The Wagner Experience

Over the past month I've received eMails from several persons informing me they were about to take their first plunge into Wagner's Ring, and asking for my recommendation as to which Ring set they ought to buy (as always, I unhesitatingly recommended the Decca Solti set as, on the whole, and all things considered, none better is available, especially for a first plunge). I was of course delighted and encouraged by these eMails, and they brought freshly to mind my own first engagement of Wagner, and of his epic tetralogy.

First, it's well to keep in mind when reading the following that the person relating it grew up within a musical milieu peopled by serious-minded musicians, instrumentalists all, who though familiar with Wagner's music were largely familiar with it in its excerpted orchestral embodiments, and who tended, for the most part, to regard it as irredeemably vulgar, as did I. In addition, the whole domain of opera (Mozart's operas excepted, of course) was considered by these musicians, as well as by myself, also a musician, to be, also for the most part, nothing other than fodder fit only for the delectation of intellectual groundlings, and the proper butt of uncharitable jokes. Bach and Mozart constituted this group's musical pantheon, as they did mine.

Fast-forward some fifteen years. I've been laid up for the better part of a year courtesy of a near-death-dealing motorcycle accident. Bad business that, but it's not all terrible. I've plenty of time on my hands, and I'm taking full advantage of it by reading like mad, and listening to dozens of LPs I'd bought one fevered afternoon of record buying at a Sam Goody 50%-off sale some few years previous but still haven't gotten around to auditioning. (Not as ridiculous as it sounds. I bought over 250 LPs that out-of-control afternoon.)

One of the albums I'd plucked from Sam Goody's shelves was the then-new Decca release of the first Ring opera (or more correctly, music-drama), Das Rheingold, an opera of which I never before heard so much as a note, and a recording which I bought not because I had any intention of listening to the opera itself (what an idea!), but because that then-new recording had quickly gained the reputation among audio freaks, of which I was one, as being a kick-ass test of one's speaker system.

So, one afternoon of my enforced confinement I pull the still un-played Rheingold album from its place of storage, think to myself, "Forgot about this. Time I gave it a whirl to see just how great these speakers of mine really are," remove its still-intact shrink-wrap, and start the first LP going on the turntable.

With hobbling gait, I almost make it back to my comfy armchair when the soles of my feet more than my ears become aware of that solitary, deep-bass, four-measure opening E-flat pedal, and my first thought is that something's gone badly awry with my stereo system. I mean, no opera can possibly begin like that. After assuring myself that my stereo system is operating just fine, I start the LP going again, this time no longer intending to test my speakers, but intending instead to find out just what sort of opera it is that can begin in such an un-opera-like manner.

One-hundred-and-thirty-six measures later (i.e., the full length of the Rheingold orchestral prelude) such is my astonishment that I'm struck virtually dumb. I simply can't believe what I've just heard. No composer — not the divine Wolfgang, nor even great Bach himself — should be able to do that much with such a paucity of harmonic and melodic material stretched over 136 measures; essentially not much more than a single arpeggiated major triad repeated over and over.

Hobbling back to the turntable as quickly as I'm able, I start the LP going again at the beginning, and again listen, more carefully this time. I end up replaying those opening 136 measures some dozen times before I let the first of the three Rheintöchter finish the opening phrase of her song. And when she does, further astonishment. She and her two sisters are bantering among themselves in dramatic real time, their banter sounding as natural as the dialogue of a spoken stage play, but they're all ... singing! And the singing is lovely. Not bel canto lovely, but a different kind of sung lovely I've no name for because I've never heard anything like it before. Then a nasty-sounding baritone comes on the scene and interrupts their playful banter with some rather less playful banter of his own, also sung, and his singing, like the singing of the Rheintöchter, is in dramatic real time and as natural as spoken dialogue, and, in its own jarring way, electrifying. Inseparably intertwined with all this rather than merely accompanying it as it would in any respectable opera, is a huge orchestra making rich continuous comment on all the goings-on in the manner of the chorus in a classical Greek drama, enriching and deepening immeasurably both drama and meaning, the gestalt effect positively riveting.

At this point it becomes abundantly clear to me that, in terms of opera, I'm not on solid ground in Kansas anymore but hopelessly adrift in waters wonderful strange and considerably over my head. This is a new and gripping musico-dramatic experience; one which bears but the most superficial resemblance to opera as I understand it. No recitative, no arias, no duets, trios, quartets, or choruses. Nothing from and among the singers but a single continuous stream of back-and-forth natural-as-speech sung dialogue, the whole interwovenly fleshed out and deepened by the huge orchestra acting as the work's principal "voice." As I've said, astonishing. And as I continue listening, almost each succeeding new measure brings with it something new to astonish, and by music-drama's end I'm utterly floored by the evocative and eloquent magic of it all.

That initial encounter with Wagner and his Ring tetralogy set the stage, so to speak, for my subsequent Wagner attachment, and the deeper I immersed myself in the Rheingold, and over the ensuing weeks, months, and years in the entire Ring tetralogy, and then deeper still in Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, that which initially captivated the Wagner-naïve musical snob continued, as it continues still, to captivate the seasoned and informed devotee I became. While in strictly musical terms Bach and Mozart are still my ne plus ultra, transcendent geniuses both, in musico-dramatic terms I now know there has never been, nor is there ever again likely to be, a genius as all-encompassing prodigious and transcendent as that of Richard Wagner, who today still bestrides the domain of opera like a colossus, and whose music-dramas have since shaped or influenced the course not only of opera, but of all Western music.

To those who've written to tell me of their decision to take the Wagnerian plunge, I can only say, as I did to one of them, that by your decision to take that plunge you'll find yourself in for one of the richest and most richly rewarding experiences of your life, the magnitude of the reward directly proportional to the amount of time invested. I can make that guarantee with some measure of authority and confidence having myself so far invested some 30 years in the experience with no hint or fear of exhausting all it has to offer.