WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.960 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are looking 00:00:01.960 --> 00:00:05.540 at a figure who is, quite frankly, too big to 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:07.700 fit in a box. I'm looking at the stack of notes 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:10.380 we have here, and it is intimidating. We're talking 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:13.099 about a man whose life feels less like a biography 00:00:13.099 --> 00:00:16.359 and more like a mythological epic that he, you 00:00:16.359 --> 00:00:19.000 know, wrote himself. It really is a subject that 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.440 tends to consume everything around it. We are 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:24.019 discussing Richard Wagner. And you are absolutely 00:00:24.019 --> 00:00:26.140 right about the scale. We aren't just talking 00:00:26.140 --> 00:00:28.480 about a composer. We are talking about a cultural 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.960 phenomenon that, well, it basically split the 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.560 world in two. It really does seem gynery with 00:00:33.560 --> 00:00:36.729 him. People don't just... Kind of like Wagner. 00:00:37.009 --> 00:00:39.250 I've seen quotes where he is described as a god, 00:00:39.450 --> 00:00:41.250 the savior of art, and then you have others describing 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:44.009 him as a literal plague. The French composer 00:00:44.009 --> 00:00:46.329 Charles Valentin Elkin is probably the most famous 00:00:46.329 --> 00:00:48.850 example of that. He said, Wagner is not a musician. 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:51.969 He is a disease. And that sentiment, it wasn't 00:00:51.969 --> 00:00:54.570 uncommon. The polarization was immediate, violent, 00:00:54.710 --> 00:00:57.590 and it has lasted for 140 years. You are either 00:00:57.590 --> 00:01:00.119 a Wagnerian. completely devoted to the cult, 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:02.640 or you are actively repulsed by him. There's 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:05.280 very little middle ground. So our mission today 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.879 is to figure out why. We've got his autobiography, 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:12.760 Mein Leben, his very heavy theoretical essays 00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:15.379 like opera and drama, and historical accounts 00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:17.340 ranging from his friendship with Friedrich Nietzsche 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:19.519 to the horrific appropriation of his work in 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:22.379 the 20th century. We need to understand how a 00:01:22.379 --> 00:01:25.219 guy who spent half his life running from loan 00:01:25.219 --> 00:01:28.200 sharks, managed to revolutionize the entire concept 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:30.040 of art. And we have to do that while holding 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:32.019 two very difficult truths in our heads at the 00:01:32.019 --> 00:01:34.859 same time. One, he created the music drama, which 00:01:34.859 --> 00:01:37.500 is, you know, it's the foundation of modern cinema 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:41.500 and storytelling. Two, his worldview and legacy 00:01:41.500 --> 00:01:44.319 are entangled with some of darkest ideologies 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.739 in human history. It's a paradox, a massive one. 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:48.400 A huge paradox. So let's start at the beginning 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:50.359 then, because when I think of Wagner, I think 00:01:50.359 --> 00:01:52.659 of emperors, custom -built theaters, velvet robes. 00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:54.959 I don't picture a kid born in the Jewish quarter 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:56.459 of Leipzig. That is where it starts, though. 00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:59.819 May 23, 1813, at the House of the Red and White 00:01:59.819 --> 00:02:02.180 Lions in the Brule District. And right out of 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:03.760 gate, there is ambiguity. There is a mystery. 00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:07.379 Ambiguity about what? His family? About his father. 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:10.360 His legal father was a man named Carl Friedrich 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:13.719 Wadner, a police clerk. But Carl died of typhoid 00:02:13.719 --> 00:02:16.719 fever when Richard was only six months old. And 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:19.280 almost immediately... I mean, suspiciously fast. 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.219 His mother, Johanna, moved in with a man named 00:02:22.219 --> 00:02:25.560 Ludwig Geyer. Geyer. Who was he? He was an actor, 00:02:25.659 --> 00:02:27.580 a playwright, and a close friend of the family. 00:02:27.699 --> 00:02:29.780 They married very quickly. And for the first 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:32.180 14 years of his life, Wagner didn't even use 00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:34.919 the name Wagner. He was known as Wilhelm Richard 00:02:34.919 --> 00:02:36.979 Geyer. Wait, wait. So he didn't know he was a 00:02:36.979 --> 00:02:38.919 Wagner. He thought he was a Geyer. He grew up 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:41.039 believing Geyer was his father. And later in 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:43.659 life, looking back, Wagner found evidence letters, 00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:46.300 timelines, things that made him strongly suspect 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:49.280 Geyer was his biological father all along. Does 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:51.120 that matter? Other than just being a bit of... 00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:53.409 You know, family drama. Oh, it matters immensely 00:02:53.409 --> 00:02:55.909 for his psychology. Geyer had a background in 00:02:55.909 --> 00:02:57.689 the theater, which is almost certainly where 00:02:57.689 --> 00:03:00.750 Wagner got that artistic spark. But Geyer also 00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:03.189 came from a family that had potential Jewish 00:03:03.189 --> 00:03:06.030 roots, though Geyer himself was Protestant. Given 00:03:06.030 --> 00:03:10.150 Wagner's later virulent anti -Semitism, the fear 00:03:10.150 --> 00:03:13.150 that the persistent rumor that he himself might 00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:16.069 be of Jewish descent via Geyer became a source 00:03:16.069 --> 00:03:19.270 of massive, torturous insecurity for him. It 00:03:19.270 --> 00:03:22.210 haunted him. That is a heavy psychological load 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:24.590 to carry from childhood. But you mentioned the 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:26.909 theater influence, so I assume he was a prodigy. 