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The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on The Niblung's Ring
As a commentator on music and music critics, Bernard Shaw was experienced and knowledgeable, strongly opinionated, and, as in all his writing, unsurpassed for brilliance and wit. The reader will find that this commentary on the cycle of four Wagner operas known as "The Ring" contains all these characteristics: it is enlightening and provocative, and it makes very entertaining reading.
Shaw was firm Wagner partisan, and in the book he enthusiastically endorses the operas and Wagner's music in general. Particularly interested in the philosophic and social ideology behind the Ring operas, he also discusses Wagner's life, the character of music drama as opposed to grand opera, the role of the Leitmotif in unifying the cycle and delineating character, the character of Siegfried, and many other related questions.
As with all of Shaw's work, even if the reader disagrees with much of it, he will still find the analysis full of stimulating ideas and valuable insights, and written throughout with rare liveliness and wit.
Shaw was firm Wagner partisan, and in the book he enthusiastically endorses the operas and Wagner's music in general. Particularly interested in the philosophic and social ideology behind the Ring operas, he also discusses Wagner's life, the character of music drama as opposed to grand opera, the role of the Leitmotif in unifying the cycle and delineating character, the character of Siegfried, and many other related questions.
As with all of Shaw's work, even if the reader disagrees with much of it, he will still find the analysis full of stimulating ideas and valuable insights, and written throughout with rare liveliness and wit.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
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352 people want to read
About the author
George Bernard Shaw
1,992 books4,125 followersGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.
An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.
In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honours, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.
Shaw died at Shaw's Corner, aged 94, from chronic health problems exacerbated by injuries incurred by falling.
An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.
In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honours, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.
Shaw died at Shaw's Corner, aged 94, from chronic health problems exacerbated by injuries incurred by falling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
April 13, 2019
Neste ensaio, com o subtítulo "Um comentário sobre O Anel do Nibelungo", George Bernard Shaw resume, explica e faz uma leitura política e social das quatro óperas.
Com muitas referências a diversas obras de Wagner, e outros compositores, trata-se de um ensaio que, embora eu careça de erudição suficiente para o apreciar na sua totalidade — principalmente na parte sobre o passado e o futuro da música —, achei muito interessante.
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Prémio Nobel da Literatura 1925
George Bernard Shaw nasceu na Irlanda em 26 de Julho de 1856 e morreu na Inglaterra em 2 de Novembro de 1950.
Foi dramaturgo, romancista, contista, ensaísta e jornalista.
Com muitas referências a diversas obras de Wagner, e outros compositores, trata-se de um ensaio que, embora eu careça de erudição suficiente para o apreciar na sua totalidade — principalmente na parte sobre o passado e o futuro da música —, achei muito interessante.
_____________
Prémio Nobel da Literatura 1925
George Bernard Shaw nasceu na Irlanda em 26 de Julho de 1856 e morreu na Inglaterra em 2 de Novembro de 1950.
Foi dramaturgo, romancista, contista, ensaísta e jornalista.
May 11, 2009
That this book is one-sided is well-known -- Bernard Shaw focuses on The Ring overwhelmingly though the lens of his socio-political and economic interests. Nevertheless, it remains one of the greatest and most illuminating commentaries on The Ring written in English, perhaps surpassed only by Cooke's I Saw the World End.
In this short and lively book, Shaw reads The Ring as a dramatic allegory for social evolution, the corrupting influences of political power and capitalism, and the virtues of anarcho-socialist revolution. He finds ample evidence for his interpretation in the biography of Wagner, who fled Germany in exile after his participation in the failed May Revolution of 1849 in Dresden.
Shaw spends precious little time on musicological analysis and gives short shrift to The Ring's sustained metaphysical and existential ramifications, which he views as tertiary threads of the narrative that ultimately derail The Ring in Twilight of the Gods. Shaw views the final opera in the series as a dramatic failure which subverts the brilliant structure of the first three operas by resorting to the gestures grand opera in the Meyerbeer style -- a style that Wagner himself stridently attacked for its staginess and melodrama.
Shaw is quite right that there is a decisive shift in style and structure in Twilight compared with the preceding three evenings, and I share his opinion that it is the most problematic work, and the most in need of careful interpretation. But it can be included in the integral vision of the cycle if one includes all of the various aspects of the story, and it is obvious to nearly every reader that Shaw does not.
That said, if one compares this volume to the dozens of similar pamphlets that appeared in Europe in the early twentieth century one will immediately see why Shaw's work remains a classic while the overwhelming majority of pedantic commentaries have fallen by the wayside. One may differ with Shaw in terms of emphasis, but whereof he speaks he deals with superb insight. Perhaps it need not be added that his prose is of literary caliber.
Like Odin, Shaw purchased wisdom for the price of one eye, buying insight at the expense of perspective. But a god remains a god, and Shaw's vision, however one-sided, is as penetrating as his prose is illuminating.
In this short and lively book, Shaw reads The Ring as a dramatic allegory for social evolution, the corrupting influences of political power and capitalism, and the virtues of anarcho-socialist revolution. He finds ample evidence for his interpretation in the biography of Wagner, who fled Germany in exile after his participation in the failed May Revolution of 1849 in Dresden.
Shaw spends precious little time on musicological analysis and gives short shrift to The Ring's sustained metaphysical and existential ramifications, which he views as tertiary threads of the narrative that ultimately derail The Ring in Twilight of the Gods. Shaw views the final opera in the series as a dramatic failure which subverts the brilliant structure of the first three operas by resorting to the gestures grand opera in the Meyerbeer style -- a style that Wagner himself stridently attacked for its staginess and melodrama.
Shaw is quite right that there is a decisive shift in style and structure in Twilight compared with the preceding three evenings, and I share his opinion that it is the most problematic work, and the most in need of careful interpretation. But it can be included in the integral vision of the cycle if one includes all of the various aspects of the story, and it is obvious to nearly every reader that Shaw does not.
That said, if one compares this volume to the dozens of similar pamphlets that appeared in Europe in the early twentieth century one will immediately see why Shaw's work remains a classic while the overwhelming majority of pedantic commentaries have fallen by the wayside. One may differ with Shaw in terms of emphasis, but whereof he speaks he deals with superb insight. Perhaps it need not be added that his prose is of literary caliber.
Like Odin, Shaw purchased wisdom for the price of one eye, buying insight at the expense of perspective. But a god remains a god, and Shaw's vision, however one-sided, is as penetrating as his prose is illuminating.
December 17, 2022
The really wonderful thing about books is their ability to surprise, especially when there is literally nothing on the cover, which is what happens when one mines Project Gutenberg. And this unexpected quality might appear in the subject matter, or the style. It might even be in the juxtaposition of elements that contrast or combine. So even if you have never heard of George Bernard Shaw and have rejected the music dramas of Richard Wagner out of pre-judgment of content or expected distaste at association with repulsive ideas, then please take time to read The Perfect Wagnerite.
For those who are unfamiliar with Shaw, he was Irish, not English. He was a playwright, a journalist, a commentator and a writer on things political. He was also a music critic and an intellectual. And for those who are unfamiliar with Richard Wagner, he was the German opera composer from the nineteenth century who claimed not to be writing operas, built his own theatre which survives, and is now famous for writing antisemitic tracts which, at the time, were merely par for the course. One can perhaps imagine a time, not too distant perhaps, when all literature and art from the past is shunned because it featured environmentally damaging consumerism.
We can’t escape who we are, but we can change what we become. Whatever life or experience chooses to present us, we must react and respond. Doing nothing is as active a response as doing something. Even in the imaginary world of gods, Rhinemaidens, dragons, magic rings and heroes, the rules are the same.
In The Perfect Wagnerite, George Bernard Shaw not only describes the plots of and relationships within the four music dramas that constitute Wagner’s Ring cycle, he also offers context, interpretation and comment. Thus, in a slim volume, we feel by the end we have understood a little more about the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner, Edwardian England, Karl Marx, Socialism and ourselves.
From a small book, more like an extended newspaper think-piece, it seems stupid to list three extended quotes. But here goes.
On Kark Marx, Shaw writes: that I know ten times as much of economics and a hundred times as much of practical administration as Marx did; that I knew Engels personally and rather liked him as a witty and amiable old 1848 veteran who despised modern Socialism; that I regard Bebel and Singer as men of like passions with myself, but considerably less advanced; and that I read Das Kapital in the year 1882 or thereabouts, and still consider it one of the most important books of the nineteenth century because of its power of changing the minds of those who read it, in spite of its unsound capitalist economics, its parade of quotations from books which the author had either not read or not understood, its affectation of algebraic formulas, and its general attempt to disguise a masterpiece of propagandist journalism and prophetic invective as a drily scientific treatise of the sort that used to impose on people in 1860, when any book that pretended to be scientific was accepted as a Bible. In those days Darwin and Helmholtz were the real fathers of the Church; and nobody would listen to religion, poetry or rhetoric; so that even Socialism had to call itself "scientific," and predict the date of the revolution, as if it were a comet, by calculations founded on "historic laws."
On German culture, music and society, Shaw offers: Why, then, you may ask, do I say that I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my nature most strongly? Very simply because I should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean age.
And on the tarnhelm, a chain-mail helmet that transforms its wearer magically into anything, George Bernard Shaw tells us: Mimmy (Mime, a character in the Ring) dimly sees that there is some magic in this helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who wears it can appear in what shape he will, or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is a very common article in our streets, where it generally takes the form of a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, or at least pretend to do it.
Oh, and also, by the way we learned that in Shaw’s opinion Richard Wagner never changed from characterising him as the revolutionary who was expelled from Dresden in 1848 for participating in politics and political protest, that he was a lifelong socialist and, crucially, we hear not a word of the anti-Semitism with which Wagner is so consistently branded nowadays. There may be convenient reasons for that omission in Shaw’s case, which is just another example of why people should not be judged individually for the wrongs of their age. The antisemitic element in Wagner’s understanding of the world is undeniable. It was the nature of his age. We must not let that fact blind us to all the other facets of the life of a genius that ought to be recognized forever, despite contemporary mores on capitalist consumption having changed. Books can surprise.
