Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are looking
at a figure who is, quite frankly, too big to
fit in a box. I'm looking at the stack of notes
we have here, and it is intimidating. We're talking
about a man whose life feels less like a biography
and more like a mythological epic that he, you
know, wrote himself. It really is a subject that
tends to consume everything around it. We are
discussing Richard Wagner. And you are absolutely
right about the scale. We aren't just talking
about a composer. We are talking about a cultural
phenomenon that, well, it basically split the
world in two. It really does seem gynery with
him. People don't just... Kind of like Wagner.
I've seen quotes where he is described as a god,
the savior of art, and then you have others describing
him as a literal plague. The French composer
Charles Valentin Elkin is probably the most famous
example of that. He said, Wagner is not a musician.
He is a disease. And that sentiment, it wasn't
uncommon. The polarization was immediate, violent,
and it has lasted for 140 years. You are either
a Wagnerian. completely devoted to the cult,
or you are actively repulsed by him. There's
very little middle ground. So our mission today
is to figure out why. We've got his autobiography,
Mein Leben, his very heavy theoretical essays
like opera and drama, and historical accounts
ranging from his friendship with Friedrich Nietzsche
to the horrific appropriation of his work in
the 20th century. We need to understand how a
guy who spent half his life running from loan
sharks, managed to revolutionize the entire concept
of art. And we have to do that while holding
two very difficult truths in our heads at the
same time. One, he created the music drama, which
is, you know, it's the foundation of modern cinema
and storytelling. Two, his worldview and legacy
are entangled with some of darkest ideologies
in human history. It's a paradox, a massive one.
A huge paradox. So let's start at the beginning
then, because when I think of Wagner, I think
of emperors, custom -built theaters, velvet robes.
I don't picture a kid born in the Jewish quarter
of Leipzig. That is where it starts, though.
May 23, 1813, at the House of the Red and White
Lions in the Brule District. And right out of
gate, there is ambiguity. There is a mystery.
Ambiguity about what? His family? About his father.
His legal father was a man named Carl Friedrich
Wadner, a police clerk. But Carl died of typhoid
fever when Richard was only six months old. And
almost immediately... I mean, suspiciously fast.
His mother, Johanna, moved in with a man named
Ludwig Geyer. Geyer. Who was he? He was an actor,
a playwright, and a close friend of the family.
They married very quickly. And for the first
14 years of his life, Wagner didn't even use
the name Wagner. He was known as Wilhelm Richard
Geyer. Wait, wait. So he didn't know he was a
Wagner. He thought he was a Geyer. He grew up
believing Geyer was his father. And later in
life, looking back, Wagner found evidence letters,
timelines, things that made him strongly suspect
Geyer was his biological father all along. Does
that matter? Other than just being a bit of...
You know, family drama. Oh, it matters immensely
for his psychology. Geyer had a background in
the theater, which is almost certainly where
Wagner got that artistic spark. But Geyer also
came from a family that had potential Jewish
roots, though Geyer himself was Protestant. Given
Wagner's later virulent anti -Semitism, the fear
that the persistent rumor that he himself might
be of Jewish descent via Geyer became a source
of massive, torturous insecurity for him. It
haunted him. That is a heavy psychological load
to carry from childhood. But you mentioned the
theater influence, so I assume he was a prodigy.
Like Mozart writing concertos at age five. Far
from it. That's a funny thing. He wasn't a natural
musician in the technical sense at all. His Latin
teacher tried to teach him piano, and it was
a complete disaster. Wagner refused to practice
his scales. He just wanted to bang out theater
overtures by ear. Hold on. He's one of the most
harmonically complex composers in history, and
he couldn't play his scales. How does that even
work? He heard the drama first. That's the key.
He wasn't interested in the technique of the
instrument. He was interested in the emotional
impact of the sound. He was a dramatist who learned
to use music as a tool. His real awakening didn't
come from a piano lesson. It came from two things.
Hearing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he
transcribed for piano by hand. Which is insane
in itself. Completely insane. And seeing a very
specific performance. His singer. A dramatic
soprano named Wilhelmine Schroeder -Devrien.