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.719 Like Mozart writing concertos at age five. Far 00:03:29.719 --> 00:03:31.939 from it. That's a funny thing. He wasn't a natural 00:03:31.939 --> 00:03:34.919 musician in the technical sense at all. His Latin 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:36.919 teacher tried to teach him piano, and it was 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:40.199 a complete disaster. Wagner refused to practice 00:03:40.199 --> 00:03:42.319 his scales. He just wanted to bang out theater 00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:45.379 overtures by ear. Hold on. He's one of the most 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:48.199 harmonically complex composers in history, and 00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:50.240 he couldn't play his scales. How does that even 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:53.000 work? He heard the drama first. That's the key. 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:54.680 He wasn't interested in the technique of the 00:03:54.680 --> 00:03:56.599 instrument. He was interested in the emotional 00:03:56.599 --> 00:03:59.659 impact of the sound. He was a dramatist who learned 00:03:59.659 --> 00:04:02.659 to use music as a tool. His real awakening didn't 00:04:02.659 --> 00:04:05.180 come from a piano lesson. It came from two things. 00:04:05.479 --> 00:04:07.919 Hearing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he 00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:10.680 transcribed for piano by hand. Which is insane 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:14.120 in itself. Completely insane. And seeing a very 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:16.660 specific performance. His singer. A dramatic 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.660 soprano named Wilhelmine Schroeder -Devrien. 00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:23.060 He saw her perform, we think it was, as Leonor 00:04:23.060 --> 00:04:26.079 in Beethoven's Fidelio. He wrote later that it 00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:28.220 wasn't just her voice, it was the almost demonic 00:04:28.220 --> 00:04:31.120 fire in her acting. She threw herself into the 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.800 role with such ecstasy that it terrified and 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.519 thrilled him. That was the moment. He realized 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:38.519 that music shouldn't just be pretty melodies, 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:40.959 it should be an ecstatic, overwhelming theatrical 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.639 experience. So he catches the bug, he decides, 00:04:43.779 --> 00:04:45.829 this is what I'm going to do. Does he go straight 00:04:45.829 --> 00:04:47.410 to the top? He goes straight to the bottom. He 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:49.709 enrolls in Leipzig University, takes some composition 00:04:49.709 --> 00:04:52.310 lessons, and starts working in these tiny provincial 00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:56.209 theaters. Würzburg, Magdeburg. Small towns, small 00:04:56.209 --> 00:04:59.189 -time jobs. And this is where the second defining 00:04:59.189 --> 00:05:02.269 theme of his life appears. Absolute financial 00:05:02.269 --> 00:05:06.170 chaos. He was bad with money. Bad is the understatement 00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:08.589 of the century. He had a hole in his pocket the 00:05:08.589 --> 00:05:11.430 size of the Grand Canyon. He felt he was entitled 00:05:11.430 --> 00:05:15.250 to luxury silks. perfumes, fine apartments, regardless 00:05:15.250 --> 00:05:17.990 of his income, which was usually zero, he started 00:05:17.990 --> 00:05:20.430 borrowing money from everyone he met and simply 00:05:20.430 --> 00:05:22.870 never paying it back. It was a compulsion. And 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:24.990 amidst this financial mess, he gets married. 00:05:25.189 --> 00:05:27.509 Of course he does. To Mina Planer. She was a 00:05:27.509 --> 00:05:30.129 leading lady, a very successful actress. They 00:05:30.129 --> 00:05:33.769 married in 1836. And it was, to put it mildly, 00:05:33.790 --> 00:05:36.670 a complete train wreck. In what way? Well, for 00:05:36.670 --> 00:05:39.259 starters... Six months after the wedding, she 00:05:39.259 --> 00:05:41.879 ran off with a merchant named Dietrich. Six months. 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:44.160 Six months. She eventually came back, but the 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:47.199 dynamic was set. They were two volatile, artistic 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:49.660 people drowning in debt, constantly fighting. 00:05:49.819 --> 00:05:53.120 By 1839, they were in Riga, in modern -day Latvia, 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.939 and the debt situation had become criminal. The 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:57.800 authorities were involved. Their passports were 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.459 seized. So they're trapped in Latvia with creditors 00:06:00.459 --> 00:06:03.029 closing in? That sounds like a movie. It basically 00:06:03.029 --> 00:06:05.089 was they had to run. This is the great escape. 00:06:05.389 --> 00:06:07.329 They couldn't leave legally, so they had to be 00:06:07.329 --> 00:06:09.589 smuggled across the border at night to the coast. 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:12.939 They boarded a small merchant vessel called the 00:06:12.939 --> 00:06:15.860 Thetis, which was bound for London. Nice cruise 00:06:15.860 --> 00:06:18.459 to calm the nerves. It was a nightmare. The ship 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.680 was tiny. The North Sea was furious. They hit 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.800 three violent storms. The captain had to seek 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:27.000 shelter in the Norwegian fjords just to keep 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:30.060 from sinking. Imagine this. Wagner's terrified, 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:33.019 seasick, thinking he's going to die. But as they're 00:06:33.019 --> 00:06:35.819 hiding in these fjords, he hears the sailors' 00:06:35.939 --> 00:06:38.560 calls echoing off the granite walls, the wind 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:40.420 howling through the ribbing. And his brain just 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:42.899 goes, I can use this. Exactly. He wasn't just 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:46.180 surviving. He was taking notes. That voyage is 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:49.339 the direct one -to -one inspiration for Der Fliegende 00:06:49.339 --> 00:06:51.500 Hollander, The Flying Dutchman. The music of 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:54.399 that opera is the sound of that storm. He captured 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:56.519 the terror of the ocean and the legend of the 00:06:56.519 --> 00:06:59.600 ghost ship doomed to sail forever. He felt like 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:01.980 he was the Dutchman, a man condemned to wander. 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:04.279 They survived the trip. They land in London. 