For those who are unfamiliar with Shaw, he was Irish, not English. He was a playwright, a journalist, a commentator and a writer on things political. He was also a music critic and an intellectual. And for those who are unfamiliar with Richard Wagner, he was the German opera composer from the nineteenth century who claimed not to be writing operas, built his own theatre which survives, and is now famous for writing antisemitic tracts which, at the time, were merely par for the course. One can perhaps imagine a time, not too distant perhaps, when all literature and art from the past is shunned because it featured environmentally damaging consumerism.
We can’t escape who we are, but we can change what we become. Whatever life or experience chooses to present us, we must react and respond. Doing nothing is as active a response as doing something. Even in the imaginary world of gods, Rhinemaidens, dragons, magic rings and heroes, the rules are the same.
In The Perfect Wagnerite, George Bernard Shaw not only describes the plots of and relationships within the four music dramas that constitute Wagner’s Ring cycle, he also offers context, interpretation and comment. Thus, in a slim volume, we feel by the end we have understood a little more about the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner, Edwardian England, Karl Marx, Socialism and ourselves.
From a small book, more like an extended newspaper think-piece, it seems stupid to list three extended quotes. But here goes.
On Kark Marx, Shaw writes: that I know ten times as much of economics and a hundred times as much of practical administration as Marx did; that I knew Engels personally and rather liked him as a witty and amiable old 1848 veteran who despised modern Socialism; that I regard Bebel and Singer as men of like passions with myself, but considerably less advanced; and that I read Das Kapital in the year 1882 or thereabouts, and still consider it one of the most important books of the nineteenth century because of its power of changing the minds of those who read it, in spite of its unsound capitalist economics, its parade of quotations from books which the author had either not read or not understood, its affectation of algebraic formulas, and its general attempt to disguise a masterpiece of propagandist journalism and prophetic invective as a drily scientific treatise of the sort that used to impose on people in 1860, when any book that pretended to be scientific was accepted as a Bible. In those days Darwin and Helmholtz were the real fathers of the Church; and nobody would listen to religion, poetry or rhetoric; so that even Socialism had to call itself "scientific," and predict the date of the revolution, as if it were a comet, by calculations founded on "historic laws."
On German culture, music and society, Shaw offers: Why, then, you may ask, do I say that I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my nature most strongly? Very simply because I should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean age.
And on the tarnhelm, a chain-mail helmet that transforms its wearer magically into anything, George Bernard Shaw tells us: Mimmy (Mime, a character in the Ring) dimly sees that there is some magic in this helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who wears it can appear in what shape he will, or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is a very common article in our streets, where it generally takes the form of a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, or at least pretend to do it.
Oh, and also, by the way we learned that in Shaw’s opinion Richard Wagner never changed from characterising him as the revolutionary who was expelled from Dresden in 1848 for participating in politics and political protest, that he was a lifelong socialist and, crucially, we hear not a word of the anti-Semitism with which Wagner is so consistently branded nowadays. There may be convenient reasons for that omission in Shaw’s case, which is just another example of why people should not be judged individually for the wrongs of their age. The antisemitic element in Wagner’s understanding of the world is undeniable. It was the nature of his age. We must not let that fact blind us to all the other facets of the life of a genius that ought to be recognized forever, despite contemporary mores on capitalist consumption having changed. Books can surprise.
October 22, 2022
Shaw lazily reads his own political and social ideas into the Ring, blind to the broader applicability of mythic archetypes. He lived just long enough to see the Nazis appropriate Wagner, but was presumably too old by then to produce a revised edition.
June 6, 2017
The literature on Wagner is vast - you could construct a castle as imposing as Wotan's own with the sheer tonnage of Wagner biographies, critical analyses, and musical exegeses - so I was looking for something digestible that gave an overview of the Ring Cycle's plot, themes, music, and context without getting too bogged down in over-philosophizing. That's harder to do than it sounds, since Wagner's grand artistic project practically demands that intellectually-inclined listeners start attaching their various manifestos to various portions of the Ring Cycle's scaffolding, and though Shaw is hardly immune to this pontification, as his lengthy excursions into the history of socialism or racial theorizing demonstrate, he approaches his critical ask with both love and rigor, which is all you can ask for. As he says, "to be devoted to Wagner merely as a dog is devoted to his master, sharing a few elementary ideas, appetites and emotions with him, and, for the rest, reverencing his superiority without understanding it, is no true Wagnerism." I'm not sure you'll be a "perfect" Wagnerite after reading this, but surely you'll appreciate and enjoy it even more.
I read this while I was relistening to the whole Ring Cycle, following some advice to give the 2012 remastered version of the famous 1965 Decca recording by Sir Georg Solti a spin (it was excellent, a worthy companion to the 1953 Furtwängler and the 1970 von Karajan versions I've also heard). I've listened to this enormous beast several times through in my life - watching a televised version on PBS and reading the subtitles to my then-toddler-age brother is one of my earliest musical memories - yet I've always been a bit hazy on many details of the plot since I don't speak German and I'm not in the habit of reading librettos for fun. Shaw's explanation of the windings of the narrative, its inspirations, and its themes are as good as you'll find anywhere, laying out the internal logic of Wagner's vision as well as some of the more curious decisions he made. A full performance of the Ring Cycle is four nights of three or four hours each, which doesn't sound like too much in this era of full-season TV binge-watching marathons, but there's still a lot for the modern aficionado to unpack.
Reading through Shaw's summary while listening to the music, I was struck by what a delicate balancing act Wagner was trying to strike between the legacy of the source material - the Nibelungenlied and the Eddas, but also plenty of his own vaguely period-era invention - and a plot that was firmly about modernity. Shaw finds lots of anti-capitalist ideology in the Ring Cycle (fairly plausibly), but there's a lot to ponder about how humanity is portrayed in The Ring Cycle versus, say, Greek mythological arcs. For all its imposing density and complexity, the Ring Cycle is ultimately about the rising power of humanity against the declining power of the gods, and in the scenes showing the dangerous power of the ring or the cruelty of Alberich's machine workshop you can see the inspiration for countless modern works, not least The Lord of the Rings. The tragedies in the lives of Brünnhilde or Sieglinde, or even Wotan or Alberich, are masterfully conveyed by Wagner's careful plotting and characterization:
"If you are now satisfied that The Rhine Gold is an allegory, do not forget that an allegory is never quite consistent except when it is written by someone without dramatic faculty, in which case it is unreadable. There is only one way of dramatizing an idea; and that is by putting on the stage a human being possessed by that idea, yet none the less a human being with all the human impulses which make him akin and therefore interesting to us. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does not, like his unread imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and Valour: he dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant Man. Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship, and Loki Logic and Imagination without living Will (Brain without Heart, to put it vulgarly); yet in the drama Wotan is a religiously moral man, and Loki a witty, ingenious, imaginative and cynical one."
Something I was almost heartened to read was that Wagner sometimes made mistakes. James Joyce once had that line about "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery," but the convolutions of the Ring Cycle are not always as intentional as they seem. For example, Wagner came up with the idea to set the Nibelungenlied and the Eddas to music first and decided to work backwards to add more foundation to the plot from there. So Götterdämmerung came conceptually before Das Rheingold, which explains why certain parts of Götterdämmerung, like the opening scene with the Norns, seem so out of place from a narrative logic perspective. When I was listening to it, I immediately thought of the famous opening scene with the three witches in Macbeth, but whereas Shakespeare's witches are an integral part of the play, Wagner's Norns are not very well-integrated into the rest of the story:
"The very senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in relation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly effective air of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their consequentiality, because we are all more apt to pretend to understand great works of art than to confess that the meaning (if any) has escaped us."
And yet it's somehow comforting that there are those little imperfections, as it makes the grandeur of the whole thing more human, especially in the face of all that music. The music is the most famous aspect of the Ring Cycle, and though I've been listening to it for decades, I am still absolutely transported by songs like "Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey" every time I hear them. To me, even though Wagner's leitmotif system has become commonplace it's never been bettered or even equaled, and as Shaw discusses in his (too brief) musicological sections, that system may not necessarily be "better" music than what Wagner termed "absolute music" like a Bach fugue or a Beethoven symphony, but it works differently than his predecessors' works did: "A Beethoven symphony (except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses noble feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner added thought and produced the music drama." The idea that music could express emotions was not new, of course, but in Wagner's music the idea is expressed very differently; from a musical theory perspective Wagner is working on a whole different level of songwriting:
"There is not a single bar of "classical music" in The Ring - not a note in it that has any other point than the single direct point of giving musical expression to the drama. In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune. Wagner is never driving at anything of this sort any more than Shakespeare in his plays is driving at such ingenuities of verse-making as sonnets, triolets, and the like."
And Shaw makes a good comparison between the music of that Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner trio:
"After the symphonies of Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest aspiration, can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes. As much, perhaps, will be claimed for the preludes and fugues of Bach; but Bach's method was unattainable: his compositions were wonderful webs of exquisitely beautiful Gothic traceries in sound, quite beyond all ordinary human talent. Beethoven's far blunter craft was thoroughly popular and practicable: not to save his soul could he have drawn one long Gothic line in sound as Bach could, much less have woven several of them together with so apt a harmony...."