He saw her perform, we think it was, as Leonor
in Beethoven's Fidelio. He wrote later that it
wasn't just her voice, it was the almost demonic
fire in her acting. She threw herself into the
role with such ecstasy that it terrified and
thrilled him. That was the moment. He realized
that music shouldn't just be pretty melodies,
it should be an ecstatic, overwhelming theatrical
experience. So he catches the bug, he decides,
this is what I'm going to do. Does he go straight
to the top? He goes straight to the bottom. He
enrolls in Leipzig University, takes some composition
lessons, and starts working in these tiny provincial
theaters. Würzburg, Magdeburg. Small towns, small
-time jobs. And this is where the second defining
theme of his life appears. Absolute financial
chaos. He was bad with money. Bad is the understatement
of the century. He had a hole in his pocket the
size of the Grand Canyon. He felt he was entitled
to luxury silks. perfumes, fine apartments, regardless
of his income, which was usually zero, he started
borrowing money from everyone he met and simply
never paying it back. It was a compulsion. And
amidst this financial mess, he gets married.
Of course he does. To Mina Planer. She was a
leading lady, a very successful actress. They
married in 1836. And it was, to put it mildly,
a complete train wreck. In what way? Well, for
starters... Six months after the wedding, she
ran off with a merchant named Dietrich. Six months.
Six months. She eventually came back, but the
dynamic was set. They were two volatile, artistic
people drowning in debt, constantly fighting.
By 1839, they were in Riga, in modern -day Latvia,
and the debt situation had become criminal. The
authorities were involved. Their passports were
seized. So they're trapped in Latvia with creditors
closing in? That sounds like a movie. It basically
was they had to run. This is the great escape.
They couldn't leave legally, so they had to be
smuggled across the border at night to the coast.
They boarded a small merchant vessel called the
Thetis, which was bound for London. Nice cruise
to calm the nerves. It was a nightmare. The ship
was tiny. The North Sea was furious. They hit
three violent storms. The captain had to seek
shelter in the Norwegian fjords just to keep
from sinking. Imagine this. Wagner's terrified,
seasick, thinking he's going to die. But as they're
hiding in these fjords, he hears the sailors'
calls echoing off the granite walls, the wind
howling through the ribbing. And his brain just
goes, I can use this. Exactly. He wasn't just
surviving. He was taking notes. That voyage is
the direct one -to -one inspiration for Der Fliegende
Hollander, The Flying Dutchman. The music of
that opera is the sound of that storm. He captured
the terror of the ocean and the legend of the
ghost ship doomed to sail forever. He felt like
he was the Dutchman, a man condemned to wander.
They survived the trip. They land in London.
And eventually they head to Paris. Paris in the
1840s. That's the place to be for an artist,
right? The center of the world. If you're successful,
yes. If you're Wagner, it was a complete and
utter humiliation. He spent two years there from
1839 to 1842 in abject poverty. We were talking
about the man who would write the Ring Cycle,
and he's sitting in a freezing garret arranging
popular opera tunes for the cornet just to buy
bread. Wow. That has to be damaging to the ego.
It made him bitter. He felt the Parisian musical
establishment, which was dominated by flashy,
commercially successful grand opera, was rejecting
him. He wrote these novelettes for newspapers
about a German musician dying of starvation in
Paris. It was all very self -pitying. But crucially,
he was also soaking up ideas. He was attending
lectures, reading history, and he finally got
a break. In Germany. Yes. His opera Rienzi, which
is this massive five -act grand spectacle very
much in the French style he claimed to hate,
was accepted by the Dresden Court Theater. He
and Minnis scraped together the money to travel
back to Germany in 1842. The opera premiered,
and it was a smash hit. Just like that. Just
like that. Overnight, he went from a starting
refugee to the Royal Saxon Court Conductor, Kappelmeister,
one of the most prestigious musical jobs in Germany.
That is absolute whiplash. One minute you're
arranging cornet tunes for pennies, the next
you're the royal conductor. You'd think he would
just settle down, enjoy the salary, and finally
pay off his debts. You would think. But Wagner
was constitutionally incapable of settling down.
He was in Dresden during the 1840s, a time when
all of Europe was just bubbling with revolution.
Wagner, instead of joining the courtly social
circles, fell in with a crowd of radical intellectuals.
Who are we talking about here? People like Mikhail
Bakunin. The Russian anarchist. Yeah. The father
of anarchism. That's the one. Wagner and Bakunin
were hanging out, debating late into the night.
Wagner started reading Proudhon and Feuerbach.