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.920 And eventually they head to Paris. Paris in the 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:10.199 1840s. That's the place to be for an artist, 00:07:10.339 --> 00:07:12.199 right? The center of the world. If you're successful, 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:15.019 yes. If you're Wagner, it was a complete and 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:17.660 utter humiliation. He spent two years there from 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:21.639 1839 to 1842 in abject poverty. We were talking 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:23.439 about the man who would write the Ring Cycle, 00:07:23.459 --> 00:07:26.519 and he's sitting in a freezing garret arranging 00:07:26.519 --> 00:07:29.180 popular opera tunes for the cornet just to buy 00:07:29.180 --> 00:07:32.279 bread. Wow. That has to be damaging to the ego. 00:07:32.459 --> 00:07:34.500 It made him bitter. He felt the Parisian musical 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:36.620 establishment, which was dominated by flashy, 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:39.439 commercially successful grand opera, was rejecting 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:41.899 him. He wrote these novelettes for newspapers 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:44.560 about a German musician dying of starvation in 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:47.240 Paris. It was all very self -pitying. But crucially, 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.300 he was also soaking up ideas. He was attending 00:07:49.300 --> 00:07:51.620 lectures, reading history, and he finally got 00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:54.879 a break. In Germany. Yes. His opera Rienzi, which 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:57.579 is this massive five -act grand spectacle very 00:07:57.579 --> 00:07:59.300 much in the French style he claimed to hate, 00:07:59.459 --> 00:08:02.240 was accepted by the Dresden Court Theater. He 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.180 and Minnis scraped together the money to travel 00:08:04.180 --> 00:08:07.420 back to Germany in 1842. The opera premiered, 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:10.000 and it was a smash hit. Just like that. Just 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.680 like that. Overnight, he went from a starting 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:16.600 refugee to the Royal Saxon Court Conductor, Kappelmeister, 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:19.560 one of the most prestigious musical jobs in Germany. 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.399 That is absolute whiplash. One minute you're 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:24.420 arranging cornet tunes for pennies, the next 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:26.220 you're the royal conductor. You'd think he would 00:08:26.220 --> 00:08:28.160 just settle down, enjoy the salary, and finally 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:30.709 pay off his debts. You would think. But Wagner 00:08:30.709 --> 00:08:33.870 was constitutionally incapable of settling down. 00:08:34.210 --> 00:08:37.509 He was in Dresden during the 1840s, a time when 00:08:37.509 --> 00:08:39.970 all of Europe was just bubbling with revolution. 00:08:41.070 --> 00:08:43.370 Wagner, instead of joining the courtly social 00:08:43.370 --> 00:08:46.789 circles, fell in with a crowd of radical intellectuals. 00:08:46.789 --> 00:08:48.950 Who are we talking about here? People like Mikhail 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:51.450 Bakunin. The Russian anarchist. Yeah. The father 00:08:51.450 --> 00:08:53.850 of anarchism. That's the one. Wagner and Bakunin 00:08:53.850 --> 00:08:55.970 were hanging out, debating late into the night. 00:08:56.429 --> 00:08:59.149 Wagner started reading Proudhon and Feuerbach. 00:08:59.529 --> 00:09:02.769 He became convinced that the entire social structure 00:09:02.769 --> 00:09:05.929 of Europe, the aristocracy, capitalism, the very 00:09:05.929 --> 00:09:08.230 theater system that employed him, was rotten 00:09:08.230 --> 00:09:10.990 to the core. He believed that for true art to 00:09:10.990 --> 00:09:13.850 exist, the old world had to be burned down. A 00:09:13.850 --> 00:09:16.330 royal conductor wanting to burn down the monarchy. 00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:18.610 That's a bit of a conflict of interest. To say 00:09:18.610 --> 00:09:21.870 the least. And it came to a head in 1849. The 00:09:21.870 --> 00:09:24.929 May uprising in Dresden. The revolutionaries 00:09:24.929 --> 00:09:27.110 took to the streets to overthrow the king of 00:09:27.110 --> 00:09:29.950 Saxony. And Wagner wasn't just watching from 00:09:29.950 --> 00:09:33.070 his window. He was printing revolutionary pamphlets. 00:09:33.110 --> 00:09:35.990 He was reportedly in the watchtower winging the 00:09:35.990 --> 00:09:38.710 bells to signal the rebels. He was procuring 00:09:38.710 --> 00:09:40.750 hand grenades. He was a full on revolutionary. 00:09:41.129 --> 00:09:43.350 And when the uprising failed. It was brutally 00:09:43.350 --> 00:09:46.600 crushed by Prussian troops. Bakunin was arrested 00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:49.139 and sentenced to death, though it was later commuted. 00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:52.220 Wagner, realizing he was a wanted man with a 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:55.179 warrant out for his arrest, fled. He left his 00:09:55.179 --> 00:09:58.440 wife, his job, his success, and ran to Switzerland 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:01.100 with the help of his friend Franz Liszt. So begins 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:03.580 exile number two. And this is the most critical 00:10:03.580 --> 00:10:05.840 period of his life. He spent 12 years in exile, 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.940 mostly in Zurich. He was depressed, he was isolated, 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:11.559 and he couldn't get his operas performed back 00:10:11.559 --> 00:10:13.919 in Germany. So he stopped composing. He stopped 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:17.019 writing music. For how long? For about six years, 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:20.100 he barely wrote a note of music. Instead, he 00:10:20.100 --> 00:10:22.679 wrote books. He needed to explain to himself 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:25.419 and to the world what went wrong and what the 00:10:25.419 --> 00:10:27.639 future of art should look like. This is when 00:10:27.639 --> 00:10:30.179 he wrote the artwork of the future and the massive, 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:33.100 dense tome, opera and drama. And this is where 00:10:33.100 --> 00:10:35.519 he comes up with the big German word, Gesamtkunstwerk. 00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:39.590 Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art. Wagner 00:10:39.590 --> 00:10:42.789 looked at the opera of his day, Rossini, Meyerbeer, 00:10:42.909 --> 00:10:45.490 and he hated it. He felt that composers were 00:10:45.490 --> 00:10:48.470 just using the drama as a flimsy excuse to string 00:10:48.470 --> 00:10:51.309 together catchy songs, you know, arias, so the 00:10:51.309 --> 00:10:57.070 singers could show off. He famously said, Okay, 00:11:02.629 --> 00:11:04.409 unpack that for me. What does it actually mean? 00:11:04.590 --> 00:11:06.769 He means the story should be the boss. The drama 00:11:06.769 --> 00:11:08.870 is everything. The music, the... Poetry, the 00:11:08.870 --> 00:11:11.190 set design, the lighting, the acting, they are 00:11:11.190 --> 00:11:13.789 all equal partners serving one single purpose, 00:11:14.029 --> 00:11:16.850 to express the drama. No more stopping the show 00:11:16.850 --> 00:11:19.049 for a five -minute solo where the soprano stands 00:11:19.049 --> 00:11:20.769 at the front of the stage and trills about her 00:11:20.769 --> 00:11:23.110 feelings. So it's continuous. The music must 00:11:23.110 --> 00:11:26.169 never stop. It must flow continuously like a 00:11:26.169 --> 00:11:28.809 river mirroring the stream of consciousness of 00:11:28.809 --> 00:11:31.789 the characters. He called it endless melody. 00:11:32.149 --> 00:11:34.970 So he invents the music drama, and he decides 00:11:34.970 --> 00:11:37.370 he has to write everything himself to achieve 00:11:37.370 --> 00:11:40.940 this. Yes. No more working with a librettist. 00:11:41.019 --> 00:11:43.039 He would write the play. He would write the music. 