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In this virtuoso piece of cultural history, the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner narrates the Wagner family's turbulent history. In the process, she shares her considerable insights into the operas and gives an inside account of the internecine struggles that have surrounded the Wagner family jewel: the Bayreuth Festival.
Nike Wagner draws on history, biography, and psychoanalysis to interpret both her family's history and her great-grandfather's operas. She focuses on Bayreuth, revealing how this showcase for Wagner's sublime art so readily served the Third Reich. With clear, often ironic eyes, she examines her family's extraordinary role in German culture--and its connections to right-wing ideology.
Particularly fascinating is the tug-of-war between Nike's visionary but enigmatic father, Wieland, and her astute but aesthetically stodgy uncle, Wolfgang. It was Wieland Wagner who inaugurated a daring new style of Wagner production--characterized by absence of scenery, spare acting, and dramatic lighting--that led to a wider revolution in how operas are produced. But Wolfgang Wagner, now entering his eighties, has controlled the Festival and quarreled with family members since Wieland's premature death in 1966. The author concludes with a look at the current contenders for this family throne, herself among them, and presents her vision for the Festival's future.
Wagnerites will need this book on their shelves. As an example of cultural journalism at its finest, it will also appeal to readers interested in German cultural history or those simply drawn to the melodrama that is the Wagner family story.
- Sales Rank: #2866368 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Princeton University Press
- Published on: 2001-01-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.32" h x 6.54" w x 9.52" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Publishers Weekly
This book by one of the composer's granddaughters is an odd hybrid: part psychologically intense investigation of Wagner's greatest operas in light of his somewhat tortured family history, part a prolonged look at that family history by one who knows it intimately, but takes pains to distance herself from it. Although Nike, the daughter of Wieland Wagner, who helped transform Bayreuth in the de-Nazified wake of WWII, is herself one of the heirs apparent of the dynasty, she does not disclose this until the final pages. It's also the first time she refers to herself in other than the third person a rather remarkable strategy for one with such inside knowledge. The first part of the book a rather laborious attempt to link The Ring, Lohengrin, Tristan and Parsifal with the psychology of their creator and his times is not helped by Nike's dense prose, which even a fluent translation cannot render mellifluous. The second part is much fresher, particularly its portrait of the matriarch, Winifred, an English orphan who married into the family and became a deep embarrassment to it by her flaunted friendship with Hitler and her refusal to reject Nazi views. Nike's account of the recurrent patterns of strong women and vacillating men in the family, and the odd ways in which Bayreuth has been both cherished and rejected by modern Germany, is fascinating. But many readers will still feel that a book written from such a privileged perspective could have offered much more. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Originally published in Germany, this fascinating insider's view by Wagner's great-granddaughter, a music critic and cultural commentator based in Berlin, offers insight into Wagner's operas, including a detailed literary analysis of characters, plots, and symbolism. It is also a history of the Wagner family's productions in Bayreuth, Germany, at the Festspielhaus the factory-like opera house that Wagner designed and the involvement of various family members in shaping and reshaping those productions. Of course, by its very nature, it exalts the works and the heirs (e.g., Nike's father, Wieland Wagner, who initiated an era of stark style), but at the same time it is somewhat critical of certain productions and especially of recent trends. Nike closes with hopeful suggestions for revitalization of the festival. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries, especially those that specialize in German culture. Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The extended family of Richard Wagner has presided over the festival in Bayreuth dedicated to the performance of his operas since it opened in 1876. Cosima, Richard's second wife, and Winifred, his daughter-in-law, carried on the Wagner legacy for almost 75 years. Now control is vested in Wolfgang, Winifred's second son. Nike Wagner is the daughter of Wieland, Wolfgang's brother. Her account of the family business relates its internecine struggles for power and squabbles over ownership of the composer's heritage to the psychological themes of the father-son relations and strong female personalities that are crucial to his operas. Nike first analyzes the heart of the Wagnerian canon--Die Meistersinger, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Parsi fal, and the Ring cycle--and then relays the history of the festival, including much about Winifred's friendship with Hitler, and all branches of the family. In conclusion, Nike proposes Bayreuth be reformed to include other Romantic composers' music and nonmusical theater. Despite her intimate connection to the festival, a better treatment of the family-run cultural institution seems unimaginable. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Mildly interesting family reminiscences and Wagner thoughts
By Laon
Some of Richard Wagner's genius descended to his son Siegfried Wagner, whose vastly under-rated music I am currently, delightedly, discovering. I wish Siegfried had composed more.
But the only aspect of Richard Wagner's talent that reached as far as his grandchildren and great-grandchildren is that for writing self-serving autobiographies. In fact a minor literary genre has been established: memoirs by people who are famous only for being a descendent of Richard Wagner. Thus we have _Shadow over Bayreuth_ by Friedelind Wagner, _Acts_ by her brother Wolfgang ["it may be called _Acts_, but it sure aint Gospel"], the book by Gottfried Wagner that has so far been published under three different titles, and counting, and Nike's _The Wagners: The Dramas of a Musical Dynasty_.
The only Wagner descendent with an interesting story to tell, and a ghost writer who told it well, was Friedelind. But then she appears to have been a genuinely likeable, if extremely difficult, human being, who inherited some of her grandfather's courage and directed it against the Nazis, in the certainty (I think utterly justified) that he would have approved.