He became convinced that the entire social structure
of Europe, the aristocracy, capitalism, the very
theater system that employed him, was rotten
to the core. He believed that for true art to
exist, the old world had to be burned down. A
royal conductor wanting to burn down the monarchy.
That's a bit of a conflict of interest. To say
the least. And it came to a head in 1849. The
May uprising in Dresden. The revolutionaries
took to the streets to overthrow the king of
Saxony. And Wagner wasn't just watching from
his window. He was printing revolutionary pamphlets.
He was reportedly in the watchtower winging the
bells to signal the rebels. He was procuring
hand grenades. He was a full on revolutionary.
And when the uprising failed. It was brutally
crushed by Prussian troops. Bakunin was arrested
and sentenced to death, though it was later commuted.
Wagner, realizing he was a wanted man with a
warrant out for his arrest, fled. He left his
wife, his job, his success, and ran to Switzerland
with the help of his friend Franz Liszt. So begins
exile number two. And this is the most critical
period of his life. He spent 12 years in exile,
mostly in Zurich. He was depressed, he was isolated,
and he couldn't get his operas performed back
in Germany. So he stopped composing. He stopped
writing music. For how long? For about six years,
he barely wrote a note of music. Instead, he
wrote books. He needed to explain to himself
and to the world what went wrong and what the
future of art should look like. This is when
he wrote the artwork of the future and the massive,
dense tome, opera and drama. And this is where
he comes up with the big German word, Gesamtkunstwerk.
Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art. Wagner
looked at the opera of his day, Rossini, Meyerbeer,
and he hated it. He felt that composers were
just using the drama as a flimsy excuse to string
together catchy songs, you know, arias, so the
singers could show off. He famously said, Okay,
unpack that for me. What does it actually mean?
He means the story should be the boss. The drama
is everything. The music, the... Poetry, the
set design, the lighting, the acting, they are
all equal partners serving one single purpose,
to express the drama. No more stopping the show
for a five -minute solo where the soprano stands
at the front of the stage and trills about her
feelings. So it's continuous. The music must
never stop. It must flow continuously like a
river mirroring the stream of consciousness of
the characters. He called it endless melody.
So he invents the music drama, and he decides
he has to write everything himself to achieve
this. Yes. No more working with a librettist.
He would write the play. He would write the music.
He would design the staging. He viewed it as
a single unified entity that could only come
from one creator. And while he was constructing
this grand theory, he discovered a philosopher
who gave him the metaphysical framework for it
all. Arthur Schopenhauer. We mentioned him in
the intro. The great pessimist. In 1854, a friend
introduced Wagner to Schopenhauer's book The
World as Will and Representation. It hit Wagner
like a lightning bolt. Schopenhauer argued that
the universe isn't driven by reason or God, but
by a blind, irrational, insatiable force he called
the will. This will is what drives all our desires
for sex, for hunger, for power. Because the will
can never truly be satisfied, life is essentially
suffering. Cheerful stuff. Very. Schopenhauer
argued that the only way to find peace is to
deny the will. to renounce desire, to achieve
a kind of Buddhist -like negation of the self
and turn away from the world. That seems like
the absolute opposite of Wagner, the revolutionary
who wanted to burn down cities and buy silk underwear.
It was a massive contradiction, but Wagner embraced
it intellectually. He moved from being a political
revolutionary who wanted to fix the world to
a metaphysical one who wanted to transcend the
world. You see this shift in his work almost
immediately. His characters stop trying to win
political battles and start looking for redemption
through death or renunciation. And he decides
to apply all this theory, the total art, the
continuous music, the Schopenhauer, to the biggest
project in the history of music, the Ring Cycle.
The Ring des Nibelungen. It is just staggering
to think about. He started writing the text back
in 1848 and didn't finish the music until 1874.
That's 26 years. 26 years on one project. For
someone who hasn't seen it, just give us the
scale. What are we looking at? We are looking
at about 15 to 16 hours of music. It's intended
to be seen over four consecutive nights. There's
a preliminary evening, Das Rangold, and then
three main days, Die Walkute, Siegfried, and
Götterdummering, which means Twilight of the
Gods. End of story. The plot spans generations.
It starts with the creation of the world and
ends with the apocalypse. It involves gods, giants,
dwarves, dragons, magic swords, and a magic ring
that brings misery to everyone who owns it. It
is Lord of the Rings. Literally, Tolkien drew
heavily from the same Norse and Germanic myths,
but set to the most complex and dense music ever
written up to that point. And this is where the
leitmotif comes in. We hear that term a lot in
film class, but how did Wagner actually use it?
