No one brings the summer fun like Wagner

I’m reading a book. Yes, it’s about Wagner. No, I don’t read books about any other composers. Yes, I’m enjoying it.

Of the books I’ve read on the topic of Wagner, this one is by far the most theatrical. The author is Simon Callow, who is proving to be a man for all seasons. Many will recognize Callow from Four Weddings and a Funeral, but some of us love him for his portrayal of Mr. Beebe in the Merchant Ivory classic, A Room with a View.

Mr. Callow’s credits as an actor are undisputable. How is he as a writer? I’ve not read his other books, but this one is entertaining from page one on. Callow sweeps us through Wagner’s early life, dipping into psychological and philosophical theories about the great man without relying on the polemic.

Wagner himself was, of course, a master of the polemic. Nowadays, it’s called a “rant”. Philistines unite.

The book is titled after a one-man show Callow performs called Being Wagner. With this in mind, we can appreciate the work Callow has put into creating a Wagner character who is vulnerable but full of quixotic confidence which modern sensibilities might find puzzling or even repulsive.

I am one of those who loves everything about Wagner. The more flaws the better. Wagner believed so completely in his inner dialogue that he made it an outer expression. We tend not to like people who do that. Wagner has paid the price for sounding his barbaric yawp over the opera houses of the world but it is also what makes him the personality of the 19th Century. No one else comes close.

Callow drives home the point that Wagner is simultaneously the hero and villain of his own story. I suspect that is the case for many of us, but it is the public expression of these two poles of Wagner’s personality which I find fascinating. The only person currently expressing themselves in the Wagnerian vein is Donald Trump. The similarities of their convictions are eerie.

Please don’t get me wrong. Trump and Wagner are nowhere close to equals. However, the confidence with which they express their opinions is similar.

Wagner was a polarizing figure in his day, maybe even moreso than in the present. Callow went deep into the literature of the time to find some gems from contemporary critics of Wagner. I will indulge in sharing just one.

“...But even worse is this seasick music that destroys all sense of structure in its quest for tonal colour. In the end one just becomes a gob of slime on an ocean shore, something ejaculated by that masturbating pig in an opiate frenzy.” — Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson on the effects of Tristan und Isolde.