Editing Richard Wagner (section)

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{{Main|Controversies surrounding Richard Wagner}}

Wagner's operas, writings, politics, beliefs and unorthodox lifestyle made him a controversial figure during his lifetime.{{sfn|Magee|2000|pp=11–14}} Following his death, debate about his ideas and their interpretation, particularly in Germany during the 20th century, has continued.

=== Racism and antisemitism ===
[[File:Wagnerclic.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|right|Caricature of Wagner by Karl Clic in the Viennese satirical magazine ''Humoristische Blätter'' (1873). The exaggerated features refer to rumours of Wagner's Jewish ancestry.|alt=A cartoon figure holding a baton, stands next to a music stand in front of some musicians. The figure has a large nose and a prominent forehead. His sideburns turn into a wispy beard under his chin.]]

Wagner's hostile writings on Jews, including [[Das Judenthum in der Musik|''Jewishness in Music'']], correspond to some existing trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|1997|p=11}}; {{harvnb|Katz|1986|p=19}}; {{harvnb|Conway|2012|pp=258–264}}; {{harvnb|Vaszonyi|2010|pp=90–95}}</ref> Despite his very public views on this topic, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=164}}{{sfn|Conway|2012|p=198}} There have been frequent suggestions that [[antisemitic]] stereotypes are represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of [[Alberich]] and Mime in the ''Ring'', Sixtus Beckmesser in ''Die Meistersinger'', and Klingsor in ''Parsifal'' are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not identified as such in the librettos of these operas.<ref>See {{harvnb|Gutman|1990}} and {{harvnb|Adorno|2009|pp=12–13}}</ref>{{refn|{{harvnb|Weiner|1997}} gives very detailed allegations of antisemitism in Wagner's music and characterisations.|group=n}} The topic is further complicated by claims, which may have been credited by Wagner, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer; however, there is no evidence that Geyer had Jewish ancestors.{{sfn|Gutman|1990|p=4}}{{sfn|Conway|2002}}

Some biographers have noted that Wagner in his final years developed an interest in the [[racialist]] philosophy of [[Arthur de Gobineau]], notably Gobineau's belief that Western society was doomed because of [[miscegenation]] between "superior" and "inferior" races.{{sfnp|Everett|2020}} According to Robert Gutman, this theme is reflected in the opera ''Parsifal''.{{sfn|Gutman|1990|p=418 ff}} Other biographers (such as Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for ''Parsifal'' by 1877,{{sfn|Beckett|1981}} but he displayed no significant public interest in Gobineau until 1880.{{sfn|Gutman|1990|p=406}}

=== Other interpretations ===
Wagner's ideas are amenable to socialist interpretations; many of his ideas on art were being formulated at the time of his revolutionary inclinations in the 1840s. Thus, for example, [[George Bernard Shaw]] wrote in ''[[The Perfect Wagnerite]]'' (1883):

<blockquote>[Wagner's] picture of Niblunghome{{refn|Shaw's anglicization of ''Nibelheim'', the empire of Alberich in the ''Ring'' cycle.|group=n}} under the reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany in the middle of the 19th century by [[Engels]]'s book ''[[The Condition of the Working Class in England]]''.{{sfn|Shaw|1898|loc=Introduction}}</blockquote>

Left-wing interpretations of Wagner also inform the writings of [[Theodor Adorno]] among other Wagner critics.{{refn|See {{harvnb|Žižek|2009|p=viii}}: "[In this book] for the first time the Marxist reading of a musical work of art&nbsp;... was combined with the highest musicological analysis."|group=n}} [[Walter Benjamin]] gave Wagner as an example of "bourgeois false consciousness", alienating art from its social context.{{sfn|Millington|2008|p=81}} [[György Lukács]] contended that the ideas of the early Wagner represented the ideology of the "true socialists" (''wahre Sozialisten''), a movement referenced in [[Karl Marx]]'s ''[[Communist Manifesto]]'' as belonging to the left wing of German [[bourgeois radicalism]] and associated with [[Feuerbachianism]] and [[Karl Theodor Ferdinand Grün]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=Литературные теории XIX века и марксизм" (Nineteenth Century Literary Theories and Marxism)|last=Lukacs|first=György|publisher=State Publishing House of the USSR|year=1937|publication-place=Moscow|chapter=Richard Wagner as a “True Socialist”|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1937/richard-wagner.htm|translator-last=P.|translator-first=Anton}}</ref> while [[Anatoly Lunacharsky]] said about the later Wagner: "The circle is complete. The revolutionary has become a reactionary. The rebellious petty bourgeois now kisses the slipper of the Pope, the keeper of order."<ref>{{Cite book|title=On Literature and Art|last=Lunacharsky|first=Anatoly|author-link=Anatoly Lunacharsky|year=1965|orig-year=1933|chapter=Richard Wagner (On the 50th Anniversary of His Death)|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1933/wagner.htm|publisher=Progress Publishers|publication-place=Moscow|translator-last=Pyman|translator-first=Avril}}</ref>