Well, before Wagner, composers had themes or
reminiscence motives, but Wagner weaponized them.
A leitmotif is a short musical phrase that's
associated with a specific person, an object,
like the ring or the sword, or an idea like fate
or a curse. Can you give me a concrete example?
Sure. Let's say there's a motif for a secret.
It's a slippery, quiet little melody. Now, imagine
a character is on stage telling a lie. He's saying,
I have nothing to hide. I'm telling you the truth.
But while he's saying that, you, the audience,
hear the secret motif playing quietly in the
orchestra. So you know he's lying. The orchestra
is tipping you off. The orchestra becomes the
narrator. It tells you the subtext, the inner
thoughts, the things the characters can't or
won't say. It's profoundly psychological. And
they change over time. Completely. And this is
the genius of it. They evolve. If a hero grows
up and becomes stronger, his motif might change
from a simple horn call to a grand brass fanfare.
If the ring is cursed, the ring motif might warp
and become distorted, played in a minor key.
By the end of the 16 -hour cycle, there are dozens
of these motifs weaving over, under, and through
each other. It's a thick web of meaning. You
aren't just listening to music. You are decoding
a subconscious map of the entire drama. That
sounds absolutely exhausting to write. I can't
even imagine. It was. And in the middle of writing
it, specifically in the middle of act two of
Siegfried Wagner, just he stopped. He put the
pen down and didn't pick up the ring again for
12 years. 12 years. Why? Just writer's block
on a colossal scale. It was a combination of
things. He felt it was impractical that no theater
could ever stage it. But the main reason was
love trouble and money trouble. But mostly love.
Of course. While in Zurich, he was living in
a small cottage on the estate of a wealthy silk
merchant and patron named Otto Wesendonk. Wagner
naturally fell madly in love with Otto's wife,
Matilde. He has a habit of this, doesn't he?
He does. And this was an intense intellectual,
spiritual passion. They likely didn't consummate
it physically, but the emotional affair was raging.
He was miserable because he couldn't have her.
And he channeled all of that misery, that unfulfilled
longing, that desire for a love that could only
exist outside of life into a new opera. Tristan
and Isolde. This is the one. This is the one
that music nerds always point to as the beginning
of modern music. Why is that? What's so special
about it? It boils down to the very first chord
of the opera, the Tristan chord. What's so special
about a single chord? Think of traditional Western
music as having a home. You start at home, the
tonic key. You go on a journey of tension and
different chords, and then you resolve back home.
It's satisfying. The Tristan chord is pure, unresolved
tension. It's dissonant. And instead of resolving
to a comfortable home chord, it just slides into
another dissonant. tense chord and then another
so it never goes on not for four hours the entire
opera is a constant state of yearning of reaching
for a resolution that never comes it perfectly
mirrors the psychological state of the characters
tristan and isolde whose illicit love is so intense
it can't exist in the real world they can only
find their resolution their home in death that
sounds incredibly stressful to listen to it creates
a physical reaction in the listener It's intoxicating.
It's the sound of obsession. Wagner wrote to
Mathilde that the opera was terrible and that
a perfect performance of it would drive people
mad. When it was finally performed, it completely
bewildered people. It broke the rules of harmony
so thoroughly that it opened the door for everything
that came later. A tonality, Schoenberg, jazz,
all of it. So he finishes this masterpiece of
yearning. What happens with Mathilde in the real
world? His wife, Minna, intercepted a letter.
The whole situation with him living in the cottage,
which they called the asyle or asylum, just blew
up. Wagner had to flee again. He went to Venice,
then back to Paris. He tried to stage his earlier
opera Tannhäuser in Paris in 1861. And it was
one of the most famous fiascos in theater history.
A fiasco. Why? Because of the Jockey Club. These
were a group of wealthy, arrogant young aristocrats
who dined late and only came to the opera for
the second act ballet so they could oogle the
ballet dancers. Wagner, being an artistic purist,
put the ballet in the first act where it made
dramatic sense. The Jockey Club arrived in act
two, realized they'd missed the girls, and were
furious. They had organized a protest, they handed
out dog whistles to their friends, and literally
whistled the opera off the stage for three straight
nights. That is petty on a level I can hardly
comprehend. It broke Wagner. By 1864, he is in
his 50s. He is hiding from creditors again, moving
between various German cities. He has no home,
no money, and he feels his life's work. The ring
will never be finished or performed. He wrote
farewell letters. He actually bought a pistol.