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:45.639 He would design the staging. He viewed it as 00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:48.659 a single unified entity that could only come 00:11:48.659 --> 00:11:51.399 from one creator. And while he was constructing 00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:53.960 this grand theory, he discovered a philosopher 00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:56.919 who gave him the metaphysical framework for it 00:11:56.919 --> 00:11:59.419 all. Arthur Schopenhauer. We mentioned him in 00:11:59.419 --> 00:12:02.940 the intro. The great pessimist. In 1854, a friend 00:12:02.940 --> 00:12:04.980 introduced Wagner to Schopenhauer's book The 00:12:04.980 --> 00:12:08.120 World as Will and Representation. It hit Wagner 00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:10.559 like a lightning bolt. Schopenhauer argued that 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.019 the universe isn't driven by reason or God, but 00:12:13.019 --> 00:12:16.039 by a blind, irrational, insatiable force he called 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:18.799 the will. This will is what drives all our desires 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:21.840 for sex, for hunger, for power. Because the will 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:24.600 can never truly be satisfied, life is essentially 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:27.539 suffering. Cheerful stuff. Very. Schopenhauer 00:12:27.539 --> 00:12:29.799 argued that the only way to find peace is to 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:33.070 deny the will. to renounce desire, to achieve 00:12:33.070 --> 00:12:35.330 a kind of Buddhist -like negation of the self 00:12:35.330 --> 00:12:37.669 and turn away from the world. That seems like 00:12:37.669 --> 00:12:39.990 the absolute opposite of Wagner, the revolutionary 00:12:39.990 --> 00:12:42.990 who wanted to burn down cities and buy silk underwear. 00:12:43.210 --> 00:12:45.610 It was a massive contradiction, but Wagner embraced 00:12:45.610 --> 00:12:48.230 it intellectually. He moved from being a political 00:12:48.230 --> 00:12:50.710 revolutionary who wanted to fix the world to 00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:52.970 a metaphysical one who wanted to transcend the 00:12:52.970 --> 00:12:55.190 world. You see this shift in his work almost 00:12:55.190 --> 00:12:58.389 immediately. His characters stop trying to win 00:12:58.389 --> 00:13:00.590 political battles and start looking for redemption 00:13:00.590 --> 00:13:03.110 through death or renunciation. And he decides 00:13:03.110 --> 00:13:06.070 to apply all this theory, the total art, the 00:13:06.070 --> 00:13:08.690 continuous music, the Schopenhauer, to the biggest 00:13:08.690 --> 00:13:12.029 project in the history of music, the Ring Cycle. 00:13:12.230 --> 00:13:15.090 The Ring des Nibelungen. It is just staggering 00:13:15.090 --> 00:13:17.269 to think about. He started writing the text back 00:13:17.269 --> 00:13:20.730 in 1848 and didn't finish the music until 1874. 00:13:20.789 --> 00:13:24.049 That's 26 years. 26 years on one project. For 00:13:24.049 --> 00:13:25.549 someone who hasn't seen it, just give us the 00:13:25.549 --> 00:13:27.389 scale. What are we looking at? We are looking 00:13:27.389 --> 00:13:30.580 at about 15 to 16 hours of music. It's intended 00:13:30.580 --> 00:13:33.360 to be seen over four consecutive nights. There's 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:36.299 a preliminary evening, Das Rangold, and then 00:13:36.299 --> 00:13:39.620 three main days, Die Walkute, Siegfried, and 00:13:39.620 --> 00:13:41.820 Götterdummering, which means Twilight of the 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:44.840 Gods. End of story. The plot spans generations. 00:13:44.919 --> 00:13:46.860 It starts with the creation of the world and 00:13:46.860 --> 00:13:49.919 ends with the apocalypse. It involves gods, giants, 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:52.659 dwarves, dragons, magic swords, and a magic ring 00:13:52.659 --> 00:13:55.279 that brings misery to everyone who owns it. It 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:57.820 is Lord of the Rings. Literally, Tolkien drew 00:13:57.820 --> 00:13:59.919 heavily from the same Norse and Germanic myths, 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.980 but set to the most complex and dense music ever 00:14:02.980 --> 00:14:04.720 written up to that point. And this is where the 00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:07.320 leitmotif comes in. We hear that term a lot in 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:09.720 film class, but how did Wagner actually use it? 00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:12.659 Well, before Wagner, composers had themes or 00:14:12.659 --> 00:14:15.559 reminiscence motives, but Wagner weaponized them. 00:14:15.700 --> 00:14:18.279 A leitmotif is a short musical phrase that's 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:20.559 associated with a specific person, an object, 00:14:20.820 --> 00:14:24.100 like the ring or the sword, or an idea like fate 00:14:24.100 --> 00:14:26.759 or a curse. Can you give me a concrete example? 00:14:27.139 --> 00:14:29.360 Sure. Let's say there's a motif for a secret. 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:33.549 It's a slippery, quiet little melody. Now, imagine 00:14:33.549 --> 00:14:36.110 a character is on stage telling a lie. He's saying, 00:14:36.190 --> 00:14:38.250 I have nothing to hide. I'm telling you the truth. 00:14:38.929 --> 00:14:41.210 But while he's saying that, you, the audience, 00:14:41.450 --> 00:14:44.169 hear the secret motif playing quietly in the 00:14:44.169 --> 00:14:47.129 orchestra. So you know he's lying. The orchestra 00:14:47.129 --> 00:14:49.029 is tipping you off. The orchestra becomes the 00:14:49.029 --> 00:14:51.509 narrator. It tells you the subtext, the inner 00:14:51.509 --> 00:14:53.509 thoughts, the things the characters can't or 00:14:53.509 --> 00:14:56.429 won't say. It's profoundly psychological. And 00:14:56.429 --> 00:14:58.669 they change over time. Completely. And this is 00:14:58.669 --> 00:15:01.490 the genius of it. They evolve. If a hero grows 00:15:01.490 --> 00:15:04.250 up and becomes stronger, his motif might change 00:15:04.250 --> 00:15:07.809 from a simple horn call to a grand brass fanfare. 00:15:08.009 --> 00:15:10.850 If the ring is cursed, the ring motif might warp 00:15:10.850 --> 00:15:12.970 and become distorted, played in a minor key. 00:15:13.149 --> 00:15:16.049 By the end of the 16 -hour cycle, there are dozens 00:15:16.049 --> 00:15:18.590 of these motifs weaving over, under, and through 00:15:18.590 --> 00:15:21.090 each other. It's a thick web of meaning. You 00:15:21.090 --> 00:15:23.429 aren't just listening to music. You are decoding 00:15:23.429 --> 00:15:25.950 a subconscious map of the entire drama. That 00:15:25.950 --> 00:15:28.070 sounds absolutely exhausting to write. I can't 00:15:28.070 --> 00:15:30.610 even imagine. It was. And in the middle of writing 00:15:30.610 --> 00:15:33.350 it, specifically in the middle of act two of 00:15:33.350 --> 00:15:36.870 Siegfried Wagner, just he stopped. He put the 00:15:36.870 --> 00:15:38.990 pen down and didn't pick up the ring again for 00:15:38.990 --> 00:15:43.269 12 years. 12 years. Why? Just writer's block 00:15:43.269 --> 00:15:45.950 on a colossal scale. It was a combination of 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.529 things. He felt it was impractical that no theater 00:15:48.529 --> 00:15:50.870 could ever stage it. But the main reason was 00:15:50.870 --> 00:15:54.379 love trouble and money trouble. But mostly love. 