lit/21917984.txt

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--- 21917984
what was his best work?
--- 21917989
pancakes
--- 21918026
>>21917984 (OP)
The meme song that is in every movie soundtrack
--- 21918031
>>21917984 (OP)
tristan und isolde
--- 21918055
>>21917984 (OP)
>kinos your way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COhLnFwGaT0 [Embed]
--- 21918057
>>21918031
this, other answers can be discarded
--- 21919223
>>21917984 (OP)
A case could be made for any of his mature works.

>>21918031
>>21918057
Parsifal goes much further harmonically and is less monolithic in content. There's really only the Tristan chord and everything that evolves out of it. Parsifal has the Grundthema out of which everything grows in the world of the Grail, but also has a completely antithetical world of Klingsor in act 2 and from which Amfortas and Kundry draw their motives.
--- 21919395
for me it's "on conducting" or "Beethoven". Wolzogen and von Stein compiled a sort of lexicon with his prose remarks on every possible topic. but it has never been translated though
> Such tracts as "Beethoven," "Concerning the Art of Conducting," "Concerning Actors and Singers," "State and Religion," silence all contradiction, and, like sacred reliquaries, impose upon all who approach them a calm, earnest, and reverential regard. Others, more particularly the earlier ones, including "Opera and Drama," excite and agitate one; their rhythm is so uneven that, as prose they are bewildering. Their dialectics is constantly interrupted, and their course is more retarded than accelerated by outbursts of feeling; a certain reluctance on the part of the writer seems to hang over them like a pall, just as though the artist were somewhat ashamed of speculative discussions. What the reader who is only imperfectly initiated will probably find most oppressive is the general tone of authoritative dignity which is peculiar to Wagner, and which is very difficult to describe: it always strikes me as though Wagner were continually addressing enemies; for the style of all these tracts more resembles that of the spoken than of the written language, hence they will seem much more intelligible if heard read aloud, in the presence of his enemies, with whom he cannot be on familiar terms, and towards whom he must therefore show some reserve and aloofness. The entrancing passion of his feelings, however, constantly pierces this intentional disguise, and then the stilted and heavy periods, swollen with accessary words, vanish, and his pen dashes off sentences, and even whole pages, which belong to the best in German prose. 
t. neetzsche
--- 21919410
>>21919395
*C.F. Glasenapp instead of Wolzogen
fixd
--- 21919423
>>21917984 (OP)
Das Rheingold.
--- 21919447
>>21919395
This is the best description of Wagner's prose I've ever read. But I don't think anyone reads Opera and Drama for the style, so much as for the unending paragraphs of theory which serve as the basis for Wagner's mature art and every later idea he would have. Adorno's critique of Wagner burrows into some of the strangest ideas in Opera and Drama.
--- 21919451
What did Wagner mean by this?

>This beauteous naked man is the kernel of all Spartanhood; from genuine delight in the beauty of the most perfect human body – that of the male – arose that spirit of comradeship which pervades and shapes the whole economy of the Spartan State. This love of man to man, in its primitive purity, proclaims itself as the noblest and least selfish utterance of man's sense of beauty, for it teaches man to sink and merge his entire self in the object of his affection. . . . The higher element of that love of man to man consisted even in this: that it excluded the motive of egoistic physicalism. Nevertheless it not only included a purely spiritual bond of friendship, but this spiritual friendship was the blossom and the crown of the physical friendship. The latter sprang directly from delight in the beauty, aye in the material bodily beauty of the beloved comrade.
Richard, Wagner, The Art-work of the Future (1849)
--- 21919458
>>21919451
>'it excluded the motive of egoistic physicalism.'
>posts a tranny
--- 21919535
>>21917984 (OP)
Parsifal, by far. It stands head and shoulders above the rest of Music, a true work of the divine. His essays are also good, I like On Poetry and Composition in particular.
--- 21919827
I've literally only been able to get into the Flying Dutchman so far. I'm trying my best because there really are brief intervals of beauty in his work but so far I lose interest after the overture is done. Thoughts?
--- 21919944
>>21919827
Start listening to excerpts with vocals and branch off to any scenes that interest you. The best work to start with is Lohengrin conducted by Kempe imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJqYzXQIT4Y [Embed]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVgPxTQ5Zio [Embed]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHvF0ROiJ8o [Embed]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nurScXyU7Js [Embed]
--- 21919967
>>21918031
My dude
--- 21920056
>>21918031
>>21918057
>>21919967
do you care to elaborate? what is so genius about it that makes it better then the ring cycle?
Tristan and Isolde doesn't even make much sense text wise and the first act is a pain in the ass
--- 21920074
>>21920056
>Tristan and Isolde doesn't even make much sense text wise and the first act is a pain in the ass
What doesn't make sense????? I think the first act would benefit a lot from good acting. Musically it's just there to introduce the motifs but dramatically it's entertaining.
--- 21920128
>>21920074
i mean there is literally nothing happening besides tristan dying for 2 acts straight. The text doesn't have a message or it fails spectacularly to convey it. it's also much harder to follow than tannhauser, the ring cycle, parsifal...