He was seriously contemplating suicide. And then
the fairy tale happens. It really is a fairy
tale beat. A deus ex machina. King Ludwig II
of Bavaria ascends the throne. He is 18 years
old. He is tall, handsome, deeply eccentric,
and he has been obsessed with Wagner's music
since he was a boy. The very first thing he does
as king is send a secretary to find Wagner. The
secretary finds him in Stuttgart about to flee
again. He gives him a ruby ring from the king,
pays off all his debts, and installs him in a
beautiful villa in Munich. Talk about a bailout.
A royal bailout. It was a total salvation. Ludwig
became his patron, but it was a very intense
and complicated relationship. Ludwig was homosexual
and wrote Wagner letters that were overwhelmingly
romantic. Oh, holy one, my beloved, my only friend.
Wagner, who desperately needed the money, played
along. He manipulated the young king's affections
to keep the cash flowing for his projects. And
while he's manipulating the king, he's creating
another massive scandal. The biggest one yet.
He calls an incredible conductor, Hans von Gullo,
to Munich to conduct the premiere of Tristan.
Von Gullo is one of Wagner's most devoted disciples.
He brings his wife. Cosima. Cosima happens to
be the daughter of Franz Liszt, Wagner's old
friend and benefactor. I see where this is going.
Wagner and Cosima begin a passionate affair right
under von Bulow's nose. Cosima actually bears
Wagner two children, Isolde and Eva, while she
is still married to von Bulow, who pathetically
tried to pretend the children were his. That's
just brutal. It was a huge public scandal. The
king was humiliated when he finally found out.
The press in Munich goes wild. Wagner is labeled
a Lolas, a male version of Lola Montes, the scandalous
mistress who had brought down Ludwig's grandfather
from the throne. So he gets kicked out of Munich.
Even the king can't protect him. The king had
to ask him to leave to prevent a political revolt.
So Wagner and Cosima, who eventually divorced
von Bülow and married Wagner, moved to Switzerland
again to a house called Kryption. But Wagner
had his eyes on a bigger prize. He didn't just
want a house. He wanted a temple for his art.
He wanted a place to perform the Ring, a place
built just for it. Exactly. He knew the Ring
was too big, too complex, and too innovative
for a normal 19th century opera house with its
box seats and social chatter. He needed a theater
built specifically for it. He chose the small
nondescript town of Beirut in Bavaria. Why there?
Why not a major city? Because it was in the middle
of nowhere. That was the point. He didn't want
people treating his opera like a social event,
coming to chat and show off their dresses. He
wanted them to make a pilgrimage, to travel there
with the sole purpose of experiencing the art.
And the theater design itself was radical, right?
Completely revolutionary. It was the first democratic
theater, no private boxes for the rich arranged
in a horseshoe, just a single fan -shaped rake
of seating, like a Greek amphitheater, so everyone
had a good, clear view of the stage. The seats
were hardwood. No comfort allowed. You were there
to pay attention, not to relax. And he turned
off the lights. That might be his most influential
innovation. Before Wagner, the lights in the
auditorium stayed on so people could read the
program and, more importantly, look at each other.
Wagner turned the lights out completely. He forced
you to look at the stage, to be immersed. And
the mystic abyss. What was that? the hidden orchestra
pit. He designed it so the orchestra was sunk
deep under the stage and covered with a wooden
hood. You couldn't see the conductor. You couldn't
see the violinist bowing. The sound just rose
up from this invisible chasm, this mystic abyss,
and mixed perfectly with the voices on stage.
It was immersive. It was the first cinema experience,
a century before cinema. So the first festival
happens in 1876. It was the social and artistic
event of the century. Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany
was there, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, King Ludwig
of Bavaria, composers like Tchaikovsky, Bruckner,
Sasson, his father -in -law Liszt. the philosopher
Nietzsche, everyone was there. They watched the
world premiere of The Full Ring Cycle. Artistically,
it was a triumph that changed music forever.
And financially. A complete catastrophe. It ended
with a massive deficit of about 150 ,000 marks.