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:56.820 Of course. While in Zurich, he was living in 00:15:56.820 --> 00:15:59.100 a small cottage on the estate of a wealthy silk 00:15:59.100 --> 00:16:02.879 merchant and patron named Otto Wesendonk. Wagner 00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:05.100 naturally fell madly in love with Otto's wife, 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:07.200 Matilde. He has a habit of this, doesn't he? 00:16:07.259 --> 00:16:09.419 He does. And this was an intense intellectual, 00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:12.399 spiritual passion. They likely didn't consummate 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:14.580 it physically, but the emotional affair was raging. 00:16:14.779 --> 00:16:16.500 He was miserable because he couldn't have her. 00:16:16.580 --> 00:16:19.440 And he channeled all of that misery, that unfulfilled 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:21.840 longing, that desire for a love that could only 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:26.379 exist outside of life into a new opera. Tristan 00:16:26.379 --> 00:16:28.659 and Isolde. This is the one. This is the one 00:16:28.659 --> 00:16:30.419 that music nerds always point to as the beginning 00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:32.639 of modern music. Why is that? What's so special 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.379 about it? It boils down to the very first chord 00:16:35.379 --> 00:16:38.399 of the opera, the Tristan chord. What's so special 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:40.279 about a single chord? Think of traditional Western 00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:43.250 music as having a home. You start at home, the 00:16:43.250 --> 00:16:45.330 tonic key. You go on a journey of tension and 00:16:45.330 --> 00:16:47.230 different chords, and then you resolve back home. 00:16:47.350 --> 00:16:51.210 It's satisfying. The Tristan chord is pure, unresolved 00:16:51.210 --> 00:16:54.429 tension. It's dissonant. And instead of resolving 00:16:54.429 --> 00:16:57.330 to a comfortable home chord, it just slides into 00:16:57.330 --> 00:17:00.639 another dissonant. tense chord and then another 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:04.160 so it never goes on not for four hours the entire 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:07.359 opera is a constant state of yearning of reaching 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:10.220 for a resolution that never comes it perfectly 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:12.579 mirrors the psychological state of the characters 00:17:12.579 --> 00:17:15.859 tristan and isolde whose illicit love is so intense 00:17:15.859 --> 00:17:18.279 it can't exist in the real world they can only 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:21.380 find their resolution their home in death that 00:17:21.380 --> 00:17:24.000 sounds incredibly stressful to listen to it creates 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:27.019 a physical reaction in the listener It's intoxicating. 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:29.900 It's the sound of obsession. Wagner wrote to 00:17:29.900 --> 00:17:32.000 Mathilde that the opera was terrible and that 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:34.140 a perfect performance of it would drive people 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:37.700 mad. When it was finally performed, it completely 00:17:37.700 --> 00:17:40.140 bewildered people. It broke the rules of harmony 00:17:40.140 --> 00:17:42.859 so thoroughly that it opened the door for everything 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:46.079 that came later. A tonality, Schoenberg, jazz, 00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:49.440 all of it. So he finishes this masterpiece of 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.000 yearning. What happens with Mathilde in the real 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.720 world? His wife, Minna, intercepted a letter. 00:17:55.210 --> 00:17:57.529 The whole situation with him living in the cottage, 00:17:57.630 --> 00:17:59.970 which they called the asyle or asylum, just blew 00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:02.950 up. Wagner had to flee again. He went to Venice, 00:18:03.069 --> 00:18:05.670 then back to Paris. He tried to stage his earlier 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:08.809 opera Tannhäuser in Paris in 1861. And it was 00:18:08.809 --> 00:18:11.390 one of the most famous fiascos in theater history. 00:18:11.509 --> 00:18:14.619 A fiasco. Why? Because of the Jockey Club. These 00:18:14.619 --> 00:18:16.799 were a group of wealthy, arrogant young aristocrats 00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:18.720 who dined late and only came to the opera for 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.640 the second act ballet so they could oogle the 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.319 ballet dancers. Wagner, being an artistic purist, 00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:25.019 put the ballet in the first act where it made 00:18:25.019 --> 00:18:27.339 dramatic sense. The Jockey Club arrived in act 00:18:27.339 --> 00:18:29.559 two, realized they'd missed the girls, and were 00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:32.519 furious. They had organized a protest, they handed 00:18:32.519 --> 00:18:34.779 out dog whistles to their friends, and literally 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:38.079 whistled the opera off the stage for three straight 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:40.559 nights. That is petty on a level I can hardly 00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:44.259 comprehend. It broke Wagner. By 1864, he is in 00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:47.220 his 50s. He is hiding from creditors again, moving 00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:50.319 between various German cities. He has no home, 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.220 no money, and he feels his life's work. The ring 00:18:53.220 --> 00:18:55.799 will never be finished or performed. He wrote 00:18:55.799 --> 00:18:58.200 farewell letters. He actually bought a pistol. 00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:00.759 He was seriously contemplating suicide. And then 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:03.180 the fairy tale happens. It really is a fairy 00:19:03.180 --> 00:19:06.769 tale beat. A deus ex machina. King Ludwig II 00:19:06.769 --> 00:19:09.849 of Bavaria ascends the throne. He is 18 years 00:19:09.849 --> 00:19:12.589 old. He is tall, handsome, deeply eccentric, 00:19:12.710 --> 00:19:14.630 and he has been obsessed with Wagner's music 00:19:14.630 --> 00:19:17.130 since he was a boy. The very first thing he does 00:19:17.130 --> 00:19:19.869 as king is send a secretary to find Wagner. The 00:19:19.869 --> 00:19:21.950 secretary finds him in Stuttgart about to flee 00:19:21.950 --> 00:19:24.230 again. He gives him a ruby ring from the king, 00:19:24.369 --> 00:19:26.430 pays off all his debts, and installs him in a 00:19:26.430 --> 00:19:28.829 beautiful villa in Munich. Talk about a bailout. 00:19:28.950 --> 00:19:32.380 A royal bailout. It was a total salvation. Ludwig 00:19:32.380 --> 00:19:34.880 became his patron, but it was a very intense 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:38.140 and complicated relationship. Ludwig was homosexual 00:19:38.140 --> 00:19:40.900 and wrote Wagner letters that were overwhelmingly 00:19:40.900 --> 00:19:44.400 romantic. Oh, holy one, my beloved, my only friend. 