The first act offers neither good acting nor particularly good music. the second and third act are better in every way, but at the end you still don't know what wagner was trying to say with that piece (maybe he didn't know it himself)
--- 21920135
Wagners music transports me to a place where I wasn't catfished and sucked on the penis by a man
--- 21920154
>>21918055
based Wagner throwing in easily the best opera chorus ever made just because he could
--- 21920205
>>21917984 (OP)
Everything that Wagner touched turned sublime.
--- 21920272
>>21919944
Alright. I'm a bit autistic about Opera though so I avoided listening to it casually for the most part and listening to it out of order despite not speaking a lick of German anyway. Reading the translation is nice though.
--- 21920277
>>21919827
Keep on listening to the overtures until you're ready to actually read the texts with the music. There's a reason they're called Music-Dramas and not just Music, they're Shakespearian DRAMAS set to Beethovenian MUSIC. Die Meistersinger is a fine piece of music, but upon reading the text I found myself laughing along with the events of the story and understanding more about the way in which the music worked than I would have simply listening to it.
--- 21920309
>>21920128
You may have been confused reading the poem at the speed of the music, but there's nothing confusing about the story or the main themes of the drama. The only way you could miss the main themes of the drama is if you didn't pay attention to the act two dialogue between Tristan and Isolde or Tristan's act three monologue. At the very least it's a very powerful tragedy. Tristan is only dying in the third act. The first act serves as an introduction to the story and social dynamics, shows the drinking of the love potion, and introduces all of the thematic material the drama will use. There are many 'particularly good' moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFaULLGdnU [Embed]
--- 21920317
>>21917984 (OP)
It’s between Tristan and Parsifal. But if the Ring cycle could be taken as a single work then maybe it.
--- 21920919
>>21917984 (OP)
The Ring and Tristan.
--- 21921332
>>21920955
Nazi, tranny and Marxist?
--- 21922036
>>21919535
/thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK-7nkJ38wY [Embed]

“Indeed, my exalted friend, I too have often had serious thoughts about my ‘Parzival’. It will be the pinnacle of all my achievements. How sweetly familiar is the feeling that overcomes me when I think that you yourself share directly in the knowledge of this profound secret, that you are its co-creator! It is as though I am inspired to write this work in order to preserve the world’s profoundest secret, the truest Christian faith, nay, to awaken that faith anew. And for the sake of this immense task that it is reserved for me to accomplish, I have felt obliged to use my Nibelung drama to build a Castle of the Grail devoted to art, far removed from the common byways of human activity: for only there, in Monsalvat, can the longed-for deed be revealed to the people, to those who are initiated into its rites, not in those places where God may not show Himself beside the idols of day without His being blasphemed. Thus, my glorious King, do I proclaim the thoughts that I cherish for our ‘Parzival’! – “
--- 21922638
>>21917984 (OP)
I’m really keen on Rienzi but the objective answer is Tristan
--- 21923120
>>21920277
>Shakespearian DRAMAS set to Beethovenian MUSIC

Not to be pedantic, but Wagner admired and studied Shakespeare a great deal but his dramas are very different from Shakespeare's. Beethoven--well you could say Wagner picked up where Beethoven left off but Wagner's music is very original so it seems wrong to call his Music "Beethovenian"
--- 21923130
I think Parsifal and Tristan. But for personal reasons I haven't listed to Tristan in a long time, but I remember how powerful it can be.
--- 21923486
Tristan and Parsifal are deeply related. Wagner even considered having Parsifal (the character) appear in the third act of Tristan und Isolde. Between act II and III of Parsifal, there's a timeskip in which Parsifal travels the world and does good deeds to redeem himself. One of those adventures would bring him to Tristan.

