel Action: Thomas Mann's Response to Wagner 308
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Disinherited Heir to the Throne: Franz Wilhelm Beidler, Wagner's "Lost Grandson"-a Postlude 329
NOTES 338
INDEX 383