Shaw can periodically wander away from the point: for one example, the entire section of "Siegfried as Protestant" starts off quite reasonably as a vaguely Weberian analysis of how the hero's energetic aspects reflect quite real Christian allegories in the Ring Cycle and also something of Wagner's own relationship to the Christian divides in Germany, but then detours into eugenicist musings which sit uncomfortably with the fact that Siegfried is, of course, a product of incest. Much of the discussion of socialist (or at least anti-capitalist) themes is likewise heavily inflected by Shaw's own views, frequently more enlightening as an elucidation of Shaw's politics than Wagner's famously idiosyncratic ones. Yet overall Shaw's explanation of what happens in the Ring Cycle and why it matters is enormously useful, not only revelatory but inspiring. His appreciation for the power of love in the Ring Cycle is a real delight to read, as is his conclusion about the ultimate aim of one of the grandest dramatic works in all of human history:
"The only faith which any reasonable disciple can gain from The Ring is not in love, but in life itself as a tireless power which is continually driving onward and upward - not, please observe, being beckoned or drawn by Das Ewig Weibliche or any other external sentimentality, but growing-from within, by its own inexplicable energy, into ever higher and higher forms of organization, the strengths and the needs of which are continually superseding the institutions which were made to fit our former requirements. When your Bakunins call out for the demolition of all these venerable institutions, there is no need to fly into a panic and lock them up in prison whilst your parliament is bit by bit doing exactly what they advised you to do. When your Siegfrieds melt down the old weapons into new ones, and with disrespectful words chop in twain the antiquated constable's staves in the hands of their elders, the end of the world is no nearer than it was before. If human nature, which is the highest organization of life reached on this planet, is really degenerating, then human society will decay; and no panic-begotten penal measures can possibly save it: we must, like Prometheus, set to work to make new men instead of vainly torturing old ones. On the other hand, if the energy of life is still carrying human nature to higher and higher levels, then the more young people shock their elders and deride and discard their pet institutions the better for the hopes of the world, since the apparent growth of anarchy is only the measure of the rate of improvement. History, as far as we are capable of history (which is not saying much as yet), shows that all changes from crudity of social organization to complexity, and from mechanical agencies in government to living ones, seem anarchic at first sight. No doubt it is natural to a snail to think that any evolution which threatens to do away with shells will result in general death from exposure. Nevertheless, the most elaborately housed beings today are born not only without houses on their backs but without even fur or feathers to clothe them."
I read this while I was relistening to the whole Ring Cycle, following some advice to give the 2012 remastered version of the famous 1965 Decca recording by Sir Georg Solti a spin (it was excellent, a worthy companion to the 1953 Furtwängler and the 1970 von Karajan versions I've also heard). I've listened to this enormous beast several times through in my life - watching a televised version on PBS and reading the subtitles to my then-toddler-age brother is one of my earliest musical memories - yet I've always been a bit hazy on many details of the plot since I don't speak German and I'm not in the habit of reading librettos for fun. Shaw's explanation of the windings of the narrative, its inspirations, and its themes are as good as you'll find anywhere, laying out the internal logic of Wagner's vision as well as some of the more curious decisions he made. A full performance of the Ring Cycle is four nights of three or four hours each, which doesn't sound like too much in this era of full-season TV binge-watching marathons, but there's still a lot for the modern aficionado to unpack.
Reading through Shaw's summary while listening to the music, I was struck by what a delicate balancing act Wagner was trying to strike between the legacy of the source material - the Nibelungenlied and the Eddas, but also plenty of his own vaguely period-era invention - and a plot that was firmly about modernity. Shaw finds lots of anti-capitalist ideology in the Ring Cycle (fairly plausibly), but there's a lot to ponder about how humanity is portrayed in The Ring Cycle versus, say, Greek mythological arcs. For all its imposing density and complexity, the Ring Cycle is ultimately about the rising power of humanity against the declining power of the gods, and in the scenes showing the dangerous power of the ring or the cruelty of Alberich's machine workshop you can see the inspiration for countless modern works, not least The Lord of the Rings. The tragedies in the lives of Brünnhilde or Sieglinde, or even Wotan or Alberich, are masterfully conveyed by Wagner's careful plotting and characterization:
"If you are now satisfied that The Rhine Gold is an allegory, do not forget that an allegory is never quite consistent except when it is written by someone without dramatic faculty, in which case it is unreadable. There is only one way of dramatizing an idea; and that is by putting on the stage a human being possessed by that idea, yet none the less a human being with all the human impulses which make him akin and therefore interesting to us. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does not, like his unread imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and Valour: he dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant Man. Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship, and Loki Logic and Imagination without living Will (Brain without Heart, to put it vulgarly); yet in the drama Wotan is a religiously moral man, and Loki a witty, ingenious, imaginative and cynical one."
Something I was almost heartened to read was that Wagner sometimes made mistakes. James Joyce once had that line about "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery," but the convolutions of the Ring Cycle are not always as intentional as they seem. For example, Wagner came up with the idea to set the Nibelungenlied and the Eddas to music first and decided to work backwards to add more foundation to the plot from there. So Götterdämmerung came conceptually before Das Rheingold, which explains why certain parts of Götterdämmerung, like the opening scene with the Norns, seem so out of place from a narrative logic perspective. When I was listening to it, I immediately thought of the famous opening scene with the three witches in Macbeth, but whereas Shakespeare's witches are an integral part of the play, Wagner's Norns are not very well-integrated into the rest of the story:
"The very senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in relation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly effective air of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their consequentiality, because we are all more apt to pretend to understand great works of art than to confess that the meaning (if any) has escaped us."
And yet it's somehow comforting that there are those little imperfections, as it makes the grandeur of the whole thing more human, especially in the face of all that music. The music is the most famous aspect of the Ring Cycle, and though I've been listening to it for decades, I am still absolutely transported by songs like "Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey" every time I hear them. To me, even though Wagner's leitmotif system has become commonplace it's never been bettered or even equaled, and as Shaw discusses in his (too brief) musicological sections, that system may not necessarily be "better" music than what Wagner termed "absolute music" like a Bach fugue or a Beethoven symphony, but it works differently than his predecessors' works did: "A Beethoven symphony (except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses noble feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner added thought and produced the music drama." The idea that music could express emotions was not new, of course, but in Wagner's music the idea is expressed very differently; from a musical theory perspective Wagner is working on a whole different level of songwriting:
"There is not a single bar of "classical music" in The Ring - not a note in it that has any other point than the single direct point of giving musical expression to the drama. In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune. Wagner is never driving at anything of this sort any more than Shakespeare in his plays is driving at such ingenuities of verse-making as sonnets, triolets, and the like."
And Shaw makes a good comparison between the music of that Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner trio:
"After the symphonies of Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest aspiration, can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes. As much, perhaps, will be claimed for the preludes and fugues of Bach; but Bach's method was unattainable: his compositions were wonderful webs of exquisitely beautiful Gothic traceries in sound, quite beyond all ordinary human talent. Beethoven's far blunter craft was thoroughly popular and practicable: not to save his soul could he have drawn one long Gothic line in sound as Bach could, much less have woven several of them together with so apt a harmony...."
Shaw can periodically wander away from the point: for one example, the entire section of "Siegfried as Protestant" starts off quite reasonably as a vaguely Weberian analysis of how the hero's energetic aspects reflect quite real Christian allegories in the Ring Cycle and also something of Wagner's own relationship to the Christian divides in Germany, but then detours into eugenicist musings which sit uncomfortably with the fact that Siegfried is, of course, a product of incest. Much of the discussion of socialist (or at least anti-capitalist) themes is likewise heavily inflected by Shaw's own views, frequently more enlightening as an elucidation of Shaw's politics than Wagner's famously idiosyncratic ones. Yet overall Shaw's explanation of what happens in the Ring Cycle and why it matters is enormously useful, not only revelatory but inspiring. His appreciation for the power of love in the Ring Cycle is a real delight to read, as is his conclusion about the ultimate aim of one of the grandest dramatic works in all of human history:
"The only faith which any reasonable disciple can gain from The Ring is not in love, but in life itself as a tireless power which is continually driving onward and upward - not, please observe, being beckoned or drawn by Das Ewig Weibliche or any other external sentimentality, but growing-from within, by its own inexplicable energy, into ever higher and higher forms of organization, the strengths and the needs of which are continually superseding the institutions which were made to fit our former requirements. When your Bakunins call out for the demolition of all these venerable institutions, there is no need to fly into a panic and lock them up in prison whilst your parliament is bit by bit doing exactly what they advised you to do. When your Siegfrieds melt down the old weapons into new ones, and with disrespectful words chop in twain the antiquated constable's staves in the hands of their elders, the end of the world is no nearer than it was before. If human nature, which is the highest organization of life reached on this planet, is really degenerating, then human society will decay; and no panic-begotten penal measures can possibly save it: we must, like Prometheus, set to work to make new men instead of vainly torturing old ones. On the other hand, if the energy of life is still carrying human nature to higher and higher levels, then the more young people shock their elders and deride and discard their pet institutions the better for the hopes of the world, since the apparent growth of anarchy is only the measure of the rate of improvement. History, as far as we are capable of history (which is not saying much as yet), shows that all changes from crudity of social organization to complexity, and from mechanical agencies in government to living ones, seem anarchic at first sight. No doubt it is natural to a snail to think that any evolution which threatens to do away with shells will result in general death from exposure. Nevertheless, the most elaborately housed beings today are born not only without houses on their backs but without even fur or feathers to clothe them."
November 20, 2025
A six-star masterpiece! Insightful, concise and brilliant, this is certainly the best analysis of Wagner's "Ring"! A must-read for every Wagnerite!
"The Perfect Wagnerite" is a detailed analysis of Richard Wagner's epic music drama, "The Ring of the Nibelung". First published in 1898, Shaw's work remains a significant critique that explores the socio-political dimensions of Wagner's masterpiece. Shaw, known for his sharp wit and incisive commentary, provides a unique perspective that blends musical criticism with political ideology, offering readers both a guide to understanding Wagner’s operas and a commentary on late 19th-century European society.
Shaw interprets "The Ring" as a profound social and political allegory. He posits that the narrative reflects the struggles and injustices of capitalism, with characters representing various socio-economic classes and ideologies. Shaw identifies Wotan as a symbol of the old order, (kingship, clergy and nobility), Alberich as the embodiment of the rising capitalist, and Siegfried as the revolutionary hero. He claims that the work is not an opera but a Music Drama, since it does not follow the operatic rules and style. Nevertheless this does not apply to the "Gotterdammerung". In this final work of his "tetralogy" Wagner returns to the "operatic" style of his first operas; "he Lohengrinizes again" as Shaw, very aptly, remarks.