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.220 Wagner, who desperately needed the money, played 00:19:47.220 --> 00:19:49.619 along. He manipulated the young king's affections 00:19:49.619 --> 00:19:52.099 to keep the cash flowing for his projects. And 00:19:52.099 --> 00:19:54.299 while he's manipulating the king, he's creating 00:19:54.299 --> 00:19:57.160 another massive scandal. The biggest one yet. 00:19:57.690 --> 00:20:00.390 He calls an incredible conductor, Hans von Gullo, 00:20:00.410 --> 00:20:02.750 to Munich to conduct the premiere of Tristan. 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:05.829 Von Gullo is one of Wagner's most devoted disciples. 00:20:06.250 --> 00:20:09.789 He brings his wife. Cosima. Cosima happens to 00:20:09.789 --> 00:20:11.930 be the daughter of Franz Liszt, Wagner's old 00:20:11.930 --> 00:20:13.950 friend and benefactor. I see where this is going. 00:20:14.109 --> 00:20:16.769 Wagner and Cosima begin a passionate affair right 00:20:16.769 --> 00:20:20.069 under von Bulow's nose. Cosima actually bears 00:20:20.069 --> 00:20:23.410 Wagner two children, Isolde and Eva, while she 00:20:23.410 --> 00:20:25.789 is still married to von Bulow, who pathetically 00:20:25.789 --> 00:20:27.930 tried to pretend the children were his. That's 00:20:27.930 --> 00:20:30.789 just brutal. It was a huge public scandal. The 00:20:30.789 --> 00:20:32.990 king was humiliated when he finally found out. 00:20:33.109 --> 00:20:37.029 The press in Munich goes wild. Wagner is labeled 00:20:37.029 --> 00:20:41.130 a Lolas, a male version of Lola Montes, the scandalous 00:20:41.130 --> 00:20:43.269 mistress who had brought down Ludwig's grandfather 00:20:43.269 --> 00:20:45.369 from the throne. So he gets kicked out of Munich. 00:20:45.609 --> 00:20:47.769 Even the king can't protect him. The king had 00:20:47.769 --> 00:20:50.049 to ask him to leave to prevent a political revolt. 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:53.339 So Wagner and Cosima, who eventually divorced 00:20:53.339 --> 00:20:56.420 von Bülow and married Wagner, moved to Switzerland 00:20:56.420 --> 00:20:59.079 again to a house called Kryption. But Wagner 00:20:59.079 --> 00:21:01.359 had his eyes on a bigger prize. He didn't just 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:03.660 want a house. He wanted a temple for his art. 00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:06.019 He wanted a place to perform the Ring, a place 00:21:06.019 --> 00:21:09.059 built just for it. Exactly. He knew the Ring 00:21:09.059 --> 00:21:11.119 was too big, too complex, and too innovative 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:14.000 for a normal 19th century opera house with its 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.799 box seats and social chatter. He needed a theater 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:19.700 built specifically for it. He chose the small 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:22.900 nondescript town of Beirut in Bavaria. Why there? 00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:25.259 Why not a major city? Because it was in the middle 00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:27.460 of nowhere. That was the point. He didn't want 00:21:27.460 --> 00:21:30.339 people treating his opera like a social event, 00:21:30.500 --> 00:21:32.559 coming to chat and show off their dresses. He 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:35.519 wanted them to make a pilgrimage, to travel there 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:37.839 with the sole purpose of experiencing the art. 00:21:37.940 --> 00:21:39.960 And the theater design itself was radical, right? 00:21:40.019 --> 00:21:42.140 Completely revolutionary. It was the first democratic 00:21:42.140 --> 00:21:45.319 theater, no private boxes for the rich arranged 00:21:45.319 --> 00:21:48.980 in a horseshoe, just a single fan -shaped rake 00:21:48.980 --> 00:21:51.599 of seating, like a Greek amphitheater, so everyone 00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:54.400 had a good, clear view of the stage. The seats 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:57.740 were hardwood. No comfort allowed. You were there 00:21:57.740 --> 00:22:00.180 to pay attention, not to relax. And he turned 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:02.660 off the lights. That might be his most influential 00:22:02.660 --> 00:22:05.420 innovation. Before Wagner, the lights in the 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:07.619 auditorium stayed on so people could read the 00:22:07.619 --> 00:22:10.099 program and, more importantly, look at each other. 00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:12.940 Wagner turned the lights out completely. He forced 00:22:12.940 --> 00:22:16.059 you to look at the stage, to be immersed. And 00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:18.750 the mystic abyss. What was that? the hidden orchestra 00:22:18.750 --> 00:22:21.509 pit. He designed it so the orchestra was sunk 00:22:21.509 --> 00:22:24.069 deep under the stage and covered with a wooden 00:22:24.069 --> 00:22:26.410 hood. You couldn't see the conductor. You couldn't 00:22:26.410 --> 00:22:28.809 see the violinist bowing. The sound just rose 00:22:28.809 --> 00:22:31.410 up from this invisible chasm, this mystic abyss, 00:22:31.430 --> 00:22:33.490 and mixed perfectly with the voices on stage. 00:22:33.710 --> 00:22:37.170 It was immersive. It was the first cinema experience, 00:22:37.450 --> 00:22:40.170 a century before cinema. So the first festival 00:22:40.170 --> 00:22:43.390 happens in 1876. It was the social and artistic 00:22:43.390 --> 00:22:46.700 event of the century. Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany 00:22:46.700 --> 00:22:50.279 was there, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, King Ludwig 00:22:50.279 --> 00:22:53.339 of Bavaria, composers like Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, 00:22:53.500 --> 00:22:56.509 Sasson, his father -in -law Liszt. the philosopher 00:22:56.509 --> 00:22:59.109 Nietzsche, everyone was there. They watched the 00:22:59.109 --> 00:23:02.089 world premiere of The Full Ring Cycle. Artistically, 00:23:02.230 --> 00:23:04.069 it was a triumph that changed music forever. 00:23:04.309 --> 00:23:07.309 And financially. A complete catastrophe. It ended 00:23:07.309 --> 00:23:10.710 with a massive deficit of about 150 ,000 marks. 00:23:11.049 --> 00:23:13.069 Wagner had to go on tour conducting concerts 00:23:13.069 --> 00:23:15.210 and even wrote the Centennial March for America 00:23:15.210 --> 00:23:18.109 for $5 ,000 just to try and pay it off. Of course 00:23:18.109 --> 00:23:20.029 it did. It wouldn't be Wagner without a crushing 00:23:20.029 --> 00:23:23.160 debt story. But the template was set. The Bayreuth 00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:25.579 Festival still runs today and it's still controlled 00:23:25.579 --> 00:23:27.819 by the Wagner family. OK, we have to pivot now. 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:29.660 This is the hard part. We've talked about the 00:23:29.660 --> 00:23:33.099 genius and the innovation, but we cannot talk 00:23:33.099 --> 00:23:35.279 about Wagner without talking about the hate that 00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:37.660 he espoused. No, we can't. And we have to be 00:23:37.660 --> 00:23:39.960 very clear here. This isn't just a case of he 00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:42.519 was a man of his 19th century time and held some 00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:46.960 casual prejudices. Wagner was a virulent, vocal 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:50.140 and prolific anti -Semite. It was central to 00:23:50.140 --> 00:23:52.839 his worldview. It all centers on his essay, Judaism 00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:56.500 in Music. Das Judentum in der Musik. He published 00:23:56.500 --> 00:23:59.140 it first in 1850 under a pseudonym, but then, 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:01.720 seeking more controversy, he republished it in 00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:04.740 1869 under his own name with an extended preface. 