Thematically the operas are about two sides of the same Schopenhauerian coin. In both operas sexual desire leads to suffering: Tristan and Isolde long for death, where they can finally become one (as the world of Day (Representation) is only illusory and marked by the principium individuationis - T & I desire to become one but the world as Representation literally does not allow that, they need to become pure Will in death, Night, where they can be one) and in Parsifal Kundry's kiss awakens sexual feeling in Parsifal and gives him knowledge of the significance of the Grail ritual. But he needs to be cleansed and become chaste again in order to be able to find Montsalvat again: hence the time skip between act II and III.

So in a way, these two operas are one and the same, tackling the same theme, starting from the same foundation (Schopenhauer) but taking a different way to get to their destination. Parsifal renounces the Will and attains peace, Tristan und Isolde tragically embrace it, and die.
--- 21923636
>>21923486
Well said, sir.
--- 21923737
>>21917984 (OP)
unironically what is the proper way of engaging with his work when you're too poor for going to real opera theater? just listening to his music?
--- 21923745
>>21923737
Buy DVDs. There are stagings in the 80s of the operas as close to Wagner's actual vision as possible, and they have English subs. Modern productions tend to be modernizing and they're a horrible way to get to know these operas.
I'm sure you can also pirate these productions btw, but I haven't found them anywhere. I paid $120 for a box set of my favorite Ring production and it was money well spent, as was the $50 for a Parsifal DVD. I saw Tristan und Isolde 3 times live now, first two times were great, third time was horrible (minimalist Eurotrash experimental production.) Just stick to the DVDs.
--- 21923853
>>21923120
I'm taking it from the man himself, though I'll admit that his works aren't precisely Shakespearian or Beethovenian, but I think the same general substance of them is present in Wagner. He's off doing his own thing for sure, but the influence of both can be plainly felt throughout his work.
--- 21923890
>>21923737
>>21923745
The Metropolitan Opera has a streaming service and they have some great Wagner productions, old and new. Costs something like 15$/month
--- 21923933
>>21923486
Wagner's dramas aren't just an allegory for Schopenhauerian metaphysics. You can't 1:1 them to Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung unless you think they're no deeper than an article. Besides, Wagner himself said Tristan was his most tragic subject since 'in it Nature is hindered in its highest work'. Siegfried is the affirmation of the Will, the 'Greek' view.

The problem with most interpretations of Wagner is that no one considers how the seemingly contradictory elements of Wagner are harmoniously related in the last period of his life, and so they try to find an exact Schopenhauerian orthodoxy to fit everything into.
--- 21923939
>>21923933
No, most people agree Wagner added his own elements to his reading of Schopenhauer. He thinks differently from Schopenhauer about the subject of romantic/sexual love for example. This does not change the fact that Wagner wrote Tristan as a direct response to a flurry of inspiration he received upon reading WWR 4 times in a single summer.
--- 21923990
>>21923933
>Wagner's dramas aren't just an allegory for Schopenhauerian metaphysics
Nobody ITT said they were.
>Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
Pretentious retard detected. Stopped reading right there. (If German, disregard the last comment.)
--- 21923999
>>21923939
>This does not change the fact that Wagner wrote Tristan as a direct response to a flurry of inspiration he received upon reading WWR 4 times in a single summer.
This isn't entirely true. He had planned the main outlines of the drama before having read Schopenhauer. Wagner never believed he went outside the main themes of the original poem.
--- 21924016
>>21923999
I can't confidently say I know the timeline of Tristan's creation well enough to dispute this, even though I remember it differently. IIRC, he read Schopenhauer sometime between composing/writing Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. 
Of course he never considered himself going "outside the main themes of the original poem." Why would he? He saw the myth of Tristan as a good vehicle for his Schopenhauerian ideas. Same with Parsifal and Meistersinger.
--- 21924026
>>21923999
>>21924016
Adding to my post, he of course had many ideas that he later found reflected again in Schopenhauer, that's the main reason why he was so impressed with him. Holländer for example also has many Schopenhauerian themes even though he had never heard of Schopenhauer at that point.
It's the same with Schopenhauer and Buddhism. He actually conceived of his main ideas before encountering Buddhism, but he was all the more impressed by Buddhism because of that, and subsequently took some ideas and integrated it into his own philosophy.
--- 21924040
>>21923990
>Nobody ITT said they were.
That's what they become when the first thing word on them is Schopenhauerian metaphysics. Rather than the eternal subjects themselves. 'Tristan is about wanting to collapse the principium indivuationis because the essence of the phenomenal world is ceaseless striving' is the most abstract description possible and not at all how Wagner viewed his dramas.

