Wagner's 'The Siegfried Idyll' is the 'end credits' of the Ring Cycle.

[Aristus]

That's what I've come to believe.

Ever see a movie (usually, but not always, a war movie - like 'Platoon'.) where the end credits feature footage of the actors listed in the credits? Scenes taken from the film, or out-takes, or something. The snippets of film show the actors in character, or staring dreamily into the distance.

I always thought of that as the director's way of saying to the audience: "See? It's all right! Nobody's dead; nobody's hurt. It was just a movie."

That's how I view Wagner's 'The Siegfried Idyll'. The Ring Cycle ends with all of the characters dying, and the world essentially coming to an end. The Siegfried Idyll, which features themes and motifs originally thought to be taken from the Ring operas, but actually pre-dating the composition of the Cycle, is like Wagner's way of saying: "See? It's all right! Nobody's dead; nobody's hurt. It was just a opera!"

Thoughts?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. Actually, my favorite piece of Wagner is Siegfried's funeral music

John Boorman used it very well in the movie Excalibur

[Aristus]

2. "Excaliber" is the movie that introduced me to Wagner's music.

My mother noticed my interest in the music from the film. And being a music teacher, she sprang into action. She had the Decca stereo recording of The Ring, and encouraged me to listen to it. I got hooked, and have been a fan now for about 30 years.

I have the Decca recording myself now on CD, I just finished watching the entire cycle on DVD, the Met's 2010 production. And my wife and I have tickets for Seattle's production of the Ring Cycle this summer.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. I have very mixed feelings about Wagner

As Rossini wrote, "Wagner has some wonderful moments, but bad quarter hours." He could be extremely long-winded -- have you ever noticed that in Act 2 of Götterdämmerung, Alberich and Hagen have a conversation, and then repeat it, twice, as if we hadn't got it the first time.

His music could be thrilling, but bombastic. Woody Allen's crack about listening to too much Wagner makes him want to conquer Poland comes to mind. And there is the thing about him being a thoroughly despicable human being.

[Aristus]

4. You make some good points.

Another that I've heard is that Hitler's affinity for Wagner's music puts that music beyond the pale. And while there's no doubt that Wagner was an awful human being, it doesn't hurt to try and separate the music from the man.

After all, Wagner wasn't writing music strictly for anti-Semites, anymore than Mozart was writing music for alcoholics, or Schubert was writing music for syphilitics, or Stravinsky was writing music for Czarist reactionaries.

The evil that men do lives on after them. The good is often buried with them. That doesn't have to be the case with Wagner.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

5. That Hitler liked Wagner means nothing

It is, in fact, a classic example of the logical fallacy called either "Hitler ate sugar" or "Reductio ad Hitlerum". No, I was merely mentioning that Wagner, himself, was a particularly nasty piece of work.

In most cases have no difficulty separating the man (or woman) from his work. For example, I am well aware that Paul Tillich was notoriously unfaithful to his wife, but that does not affect the way I feel about his theology. It's just that Wagner is an extreme case -- rampant egotism, hypocrisy and virulent hatred.

One thing I particularly dislike about Wagner is his long-windedness. I well remember attending a production of Der fliegende Holländer that started promptly at 7 pm, and did not get out until well after midnight.

[Aristus]

6. Yeah, there's no getting around that.

When Wotan and Fricka start butting heads in the second act of Die Walkure, and it just goes on and on, I start looking for a way to tunnel out of the opera house.

I can appreciate that Wagner wanted to bring his audience up to speed with what happened in the previous opera, but he takes for too much time with it. Especially considering that by the last opera, he's got three operas to bring us up to speed on.

This makes sense if he actually expected that each opera would have to be able to stand up as a stand-alone performance. But he never intended them for anything other than consecutive performances over four separate evenings. It's a wonder he couldn't respect his audience enough to remember what happened e night before...