Drama and the World of Richard Wagner - Hardcover

Borchmeyer, Dieter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691114978 ISBN 13: 9780691114972

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Richard Wagner continues to be the most controversial artist in history, a perpetually troubling figure in our cultural consciousness. The unceasing debate over his works and their impact--for and against--is one reason why there has been no genuinely comprehensive modern account of his musical dramas until now. Dieter Borchmeyer's book is the first to present an overall picture of these musical dramas from the standpoint of literary and theatrical history. It extends from the composer's early works--still largely ignored--to the Ring Cycle and Parsifal, and includes Wagner's unfinished works and operas he never set to music. Through lively prose, we come to see Wagner as a librettist--and as a man of letters--rather than primarily as musical composer.

Borchmeyer uncovers a vast field of cultural and historical cross-references in Wagner's works. In the first part of the book, he sets out in search of the various archetypal scenes, opening up the composer's dramatic workshop to the reader. He covers all of Wagner's operas, from early juvenilia to the canonical later works.

The second part examines Wagner in relation to political figures including King Ludwig II and Bismarck, and, importantly, in light of critical reactions by literary giants--Thomas Mann, whom Borchmeyer calls "a guiding light in this exploration of the fields that Wagner tilled," and Nietzsche, whose appeal to "philology" is a key source of inspiration in attempts to grapple with Wagner's works.

For more than twenty years, Borchmeyer has placed his scholarship at the service of the famed Bayreuth Festival. With this volume, he gives us a summation of decades of engagement with the phenomenon of Wagner and, at the same time, the result of an abiding critical passion for his works.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"In his well-organized and eminently readable new book, Dieter Borchmeyer investigates in detail the intrinsic forces, as well as the various intertextual references, influences, and connections, of Wagner's libretti, in the course of which he succeeds impressively in developing the literary, historical, and cultural context of the time in which Wagner the librettist and composer worked. Borchmeyer writes without jargon in a comprehensible, clear, and lively style."--Walter Hinderer, Princeton University

"This book presents a good deal of entirely new material on Wagner's earliest operas and unrealized opera projects (some of these surprisingly little represented in the vast Wagner literature). Written in a straightforward, nontechnical style free of professional jargon, it provides individual chapters covering the entire Wagner canon, as well as the noncanonic early works, all related here in interesting ways to the composer's literary and intellectual environment."--Thomas S. Grey, Stanford University

"A literary scholar of considerable accomplishment, Borchmeyer . . . offers English readers the chance to share in his erudition on Wagner and his place in German culture of the past century and a half."--Choice

About the Author:

Dieter Borchmeyer is Professor of German Literature and Theater at the University of Heidelberg. Since 1980 he has been program annotator for the Bayreuth Festival. His books include Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre (1991) and Goethe: Der Zeitbürger (1999).

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0691114978
• ISBN 13: 9780691114972
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416