>>21924016
He didn't see any of his dramas as a 'vehicle' for ideas. On the contrary he found in Schopenhauer a clarification and elucidation of his dramatic conceptions.

>>21924026
The question then is why simply constrain these themes to 'Schopenhauerian'? Anymore than we do a Shakespearian drama.
--- 21924045
>>21924040
>He didn't see any of his dramas as a 'vehicle' for ideas.
On the contrary, in his essays around the Parsifal era he is very clear: art should serve a societal function, take the place of religion if religion fails (which he thought it did.) Art is very much not a goal in itself for Wagner. That was also true before his late period: he conceived the Ring tetralogy in the manner of Greek tragedy, which served a political/social function.
>The question then is why simply constrain these themes to 'Schopenhauerian'?
I'm not constraining anything, it's just that Schopenhauer's influences on Tristan (and Parsifal) are very obvious and you cannot really understand these operas without him. The whole symbolism of Night and Day in the libretto of Tristan is simply Will and Representation.
--- 21924049
>>21924016
Not that guy, but contributing somewhat to the conversation, I remember reading that Wagner's Ring Cycle took considerable time to finish and its composition went through all of Wagner's philosophical phases, starting with Bakunian, to Feuerbachian to Schopenhauerian, and that didn't stop Wagner himself from considering (or retconning if you will) the Ring Schopenhauerian because that was his mature philosophy. So likewise, he may have had the idea for Tristan before he became fully Schopenhauerian and the final project still be Schopenhauerian at least in the way he executed (or at least skewed) the initial idea.
What are the Schopenhauerian themes in Meistersinger? I always thought that the opera was a break from all the philosophy.
--- 21924052
>>21924040
>not at all how Wagner viewed his dramas.
Except that's exactly how he viewed them? Have you read his essays?
--- 21924062
>>21924049
He made some last-minute changes to the ending of Götterdämmerung under the influence of Schopenhauer yes, but the early parts are inspired by his anarchist leanings. Like any good work of art, it's a mix of different influences, that's what makes it so alluring. It's not just propaganda for Schopenhauer (or Bakunin, or Feuerbach.) Just like Parsifal is not just propaganda for Christianity or Buddhism or Schopenhauer.
>What are the Schopenhauerian themes in Meistersinger? I always thought that the opera was a break from all the philosophy.
The redemptive power of music. 
Tristan: sexual desire and yearning cause suffering
Parsifal: escape suffering by renouncing the Will
Meistersinger: music allows temporary escape
--- 21924270
>>21924045
>On the contrary, in his essays around the Parsifal era he is very clear: art should serve a societal function, take the place of religion if religion fails (which he thought it did.) Art is very much not a goal in itself for Wagner. That was also true before his late period: he conceived the Ring tetralogy in the manner of Greek tragedy, which served a political/social function.
The only 'functions' Wagner thought art should serve is through its essence in and for itself. It's difficult to describe just how anathema giving a 'function' to his art would have been to him if you haven't read his Zurich writings. Art is ascribed an almost metaphysical essence above everything else. In this Zurich period his whole revolutionary conception was driven by an ideal society in which art was the end goal, just as much as he thought art should guide the revolution to this ideal society. It's mostly the same in his last period, art should preserve religion because it presents religious revelation in and for itself. He even jokes that from the politician's perspective his ideas are useless.

>The whole symbolism of Night and Day in the libretto of Tristan is simply Will and Representation.
The symbolism which is found in Novalis' Hymnen an die Nacht that was an important influence on Tristan? These are eternal concepts which are very often more confused by a framing in Schopenhauerian language than explicated. Wagner never, not once in his whole life, described night and day as Will and Representation. Doesn't that tell you something? Certainly being familiar with Schopenhauer helps explain Wagner's dramas, but it's not necessary. One could understand everything in Tristan after reading Strassburg's poem.