It should be emphasized that, although Shaw holds Wagner in the highest admiration, he does not approach him with the servile devotion typical of the “Wagnerians” of his era. Instead, he confronts him directly and appraises him candidly. He identifies and acknowledges Wagner’s weaknesses, yet it is precisely through these vulnerabilities that the composer’s extraordinary brilliance and genius are made all the more striking.
In order to appreciate the depth and the quality of Shaw's Commentary, one has only to compare it with the rambling and ranting texts of Nietzsche, in his essays : "the case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner". Here, the once faithful Wagnerite Nietzsche, becomes a maniac and an irrational. He has nothing but curses against his former idol, he behaves like an angry child.
1.“The Ring of the Nibelung”
The “Ring Tetralogy” consists of four musical dramas: The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”). The work is based on the German myth of the Nibelungs, but Wagner reshapes it with profound philosophical, moral, and social depth, creating a world in which humans, gods, dwarfs, and giants represent different human types and tendencies.
The Rhinegold. At the beginning of the tetralogy, the audience is introduced to the divine and human worlds through the discovery of the Rhine gold by the dwarf Alberich. The gold symbolizes the power of money and the source of all greed and injustice. Alberich, driven by greed and cunning, bypasses morality to acquire the treasure and forge a ring, which grants him absolute power. From the outset, the allegory is clear: the dwarfs represent instinctive, greedy, and clever humans; the giants, hardworking but of limited intelligence and obedient; and the gods, the intellectual, moral, and organized individuals who manage power.
In the second musical drama, "The Valkyrie", the story focuses on the consequences of the ring’s curse and the conflicts among the gods. Wotan, despite his omnipotence, is not faultless; he appears hypocritical and ambitious, yet his intentions remain partially good, as he seeks to impose order and limit human greed. The tragic nature of the world begins to reveal itself, as power and wealth lead to betrayal, discord, and destruction.
The third part, "Siegfried", features a hero who transcends moral and social conventions. Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, is orphaned and raised under the supervision of Mime, the dwarf, who hopes to use him to obtain the treasure and ultimately destroy him. Siegfried develops as a “born anarchist,” a hero fearless, supremely strong, and driven primarily by impulse. He reforges the sword Nothung, slays the dragon Fafner, and takes both the ring and the Tarnhelm. Upon discovering Mime’s treacherous intentions, he kills him and continues to the mountain, awakening Brünnhilde. Siegfried’s bond with Brünnhilde is powerful, yet the curse of the ring casts dark prophecies over their fate.
Siegfried emerges as a hero above gods and men: free, invulnerable, and destined to overthrow the corrupt system of wealth, while dwarfs, giants, and gods fail to impose order. Here, the political dimension of the work is revealed: Wagner uses Siegfried as a symbol of revolutionary power, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of his era, particularly Bakunin, presenting a hero poised to liberate humanity from the chains of greed and moral corruption.
The fourth part, Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), differs markedly from the preceding works of the Ring Cycle, both thematically and stylistically. Whereas the first three operas—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried—blend myth, philosophy, and social allegory to explore human nature, morality, and revolutionary potential, Twilight of the Gods transforms the cycle into a full-fledged grand opera. It embraces the full range of operatic conventions, incorporating lavish musical ensembles, intricate love triangles, vengeful conspiracies, and highly dramatic arias, thereby emphasizing theatrical spectacle and emotional intensity over the profound philosophical reflection of the earlier works.
The narrative begins with the continuation of the curse of the ring, which has already caused discord, betrayal, and ambition among gods, humans, and dwarfs. Siegfried, the heroic figure who has up to this point embodied courage, freedom, and resistance to corruption, becomes the victim of treachery. Hagen, the son of Alberich, seeks to claim the ring and further his father’s ambitions. Exploiting Siegfried’s trust, Hagen administers a magical potion that causes Siegfried to forget his love for Brünnhilde and fall in love with Gutrune. Manipulated by Hagen, Siegfried unknowingly facilitates the marriage arrangement that betrays Brünnhilde, and, compounding the tragedy, he later delivers Brünnhilde into the hands of Gunther, furthering the deception.
Brünnhilde, initially unaware of Siegfried’s betrayal, eventually discovers the truth. Enraged yet devastated, she joins forces with Hagen to plan Siegfried’s death. During a hunting expedition, Siegfried is fatally stabbed from behind by Hagen, and only in his final moments does he recall his true love for Brünnhilde, dying with the knowledge of the treachery he has endured. Overcome by grief, Brünnhilde completes the cycle of the ring’s curse by returning it to the Rhine, thereby undoing Alberich’s maleficent influence. In a final act of tragic heroism, she orders a massive funeral pyre for Siegfried and leaps into the flames herself. The fire spreads, engulfing the hall of the Gibichungs and ultimately reaching Valhalla, which collapses under the destruction. In the end, the gods fall, the ring returns to the Rhine, and the natural order is restored.
Despite the sweeping grandeur of the music, the rich orchestration, and the impressive dramatic climaxes, Twilight of the Gods sacrifices the revolutionary and socio-political exploration that characterized the earlier operas. Whereas Siegfried and The Valkyrie present Siegfried as a symbolic agent of transformation, challenging the corrupt structures of power, the final opera focuses on operatic spectacle, heightened emotion, and dramatic resolution. It is a work that merges Wagner’s unparalleled musical mastery with traditional operatic conventions—creating a finale that is breathtaking in performance, yet more theatrical than philosophically or politically provocative.
2. Shaw's interpretation of the "Ring" .
The Ring Cycle, in its first three musical dramas, presents Siegfried as a revolutionary hero confronting greed, power, and moral corruption within a rich socio-political and philosophical allegory, whereas The Twilight of the Gods departs from this vision, transforming the finale into a grand operatic spectacle that emphasizes theatricality, emotion, and a dramatic conclusion. This actually reflects Wagner’s shift from revolutionary intent to operatic expression as described by Shaw.
Shaw’s view regarding Wagner’s shift in perspective focuses on a critical and transformative transition that occurred during the creation of the Ring Cycle. When Wagner initially conceived the project, his aim was not simply to compose a sequence of musical works but to create a profound and coherent socio-political and philosophical allegory through the myths of the Nibelungs.
From the outset, Wagner sought to interpret and record the social and political problems of his time, embedding them within the symbolic world of gods, heroes, dwarves, and giants. This initial vision is evident in the strong socio-political dimension of the first three works of the Tetralogy—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried. These works present a world structured around human tendencies and societal hierarchies, where characters such as gods, dwarves, and giants serve as symbolic representations of different human types. The gods embody reason, morality, and organization; the dwarves, instinctive cleverness, ambition, and greed; and the giants, physical strength combined with limited intellect and obedience. Within this framework, the ring itself, forged from the Rhine gold, represents ultimate power and the source of human greed and injustice.
Siegfried, in particular, emerges as the central revolutionary figure of the first three dramas. He is a born anarchist, fearless, morally independent, and destined to overturn the corrupt system symbolized by the ring and the machinations of Alberich. Shaw emphasizes that Wagner envisioned Siegfried as a radical hero who transcended conventional morality, societal expectations, and even the authority of the gods. The hero embodies the potential for transformative action, a force capable of confronting entrenched power and social injustice. In this way, the Tetralogy’s first three parts carry a clear socio-political message: they critique greed, hierarchical corruption, and the limitations of existing power structures, while simultaneously elevating the idea of revolutionary intervention, aligning with the radical currents of Wagner’s era and reflecting influences from thinkers such as Bakunin.
However, as Shaw points out, Wagner’s perception and artistic intentions evolved dramatically over the 25 years that passed between the initial conception of the Tetralogy and its final completion. Life experience, historical developments, and personal circumstances profoundly influenced this evolution. The failure of the 1848 revolution in Dresden, Wagner’s subsequent exile, and his repeated personal and professional disappointments led him to confront the limitations of revolutionary idealism in real-world society. He gradually realized that the heroic, transformative figures represented by Siegfried and other archetypal revolutionaries were not sufficient to alter the course of society or overcome entrenched systems of power. Instead, the true agents of practical change were often the organized, pragmatic, and materially empowered actors of society—the entrepreneurs, financiers, and other influential members of the socio-economic hierarchy.
Thus the tetralogy’s trajectory mirrors Wagner’s life and social experiences: from the revolutionary enthusiasm in Dresden in 1848, to his disillusionment with the revolution’s failure and his personal exile, to the eventual acceptance of reality, in which bold entrepreneurs and the conventional social order prevail. Wagner realized the inability of a “Siegfried-Bakunin” to change the world, ultimately choosing to complete the work as a grand opera that links the first three musical dramas with a dramatic yet more conventional and operatic finale. Unlike the preceding three musical dramas, Götterdämmerung is marked by a distinctly operatic style. While the first three works carry the depth of Wagner’s socio-political and philosophical engagement, Götterdämmerung emphasizes theatricality, grandiose musical spectacle, dramatic emotion, and a climactic finale. The opera is replete with traditional operatic conventions: intricate ensembles involving multiple characters, love-driven conflicts and triangles, vengeful conspiracies, and virtuoso arias that heighten the emotional impact on the audience. Shaw argues that these operatic elements, although musically brilliant, contrast with the revolutionary and allegorical focus of the 3 earlier works. For instance, the shift in Siegfried’s characterization—his enchantment by Hagen’s magic potion and the subsequent betrayal and murder—reflects the transformation of the hero from a revolutionary agent into a figure whose story primarily serves dramatic and emotional purposes rather than socio-political critique. Similarly, Brünnhilde’s evolution from a noble Valkyrie to a vengeful, emotionally-driven heroine underscores the operatic, theatrical focus of the finale, as her actions culminate in the destruction of Valhalla and the return of the ring to the Rhine, closing the narrative cycle in dramatic grandeur rather than revolutionary fulfillment.