The writer [[Robert Donington]] has produced a detailed, if controversial, [[Jungian interpretation]] of the ''Ring'' cycle, described as "an approach to Wagner by way of his symbols", which, for example, sees the character of the goddess Fricka as part of her husband Wotan's "inner femininity".{{sfn|Donington|1979|pp=31, 72–75}} Millington notes that [[Jean-Jacques Nattiez]] has also applied [[psychoanalytical]] techniques in an evaluation of Wagner's life and works.{{sfn|Nattiez|1993}}{{sfn|Millington|2008|pp=82–83}}

=== Nazi appropriation ===
[[Adolf Hitler]] was an admirer of Wagner's music and saw in his operas an embodiment of his own vision of the German nation; in a 1922 speech he claimed that Wagner's works glorified "the heroic Teutonic nature&nbsp;... Greatness lies in the heroic."<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Spotts|1994|p=141}}</ref> Hitler visited Bayreuth frequently from 1923 onwards and attended the productions at the theatre.{{sfn|Spotts|1994|pp=140, 198}} There continues to be debate about the extent to which Wagner's views might have influenced [[Nazi]] thinking.{{refn|The claim that Hitler, in his maturity, commented that "it [i.e. his political career] all began" after seeing a performance of ''Rienzi'' in his youth, has been disproved.<ref>See {{harvnb|Karlsson|2012|pp=35–52}}</ref>|group=n}} [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]] (1855–1927), who married Wagner's daughter Eva in 1908 but never met Wagner, was the author of ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]'', approved by the Nazi movement.{{sfn|Carr|2007|pp=108–109}}{{refn|The book is described by Roger Allen as "a toxic mix of world history and racially inspired anthropology".{{sfn|Allen|2013|p=80}} Chamberlain is described by [[Michael D. Biddiss]], in the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', as a "racialist writer".<ref>[[Michael Biddiss|Biddiss, Michael]] (n.d.) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32349 "Chamberlain, Houston Stewart"] in ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''</ref> |group=n}} Chamberlain met Hitler several times between 1923 and 1927 in Bayreuth, but cannot credibly be regarded as a conduit of Wagner's own views.<ref>{{harvnb|Carr|2007|pp=109–110}}. See also {{harvnb|Field|1981}}.</ref> The Nazis used those parts of Wagner's thought that were useful for propaganda and ignored or suppressed the rest.<ref>See {{harvnb|Potter|2008|loc=''passim''}}</ref>

While Bayreuth presented a useful front for Nazi culture, and Wagner's music was used at many Nazi events,<ref>{{harvnb|Calico|2002|pp=200–2001}}; {{harvnb|Grey|2002|pp=93–94}}</ref> the Nazi hierarchy as a whole did not share Hitler's enthusiasm for Wagner's operas and resented attending these lengthy epics at Hitler's insistence.{{sfn|Carr|2007|p=184}} Some Nazi ideologists, most notably [[Alfred Rosenberg]], rejected ''Parsifal'' as excessively Christian and pacifist.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chandler |first1=Andrew |last2=Stokłosa |first2=Katarzyna |last3=Vinzent |first3=Jutta |title=Exile and Patronage: Cross-cultural Negotiations Beyond the Third Reich |publisher=[[LIT Verlag]] |location=Münster |page=4 |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=6lj6gkIUzBsC}} }}</ref>

{{ill|Guido Fackler|de}} has researched evidence that indicates that it is possible that Wagner's music was used at the [[Dachau concentration camp]] in 1933–1934 to "reeducate" [[political prisoner]]s by exposure to "national music".<ref>{{harvnb|Fackler|2007}}. See also the [http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/ Music and the Holocaust] website.</ref> There has been no evidence to support claims, sometimes made,<ref>E.g. in {{harvnb|Walsh|1992}}</ref> that his music was played at [[Extermination camp|Nazi death camps]] during the [[Second World War]], and Pamela Potter has noted that Wagner's music was explicitly off-limits in the camps.{{refn|See e.g. {{harvp|John|2004}} for a detailed essay on music in the Nazi death camps, which nowhere mentions Wagner. See also {{harvp|Potter|2008|p=244}}: "We know from testimonies that concentration camp orchestras played [all sorts of] music&nbsp;... but that Wagner was explicitly off-limits. However, after the war, unsubstantiated claims that Wagner's music accompanied Jews to their death took on momentum."|group=n}}

Because of the associations of Wagner with antisemitism and Nazism, the [[Wagner's music in Israel|performance of his music in the State of Israel]] has been a source of controversy.<ref>See {{harvnb|Bruen|1993}}</ref>