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Wagner (Wagner, Siegfried - Composer)
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Wagner (Wagner, Siegfried - Composer) also shows up in the Retriever categories:
Wagner (Northeast Conference) , and more.
Wagner (Northeast Conference) , and more.
Wagner, who knew state suppression at first hand, believed that unlimited, all controlling power was a kind of theft. "The necessity of free self-determination of the individual, which is common to all organs of society, amounts to the destruction of the state". Those who hold the Ring come under its thrall, and are destroyed. Wotan’s frustration is played out in his music as demonstrated through quotes from the score, libretto and stage directions. Thus Valhalla, as the material symbol of the gods’ power, is "fantastical, parasitical reflection of social, political and economic reality". As Berry wryly demonstrates, "Wotan’s Burg is not fest", despite the sonority with which it is depicted.
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Wagner’s ideas were first adopted by the Symbolist movement in France in the 1880s. The Symbolists called for “detheatricalizing” the theatre, meaning stripping away all the technological and scenic encumbrances of the 19th century and replacing them with a spirituality that was to come from the text and the acting. The texts were laden with symbolic imagery not easily construed—rather they were suggestive. The general mood of the plays was slow and dream-like. The intention was to evoke an unconscious response rather than an intellectual one and to depict the non-rational aspects of characters and events. The Symbolist plays of Maurice Maeterlinck of Belgium and Paul Claudel of France, popular in the 1890s and early 20th century, are seldom performed today.
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With Wagner amorous excitement assumes the form of mad delirium. The lovers in his pieces behave like tom-cats gone mad, rolling in contortions and convulsions over a root of valerian. They reflect a state of mind in the poet which is well known to the professional expert. It is a form of Sadism. It is the love of those degenerates who, in sexual transport, become like wild [182] beasts. (09) Wagner suffered from 'erotic madness,' which leads coarse natures to murder for lust, and inspires 'higher degenerates' with works like Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Tristan und Isolde.
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At that time, but ... centuries later with Wagner, the Gesamtkunstwerk was subject to strict rules and, so to speak, characterized by stringent goal-orientation. The goal was always to express a certain content, to tell a certain predefined story, either to legitimate and glorify the regency of a potentate or to construct other, seemingly more depersonalised, but no less outdated mythological world views. This, of course, has changed considerably since then. It is only possible to still speak of a Gesamtkunstwerk today because the arts themselves have defied their boundaries and freed themselves from all strict rules - and this had consequences for the term, in the course of which its definition experienced a decisive modification.
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Wagner reproaches the modern public at large with æsthetic degeneracy. They seem incapable of grasping the unity of a work of art which requires concentration and dote on the plurality of details which insures distraction. And as if the scenic and orchestral details were not sufficient, the audience itself and the dress-circle must furnish additional materials for the play-goer's distraction. He wants the pleasure of distraction, not the labor of concentration. Wagner knows this foible of the modern Mæcenas. He endeavors, in fact, to intellectualize him by darkening the theatre and forcing him to concentrate his attention on the strongly illuminated stage.
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True, not everyone buys Domingo in Wagner. His voice has always had an inescapably Spanish intensity, absolutely suited to the monomaniacal dramatic tenor roles in Verdi and Puccini. Some of his earlier excursions into Wagner suffered from somewhat peculiar pronunciation and phrasing. But Domingo started life as a baritone, and the Heldentenor of Wagner is precisely that, a baritone with extra notes on top, whose effortful production (Domingo has always had to reach for the top notes) is inextricably part of the required sound.
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Wagner (Wagner, Siegfried - Composer)