# Is Wagner stuck in a rut?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Alex Ross says, "It would be good to report that the anniversary year has yielded a raft of fresh insights. Alas, outside of scholarly precincts, discussion of Wagner is stuck in a Nazi rut." Has Alex been hanging out around here?

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2013/08/26/130826crmu_music_ross?currentPage=all


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I would say that what he's stuck in is more of a grave than a rut...


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

He means interpretation of Wagner is stuck in a rut maybe. 

For my part I wish Wagner interpretation could be in more of a rut. All these new ways of staging, with steampunk sets or film noir sets or whatever, deprive the casual explorer of a more traditional Ring. Tradition is what I wanted when I took a week to watch the whole thing a few years back, but what I got was a slow progression from a far off mythical time to a setting sometime around WW2. Why would anyone want such a thing? I expect fat ladies in horned helmets!


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Not again!! .


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

For conversations about Wagner:

"Don't mention the Nazis! I mentioned them once but I think I got away with it."


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Burroughs said:


> Not again!! .


There is no escape! Nyah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Of course we could chat about atonal music instead. :devil:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

rrudolph said:


> I would say that what he's stuck in is more of a grave than a rut...
> 
> View attachment 23140


thank you for picture. RIP


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

rrudolph said:


> I would say that what he's stuck in is more of a grave than a rut...
> 
> View attachment 23140


The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I think that it proves that in Wagner all has been said, unless some new material is unearthed. This is why directors have to go to in order lengths to restage the operas in the desperate hope of saying something new. They missed the point of what opera is primarily about, and that is entertainment. That is not to say there are not political themes et al as well but they are subsidiary. Why I find these new takes so often depressing because they say more about the director than the composer.


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## ericdxx (Jul 7, 2013)

I would love to hear a real scholar do a percentage breakdown of Wagner's Music. What percentage stem out of italian opera? What percentage stem out of German folk, what percentage come out of german and austrian Baroque?

OT 
that great theme in Sigfrieds funeral march...the theme that Hans Zimmer used as the main theme for Crimson Tide ....(being a Wagner novice)...did Wagner ever expand on that theme?


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Wagner isn't stuck in his grave . The insanely ridiculous productions of his works at Bayreuth and elsewhere in Europe are making him shoot out of his grave like a rocket .


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## Guest (Aug 20, 2013)

DavidA said:


> They missed the point of what opera is primarily about, and that is entertainment.


The 'point' of opera is debatable, of course. So is what 'entertainment' is. You may not find outlandish, politicised interpretations 'entertaining, but I'm sure others do.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> There is no escape! Nyah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
> 
> Of course we could chat about atonal music instead. :devil:


Why can't we ever get a good old-fashioned brawl over HIPPI? I miss those, a little.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Wagner will be stuck in the Nazi rut until the WWII generation has gone the way of all flesh and probably most of their children as well. It is just such an easy and emotional connection to make. When one says Nazi, all debate is ended and anyone remotely or tangentially connected is condemned as thoroughly as Hitler himself.


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## Orpheus (Jul 15, 2012)

The audience are getting bored with chattering about music? Sounds like a good thing to me, some of them might start paying attention again to those strange, largely unfamilar sounds that have been emanating from the pit and stage during their Important Conversation. 

Who knows, if they all become weary enough at once of hearing the same voices bleating on about the same things over and over, they might all be able to shut up sufficiently to hear enough of the music to decide how they feel about it for themselves, rather than having to filter the experience through their neighbours' droning attempts at commentary and interpretation.

Incidentally, I liked this line.

"Or is it easier to smite yesterday’s villains than to confront today’s?"

I sincerely hope, for his own good, that it was intended to be rhetorical.


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## Guest (Aug 20, 2013)

There's lots of opportunity for new perspectives on Wagner. Have you ever heard the Ring cycle played backwards? Or underwater? Don't knock it until you've tried it.

Sixteen hours in a bathtub with your ears underwater may be more enjoyable than recent Bayreuth performances anyway. :devil:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> The 'point' of opera is debatable, of course. So is what 'entertainment' is. You may not find outlandish, politicised interpretations 'entertaining, but I'm sure others do.


The main point of opera is entertainment. Let's face it, it presents us with the greatest challenge to suspend our powers of disbelief. We have people doing the most unnatural thing possible - singing at great length instead of talking.


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

Looks like Wagner and atonal music are to Talk Classical like religion and politics are to bar tables.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> The main point of opera is entertainment. Let's face it, it presents us with the greatest challenge to suspend our powers of disbelief. We have people doing the most unnatural thing possible - singing at great length instead of talking.


Well worth reading this 19th-century quote from Runciman:

"All art forms are conventions, and all conventions appear ridiculous when they are superseded by new ones. The old Italian opera form is laughed at today as an absurdity by Wagnerians, who see nothing absurd in a many-legged monster with a donkey's head uttering deep bass curses through a speaking-trumpet; and perhaps tomorrow the Wagnerian music-drama and the many-legged monsters will be laughed at by the apostles of a new and equally absurd convention. It is absolutely the first condition of the existence of an art that one shall be prepared to tolerate things ludicrously unlike anything to be found in real life; and when (for instance) you have swallowed the camel of allowing the heroes and heroines to sing their woes at all, it is a little foolish to strain at the gnat of permitting them to sing in this rather than in that way, when both ways are alike preposterous."


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

superhorn said:


> Wagner isn't stuck in his grave . The insanely ridiculous productions of his works at Bayreuth and elsewhere in Europe are making him shoot out of his grave like a rocket .


Salt might work to prevent that from happening. Sorry. Never could see what the big deal was about Wagner.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

UGH lwekrjweoi thweot ij TOO MANY people insist that Wagner was a Nazi (despite the fact the party was not even AROUND in his life). So yeah Wagner is stuck in a Nazi rut.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

The last two productions I saw in London were Tristan and Parsifal and while both were excellent on the musical side the productions were visually very disappointing. Especially Parsifal where the director thought it necessary to include visual references to concentration camps. Worse than that they made Klingsor's garden all grey and bleak when it is supposed to be a lush and beautiful paradise.
I'm not against updating the settings and locations of old plays and Operas, sometimes it can work very well and serves to demonstrate the universality of the work. Wagner above all is about what goes on inside and quite frankly Tristan might as well be performed in concert version for all the 'action' it has.
However, a little restraint could be shown on the part of directors who are sometimes over keen to 'give it a new twist'.
Wagner knew what he was doing as far as music and words and no one is going to tamper with them but he also had some pretty strong ideas about staging and design so why ignore his ideas on those? That is unless you're going to improve upon them.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Cosmos said:


> UGH lwekrjweoi thweot ij TOO MANY people insist that Wagner was a Nazi (despite the fact the party was not even AROUND in his life). So yeah Wagner is stuck in a Nazi rut.


You need to think historically. Wagner was not a Nazi but many of his expressed obnoxious views on race were echoed (and acted out) by the Nazis. That is why people identify him with the Nazis.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Wagner's music will continued to be performed and recorded centuries after Nazism (along with all great art for that matter).


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Rapide said:


> Wagner's music will continued to be performed and recorded centuries after Nazism (along with all great art for that matter).


Wagner himself said once that his artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. So, as long as we have a land and nation called Germany on the map, we can expect to hear Wagner too. After that... who knows, so let us hope we will have it with us for a while longer


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

BPS said:


> Sixteen hours in a bathtub with your ears underwater may be more enjoyable than recent Bayreuth performances anyway. :devil:


(Hopefully the company's better, anyway.)

... runs, ducks, hides...


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