>>21924052
I have, and his discussion of his dramas under Schopenhauerian philosophy does nothing to change what I have said.

>>21924062
>Tristan: sexual desire and yearning cause suffering
>Parsifal: escape suffering by renouncing the Will
>Meistersinger: music allows temporary escape
Simple one line descriptions of Wagner's dramas through Schopenhauer's philosophy is exactly what is wrong with Wagner interpretations. And when one person hears them they just promulgate them without end until someone else takes up the habit and there is a culture of interpretation which never really thinks about the artworks. Meistersinger, for example, is just as much about the social role of art, social belonging, the relation of the erotic to art and creativity, German culture, the role of the critic, the transition from feudal to burgher culture, the difference between old age and youth, and a lot more, as it is about the release from the world that art grants. I say art because the focus isn't on music in particular and neither in Schopenhauer or Wagner is music the only art that allows a release from the world. Each Wagner drama contains a thousand intersecting themes, the result of Wagner's drive for totality.
--- 21924416
Tannhauser, Ring, or Parsifal.
--- 21925018
I wish there were more filmings of Wieland's Bayreuth.
 
https://youtu.be/PsHtqVTJ_6k?t=1365 [Embed]
--- 21925041
Do I read his works or watch them or listen to them or what?
--- 21925051
Mozarts operas mog Wagner’s
--- 21925316
Are there any novelizations of his operas, preferably not by post-1960s authors?
--- 21925322
>>21925316
>post-1960s
Make that 1940s.
--- 21925382
>>21919395
Is this in a letter? Or his notebooks?
--- 21925495
>>21925382
bruh, untimely meditations: wagner in bayreuth.
but notebooks have a couple of interesting earlier draft versions
--- 21925566
My university library has a good sized selection of old opera productions on dvd; any great or definitive productions by Wagner or any other great composer I should seek out as basically a newfag to opera?
--- 21925873
>>21925566
For DVD it’s Boulez/Bayreuther Festspiele and Levine/Met.
--- 21925881
I think after these the Wagner estate must have sold it’s soul and Wagner’s legacy as every other production is the same old deconstructionist garbage.
--- 21925906
I actually showed this to a zoomer friend of mine (not really a zoomer, I have younger friends as I went back to college late in life) and he was like: Woah, Thor has an opera?? I grinned.
https://youtu.be/L_3HqF8Hebc [Embed]
--- 21925955
>>21925881
>>21925906
Levine's Ring is garbage. It doesn't matter what their inventions were it's garbage, the singing, costumes, conducting, acting, all of it. It doesn't matter if they spent a lot of money on it and tried (but failed) to be authentic. The Boulez Ring may be regietheatre but it's still head and shoulders above every other filmed Ring.
--- 21926005
Don Giovani

https://youtu.be/5K-p_Lr9mUQ [Embed]


Madama Butterfly

https://youtu.be/3stgof-xyN0 [Embed] 


A good ballet-as-film I recommend in Young Men, which is a movie about WWI told through ballet. Here is a scene where a guy who can’t take it anymore tries to run across no man’s land to be a POW and gets stunned by a mortar shell near him; getting up, he continues, but a comrade from the trenches sets off to try to take him back

https://youtu.be/ZbFsvBocxPg [Embed]

1984 is also good if they have it
https://youtu.be/jMclzcnorkk [Embed]
--- 21926106
>>21925041
Listen to the overtures and preludes, plus the individual famous pieces like Siegfried's Funeral March, then listen to the full opera of whichever ones you liked most. Reading the text along with the music is also essential, and a lot easier than you might think. Up to you if you want to listen to the music and read, or watch a production with subtitles, depends how good your imagination is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ch227pV-A0&list=PLBrs-r77FPJLEYSLxTyjCs2mNRjrLrWWK [Embed]

A good playlist with some of the more famous pieces from the Ring.
--- 21927610
Bumping with the best piece of music ever composed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCo2MIfP16Y [Embed]
--- 21927630
>>21926106
Thank you for the concise response anon, I've asked that question previously to no avail.
--- 21927650
>>21927610
Wagner ended music. He set the bar too high. Nothing will ever come close to this.
--- 21927807
>>21927610
I feel holy...
--- 21927828
>>21927650
It reminds me of the Buddhist formula:
>'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world.'
And 2 Timothy 4:7
>I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith
--- 21928167
>>21919395
Read Actors and Singers. His comparison between puppet theatre, Shakespeare and Greek tragedy is genius.
--- 21928259
>>21925041
Traditionally the libretto is published before the opera and sometimes years or a decade as in the ring cycle. The hardcore fans would buy a copy and read it like a poem and study it and when it came out would see it knowing already the opera.