Wagner had to go on tour conducting concerts
and even wrote the Centennial March for America
for $5 ,000 just to try and pay it off. Of course
it did. It wouldn't be Wagner without a crushing
debt story. But the template was set. The Bayreuth
Festival still runs today and it's still controlled
by the Wagner family. OK, we have to pivot now.
This is the hard part. We've talked about the
genius and the innovation, but we cannot talk
about Wagner without talking about the hate that
he espoused. No, we can't. And we have to be
very clear here. This isn't just a case of he
was a man of his 19th century time and held some
casual prejudices. Wagner was a virulent, vocal
and prolific anti -Semite. It was central to
his worldview. It all centers on his essay, Judaism
in Music. Das Judentum in der Musik. He published
it first in 1850 under a pseudonym, but then,
seeking more controversy, he republished it in
1869 under his own name with an extended preface.
In it, he attacked Jewish musicians, specifically
the late Felix Mendelssohn and his old rival
Giacomo Meyerbeer. What was his argument? What
was he actually saying? He argued that Jewish
people were a foreign alien element in European
society, disconnected from the true national
spirit or Volksgeist. He claimed that because
they were outsiders to the culture, they could
only ever mimic or imitate European art. They
couldn't create anything truly deep or soulful.
He described their speech and singing as unpleasant
and unnatural. It was vile, paranoid, hateful
stuff. And yet the great contradiction is that
he had Jewish friends. He worked with them. That's
the maddening hypocrisy of it. He chose Herman
Levi, the son of a rabbi, to conduct the world
premiere of Parsifal, his final, most Christian
opera. He bullied Levi. He tried to get him to
convert to Christianity. He insulted him constantly.
Yet he refused to let anyone else conduct the
work because he knew Levi was the best conductor
for the job. Wagner loved the individual who
could serve his artistic purpose, but he hated
the abstract collective. And this hatred didn't
die with him. It got picked up and amplified
in the 20th century. This is the darkest shadow
of all. Adolf Hitler was a Wagner fanatic. He
wrote in Mein Kampf that when he first heard
Rienzi as a young man in Linz, in that hour it
all began. He saw in Wagner's operas a glorification
of the heroic Teutonic myth, the hero, the sword,
the purity of blood, the struggle against corrupting
forces. The Nazis just adopted him as their own.
Hitler made Beirut a state -sponsored shrine.
He was extremely close friends with Winifred
Wagner, Richard's English -born daughter -in
-law, who ran the festival in the 1930s and 40s.
The Nazis used Wagner's music at the Nuremberg
rallies. It became, for many, the official soundtrack
of the Third Reich. But I've heard there was
some conflict there, too. Not all the top Nazis
loved it. That's true. You have to remember,
the operas are incredibly long, difficult, and
philosophically complex. Goebbels, the propaganda
minister, found them tedious. And Alfred Rosenberg,
the chief Nazi ideologue, actually hated Parsifal.
He thought its message of compassion, pity, and
pacifism was weak, Christian, and un -German.
But Hitler's personal obsession overrode all
of that. And what about the concentration camps?
You hear stories about his music being played
there to torture prisoners. It's a common belief,
but most historical evidence suggests Wagner
was rarely, if ever, played in the death camps
themselves. The SS officers considered the music
too sacred to be heard by the prisoners. They
played light operetta or marching music instead.
However, in the very early days of the camp system,
like at Dachau, there are accounts of it being
used for re -education. blasting it at political
prisoners to psychologically break them and this
legacy is why to this day you can't really play
Wagner in Israel. Effectively, yes. There is
an unwritten ban. Every time an orchestra conductor
like Daniel Baron Boehm has tried to program
a Wagner piece in Israel, there are protests,
walkouts, and intense pain from the audience.
For Holocaust survivors and their families, that
music is inextricably linked to the sound of
their trauma. You cannot and should not try to
erase that association. It's a stain that will
never wash out. It's permanent. But before we
finish, we need to touch on his other relationships,
specifically with Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche.
This is a real intellectual tragedy in itself.
Nietzsche was a brilliant young professor of
philology when he met Wagner. He idolized him.
He saw Wagner as the rebirth of Greek tragedy,
the artistic genius who would save German culture
from mediocrity. They were incredibly close.