The remainder of the Wagner memoirs are marked principally by petulance, the tone tending to waver between the whiny and the snarky. Of these, Nike's book is the least bad. So what can we say about Nike's book, beyond that it is better than Gottfried's or Wolfgang's books?
The most interesting section is the family history, which from my point of view contains a few, all too few, anecdotes or glimpses of the last Wagner descendants to be at all interesting in their own right: that is, Siegfried Wagner and his daughter Friedelind.
Nike thinks that her father, Wieland Wagner, was also a major creative person, like his father and grandfather. I don't think that, though it depends on what you mean by "creative"; certainly he was a moderately innovative theatre director. Anyway, she gives us a partial portrait of Wieland. I feel her account is slightly bowdlerised, perhaps because she is making her claim to the Bayreuth Festival through her descent from Wieland, and therefore she would not wish to bring into question his fitness to have been involved in the post-War Bayreuth. So awkward matters like Wieland's involvement with the Flossenberg Concentration Camp remain glossed over.
On the evidence of this book, it seems that if Nike's claim on the festival were to be successful, it would not result in greater openness in relation to the Bayreuth archives for the period 1920-1945.
The rest of Nike's more recent family gossip is of less interest to me, since none of the living Wagners are especially interesting people. They belong in the society pages, and not in cultural coverage. Except perhaps Wolfgang, who could look back on and reveal much about a fascinating historical period; but his "autobiography" makes it clear he has no intention of doing so.
The other part of the book reveals Nike's thoughts about the works, and ideas for revitalising the festival. The thoughts are mostly moderately interesting, if not blindingly insightful. The only oddity is bringing the early 20th century nutcase Otto Weininger into her discussion of _Parsifal_. The trouble is that Weininger was a tormented homosexual Jewish man who hated homosexuals and Jews in general, and himself in particular, also hating women, while he was about it, and committed suicide.
I suspect Nike bought into the 1960s/1970s idea that insane people are somehow more insightful and interesting than the rest of us. In fact the opposite is true. Weininger's thoughts on _Parsifal_ are as relevant to an understanding of that work as Charlie Manson's thoughts on the _White Album_ are relevant to the exegesis of that Beatles' classic.
As for Nike's thoughts on the Festival, I think they have merit. It would be useful to perform Wagner's earlier operas at Bayreuth as part of the Festival, perhaps not in the main theatre, and also to perform operas that influenced him (Beethoven, Cherubini, Marschner, Weber, and others), and were influenced by him. And Bayreuth should commission and perform new operas, which surely is what Wagner meant by "Children, do something new."
So Nike's thoughts about the festival make a worthwhile contribution. Still, as for the succession, with some sentimental regret I think that it should go to the best candidate, and I think it astronomically unlikely that the best candidate will be called Wagner.
Summary: a mildly interesting book. Very far from essential, but at least readable. And I'd rather spend time in her company (I mean as a reader) than either Gottfried or Wolfgang. What a terrible shame, by the way, that Siegfried Wagner didn't write an autobiography.
Cheers!
Laon
18 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
Wagner Smargner
By Karitta Guuska-Bertelsen
Oh the poor girl, to be an off-spring of such a family. I started to skip some of her essays of the operas, as she may be Wagner's great-grand-daughter, but, dear God, she's a boring writer, and I, for one, don't need, in 2001, the message of Tristan und Isolde etc., rammed down my throat.
When I looked at this book at Frankfurt flughafen in 1999 the German edition had some of the text blacked out, and I've heard since that Anja Silja objected to the text concerning her after the book was printed. Silja doesn't come out as very likeable in the English version, but then, does anyone ever like their father's mistress? [For Frau Wagner's information, her father and Frau Silja never made a production together in Milan, and the Stuttgart Lulu was 1966, not 1960.]
I get very tired when it's page after page of bad behaviour by irredeemably dreadful people to their nice relations. I also get a bit irritated when young people are brought up well beyond their means and talents just because they are the great grandchildren of a famous composer. It's pretentious. One longs to shout at them: "Break free, go away, make your own life for yourself away from Bayreuth."
I also don't care for Frau Wagner's future plans for the Bayreuth Festival!!!! Wagner isn't Walt Disney, dear, and Bayreuth, and I would have Nike Wagner think about this strongly, was there before she was born and will be there after she is long dead. A sobering thought but a very useful one.
4 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
The Wagners:The Dramas of a Musical Dynasty
By rick
Although the Wagner grand-daughter exhibits brilliant gifts that seem handed down from the great composer himself,it has become tiresome and tedious to keep harping on his so-called "anti-Semitism". After all,when all is said and done,and if she were aware of Wagner's essay Art and Revolution,he made it clear that his secular humanism despised Christentum most as the cause of debasement of Man and stifling of artistic creativity.Even the essay Judentums in der Musik is most lucid when it allows for the likeliest conclusion:that it is really Christentums that has proven most detrimental to music. It is Nietszche who truly echoes the truest Wagnerian lucidity by terming traditional Christentum as the "The Ultimate Corruption" [Letzte Koruption]. Ironically,she has too gullibly yielded to current faddishness,as if a mere product of her own society,the condition of which was Wagner's greatest weakness and partly the source of his decadent side. His gratest music is a triumph of anti-christianitic,humanistic visionaryism. Let us cease this masochistic catering to viciously inferior,decadent fashion.
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