Causal fags would go and buy a copy at the opera and follow along. 

Super causal Paris fans would go dress up and Head out after the second song to party. 

But anyway the ‘intended’ method is for the audience to have read and studied the libretto and then watch the opera without having to consult it.

I found the penguin classic ring cycle and the translation is meh to cringe (the rhinemaidens say ‘what’s up’ at one point) but my German is good enough to ‘correct it’s
--- 21928268
>>21928259
>But anyway the ‘intended’ method is for the audience to have read and studied the libretto and then watch the opera without having to consult it.
This is only for GSL. The intended method is to be a native German speaker, the singing be articulate, and follow the words for the first time in a performance.
--- 21928293
>>21928268
No, if you check out the publishing history Wagner always released the libretto far in advance in German and the English translation of Ring for example had come out later and Wagner and the family thought it was fine but got bad reviews (the translation not the work) in England for being very cold and exact but the Wagner’s just dismissed the critiques they were being sent becuase the English wasn’t that important to them.

I agree it’s a German work and the translations aren’t ideal but he did intend the audience to have read and have a strong understanding of the work before the performance, especially given the philosophical nuance would be lost without reading it
--- 21928314
Wagnerian bros.... why was this slam pig picked to play nearly all major female roles in the operas. Was this the ideal german female back then? Or its just that the germans turn ugly by 27?
--- 21928315
>>21928293
I think Wagner just published the poem first because it was completed.

Doesn't needing to study the text clash with Wagner's idea of a popular drama?
--- 21928333
>>21928314
You need power to sing Wagner's operas otherwise your voice is overwhelmed by the intensity of Wagnerian orchestra.

>Body weight and body fat volume appear to influence select objective measures of voice quality, vocal aerodynamics, and phonatory range performance.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24408481/

Thus the meme: It's not over until the fat lady sings.
Also why lean singers usually don't do Wagner. Maria Callas for one supposedly said she wasn't "fat enough" to sing Wagner.
--- 21928336
Klingsor is so Jewish bros.
--- 21928379
>>21928314
Because Wagner divided his two performer ideals between Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (created the roles of Adriano, Senta, Venus and would have created Elsa if Wagner hadn't engaged in the revolution) and Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld (created the role of Tristan). One didn't have much of a voice but was dramatically convincing through her brilliant acting, musical speech and trim figure, the other was fat and depended mostly on his powerful singing to be convincing in the dramatic role which was enhanced by his acting skills.

Wagner was disappointed that he had to rely on Amalie Materna and said the only exceptional performer in Bayreuth was the Alberich, Karl Hill.
--- 21928422
>>21928336
fun fact: wagner was a huge fan of eta hoffman and he has a short story version about wartburg singer contest "Der Kampf der Sänger (1818)", where Klingsor is a dark magician/diplomat/alchemist who resides in Transylvania and teaches composition with a powerful but superficial Beckmesser-tier system. his disciple eventually loses the final battle against his former friend who is a more authentic bard.
and there's a 16th century irl treatise by Diruta called "il Transilvano".
--- 21928470
>>21928422
Hoffman was Wagner's spiritual forerunner. Analysed Beethoven through the concept of the Sublime, created German Romantic Opera, wrote the music as well as the words for his operas. When a friend of Hoffman told Wagner that he resembles him Wagner said that he was not surprised by this.
--- 21928577
Rewatching the finale of Meistersinger, Wagner to me displays the unifying power of Culture --a power that ancient Greeks must have felt about Homer, which is why they insisted that he be taught to young boys, and why it felt so alien to Augustine, who wasn't Greek, but I digress --, a whole people united in spirit, a mirror turned to them and they turned to it in holy celebration. Imagine for a moment what this must have felt like. We can't even imagine it, we can't fathom what it's like for culture and art to NOT be tools of demoralization and subversion directed against the people; to be a power that uplifts the people. We can't imagine that because it has taken away from us. Those who would corrupt the whole world understood, and feared, this power all too well. Thus the need to control and subvert it.
--- 21928632
>>21923853
>the same general substance of them is present in Wagner.
This. It was quite literally his whole endeavour.
--- 21929852
>>21928336
I really don't get the accusations of antisemitism thrown at every villain Wagner does. Sure, the man was antisemitic and might have incorporated some of that in his work, but it's not immediately obvious if it is and even then most of its seems to be reaching. Take Beckmesser for instance, I don't see anything that could be construed as Jewish about him and yet there's plenty of arguments for that very point. I don't know, maybe I'm missing some 19th century context to it, but I just don't see it.
--- 21929862
>>21929852
Correct Wagner himself said Jews don't make good villains. Perhaps relates to Weininger's assertion that Jews, like women, were only amoral and not capable of true evil.
--- 21929868
>>21928336
>Klingsor is so Jewish bros.