Wagner did not entirely abandon his original ideas: the social and revolutionary allegory remains embedded within the Tetralogy, particularly in the ongoing commentary on greed, power, and the corrupting influence of material wealth. However, these allegorical dimensions now yield to the demands of musical and scenic expression. The result is a work that masterfully combines operatic artistry, orchestral brilliance, and dramatic effect with a philosophical and social subtext that is present but subordinate to the spectacle. Sow further emphasizes that Wagner’s shift was not merely an aesthetic choice but a pragmatic response to historical and empirical realities. The failure of revolutionary movements in Wagner’s lifetime, the practical efficacy of organized economic power, and the persistent limitations of heroic idealism led him to recognize that radical figures like Siegfried could not alone effect meaningful societal change. Just as Alberich succeeds in consolidating power through cunning and organization in the allegory, so too did the real-world agents of material and social control dominate historical outcomes.
In conclusion, Shaw sees this transformation as Wagner’s adaptation to personal experience and historical reality. The Ring Cycle evolves from an initial revolutionary vision—a socially and philosophically engaged myth—to a final operatic form emphasizing theatricality, emotional intensity, and musical grandeur. Götterdämmerung, as the culmination, retains symbolic and allegorical significance while fully embracing grand opera conventions, maximizing dramatic and emotional impact. This shift illustrates Wagner’s ability to merge philosophical, social, and musical insight with life’s practical realities. The Tetralogy thus operates on multiple levels: mythological reconstruction, philosophical reflection, socio-political commentary, and operatic artistry. The transition from the first three musical dramas to Twilight of the Gods marks not just a stylistic change but a fundamental realignment of Wagner’s vision, acknowledging the limits of revolutionary heroism and the triumph of experience and historical pragmatism over idealistic ambition.
"The Perfect Wagnerite" is a detailed analysis of Richard Wagner's epic music drama, "The Ring of the Nibelung". First published in 1898, Shaw's work remains a significant critique that explores the socio-political dimensions of Wagner's masterpiece. Shaw, known for his sharp wit and incisive commentary, provides a unique perspective that blends musical criticism with political ideology, offering readers both a guide to understanding Wagner’s operas and a commentary on late 19th-century European society.
Shaw interprets "The Ring" as a profound social and political allegory. He posits that the narrative reflects the struggles and injustices of capitalism, with characters representing various socio-economic classes and ideologies. Shaw identifies Wotan as a symbol of the old order, (kingship, clergy and nobility), Alberich as the embodiment of the rising capitalist, and Siegfried as the revolutionary hero. He claims that the work is not an opera but a Music Drama, since it does not follow the operatic rules and style. Nevertheless this does not apply to the "Gotterdammerung". In this final work of his "tetralogy" Wagner returns to the "operatic" style of his first operas; "he Lohengrinizes again" as Shaw, very aptly, remarks.
It should be emphasized that, although Shaw holds Wagner in the highest admiration, he does not approach him with the servile devotion typical of the “Wagnerians” of his era. Instead, he confronts him directly and appraises him candidly. He identifies and acknowledges Wagner’s weaknesses, yet it is precisely through these vulnerabilities that the composer’s extraordinary brilliance and genius are made all the more striking.
In order to appreciate the depth and the quality of Shaw's Commentary, one has only to compare it with the rambling and ranting texts of Nietzsche, in his essays : "the case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner". Here, the once faithful Wagnerite Nietzsche, becomes a maniac and an irrational. He has nothing but curses against his former idol, he behaves like an angry child.
1.“The Ring of the Nibelung”
The “Ring Tetralogy” consists of four musical dramas: The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”). The work is based on the German myth of the Nibelungs, but Wagner reshapes it with profound philosophical, moral, and social depth, creating a world in which humans, gods, dwarfs, and giants represent different human types and tendencies.
The Rhinegold. At the beginning of the tetralogy, the audience is introduced to the divine and human worlds through the discovery of the Rhine gold by the dwarf Alberich. The gold symbolizes the power of money and the source of all greed and injustice. Alberich, driven by greed and cunning, bypasses morality to acquire the treasure and forge a ring, which grants him absolute power. From the outset, the allegory is clear: the dwarfs represent instinctive, greedy, and clever humans; the giants, hardworking but of limited intelligence and obedient; and the gods, the intellectual, moral, and organized individuals who manage power.
In the second musical drama, "The Valkyrie", the story focuses on the consequences of the ring’s curse and the conflicts among the gods. Wotan, despite his omnipotence, is not faultless; he appears hypocritical and ambitious, yet his intentions remain partially good, as he seeks to impose order and limit human greed. The tragic nature of the world begins to reveal itself, as power and wealth lead to betrayal, discord, and destruction.
The third part, "Siegfried", features a hero who transcends moral and social conventions. Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, is orphaned and raised under the supervision of Mime, the dwarf, who hopes to use him to obtain the treasure and ultimately destroy him. Siegfried develops as a “born anarchist,” a hero fearless, supremely strong, and driven primarily by impulse. He reforges the sword Nothung, slays the dragon Fafner, and takes both the ring and the Tarnhelm. Upon discovering Mime’s treacherous intentions, he kills him and continues to the mountain, awakening Brünnhilde. Siegfried’s bond with Brünnhilde is powerful, yet the curse of the ring casts dark prophecies over their fate.
Siegfried emerges as a hero above gods and men: free, invulnerable, and destined to overthrow the corrupt system of wealth, while dwarfs, giants, and gods fail to impose order. Here, the political dimension of the work is revealed: Wagner uses Siegfried as a symbol of revolutionary power, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of his era, particularly Bakunin, presenting a hero poised to liberate humanity from the chains of greed and moral corruption.
The fourth part, Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), differs markedly from the preceding works of the Ring Cycle, both thematically and stylistically. Whereas the first three operas—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried—blend myth, philosophy, and social allegory to explore human nature, morality, and revolutionary potential, Twilight of the Gods transforms the cycle into a full-fledged grand opera. It embraces the full range of operatic conventions, incorporating lavish musical ensembles, intricate love triangles, vengeful conspiracies, and highly dramatic arias, thereby emphasizing theatrical spectacle and emotional intensity over the profound philosophical reflection of the earlier works.
The narrative begins with the continuation of the curse of the ring, which has already caused discord, betrayal, and ambition among gods, humans, and dwarfs. Siegfried, the heroic figure who has up to this point embodied courage, freedom, and resistance to corruption, becomes the victim of treachery. Hagen, the son of Alberich, seeks to claim the ring and further his father’s ambitions. Exploiting Siegfried’s trust, Hagen administers a magical potion that causes Siegfried to forget his love for Brünnhilde and fall in love with Gutrune. Manipulated by Hagen, Siegfried unknowingly facilitates the marriage arrangement that betrays Brünnhilde, and, compounding the tragedy, he later delivers Brünnhilde into the hands of Gunther, furthering the deception.
Brünnhilde, initially unaware of Siegfried’s betrayal, eventually discovers the truth. Enraged yet devastated, she joins forces with Hagen to plan Siegfried’s death. During a hunting expedition, Siegfried is fatally stabbed from behind by Hagen, and only in his final moments does he recall his true love for Brünnhilde, dying with the knowledge of the treachery he has endured. Overcome by grief, Brünnhilde completes the cycle of the ring’s curse by returning it to the Rhine, thereby undoing Alberich’s maleficent influence. In a final act of tragic heroism, she orders a massive funeral pyre for Siegfried and leaps into the flames herself. The fire spreads, engulfing the hall of the Gibichungs and ultimately reaching Valhalla, which collapses under the destruction. In the end, the gods fall, the ring returns to the Rhine, and the natural order is restored.
Despite the sweeping grandeur of the music, the rich orchestration, and the impressive dramatic climaxes, Twilight of the Gods sacrifices the revolutionary and socio-political exploration that characterized the earlier operas. Whereas Siegfried and The Valkyrie present Siegfried as a symbolic agent of transformation, challenging the corrupt structures of power, the final opera focuses on operatic spectacle, heightened emotion, and dramatic resolution. It is a work that merges Wagner’s unparalleled musical mastery with traditional operatic conventions—creating a finale that is breathtaking in performance, yet more theatrical than philosophically or politically provocative.
2. Shaw's interpretation of the "Ring" .
The Ring Cycle, in its first three musical dramas, presents Siegfried as a revolutionary hero confronting greed, power, and moral corruption within a rich socio-political and philosophical allegory, whereas The Twilight of the Gods departs from this vision, transforming the finale into a grand operatic spectacle that emphasizes theatricality, emotion, and a dramatic conclusion. This actually reflects Wagner’s shift from revolutionary intent to operatic expression as described by Shaw.
Shaw’s view regarding Wagner’s shift in perspective focuses on a critical and transformative transition that occurred during the creation of the Ring Cycle. When Wagner initially conceived the project, his aim was not simply to compose a sequence of musical works but to create a profound and coherent socio-political and philosophical allegory through the myths of the Nibelungs.
From the outset, Wagner sought to interpret and record the social and political problems of his time, embedding them within the symbolic world of gods, heroes, dwarves, and giants. This initial vision is evident in the strong socio-political dimension of the first three works of the Tetralogy—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried. These works present a world structured around human tendencies and societal hierarchies, where characters such as gods, dwarves, and giants serve as symbolic representations of different human types. The gods embody reason, morality, and organization; the dwarves, instinctive cleverness, ambition, and greed; and the giants, physical strength combined with limited intellect and obedience. Within this framework, the ring itself, forged from the Rhine gold, represents ultimate power and the source of human greed and injustice.