00:24:05.019 --> 00:24:07.799 In it, he attacked Jewish musicians, specifically 00:24:07.799 --> 00:24:10.299 the late Felix Mendelssohn and his old rival 00:24:10.299 --> 00:24:12.599 Giacomo Meyerbeer. What was his argument? What 00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:14.599 was he actually saying? He argued that Jewish 00:24:14.599 --> 00:24:17.420 people were a foreign alien element in European 00:24:17.420 --> 00:24:20.160 society, disconnected from the true national 00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:23.400 spirit or Volksgeist. He claimed that because 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:25.680 they were outsiders to the culture, they could 00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:28.299 only ever mimic or imitate European art. They 00:24:28.299 --> 00:24:30.960 couldn't create anything truly deep or soulful. 00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:34.039 He described their speech and singing as unpleasant 00:24:34.039 --> 00:24:37.900 and unnatural. It was vile, paranoid, hateful 00:24:37.900 --> 00:24:40.220 stuff. And yet the great contradiction is that 00:24:40.220 --> 00:24:43.309 he had Jewish friends. He worked with them. That's 00:24:43.309 --> 00:24:45.930 the maddening hypocrisy of it. He chose Herman 00:24:45.930 --> 00:24:48.170 Levi, the son of a rabbi, to conduct the world 00:24:48.170 --> 00:24:50.910 premiere of Parsifal, his final, most Christian 00:24:50.910 --> 00:24:53.829 opera. He bullied Levi. He tried to get him to 00:24:53.829 --> 00:24:56.190 convert to Christianity. He insulted him constantly. 00:24:56.490 --> 00:24:58.970 Yet he refused to let anyone else conduct the 00:24:58.970 --> 00:25:01.029 work because he knew Levi was the best conductor 00:25:01.029 --> 00:25:03.289 for the job. Wagner loved the individual who 00:25:03.289 --> 00:25:05.490 could serve his artistic purpose, but he hated 00:25:05.490 --> 00:25:07.849 the abstract collective. And this hatred didn't 00:25:07.849 --> 00:25:09.950 die with him. It got picked up and amplified 00:25:09.950 --> 00:25:12.539 in the 20th century. This is the darkest shadow 00:25:12.539 --> 00:25:16.259 of all. Adolf Hitler was a Wagner fanatic. He 00:25:16.259 --> 00:25:18.259 wrote in Mein Kampf that when he first heard 00:25:18.259 --> 00:25:20.900 Rienzi as a young man in Linz, in that hour it 00:25:20.900 --> 00:25:24.269 all began. He saw in Wagner's operas a glorification 00:25:24.269 --> 00:25:28.049 of the heroic Teutonic myth, the hero, the sword, 00:25:28.190 --> 00:25:31.130 the purity of blood, the struggle against corrupting 00:25:31.130 --> 00:25:33.710 forces. The Nazis just adopted him as their own. 00:25:33.809 --> 00:25:35.970 Hitler made Beirut a state -sponsored shrine. 00:25:36.309 --> 00:25:38.589 He was extremely close friends with Winifred 00:25:38.589 --> 00:25:40.630 Wagner, Richard's English -born daughter -in 00:25:40.630 --> 00:25:43.690 -law, who ran the festival in the 1930s and 40s. 00:25:43.769 --> 00:25:46.869 The Nazis used Wagner's music at the Nuremberg 00:25:46.869 --> 00:25:49.809 rallies. It became, for many, the official soundtrack 00:25:49.809 --> 00:25:51.970 of the Third Reich. But I've heard there was 00:25:51.970 --> 00:25:54.230 some conflict there, too. Not all the top Nazis 00:25:54.230 --> 00:25:55.950 loved it. That's true. You have to remember, 00:25:56.069 --> 00:25:58.849 the operas are incredibly long, difficult, and 00:25:58.849 --> 00:26:01.450 philosophically complex. Goebbels, the propaganda 00:26:01.450 --> 00:26:04.670 minister, found them tedious. And Alfred Rosenberg, 00:26:04.789 --> 00:26:07.349 the chief Nazi ideologue, actually hated Parsifal. 00:26:07.509 --> 00:26:09.990 He thought its message of compassion, pity, and 00:26:09.990 --> 00:26:12.849 pacifism was weak, Christian, and un -German. 00:26:13.049 --> 00:26:15.490 But Hitler's personal obsession overrode all 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:17.769 of that. And what about the concentration camps? 00:26:17.950 --> 00:26:20.250 You hear stories about his music being played 00:26:20.250 --> 00:26:22.569 there to torture prisoners. It's a common belief, 00:26:22.809 --> 00:26:25.390 but most historical evidence suggests Wagner 00:26:25.390 --> 00:26:27.869 was rarely, if ever, played in the death camps 00:26:27.869 --> 00:26:31.529 themselves. The SS officers considered the music 00:26:31.529 --> 00:26:34.250 too sacred to be heard by the prisoners. They 00:26:34.250 --> 00:26:36.470 played light operetta or marching music instead. 00:26:36.990 --> 00:26:39.589 However, in the very early days of the camp system, 00:26:39.890 --> 00:26:42.309 like at Dachau, there are accounts of it being 00:26:42.309 --> 00:26:45.400 used for re -education. blasting it at political 00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:47.920 prisoners to psychologically break them and this 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:51.960 legacy is why to this day you can't really play 00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:54.779 Wagner in Israel. Effectively, yes. There is 00:26:54.779 --> 00:26:57.079 an unwritten ban. Every time an orchestra conductor 00:26:57.079 --> 00:26:59.420 like Daniel Baron Boehm has tried to program 00:26:59.420 --> 00:27:01.619 a Wagner piece in Israel, there are protests, 00:27:01.980 --> 00:27:04.099 walkouts, and intense pain from the audience. 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:06.779 For Holocaust survivors and their families, that 00:27:06.779 --> 00:27:09.019 music is inextricably linked to the sound of 00:27:09.019 --> 00:27:11.359 their trauma. You cannot and should not try to 00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:13.400 erase that association. It's a stain that will 00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:16.480 never wash out. It's permanent. But before we 00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:18.819 finish, we need to touch on his other relationships, 00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:21.539 specifically with Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche. 00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:23.880 This is a real intellectual tragedy in itself. 00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.500 Nietzsche was a brilliant young professor of 00:27:26.500 --> 00:27:29.019 philology when he met Wagner. He idolized him. 00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:32.119 He saw Wagner as the rebirth of Greek tragedy, 00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:35.140 the artistic genius who would save German culture 00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:37.859 from mediocrity. They were incredibly close. 00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:39.900 Nietzsche practically lived at Wagner's home 00:27:39.900 --> 00:27:42.019 in Tription for a while. So what happened? What 00:27:42.019 --> 00:27:45.869 caused the break? Nietzsche grew up. and he watched 00:27:45.869 --> 00:27:49.390 Wagner change. He felt Wagner was selling out 00:27:49.390 --> 00:27:52.589 to a vulgar German nationalism, and even worse 00:27:52.589 --> 00:27:56.289 in Nietzsche's eyes, to Christianity. When Wagner 00:27:56.289 --> 00:27:59.109 wrote Parsifal, with its themes of the Holy Grail, 00:27:59.190 --> 00:28:01.750 Christian redemption, and pity, Nietzsche was 00:28:01.750 --> 00:28:04.529 utterly disgusted. He felt Wagner had betrayed 00:28:04.529 --> 00:28:07.049 his revolutionary, atheistic roots and had knelt 00:28:07.049 --> 00:28:09.509 before the cross. Nietzsche wrote a series of 00:28:09.509 --> 00:28:11.670 blistering attacks, like the case of Wagner, 00:28:11.809 --> 00:28:14.369 calling him a decadence, a sickness. He famously 00:28:14.509 --> 00:28:16.890 said Wagner is a neurosis. So he broke up with 00:28:16.890 --> 00:28:19.410 him via philosophy book. It was a brutal intellectual 00:28:19.410 --> 00:28:21.869 takedown, but it broke Nietzsche's heart, truly. 