Why Wagner?
Exploring the innate dissonance between art and artist
A personal essay by Stanis Smith
Vancouver Opera is presenting Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. As part of our work in exploring and explicating the opera, we have commissioned some artists and writers to explore their responses to the opera. More information on our production is here.
Few figures in music arouse as much passion as Wagner one way or another. There are some “I-Hate-Wagner’s” around, and as a person of Jewish background I sympathize with them. Wagner is the extreme case of dissonance between the art and the artist, and I believe that one needs to separate the composer from the person.
Those who venerate Wagner the composer, and I am one of them, consider him to be in a league of his own, and it is no exaggeration to say that he single-handedly transformed Western music and theatre. He rewrote the language of opera by approaching it as continuous “music-drama” and an “all-embracing artwork”. He rewrote the language of theatre design by being the first to use sophisticated stage machinery in a darkened theatre with a hidden orchestra pit. And he rewrote the language of music by using rapid shifts of key and chromaticism to stunning emotional effect, and by using musical phrases to describe characters and their thoughts, predating the movies by many decades.
When it comes to the Wagner the person, it’s a different matter. Wagner was a rabid anti-semite, pathologically egotistical, and even though it is somewhat unfair to conflate him with Nazism (he died forty years before the Nazis came to power), there can be little doubt that he was a megalomaniac with fascist tendencies.
Some claim to have found evidence of Wagner’s anti-semitism in his operas. They have equated the title character of The Flying Dutchman with the anti-semitic legend of the Wandering Jew and have compared the characters Mime (in The Ring of the Nibelung) and Beckmesser (in Meistersinger) with anti semitic caricatures of Jews.
In my opinion this line of thinking has the following problem: Wagner was capable of composing operas of astonishing narrative power. Had he wanted to create explicitly anti semitic characters, he would not have left us in any doubt about his intentions, and we wouldn’t have to poke around for clues. If antisemitism is implicit in some of his characters, it is of the “dog whistle” variety that may have sent coded messages to the audiences of the day (in the way that certain politicians these days use coded messages). But I doubt it, Wagner wasn’t one for such subtlety.
In the case of The Flying Dutchman we know that Wagner based the opera on the legend of the sailor who is doomed to eternally sail the oceans until he can be saved by the faithful love of a woman. Redemption through love was one of Wagner’s favourite themes that he explored in many of his operas, and one could argue tongue-in-cheek that he explored it in his numerous relationships with women. We also know that when he began working on the plot, he was fleeing his creditors (not for the first or last time in his life) by being smuggled on board a small boat, sailing into a huge storm that he subsequently claimed to have been his inspiration. Anyone believing that The Flying Dutchman is an anti-semitic portrayal has their work cut out for them because Wagner clearly identified personally with the central character.
So what are we to make of The Flying Dutchman in its own terms, setting aside Wagner the person? When it comes to the storyline of The Flying Dutchman, the plot is mythic, the tone is noble and lofty, and if there are moments that strain credulity, in particular the ending, well that’s opera (and Wagner) for you.
When it comes to the music, although The Flying Dutchman is considered “early” Wagner, the greatness is already evident. It isn’t possible to put into words what makes some music great — music takes over where language ends. And it is the music that saves The Flying Dutchman and all Wagner operas. To paraphrase an old Heineken advert, Wagner reaches the parts that other composers can’t reach.
He unleashes the power and intensity of the orchestra like nobody before him and very few since, he can create a stormy sea so vividly that you are with him in that boat crashing into the waves (the Overture), he can depict a spinning wheel with a tune you won’t get out of your head (the Spinning Chorus), and he can write a love duet that will break your heart (the Dutchman and Senta). That’s what makes The Flying Dutchman a memorable opera, and I hope you enjoy this rarity, because it hasn’t been performed in Vancouver for many years.
Architect by day, musician by night, Stanis Smith’s professional career has included leading major architectural firms, with a particular specialty in airport design. His musical career includes being a clarinettist in orchestras and chamber ensembles. He is on the board of Vancouver Opera and the Rick Hansen Foundation, and previously was on the boards of the Vancouver Symphony and Friends of Chamber Music.