Siegfried, in particular, emerges as the central revolutionary figure of the first three dramas. He is a born anarchist, fearless, morally independent, and destined to overturn the corrupt system symbolized by the ring and the machinations of Alberich. Shaw emphasizes that Wagner envisioned Siegfried as a radical hero who transcended conventional morality, societal expectations, and even the authority of the gods. The hero embodies the potential for transformative action, a force capable of confronting entrenched power and social injustice. In this way, the Tetralogy’s first three parts carry a clear socio-political message: they critique greed, hierarchical corruption, and the limitations of existing power structures, while simultaneously elevating the idea of revolutionary intervention, aligning with the radical currents of Wagner’s era and reflecting influences from thinkers such as Bakunin.
However, as Shaw points out, Wagner’s perception and artistic intentions evolved dramatically over the 25 years that passed between the initial conception of the Tetralogy and its final completion. Life experience, historical developments, and personal circumstances profoundly influenced this evolution. The failure of the 1848 revolution in Dresden, Wagner’s subsequent exile, and his repeated personal and professional disappointments led him to confront the limitations of revolutionary idealism in real-world society. He gradually realized that the heroic, transformative figures represented by Siegfried and other archetypal revolutionaries were not sufficient to alter the course of society or overcome entrenched systems of power. Instead, the true agents of practical change were often the organized, pragmatic, and materially empowered actors of society—the entrepreneurs, financiers, and other influential members of the socio-economic hierarchy.
Thus the tetralogy’s trajectory mirrors Wagner’s life and social experiences: from the revolutionary enthusiasm in Dresden in 1848, to his disillusionment with the revolution’s failure and his personal exile, to the eventual acceptance of reality, in which bold entrepreneurs and the conventional social order prevail. Wagner realized the inability of a “Siegfried-Bakunin” to change the world, ultimately choosing to complete the work as a grand opera that links the first three musical dramas with a dramatic yet more conventional and operatic finale. Unlike the preceding three musical dramas, Götterdämmerung is marked by a distinctly operatic style. While the first three works carry the depth of Wagner’s socio-political and philosophical engagement, Götterdämmerung emphasizes theatricality, grandiose musical spectacle, dramatic emotion, and a climactic finale. The opera is replete with traditional operatic conventions: intricate ensembles involving multiple characters, love-driven conflicts and triangles, vengeful conspiracies, and virtuoso arias that heighten the emotional impact on the audience. Shaw argues that these operatic elements, although musically brilliant, contrast with the revolutionary and allegorical focus of the 3 earlier works. For instance, the shift in Siegfried’s characterization—his enchantment by Hagen’s magic potion and the subsequent betrayal and murder—reflects the transformation of the hero from a revolutionary agent into a figure whose story primarily serves dramatic and emotional purposes rather than socio-political critique. Similarly, Brünnhilde’s evolution from a noble Valkyrie to a vengeful, emotionally-driven heroine underscores the operatic, theatrical focus of the finale, as her actions culminate in the destruction of Valhalla and the return of the ring to the Rhine, closing the narrative cycle in dramatic grandeur rather than revolutionary fulfillment.
Wagner did not entirely abandon his original ideas: the social and revolutionary allegory remains embedded within the Tetralogy, particularly in the ongoing commentary on greed, power, and the corrupting influence of material wealth. However, these allegorical dimensions now yield to the demands of musical and scenic expression. The result is a work that masterfully combines operatic artistry, orchestral brilliance, and dramatic effect with a philosophical and social subtext that is present but subordinate to the spectacle. Sow further emphasizes that Wagner’s shift was not merely an aesthetic choice but a pragmatic response to historical and empirical realities. The failure of revolutionary movements in Wagner’s lifetime, the practical efficacy of organized economic power, and the persistent limitations of heroic idealism led him to recognize that radical figures like Siegfried could not alone effect meaningful societal change. Just as Alberich succeeds in consolidating power through cunning and organization in the allegory, so too did the real-world agents of material and social control dominate historical outcomes.
In conclusion, Shaw sees this transformation as Wagner’s adaptation to personal experience and historical reality. The Ring Cycle evolves from an initial revolutionary vision—a socially and philosophically engaged myth—to a final operatic form emphasizing theatricality, emotional intensity, and musical grandeur. Götterdämmerung, as the culmination, retains symbolic and allegorical significance while fully embracing grand opera conventions, maximizing dramatic and emotional impact. This shift illustrates Wagner’s ability to merge philosophical, social, and musical insight with life’s practical realities. The Tetralogy thus operates on multiple levels: mythological reconstruction, philosophical reflection, socio-political commentary, and operatic artistry. The transition from the first three musical dramas to Twilight of the Gods marks not just a stylistic change but a fundamental realignment of Wagner’s vision, acknowledging the limits of revolutionary heroism and the triumph of experience and historical pragmatism over idealistic ambition.
December 6, 2022
In 1898 Shaw decided to write this pamphlet, apparently for the purpose of instructing the British people on how to 'correctly' be Wagnerite. He summarizes the plot of the four operas and then provides a bizarre and shallow analysis, whereby the Gods represent the bourgeois industrialist class, and the mortal heroes that overthrow them represent the proletariat developing class consciousness. Shaw substantiates this by demonstrating Wagner's contemporaneity with (theoretically unanalogous) workers' revolts of his day; he also claims that Wagner's more contra-mythopaeic conclusion was a senile blunder that should have been replaced by an earlier draft, whereby the Siegfried and the Gods develop a new regime (which Shaw stretches to associate with communism). The justification for all this is Wagner's inconsistency of self-interpretation, although Shaw seems totally uninterested in engaging with the ideas so violently rampant throughout the plays, or engaging with (or even acknowledging!) the cluster of diagnoses and criticisms made by Nietzsche and other germans of the day. In fact Shaw interprets Wagner's schoepenhauerianism as identical with a Nietzschean overcoming, in spite of Shaw's self-styled Nietzscheanism, five years before the similarly obtuse Man and Superman. Also appended are some reflections that the use of leitmotifs in contast with one another mean that Wagner's music is immediately as complex as Bach's fugues and Beethoven's symphonies, which is 'proven' by Wagner's superiority to a couple of no-name composers. In all, this work seems to be the work of a very careless mind, uninterested in actually justifying assertions or distinguishing speculative analogies from substantial links. Not a good look for a man already famous for being an Irishman uncle Tom in england
December 23, 2020
Bad. Shaw invents a socialist allegory and forces it onto the cycle with confused vehemence. The most generous interpretation of the "perfectly clear allegorical scheme" he lays out is: The Capitalist (Alberich), driven by resentment, takes hold of capital to exploit his Fellow Man; the Church (Wotan) uses the Treachery of Speech (Loge) to stop him and also to avoid his bargain with the Worker (Fafnir), but is not immune to the same avarice; the Worker is corrupted; the Church gets into trouble with its Conscience (Brunnhilde), while compromising with Law (Fricka), and puts it to sleep while using the Treachery of Speech to make people fear it (Feuerzauber); a Freethinker (Siegfried) comes along, unconcerned with wealth and not fearing Speech, puts an end to the Church's power, and plunges through the flames to -- make the Church's Conscience his bride?! Now, this could be tenable (though far messier than an allegory would have any excuse to be) if Brunnhilde, the Church's Conscience as it were, represented the general spirit of Good Will that drives men to anarchism and holy orders alike, but Shaw holds that the allegory ends there, and the tetralogy degrades into an opera (a work evidently needs to assume the conceit of a fable to earn the title of music-drama) the moment Siegfried crosses the fire; apparently bel-canto niceties are despicable after the lofty heights of imprecise and tangled social criticism grafted onto a millenarian legend.
In the chapter "Siegfried as Protestant", Shaw reveals himself to be more of an eminently political character than he is committed to socialism or to anything else, digressing about eugenics and derisively likening Wagner to Shakespeare. He says stupid things that feebly appear to agree with his point (identifying the giants as noble-savage honest workers, likening the Tarnhelm to a top hat etc.) and tries to cram everything into his ham-fisted political scheme, resulting in no good thoughts being fully developed, though their beginnings are sometimes hinted at. He sneers at English characteristics at every turn, but proves himself to be the ultimate Englishman: his conception of the German philosopher is essentially a more zealously practical and less morally scrupulous version of J.S. Mill.
Shaw takes Wagner's youthful socialist phase as a license to do all of this. He doesn't care about myth, so he thinks that Wagner doesn't care about myth either, saying that the myth was only an incidental subject that Wagner chose before his "political awakening". Even in the midst of this political awakening, Wagner contended in a letter to his fellow revolutionary August Roeckel that Wotan is not a "political hero" but a "jovial god bent on destruction". Wagner did not have temporal allegories in mind, but eternal laws; Shaw tries to dismiss this by referring to his many inconsistencies and changes of mind, holding that he may have meant something deeper than he thought. But is a political fable really the highest task and proper metaphysical activity of man?
The last quarter of the pamphlet is occupied by a discussion of the musical and theatrical significance of the work, as an afterthought. It is thoroughly tolerable; he seems to understand and appreciate these things, just not to care nearly as much for them as he does politics. Curiously, he compares the traditional structure of phrases in opera melodies to verse, declaring that Shakespeare's work was hampered by the constraints of verse and that he would have been better off writing exclusively in prose.
In the chapter "Siegfried as Protestant", Shaw reveals himself to be more of an eminently political character than he is committed to socialism or to anything else, digressing about eugenics and derisively likening Wagner to Shakespeare. He says stupid things that feebly appear to agree with his point (identifying the giants as noble-savage honest workers, likening the Tarnhelm to a top hat etc.) and tries to cram everything into his ham-fisted political scheme, resulting in no good thoughts being fully developed, though their beginnings are sometimes hinted at. He sneers at English characteristics at every turn, but proves himself to be the ultimate Englishman: his conception of the German philosopher is essentially a more zealously practical and less morally scrupulous version of J.S. Mill.
