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Last month, Vice President Gail Crowe presided over the 16th regular meeting of the 2023-24 Shakespeare Club at the Fredonia home of Irene Strychalski with 12 members present. Following the business meeting, Irene Strychalski gave an informative and entertaining presentation on Wagner's Ring Cycle, including clips from a vintage production.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in 1813 as the ninth child in the household of Carl Friedrich and Johanna Rosine Wagner in Leipzig, Germany. Wagner's father, Carl, died of typhoid when Richard was 6 months old. His mother turned to a close family friend Ludwig Geyer. Ludwig supported Johanna as best he could and eventually, they were married. When he was young, Richard's last name was Geyer. Richard changed his last name to Wagner after Ludwig's death, when Richard was 14 years old.
The difficulties experienced by his mother in supporting a large family on a very limited income may have resulted in emotional deprivation of the younger children with far-reaching psychological implications. He had periods of depression and irritability and defended himself with wit and a sharp tongue. His headstrong, obstinate nature often led to quarrels, but he would deflect violence by means of verbal diplomacy.
Wagner's artistic life began early as an angel on stage, wearing tights and wings. Musically, piano lessons began at age 7 and his first performance was playing 2 tunes during his stepfather's terminal illness. At age 15 he neglected his school studies and wrote a quite disturbing tragedy called Leubald, a tale of ghosts, insanity and multiple murders. Wagner borrowed books on composition from the library in order to put Leubald to music. Since he kept the books for an ever-increasing amount of time, he began to owe the library an ever-increasing sum of money. This was the beginning of a lifelong problem with financial embarrassments and musical aspiration which had brought it about.
Wagner's student life was a frenzy of activity. In Leipzig, where he was situated, students sang and marched in the streets in support of the July revolution in Paris, 1830. Students were commissioned by the authorities to arm themselves and provide protection for wealthy entrepreneurs at risk, a task they carried out with great zeal. Later, radical political activities forced Wagner into exile in Switzerland for a while, from 1849 to 1855.
Wagner's financial problems were overcome in 1864, when the young Bavarian king, Ludwig II came to the throne. Ludwig admired Wagner's work and set him up royally in Munich in sumptuous surroundings, with fur lined silk suits, and matching slippers, etc. Subsequently, when Wagner was searching for a suitable location for the production of the Ring Cycle, King Ludwig was not delighted. However, later he did support Wagner's idea of constructing an exclusive theater in Bayreuth, some distance from Munich.
Despite Wagner's activities in philosophy, politics, revolution and a whole host of other sidelines, music was his main focus. One of Wagner's early compositions involved loud drumming at regular intervals, causing astonishment and hilarity in the audience. Nevertheless, he continued studying and writing music. His first published opera, written at age 20, was The Fairies. Thus began a life-long obsession with the mythological world. Most of his operas are about legends, such as Tristan and Isolde based on an Arthurian love story. The Flying Dutchman is about a legendary ghost ship that is doomed to sail the ocean forever, and Lohengrin is taken from a medieval German epic poem. During the late 19th century, fairy tales and stories about an imaginary world were common, terming this the Romantic era. In this regard, King Ludwig II was Wagner's soulmate. The king's castles, such as Neuschwanstein were designed in a romantic, fairytale style.
Concurrently, Wagner composed other musical works: operas, symphonies, overtures, marches, as well as numerous choral works. He was a sought-after conductor. He wrote hundreds of essays and thousands of letters, developing into one of the musical and romantic giants of the 19th century. He died of a heart attack on Feb. 13, 1883.
The Ring of the Nibelungs, the focus of this paper: "A stage festival play of 3 days and a preliminary evening" was begun in 1840 and not completed until 1860. Wagner's creations culminated in the idea of a "Gesamtkunstwerk", where different art forms are combined to a cohesive whole. In the Ring Cycle, he wrote the story, composed the music and created the setting of the drama. The Ring of the Nibelungs is about a golden ring that will impart incredible power to its wearer. The story is derived from epic poems and sagas from the 12th and 13th centuries. The presentation concluded with excerpts from the opera: Das Rheingold.