He's definitely not. You could say he's transgender, as he castrates himself--which is important symbolism; its an evasion of responsibility.
--- 21929918
>>21929868

Though by no means none of the characters can be said to be Jewish, Wagner's worldview was highly anti-capitalistic, and such views are always at least implicitly antisemitic--and the worldview of course animates the artworks
--- 21929952
>>21929862
Alberich is Jewishness itself
>He has been widely described, most notably by Theodor Adorno, as a negative Jewish stereotype, with his race expressed through "distorted" music and "muttering" speech;
Mime is hyper Jew
Hagen is a Mischling
--- 21929976
>>21929952
I wonder if this isn't a case of Jews identifying themselves with negative stereotypes, e.g money grubbing goblins and manipulative subversives. In my mind, the character has to be explicitly semitic for it to count; the stereotypes themselves are not anti-semitic, or at least wouldn't be if they didn't keep on identifying with overtly immoral villains.
--- 21929987
As for Klingsor, although it may be untrue that Wagner specified that he be dressed as a rabbi in stage, he fits the role perfectly in that he attempts to corrupt the knights by weaponizing sex, as they do.
>If “Heldentum” is an ex planation of “Parsifal,” and Gutman believes that it is, it then follows that the opera is an allegory. Gutman's thesis, which has aroused something of a storm in Wagnerian scholarship, is that “Parsifal” is “an allegory of the Aryan's fall and redemption.” *Klingsor represented the Jews and the Jesuits, Wagner told his wife;*
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/08/archives/music-what-was-parsifal-what-was-parsifal-up-to.html
--- 21930002
>>21929976
>money grubbing goblins
It’s a time-honored tradition.
--- 21930005
>>21927610
 i really dont think humanity will ever accomplish more
--- 21930008
>>21929952
lol, siggy calling him an ugly disgusting faggot who could never have made him
and mime rubs his hands with glee whe he comes up with the poison plan
--- 21930052
>>21929952
Yes by Theodore Adorno, a self-victimizer who seems to interpreted everything besides atonal music as fascist.
--- 21930100
>>21929987
See, this is exactly my point. Most normal people when they hear of someone weaponising sex to corrupt people think it an abhorrent thing to do, an evil which should be denounced and prevented, but nothing more than that. Jews on the the other hand think "It must be referring to us Jews!"
--- 21931293
>>21927610
I think the greatest power of parsifal is that the prelude is filled with such melancholic yearning, a longing for something that you're not sure how to reach, but by the end of it Wagner has given you exactly what you desire, something so incredibly peaceful and perfect I can only describe it as the Divine. I know nothing as powerful or as beautiful as the music of Wagner's Parsifal.
--- 21931299
>>21929952
I like the scene between Alberich and Mime in Siegfried, like an argument two Jewish crooks.

https://youtu.be/9vO6F5T7o0M?t=2931 [Embed]
--- 21931808
>>21919423
Can't believe I'm still the only one correct ITT
--- 21931910
>>21931808
Rheingold is interesting for its uniqueness in Wagner's oeuvre but I don't see how it can be called his best work. Maybe his best use of dramatic structure.
--- 21932060
His greatest work was telling Nietzsche's doctor the N. suffered from an excess of masturbation.
--- 21932996
Wagner's critique of the state and capitalism should replace Marxism. Opera and Drama and the Ring are the manifestos for a new political movement.
--- 21934349
>Download a complete Wagner prose works collection
>It's missing actors and singers 
>Huh, that's weird
>Find a pdf scan of the original 
>Come to this
Oh so that's why it's missing