Shaw takes Wagner's youthful socialist phase as a license to do all of this. He doesn't care about myth, so he thinks that Wagner doesn't care about myth either, saying that the myth was only an incidental subject that Wagner chose before his "political awakening". Even in the midst of this political awakening, Wagner contended in a letter to his fellow revolutionary August Roeckel that Wotan is not a "political hero" but a "jovial god bent on destruction". Wagner did not have temporal allegories in mind, but eternal laws; Shaw tries to dismiss this by referring to his many inconsistencies and changes of mind, holding that he may have meant something deeper than he thought. But is a political fable really the highest task and proper metaphysical activity of man?
The last quarter of the pamphlet is occupied by a discussion of the musical and theatrical significance of the work, as an afterthought. It is thoroughly tolerable; he seems to understand and appreciate these things, just not to care nearly as much for them as he does politics. Curiously, he compares the traditional structure of phrases in opera melodies to verse, declaring that Shakespeare's work was hampered by the constraints of verse and that he would have been better off writing exclusively in prose.
December 31, 2011
A little less on the Ring plot summaries, GB, and a little more on Wagner's philosophies and historic import/influence on music, please. Oh, wait, a rewrite is really really unlikely.
Oh well. As time capsule-like capture of pre-Hitler thinking about Wagner, I doubt this can be beaten. Reading this is one of those "dog that did not bark times." I, for one, kept waiting for discussions of heroism, nationalism, super beings, etc to bring in the inevitable "Don't-Blame-Wagner-For-His-#1-Fan" discussion. But for Shaw, Hitler was years in the future. For a composer it is hard to evaluate these days WITHOUT considering the uses and abuses of his music, it was fascinating to read the perspective from a time before....
Oh well. As time capsule-like capture of pre-Hitler thinking about Wagner, I doubt this can be beaten. Reading this is one of those "dog that did not bark times." I, for one, kept waiting for discussions of heroism, nationalism, super beings, etc to bring in the inevitable "Don't-Blame-Wagner-For-His-#1-Fan" discussion. But for Shaw, Hitler was years in the future. For a composer it is hard to evaluate these days WITHOUT considering the uses and abuses of his music, it was fascinating to read the perspective from a time before....
April 5, 2010
An interesting take on Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung set of four operas. G. B. Shaw places the ring in a political context, discussing Wagner's broader ideas and how these were tied to the Ring.
Read
February 20, 2018This book was way too deep for me. Got to 17% before I abandoned it.
December 23, 2019
Shaw's brief defense of Brynhild's honesty in the face of Odin's corruption means everything to me right now.
March 2, 2020
even better the second time around
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July 8, 2025Certainly some motifs make themselves immediately clear and seem quite obvious - the whole propulsion of Das Rheingold is Alberich swearing off love for the sake of the material object, and the resultant enslaving of the Nibelungs via its power - but a striking similarity is not in itself enough to carry out a supposed allegory over the course of the cycle.
Shaw wants to claim that there is an allegory upheld through the first three operas of the cycle, and that this is curtailed by Götterdämmerung. The first premise needs to be true (that it is in fact an allegory of industrial capitalism), and furthermore, this needs to be alongside an internal contradiction that is brought out by the last work. Shaw does not seem to achieve this.
When Fafner kills his brother Fasolt, taking the gold for himself and transforming into the dragon that Siegfried will later slay, he merely protects a dead stock; the gold is a hoard, not moving capital that valorises. Shaw even acknowledges this, but I struggle to think that the allegory is established and stunted before even the second work of the cycle.
Secondly, Shaw wants to assert that the weakness of Götterdämmerung was the result of Wagner being beholden to the “love panacea”. One of the things he evidences this with is the fact that in the original poem for it, Brünnhilde, before her self-immolation, declares that she believes only in love. While it is true that love constitutes a large motif of the story, it is in fact through enthusiastically pledging his love to Brünnhilde that Siegfried drinks the potion that makes him forget about her; the dramatic movement is the result of a tragic paradox that love itself brings about. His death occurs because he swears an oath against a spear, during his forgetting, that he had never loved Brünnhilde, and so when he is given a further potion to remember, the oath is broken and he is impaled by that same spear. Love constitutes not a magic remedy but the dramatic and tragic movement of the whole story.
Furthermore, the cycle needs to be taken as a whole. Götterdämmerung ends with a kind of ekpyrosis: the gods are up in flames, the gold is returned, and the characters perish. The total destruction allows for a return to the same nature from which everything is born, and thus we are ostensibly returned to where we were at the beginning of Das Rheingold, with the E flat ascending line as life begins with the Rhinemaidens. It is often said that Wagner’s stories concern old myths but only substantively concern the new; hence the grounding of the allegory for Shaw. But for Wagner, they only concern “the new” insofar as mythic content concerns cycles that re-emerge over and over in human history.
As a cycle, there is a golden state of nature that we see at the beginning of Das Rheingold and that is brought back after the fiery conclusion to Götterdämmerung; the interim was set in motion by a perversion of this golden state because Alberich, scorned by the rejection of the Rhinemaidens, foreswore love in favour of material wealth (the Rheingold). Love’s abdication sets in motion the whole cycle; I thus struggle to see the supposed inconsistency with love’s primacy in the latter.
There is something amiss in Shaw’s approach here. His idea of the allegory implies that Wagner’s historical position means that he himself consciously integrated the state of affairs. Hence he leans on biographical details. Rather than recognising that the material itself, as historical, bears the traces of its social origins: in the first act of Siegfried, the titular character humiliates Mime (who had been toiling, and failing, to forge the sword Nothung) by, in one attempt and without training, producing a better sword immediately, with which he can now slay the dragon Fafner. This is because he is a Volsung: to the story, he is racially more heroic - destined to more than Mime is by nature, and detached from the lengthy labour of Mime’s craft.
The glorification of Siegfried is perhaps more relevant than the fleeting similarities in Das Rheingold.
Shaw wants to claim that there is an allegory upheld through the first three operas of the cycle, and that this is curtailed by Götterdämmerung. The first premise needs to be true (that it is in fact an allegory of industrial capitalism), and furthermore, this needs to be alongside an internal contradiction that is brought out by the last work. Shaw does not seem to achieve this.
When Fafner kills his brother Fasolt, taking the gold for himself and transforming into the dragon that Siegfried will later slay, he merely protects a dead stock; the gold is a hoard, not moving capital that valorises. Shaw even acknowledges this, but I struggle to think that the allegory is established and stunted before even the second work of the cycle.
Secondly, Shaw wants to assert that the weakness of Götterdämmerung was the result of Wagner being beholden to the “love panacea”. One of the things he evidences this with is the fact that in the original poem for it, Brünnhilde, before her self-immolation, declares that she believes only in love. While it is true that love constitutes a large motif of the story, it is in fact through enthusiastically pledging his love to Brünnhilde that Siegfried drinks the potion that makes him forget about her; the dramatic movement is the result of a tragic paradox that love itself brings about. His death occurs because he swears an oath against a spear, during his forgetting, that he had never loved Brünnhilde, and so when he is given a further potion to remember, the oath is broken and he is impaled by that same spear. Love constitutes not a magic remedy but the dramatic and tragic movement of the whole story.
Furthermore, the cycle needs to be taken as a whole. Götterdämmerung ends with a kind of ekpyrosis: the gods are up in flames, the gold is returned, and the characters perish. The total destruction allows for a return to the same nature from which everything is born, and thus we are ostensibly returned to where we were at the beginning of Das Rheingold, with the E flat ascending line as life begins with the Rhinemaidens. It is often said that Wagner’s stories concern old myths but only substantively concern the new; hence the grounding of the allegory for Shaw. But for Wagner, they only concern “the new” insofar as mythic content concerns cycles that re-emerge over and over in human history.
As a cycle, there is a golden state of nature that we see at the beginning of Das Rheingold and that is brought back after the fiery conclusion to Götterdämmerung; the interim was set in motion by a perversion of this golden state because Alberich, scorned by the rejection of the Rhinemaidens, foreswore love in favour of material wealth (the Rheingold). Love’s abdication sets in motion the whole cycle; I thus struggle to see the supposed inconsistency with love’s primacy in the latter.
There is something amiss in Shaw’s approach here. His idea of the allegory implies that Wagner’s historical position means that he himself consciously integrated the state of affairs. Hence he leans on biographical details. Rather than recognising that the material itself, as historical, bears the traces of its social origins: in the first act of Siegfried, the titular character humiliates Mime (who had been toiling, and failing, to forge the sword Nothung) by, in one attempt and without training, producing a better sword immediately, with which he can now slay the dragon Fafner. This is because he is a Volsung: to the story, he is racially more heroic - destined to more than Mime is by nature, and detached from the lengthy labour of Mime’s craft.
The glorification of Siegfried is perhaps more relevant than the fleeting similarities in Das Rheingold.
March 31, 2020
I love books that are clear products of a personality, that are indelibly stamped with their author’s unique biases, obsessions, and quirks. The Perfect Wagnerite is such a book. Shaw is a brilliant man and clearly knows it, is devoted to his politics, contemptuous of and condescending to those he views as lesser (a category that, to be clear, includes the reader), possessed of an ironic wit that almost papers over his deep rage at the injustices of the world. This all ends up, unfiltered, on the page.
Shaw reads the Ring cycle as social allegory for the development, progress, and nature of capitalism and Western civilization. (My short summary does him a disservice; if you’re interested, The Perfect Wagnerite is short and can be found as a free ebook.) Shaw has Opinions about the Ring cycle, clearly. He wrote this book not to argue that his opinions are right but to present his opinions, which are obviously right, to you, a poor uncultured idiot who doesn’t understand Wagner due to your lack of engagement with revolutionary thought and musical form in the mid-19th century.
Needless to say, I don’t fully agree with Shaw’s reading. I doubt anyone fully agrees with Shaw’s reading. It is as much a product of Shaw as of Wagner. The value of The Perfect Wagnerite is not internalizing it as fact- it’s grappling with its new ideas, accepting some, rejecting others, and at every step seeing everyone’s favorite gesamtkunstwerk through another lens. (Also enjoying Shaw’s sparkling prose.)
