Wotan

August 14, 2013

Let me make a recommendation: until you have seen it for yourself, don't let anyone tell you what Wagner's Ring Cycle is about. We think we know something about Wagner (he was a bit of an asshole, the Nazi's loved him) and about the Ring (looooooong, weird story, women on flying horses, they played that cool song from the helicopters in "Apocalypse Now"), but for years I have been told that the Ring packed an emotional punch that could not be appreciated without first-hand experience. Now I am beginning to understand what was meant. So, you might still not want to sit through it, but don't let anyone tell you it's boring or overbearing or dark. It's none of these.

I am in the middle of the four-opera cycle. I took the whole week off work to make this feasible. On Tuesday I saw "Die Walküre" (that's the one with the flying women--well, goddesses, technically) and, hoo boy, it was not what I expected at all. I even read the story and the entire libretto before plunging into the operas. This did not help much. It is (as I probably should have known) the music that communicates with the soul and sends the deep currents of feeling into the heart. What I think most of us have not appreciated about Wagner is that the overriding theme of all his work is the redeeming power of love. And, as Wagner well knew, while love is often delightful, it can sometimes be very, very painful.

Wotan

"Die Walküre" is, above all, about the love of a father for his children. Who knew? Wotan is a god and made up all the rules to please himself but, as he sings at one point, "I am caught in my own trap". It turns out that if one has any integrity at all (and he has plenty), the rules must apply to all beings, including the god who made them. Even when it means abandoning his two most beloved children to the fates they have chosen.

Every now and then someone will ask me what it's like having a child and I am fond of replying, "Oh, don't worry about it, it's just like having meat hooks in your heart. Every time your child has the slightest misfortune--tug!--it feels as if your heart is being pulled from your chest. And if you are the cause of that misfortune in any way--tug! tug! tug!--you feel as if you will never heal again." (You do, though). So, I understand, to a certain extent, what Wotan feels when he must consign one of his children to death and the other to exile.

In another very important way I can empathize with Wotan. Which of us has not wanted to put a ring of fire around our children? How else can we protect them from the harms and tragedies of everyday life? (Speaking of which, there was an excellent article in the New York Times of August 4 about the trauma of being alive). But unless you are a god (you're not, trust me on this), the ring of fire will not work. It will, in fact, most likely be seen by your children as the problem rather than protection. And even if you are a god, the outcome may not be what you hope for, in fact, most likely will not be. Wouldn't, after all, Brünnhilde have been better off with a common mortal for a husband rather than a hero? But I can tell you from personal experience that the urge to shield our children from all harm is something that never leaves us.

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August 17, 2013

Tonight is the last of the four operas, "Götterdämmerung", which is about as long as it's name. (In fact, some wag was wearing a shirt the other day which transformed the title into "Göttdamnitslong". Funny). This last opera in the series is also the longest, a whopping 5-1/2 hours (including two 30 minute intermissions). What amazes me most, I think, is that 2900 people (the hall's capacity) fill the place. Seattle Opera does three full cycles, meaning that 8700 people voluntarily sit through 17-1/2 hours of Wagner (which calculates out to 152,250 total Wagner hours, in case you were wondering. You weren't? Oh, well). This is an event, and many people do it every four years, or more often if they go elsewhere to see a Ring. This is astonishing to me. And, of course, that's only the numbers for the Seattle production. In other places, most notably Beyreuth, it is performed nearly every year for much larger audiences (about 58,000 per season), and there are dozens of places around the world where it is staged.

I have enjoyed opera for four or five years. I have been told that The Ring is the ultimate opera-going experience and one cannot call oneself a true opera buff until it is checked off the list. Before going, I might have said, "until it is endured", but I kept an open mind about it.

And now, of course, I understand what was meant. Wagner treats every theme of grand drama and nearly every aspect of a human life in these operas. A bold statement, I know, but it appears to be true, or nearly so. And I have to believe that I have only scratched the surface. There is more scholarly (and not so scholarly) writing on this cycle of operas than (I would bet) all other operas combined.

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August 18, 2013

Well, it didn't feel 5-1/2 hours long.

So, now I have experienced the whole thing. Is it all that? Actually, yes, it is. I have concluded over many years of considering works of art that, for the most part, they concern redemption or the lack of it. Think of "Romeo and Juliet"; the world of Verona is entirely out of balance and only through the sacrifice of the title characters is order restored to the world. Redemption is achieved. Of course, Shakespeare followed the story arcs that were considered classically mandated (though he played fast and loose with many other conventions), so all of his plays follow this basic formula. In the tragedies the redemption takes the form of death, whereas in the comedies it is usually reunion and the clearing up of misunderstandings. In the romances the form redemption takes is generally the restoration of balance through a shift in power or the contravention of authority. (If you want to get into a rousing discussion of all this, raise with a Shakespearean scholar the lack of redemption, which is to say, complete resolution, at the end of "The Merchant of Venice" and what that might mean). 

In the Ring cycle, Wagner has given us redemption writ large. Yes, yes, it's all about Norse gods and outsized heroes, but that's just the story. What it's really about is the fact that life is full of opportunities to make good and bad choices and all of us fall on the latter side at least as often as we do on the former. And what do we do about that? Wagner would argue, I think, that there is a universal right and a universal wrong and to restore the world to order, one must atone in direct proportion to the deviation from the Good. For you and me, that usually doesn't mean much: say you're sorry, pay back the money, change your behavior. But if you are a god and have entirely disrupted the balance of nature, utter destruction of all you love is the only course. Harsh toke.

I won't go further, at least not now. I don't want to risk being overbearing with my own passions. But if someone asks you if you want to spend 17-1/2 hours at the opera some day, maybe you will consider the possibility. It might just change your life.