Decoding Wagner: An Invitation to His World of Music Drama (includes 2 CDs)

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(2 stars) - Good Selection of Music, Superficial Insubstantial Text
What an audacious title! Decoding Wagner, all done in 204 pages, without all those pesky footnotes. You will not get a sense of what the librettos actually mean though. He does not decode Wagner, not by a long shot. Wagner's works defy simplification, so writing a generalized book that claims to decode all of Wagner at a grade 9 reading level in 200 pages is bound to fail. And this one does. I think I would have given this 5 stars if the title had been "An Invitation to Wagner's World" or "Elementary Wagner", but then again that wouldn't have sold as well.

I don't think the author has a good enough grasp of 19th century thought, Wagner's writings, or the primary sources Wagner used in writing his Librettos; nor do I think he understands German. The text and analysis appear to have been cobbled together from secondary sources, but because there are no footnotes I don't know for sure. There is a fair amount of description of the types of music and how they relate generally to the drama (and no you won't have to know how to read music to understand his descriptions), a decent amount of plot recapitulation, and a fair amount of biographical information. There is very little in the way of decoding Wagner.

I suppose that is not too surprising. Wagner was a very prolix headache inducing writer, and often times he was also self contradictory. Further, he loved to obscure things and make people have to work to understand what he was trying to get across, especially when it came to his librettos. Getting a handle on what his operas mean is a demanding task. Demanding books don't sell very well though, and plowing through Wagner's philosophy is difficult. Yet that is what is required to decode the man and his works. And the resultant decoding is bound to be difficult and confusing. It is much simpler to gloss over things and write in general terms things that make sense to a modern mind. If you want an example of an actual decoding of Wagner, read Barry Millington (Cambridge Opera Journal Vol. 3 No 3 1991). You will see how difficult it is.

Why is it hard? Because Wagner intentionally obfuscated his intentions. Wagner wrote "Such a career as mine must ever cheat the onlooker: he sees in me acts and undertakings he deems to be my own, whereas at bottom they are quite alien to me: who marks the repugnance that often is filling my soul?" Cosmia (wagner's wife) wrote in her diary "He [Wagner] enjoys writing, but feels it will be some time before he writes another text: " I have posed enough riddles," he adds." So Wagner hides his true intent. Who could understand his operas? Here is a couple of more quotes: "After a year's preparation, I shall present my complete work in a series of 4 days: with this I shall make the men of the revolution recognize the meaning of the revolution according to its most noble contents. That Audience will understand me the present cannot." "..the multitude leaves me indifferent...it can't grasp what I am driving at...my only holdfast is the individual in whom I can see that through my art I have preached to his conscience...and made him a fellow-combatant against the good-for-nothing reign of worldly wisdom." So Wagner himself says that his works are not meant to be understood by the masses, but only by a select few, i.e. 'fellow combatants'. He did think he would be able to communicate with the masses though. He thought that there would be an unconscious, uncritical communication with them. Basically, they would not understand but their subconscious would get the message.

Most modern Wagner writers tend to downplay or eliminate nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-French in his works. And that's what May does here. He does touch on the most obvious examples, such as Beckmeister in Die Meistersinger, but in a wholly inadequate way. Taking the Beckmeister example, May minimizes the malevolence of Wagner's intent by stating that Beckmiester should be seen in the same light as some of Dickens more racist characters. The problem is Dickens was not a violent anti-Semite, nor did he try to start a movement. I don't know why people have such a resistance to see the intentionally obscure encoded nationalism and racism in the librettos, but they do.

So making sense of Wagner is a complicated riddle solving and painful experience. This book is none of those things and therefore its conclusions and generalizations do not illuminate the works of Wagner. But it makes for easy reading and will fool the reader into thinking he has Wagner figured out.

On the positive side, the two cds provide a nice overview of Wagner's music, and are worth the price of the book, especially if you have no Wagner in your collection.

(5 stars) - interesting book with cds
This well writen book has an analysis of all Wagner operas. I found it helpful, used together with the Metropolitan Opera site.

(5 stars) - An opera celebration
I used to be an opera singer and I have to say this is a fabulous book for any fan of Wagner. Tom May has done a terrific job of making this difficult material accessible, and the accompanying CDs help considerably. Even if you feel you have read everything there is to read about the maestro, you will find this book absorbing and very illuminating. Plus you'll probably want to buy a new recording of Tristan und Isolde as well [maybe the most beautiful music ever written, in my humble opinion]. I think Amazon may sell that too. LOL

(5 stars) - Very solid overview of Wagner's operas - 2 Good Music CDs
I found this to be an excellent overview of Wagner and his operas in a book of only 200 pages or so. This book is for someone who is fairly familiar with the plots of Wagner's operas -- no plot summaries are presented -- and gives a good sense of how Wagner developed as both a composer and dramatist. The book is written mostly around the ten major operas wrote -- a chapter for each with an extra chapter to introduce the Ring. Although the book is relatively short, the reader learns a lot about Wagner's sources, his use of these sources, and key features of the individual operas. A portion of the discussion of the operas is tied to the CDs - one for the Ring and the other for the non-Ring operas. The CDs are primarily "greatest hits" - from the operas, with text making reference to different points on the CD in terms of timing.

This book is probably not the first book you read on Wagner -- I would recommend "Wagner Without Fear" by William Berger as an introduction to Wagner and his work. For other readers, this book really provides quite a bit of diverse information in a small space. The book is well-written and meets the needs of many readers in that it written around individual operas. A reader can go right to the opera of interest, but I think may will also want to read through the entire book to better understand the context of individual operas and their place in Wagner's development.

The book has a good bibliography (though it would have been nice to have some annotation).

The book is a good value as is, but with the 2 CDs (primarily BMG recordings), it becomes an excellent value. Any reader interested in Wagner should consider owning this book. 5 stars.

(5 stars) - Accessible, lively and well-written
This is a terrific read: entertaining and briskly paced. May considers historical and social factors in Wagner's work without bogging down the reader with theory or dull historicism. In fact, this work brings me a greater appreciation for Wagner than I thought possible (I'm not, my apologies, an opera fan). I would recommend it to the casual theater goer, the fine arts critic, opera fans, and anyone interested in music or 19th century theater.

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