This is not good as a general work on Wagner- I recommend Berger’s Wagner Without Fear as a more informative and less polemic intro. But as a work of idiosyncratic critique, The Perfect Wagnerite is second-to-none.
Also it’s off copyright and thus you can find a free ebook. Always a plus.
Shaw reads the Ring cycle as social allegory for the development, progress, and nature of capitalism and Western civilization. (My short summary does him a disservice; if you’re interested, The Perfect Wagnerite is short and can be found as a free ebook.) Shaw has Opinions about the Ring cycle, clearly. He wrote this book not to argue that his opinions are right but to present his opinions, which are obviously right, to you, a poor uncultured idiot who doesn’t understand Wagner due to your lack of engagement with revolutionary thought and musical form in the mid-19th century.
Needless to say, I don’t fully agree with Shaw’s reading. I doubt anyone fully agrees with Shaw’s reading. It is as much a product of Shaw as of Wagner. The value of The Perfect Wagnerite is not internalizing it as fact- it’s grappling with its new ideas, accepting some, rejecting others, and at every step seeing everyone’s favorite gesamtkunstwerk through another lens. (Also enjoying Shaw’s sparkling prose.)
This is not good as a general work on Wagner- I recommend Berger’s Wagner Without Fear as a more informative and less polemic intro. But as a work of idiosyncratic critique, The Perfect Wagnerite is second-to-none.
Also it’s off copyright and thus you can find a free ebook. Always a plus.
Read
August 7, 2019In preparation for the Niblung's Ring Cycle that I'll be seeing in a few weeks, I read Shaw's commentary on the Operas. It displays his vigorous no bullshit take on this great work of art. I wasn't blown away by his insights but I enjoyed his clear passion for what Wagner created. He gives a quick synopsis of each opera interspersed with commentary about the often conflicting political messages that Wagner is communicating through the operas. On the one hand Siegfried is the revolutionary sweeping away the cobwebs of old Europe, bringing freedom and democracy to the masses. On the other hand he is easily tricked into drinking the love potion and turning his back on an unknown enemy and dying. Does he get coopted, sell-out or is that just Wagner?
Shaw thinks that Wagner held both sides of the argument and the fact that the Ring Cycle took decades to come to fruition means that the passion of the moment got captured in the opera. Wagner didn't get that there were contradictions in himself or that he had evolved so he leaves those contradictory elements embedded in the operas and they are the energetic better for it. Had he tried to reconcile his ideas this would probably have caused the energy of the operas to droop and sag and who wants that?
Shaw thinks that Wagner held both sides of the argument and the fact that the Ring Cycle took decades to come to fruition means that the passion of the moment got captured in the opera. Wagner didn't get that there were contradictions in himself or that he had evolved so he leaves those contradictory elements embedded in the operas and they are the energetic better for it. Had he tried to reconcile his ideas this would probably have caused the energy of the operas to droop and sag and who wants that?
November 10, 2021
"It is possible to learn more about the world by producing a single opera, or even conducting a single orchestral rehearsal, than by ten years reading in the Library of the British Museum."
Quién pudiera. Ambas cosas. Aunque sobre todo montar una ópera, je.
Muy bueno. Le lectura alegórica de la obra de Wagner se la compro casi completamente, como hace también (que yo sepa) la mayoría de la crítica actual. Lo que más me ha gustado ha sido la explicación de El ocaso de los dioses como una obra tardía, escrita desde el desencanto y el cambio de ideas. Ahora la entiendo un poco más y puedo perdonar ("perdonar") a Wagner por darnos un final tan aburrido y aparentemente inconexo. En fin, es refrescante leer algo sobre nuestro compositor favorito que no lo idolatre como poco menos que un dios.
Quién pudiera. Ambas cosas. Aunque sobre todo montar una ópera, je.
Muy bueno. Le lectura alegórica de la obra de Wagner se la compro casi completamente, como hace también (que yo sepa) la mayoría de la crítica actual. Lo que más me ha gustado ha sido la explicación de El ocaso de los dioses como una obra tardía, escrita desde el desencanto y el cambio de ideas. Ahora la entiendo un poco más y puedo perdonar ("perdonar") a Wagner por darnos un final tan aburrido y aparentemente inconexo. En fin, es refrescante leer algo sobre nuestro compositor favorito que no lo idolatre como poco menos que un dios.
September 3, 2025
Socialism unfortunately always seems to endow everything with a plebian, pedestrian tone. This is no different.
It's amusing because Shaw clearly, arrogantly holds the masses in contempt. His Nietzsche-esque hero worship constantly brushes against and contradicts his political leftism. At least, that makes it a far more interesting read, there's an internal dialectic engine at work that brutally pushes the inert 'analysis' along.
Certainly Shaw's Wagnerian analysis is slip-shod, half-hearted, heavy-handed and fundamentally unconvincing.
It's amusing because Shaw clearly, arrogantly holds the masses in contempt. His Nietzsche-esque hero worship constantly brushes against and contradicts his political leftism. At least, that makes it a far more interesting read, there's an internal dialectic engine at work that brutally pushes the inert 'analysis' along.
Certainly Shaw's Wagnerian analysis is slip-shod, half-hearted, heavy-handed and fundamentally unconvincing.
June 10, 2023
Está bien para iniciarse en el wagnerismo y en la crítica artística musical, aunque el carácter panfletario y excesivamente político de la crítica de Shaw se hace pesado. Wagner es pesado. Así que calm calm calm...y si no te apetece ver el "El anillo del nibelungo" mientras lees el libro, ya que este no deja de ser una guía para seguir y entender la tetralogía (filosóficamente se supone), mírate "El señor de los anillos" y ya.
December 5, 2018
You know the saying 'he wears his learning lightly?' Well that's the opposite of Shaw. He's very clever and knows a lot, and by golly doesn't he shove it in your face! I think he's right about Gotterdammerung, though, and I loved what he wrote about the music.
However pompous the author, this is a useful work for the aspiring (no-one's perfect) Wagnerite.
However pompous the author, this is a useful work for the aspiring (no-one's perfect) Wagnerite.
February 24, 2019
The synopses are fascinating as an interpretation from the nineteenth century. The additional essays tell a murky and inconsistent story that is terribly pedantic. It's full of little gems, but you need to do a lot of sifting. If you're unfamiliar with Wagner or Der Ring, you'd be lost. If you ARE, this might be a worthwhile read or a more worthwhile skim.
October 21, 2018
I don't understand this book, probably due to my ignorance to Wagner's music as well as German mythologies. There are good quotes throughout the play, but on the whole I am not sure what the author is trying to convey.
August 31, 2022
If Wagner was such a great writer, as Shaw contents, why are none of his writings available on Amazon.com?
April 19, 2024
Great fun!
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July 18, 2025I have the 1913 edition 👍🏻
June 15, 2013
This book improves greatly once the reader endures all the prefaces and preambles to the prefaces. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is, I believe, my first experience with opera. Not wanting to do things by increments I plunged in and watched the entire monster back to back a few years ago. I enjoyed the four operas very much, but I have to admit dividing my mind between understanding the music, the English subtitles, the overall story and the amazing stage effects, I wasn't getting much subtlety out of the proceedings.
This book fills in the gaps. Shaw is witty, insightful and fairly easy to follow. He proposes cogent metaphors for each character and event, though from a nonapologetically socialist stance. (Because of this book's political leanings, I'm likely on some shadow government watch list now for having mentioned it.) I cannot say I buy into all of his explanations, but they are nonetheless food for thought and they have made me enjoy the Ring Cycle all over again even years after having first seen it.
This book fills in the gaps. Shaw is witty, insightful and fairly easy to follow. He proposes cogent metaphors for each character and event, though from a nonapologetically socialist stance. (Because of this book's political leanings, I'm likely on some shadow government watch list now for having mentioned it.) I cannot say I buy into all of his explanations, but they are nonetheless food for thought and they have made me enjoy the Ring Cycle all over again even years after having first seen it.
September 6, 2015
I think this book is, more than anything else, a fascinating snapshot into the world of literary criticism in an age gone past. I'm not sure how relevant it will be to someone who considers themselves a Wagnerian (I, myself, do not, I just really like the Ring Cycle). The theories Shaw proposes are rich and fascinating, but he undercuts them through his own need to prove that Wagner himself would agree. This is an aspect of being a Victorian writer, however, who existed before the principal of the death of the author concept. As such, one of the premier English-speaking authors of our time makes what we now consider an elementary mistake in literary criticism.
July 6, 2021
A fun little book elucidating the revolutionary themes in Wagner’s Ring Cycle in Shaw’s characteristically witty voice. Where Shaw sees the influence of Marx and Bakunin the book is truly insightful. Unfortunately the wittiest bits come at the expense of Gotterdamerung which is hardly “plain old opera” that Shaw makes it out to be. Without a doubt the influence of Schopenhauer on Wagner changed the tenor (pun intended) of the last movement of the cycle, but the significance of that influence and the continuity that exists between Gotterdamerung and the first three operas is far too easily tossed out by Shaw. Of course he was writing before much of the best Wagner scholarship was published so you can’t be too hard on him. Overall a fun and informative read!
October 16, 2010
If you get Valkeyrie like protests whenever you try to get your spouse
out of the house to listen to Wagner, then this short companion to
the Ring Saga is for you and maybe even for the spouse.
It's a part Ring 101 and part social commentary. Despite
being written in 1898 it's still very witty, with Shaw
comparing parts of the play & characters to the English
society, most of which fits today for society and
politics in general.
It's been a long time since I've listened or watched the
Ring cycle, which I thought would make the contents
a bit vague, but it didn't, it was still enjoyable.
May 29, 2013
An interesting book (and a free one at that) on Wagner’s Ring Cycle. George Bernard Shaw focuses too much on the political ideas, and neglects other aspects of Wagner's work. He also appears to have a particular bias against Götterdämmerung. Still, the book is well worth a read for the insights offered by the playwright on Wagner’s music drama.
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