Opera god Greer Grimsley as Wotan of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle agonizes over love and the power of the ring
Wagner’s Ring Cycle is a transformational epic about love versus power yet the last words Wagner hears are hypocrite and letcher. Terms uttered in anger by not just a king or the myriad of creditors who hounded him his entire life, but uttered by his wife and the mother of his children, Cosima.
This, said to a man who wrote to his friend Nietche's doctor, urging him to tell Nietche to curb masturbation and eat vegetables and take cold water plunges.
Just how much womanizing (hustling or borrowing) are those involved with great men supposed to tolerate?
I would argue Wagner would not have been in such a position had he not been a political exile. The king normally would have supported his work. He would not have had to rely on independent patrons as Americans do. Yet even with young and innocent King Ludwig's support later in life, Wagner still lived a life of royalty. He was often run out of town even by the King.
To say the least Wagner was not universally beloved, humble and charitable like Verdi, who became rich.
About the womanizing. For example. An opera singer once told me, that sort of thing is expected. It’s the parents he said, who push their daughters at the performer.
Moreover the final argument with Wagner is depicted in the glorious big budget English DVD set from 1984. That climax happens in the last few minutes of the 470 minute biography as Wagner dies after a fight with his wife Cosima. Yet things had been different back even in her own childrearing days with Wagner, before they were married.
Vanessa Redgrave as Cosima, mistress and mother of Wagner’s children, wife of Hans von Bulow and daughter of Franz Liszt says in the above clip:
Nothing matters but you. That which is in you. You are the cause we serve, all of us. [Meaning her husband Hans, herself, King Ludwig . . . ]
Richard Burton as Wagner:
Thank you.
There are those of us, artists and strong men in other ways, who must for our own ease so that we may do that which we have to do with conviction and strength, must be unwaveringly supported, never questioned, set above all other persons, given everything. All is clear if one understands that. There is nothing dishonest or dishonorable about that.
At one point Wagner even says to Cosima, it would be easier to die for me than to live for me.
Later ruminating on those who predecease him, Wagner says Nietsche didn’t like Parsifal, the Christian legend. Wagner wrote to Nietsche’s doctor to tell Nietsche to curb masturbation and to eat vegetables and take cold water plunges. “They’re all gone” says Wagner. “All my friends who would support me to the ends of life. Minna, Ludwig . . . “
King Ludwig drowned himself three years after Wagner died. Cosima held Wagner’s body for 25 hours after Wagner died and she lived another 47 years.
Did Cosima serve Wagner well for the rest of her life and beyond? They live on in Bayreuth and in Seattle and San Francisco and Covent Garden among others.
Interview with the wife, Stephanie Blythe who plays Fricka
This type of back breaking selflessness appears in the relationship between Wotan and his wife Fricka, although the ruler of Valhalla has had children with the goddess of the Earth, Erda. Stephanie Blythe sings the role of Fricka to Greer Grimsley’s Wotan this month at Seattle Opera. Stephanie, who just sang Verdi’s Requiem for Donald Runnicles in San Francisco, discusses their attitude in the marriage as one where the wife watches one horrible decision after another by Wotan, the one she loves and has faith in; until finally she demands the death of one of his offspring.
To understand loss one must first understand love, Stephanie says. They are both in agony at this point.
This photo shows Greer as Wotan clasping his wife's hand on one side; his spear with his deals with the devil, the contracts, etched in the handle and held on the other side.
Similarly in the DVD with Redgrave and Burton, Cosima kneels bedside and prays for Richard to be reconciled with the king and for the good of the world. She will do that by bringing his opera Tristan & Isolde to all. She says it will teach how to suffer through love, how to die in love, how to live in the natural condition of ecstatic pain.
The phrase German angst comes to mind, or the term on Wagner’s grave, meaning free from care or meaning craziness, Wahnfried.
Here is an excerpt from a recent interview in Seattle with Stephanie Blythe about the five million dollar production. Seattle’s Ring cost ten million to create originally, says director Speight Jenkins.
Click here to see the entire Fricka piece. It's from Cassidy Quinn's Confessions of a First Time Opera Goer.
SB: I get very prickly whenever Fricka gets called things like a shrew. Let's look at the whole situation from Fricka's point of view. Your husband promises to build you a glorious home which makes you extraordinarily happy, because perhaps that will mean that he stays home more often, and spends a little less time straying. Great. But he decides with the help of his friend Loge, that he should pay for said house by giving your sister to the contractors. He says he never meant to honor the deal, so that should make it all ok. Then he proceeds to make one horrifying choice after another, and you, as the woman who loves him, has to stand there and watch, all the time knowing that the consequences of these choices with bring about the end of their very existence.
So, by the time Walkure comes along, Fricka cannot stand and watch anymore. Her arguments are totally justifiable, and we as the audience see that because even Wotan sees it. Is it painful and horrible to see this couple having an argument on this scale? Absolutely - but Fricka is no shrew, because she make s her demands of her husband all the while knowing that this will end their relationship, and she is willing to sacrifice her love for the sake of what she knows is right.
Stephen and Greer and I have created this sympathy because we all believe that these two gods love one another. When we see them at first in Rheingold, they are constantly touching, Wotan always reassuring Fricka. They look to one another for answers and strength. The situation is horrid, to be sure, but Fricka does have faith in him, and it is wonderful to see and hear Greer as this young, impetuous, free god. The way we play together onstage is so endearing and full of joy, as well as trepidation. That way, when we get to Walkure, the pain of their argument is made all the more terrible, and her final demand of him followed by his oath to fulfill her wishes is agony for both of them.
I cannot tell you how may times audiences members have come to us and thank us for showing a real couple - all the love and the difficulty too. That contrast is the key - just as you cannot understand white unless you know black, so you cannot know the pain of loss if you never saw the love in the first place.
SG: Have you seen an evolution of Fricka from the summer of 2000 when the first two operas in the Cycle premiered?
SB: I think she has evolved because I have evolved. I am not the same woman that I was back then. I have essayed new roles and grown as a singer and a performer with each new experience. I am also nearly ten years older now, and I can tell you that those years have brought a new perspective on this character.
Photos: Rozarii Lynch
For more info: www.SeattleOpera.org, www.SFOpera.com
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