00:28:22.109 --> 00:28:24.829 He loved the man or the idea of the man, but 00:28:24.829 --> 00:28:27.190 hated what he believed he became. Let's zoom 00:28:27.190 --> 00:28:29.190 out to the modern day then. We've covered the 00:28:29.190 --> 00:28:31.490 heady stuff, but if I go to the movies today, 00:28:31.609 --> 00:28:34.069 am I hearing Wagner? You're hearing him everywhere. 00:28:34.369 --> 00:28:37.190 If you listen to John Williams, Star Wars, Harry 00:28:37.190 --> 00:28:39.970 Potter, Indiana Jones, you are listening to Wagnerian 00:28:39.970 --> 00:28:43.069 techniques. The Imperial March. That's a leitmotif. 00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:46.160 the force theme that's a leitmotif the way the 00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:48.519 music tells you exactly what luke skywalker is 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:51.220 feeling even when he says nothing that is pure 00:28:51.220 --> 00:28:54.220 wagner he invented the language of film scoring 00:28:54.220 --> 00:28:56.220 and lord of the rings obviously the parallels 00:28:56.220 --> 00:28:58.900 are just too strong howard shore's score is a 00:28:58.900 --> 00:29:02.160 direct descendant it's a massive system of leitmotifs 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:05.109 and the story itself the cursed ring, the broken 00:29:05.109 --> 00:29:07.769 sword that must be reforged, the dragon guarding 00:29:07.769 --> 00:29:11.089 a hoard of gold Tolkien, always denied a direct 00:29:11.089 --> 00:29:14.549 influence, but the DNA is undeniably there. And 00:29:14.549 --> 00:29:16.769 something I found surprising, the heavy metal 00:29:16.769 --> 00:29:19.740 connection. Joey DiMaio of the band Manowar, 00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:22.200 famously called Wagner the father of heavy metal. 00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:24.039 And when you think about it, it makes perfect 00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:27.140 sense. The sheer volume, the bombast, the obsession 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:30.480 with Norse gods and epic mythology, the themes 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:33.819 of doom and power and heroic struggle. If you 00:29:33.819 --> 00:29:36.000 stripped away the violins and added a wall of 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:39.200 distorted guitars, Da Walker is basically a concept 00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:41.940 album for a power metal band. Even the people 00:29:41.940 --> 00:29:43.839 who hated him couldn't escape him. Nobody could. 00:29:44.759 --> 00:29:47.400 Debussy called him an old poisoner, but was still 00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:50.160 deeply influenced by his harmonies. T .S. Eliot 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:53.019 quotes Tristan and Isolde directly in The Wasteland. 00:29:55.339 --> 00:30:00.200 The modernists, the people who built 20th century 00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:03.000 culture, they all had to grapple with him. James 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:04.819 Joyce, Thomas Mann, you couldn't ignore him, 00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:06.880 whether you loved him or loathed him. So we reach 00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:09.000 the end. Wagner moved to Venice for his health 00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:11.220 in his later years. Yes, he had a serious heart 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:14.119 condition. He rented the Grand Palazzo Justinian 00:30:14.119 --> 00:30:17.619 on the Grand Canal. On February 13, 1883, after 00:30:17.619 --> 00:30:20.420 an argument with Cosima, he had a massive fatal 00:30:20.420 --> 00:30:23.259 heart attack. He reportedly died in her arms. 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.480 And he was buried back in Beirut. In the garden 00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:27.759 of his home, his villa that he named Wanfried, 00:30:27.900 --> 00:30:30.480 which means something like peace from delusion. 00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:33.559 There's one final image I want to leave our listeners 00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:36.460 with. It's from the premiere of his very last 00:30:36.460 --> 00:30:41.150 opera, Parsifal, in 1882. The 16th and final 00:30:41.150 --> 00:30:43.569 performance of that first festival season. Right. 00:30:43.750 --> 00:30:46.910 Wagner is old. He's frail. He's been forbidden 00:30:46.910 --> 00:30:49.390 by his doctors from conducting. But during the 00:30:49.390 --> 00:30:52.470 third act, he secretly slips down into the mystic 00:30:52.470 --> 00:30:55.170 abyss, into that hidden orchestra pit. He took 00:30:55.170 --> 00:30:57.569 the baton from the conductor, Herman Levi, the 00:30:57.569 --> 00:31:00.470 man he so often tormented. The audience couldn't 00:31:00.470 --> 00:31:02.829 see him. The singers on stage couldn't see him. 00:31:02.890 --> 00:31:06.069 But the orchestra, they saw him. And he conducted 00:31:06.069 --> 00:31:09.509 the final act of his final opera himself, anonymously. 00:31:09.849 --> 00:31:12.009 The musicians later said the sound changed, that 00:31:12.009 --> 00:31:13.730 they could feel a different energy coming up 00:31:13.730 --> 00:31:15.789 from the pit. He needed to control his artistic 00:31:15.789 --> 00:31:18.930 universe until the very last note. He died just 00:31:18.930 --> 00:31:21.130 a few months later. And that leaves us with the 00:31:21.130 --> 00:31:25.029 big question, the Wagner Paradox. We have the 00:31:25.029 --> 00:31:27.349 man who wrote some of the most beautiful, transformative, 00:31:27.730 --> 00:31:30.650 profound music in human history music that taught 00:31:30.650 --> 00:31:32.309 us how to feel things we didn't know we could 00:31:32.309 --> 00:31:34.450 feel. And we have the man who was a narcissist, 00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:38.539 a cheat. A virulent bigot and an icon for one 00:31:38.539 --> 00:31:41.339 of history's most hateful regimes. Can you separate 00:31:41.339 --> 00:31:44.799 them? The art from the artist? Can you? Can you 00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:47.640 listen to the ride of the Valkyries without thinking 00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:51.359 of the helicopters in Apocalypse? Now or, more 00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:54.079 chillingly, the rallies in Nuremberg? I don't 00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:56.099 think you can fully separate them. And in a way, 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:58.920 Wagner himself didn't want you to. He insisted 00:31:58.920 --> 00:32:01.319 his art was a direct expression of his worldview. 00:32:01.700 --> 00:32:03.940 But perhaps the true challenge, the maturity 00:32:03.940 --> 00:32:07.059 of a culture, is the ability to hold two opposing 00:32:07.059 --> 00:32:10.279 ideas at once. That a work of art can be magnificent 00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:13.819 and transcendent, and its creator can be a monstrous 00:32:13.819 --> 00:32:16.059 human being. It's not a comfortable conclusion. 00:32:16.539 --> 00:32:18.799 But then with Wagner, nothing is ever comfortable. 00:32:18.859 --> 00:32:21.720 No, it is simply loud, overwhelming, and utterly, 00:32:21.819 --> 00:32:23.960 completely undeniable. Thanks for joining us 00:32:23.960 --> 00:32:25.519 on this deep dive. We'll see you next time.