Nietzsche practically lived at Wagner's home
in Tription for a while. So what happened? What
caused the break? Nietzsche grew up. and he watched
Wagner change. He felt Wagner was selling out
to a vulgar German nationalism, and even worse
in Nietzsche's eyes, to Christianity. When Wagner
wrote Parsifal, with its themes of the Holy Grail,
Christian redemption, and pity, Nietzsche was
utterly disgusted. He felt Wagner had betrayed
his revolutionary, atheistic roots and had knelt
before the cross. Nietzsche wrote a series of
blistering attacks, like the case of Wagner,
calling him a decadence, a sickness. He famously
said Wagner is a neurosis. So he broke up with
him via philosophy book. It was a brutal intellectual
takedown, but it broke Nietzsche's heart, truly.
He loved the man or the idea of the man, but
hated what he believed he became. Let's zoom
out to the modern day then. We've covered the
heady stuff, but if I go to the movies today,
am I hearing Wagner? You're hearing him everywhere.
If you listen to John Williams, Star Wars, Harry
Potter, Indiana Jones, you are listening to Wagnerian
techniques. The Imperial March. That's a leitmotif.
the force theme that's a leitmotif the way the
music tells you exactly what luke skywalker is
feeling even when he says nothing that is pure
wagner he invented the language of film scoring
and lord of the rings obviously the parallels
are just too strong howard shore's score is a
direct descendant it's a massive system of leitmotifs
and the story itself the cursed ring, the broken
sword that must be reforged, the dragon guarding
a hoard of gold Tolkien, always denied a direct
influence, but the DNA is undeniably there. And
something I found surprising, the heavy metal
connection. Joey DiMaio of the band Manowar,
famously called Wagner the father of heavy metal.
And when you think about it, it makes perfect
sense. The sheer volume, the bombast, the obsession
with Norse gods and epic mythology, the themes
of doom and power and heroic struggle. If you
stripped away the violins and added a wall of
distorted guitars, Da Walker is basically a concept
album for a power metal band. Even the people
who hated him couldn't escape him. Nobody could.
Debussy called him an old poisoner, but was still
deeply influenced by his harmonies. T .S. Eliot
quotes Tristan and Isolde directly in The Wasteland.
The modernists, the people who built 20th century
culture, they all had to grapple with him. James
Joyce, Thomas Mann, you couldn't ignore him,
whether you loved him or loathed him. So we reach
the end. Wagner moved to Venice for his health
in his later years. Yes, he had a serious heart
condition. He rented the Grand Palazzo Justinian
on the Grand Canal. On February 13, 1883, after
an argument with Cosima, he had a massive fatal
heart attack. He reportedly died in her arms.
And he was buried back in Beirut. In the garden
of his home, his villa that he named Wanfried,
which means something like peace from delusion.
There's one final image I want to leave our listeners
with. It's from the premiere of his very last
opera, Parsifal, in 1882. The 16th and final
performance of that first festival season. Right.
Wagner is old. He's frail. He's been forbidden
by his doctors from conducting. But during the
third act, he secretly slips down into the mystic
abyss, into that hidden orchestra pit. He took
the baton from the conductor, Herman Levi, the
man he so often tormented. The audience couldn't
see him. The singers on stage couldn't see him.
But the orchestra, they saw him. And he conducted
the final act of his final opera himself, anonymously.
The musicians later said the sound changed, that
they could feel a different energy coming up
from the pit. He needed to control his artistic
universe until the very last note. He died just
a few months later. And that leaves us with the
big question, the Wagner Paradox. We have the
man who wrote some of the most beautiful, transformative,
profound music in human history music that taught
us how to feel things we didn't know we could
feel. And we have the man who was a narcissist,
a cheat. A virulent bigot and an icon for one
of history's most hateful regimes. Can you separate
them? The art from the artist? Can you? Can you
listen to the ride of the Valkyries without thinking
of the helicopters in Apocalypse? Now or, more
chillingly, the rallies in Nuremberg? I don't
think you can fully separate them. And in a way,
Wagner himself didn't want you to. He insisted
his art was a direct expression of his worldview.
But perhaps the true challenge, the maturity
of a culture, is the ability to hold two opposing
ideas at once. That a work of art can be magnificent
and transcendent, and its creator can be a monstrous
human being. It's not a comfortable conclusion.
But then with Wagner, nothing is ever comfortable.
No, it is simply loud, overwhelming, and utterly,
completely undeniable. Thanks for joining us
on this deep dive. We'll see you next time.