Amid the revolutionary zeal that swept through Europe in 1848, the 35-year-old Kapellmeister to the kingdom of Saxony cast his lot with the insurrection, where he saw his best chance to revolutionize German opera in accordance with his sweeping vision. Richard Wagner was on the losing side of that uprising, and he was soon exiled from his position and home in Dresden, but he was nothing if not patient, and history would prove that Wagner’s artistic revolution endured far longer than the political spasms surrounding him.
1848 was also the year that Wagner announced his intention to create a massive cycle of operas on the subject of The Ring of the Nibelung, adapted from Norse and German mythology. He had already proven himself a masterful storyteller with a flair for extremes, as heard in his Dresden operas including The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, but the scope he was envisioning for the Ring cycle dwarfed any previous artistic endeavor.
Ultimately it took Wagner nearly 30 years to bring the all-encompassing project to fruition. When the orchestra of his day fell short of his sonic imagination, he enlarged it, even inventing a new instrument (the Wagner tuba) to fill in a missing tonal color. When the opera houses of the time couldn’t accommodate his technical needs, he raised the money to have one built for him, eventually sucking up to another king, Ludwig II of Bavaria, who bankrolled the construction of the theater in Bayreuth, Germany. The venue opened in 1876 with a festival that presented the first complete Ring cycle, consisting of 17 hours of music spread across four evenings—a spectacle still just as jaw-dropping after a century and a half.
Without a doubt, Wagner was the most influential opera composer in history, and all art music created in his wake reckoned in some way with his unavoidable legacy. And besides its historical importance, the music is simply great entertainment, attracting the world’s most luxurious voices and rousing the strongest possible emotions. What then, are we to do with the despicable views of the man behind them? Wagner made no secret of his vile disdain for Jews in music and beyond, and his entire artistic obsession celebrated supposed Aryan superiority. And while he died 50 years before the Nazis took power, it’s hard to separate him from the stench that comes from being Hitler’s favorite composer.
Ultimately listeners have to make their own judgment call about what to do with sublime art created by flawed humans. Wagner was an obvious case since he voiced his hate explicitly and in writing, but he was hardly alone in an art form rooted in Germany, with its centuries of anti-Jewish bias. (Just take a closer look at Bach’s St. John Passion or Handel’s Messiah for prime examples.) This is all to say that this music has a messy backstory, but that doesn’t erase its magnificence.
Das Rheingold begins the Ring cycle by establishing the history of a magical ring forged from gold stolen by a dwarf-king from the bottom of the Rhine River. In the iconic Ride of the Valkyries, the muscular rhythms and leaping arpeggios of the Leitmotif convey the heroic setting, while the throbbing orchestral textures saturate the sense of anticipation and fluttering flight. In the opera, the sisters sing to each other over (or, more realistically, under) this show of orchestral force, but it’s a testament to how well Wagner achieved his aesthetic goals that arguably the most famous moment in any opera ever works just as well without the opera singers.
– © 2023 Aaron Grad
Originally performed March 18, 2023.
#wagner #DasRheingold #orchestra #valhalla
Subscribe for weekly instructional videos, performances and incredible orchestral content: https://www.youtube.com/@newworldsymphony
Visit https://media.nws.edu to sign up for our FREE live streaming platform NWS Inside.
Follow New World Symphony:
Instagram: @nwsymphony
TikTok: New-World-Symphony
Facebook: NewWorldSymphony
X: @nwsymphony
Website: https://nws.edu
Powered by Knight Foundation