The Mentor: The Ring of the Nibelung, Vol. 3, Num. 24, Serial No. 100, February 1, 1916

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course

Music drama, as Mr. Finck says, is quite different from Opera. In Wagner’s early years opera, for the most part, was a weak, vapid thing dramatically, the plot foolish and flat, the music a string of songs, duets, quartets, and choruses connected by dull recitative. The music was showy, and of a kind to display the skill of the singer rather than the composer. And prima donnas at times in their vanity would embellish this most florid music with additional vocal flourishes.

Richard Wagner composed operas before he perfected his Music Drama, but in several of these operas--The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin--he gave plain intimations of the principles which he developed later in what he called “The Art Work of the Future.” Instinctively he reached out toward his ultimate object in art before he had fully formulated his ideas; and the composers whom he admired were those who had made music a means of true, dramatic expression--Gluck, Mozart and Weber, in opera, and Schubert in song. All of them made music the expression of the composer’s intentions as against the vanity of the singer. Mozart defeated the despotic methods of prima donnas in some cases by making his arias so difficult technically that the singers could not add any embellishments of their own. But, while insisting on the claims of the composer, none of these great musicians thought of allowing the drama to determine the form and style of the music. That is an essential principle in the Music Drama. The music does not simply accompany the drama--it is itself the very expression of the drama. The Rhine music, 135 bars, opening Rheingold, is not simply an appropriate accompaniment to the flow of the river. It is the river translated into musical form--so much so that if played in a concert room apart from the scene of the murky Rhine depths, in which the Rhine Maidens are circling, it would have no meaning. And while a great deal of Wagner’s music lends itself readily to concert production, and is popular as such, the interest in it is a combined music and dramatic one.

The Music Drama is not a single art. It is a manifold art, combining the arts of poetry, painting, sculpture, and music. Wagner contended that the arts strayed away and fell backward after the days of the glory of Greek Drama, because each art tried to develop and perfect itself separately in its own way. Wagner asserted that the way to the true, full, perfected art work was to reunite these arts in the Music Drama. This theory he set forth in many writings, and finally expressed in his compositions. His Music Drama, therefore, gives full expression for the poet in the text of the play, for the painter in the scenic effects, for the sculptor in the statuesque groups on the stage, and for the composer in the musical expression which completes the combination.

And none of these contributors, not even the composer, dominates or controls the others--not even accompanies them. The elements of the Music Drama are more closely interwoven than that. The contributing arts are amalgamated in one single complete art.

And this is what Wagner called “The Art Work of the Future.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 3, No. 24, SERIAL No. 100 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course

It was in 1870 that Wagner’s dream of a theater of his own gave promise of full realization. In 1864 King Ludwig of Bavaria, at the age of nineteen, gave Wagner his patronage, and backed him financially. By this means, in the years 1865-1870 Tristan, Meistersinger, Rheingold, and Walküre were performed in Munich. The King wanted the festival house there, but the court and the populace regarded this plan with jealous resentment. Moreover, Wagner preferred a more remote place better suited to fostering a new art undertaking. So the little town of Bayreuth was chosen. Wagner obtained from the municipality a free grant of land for a festival-theater and his own house. The architect Gottfried Semper was commissioned to prepare definite plans. Everything was settled but the money, and the estimated cost was 1,125,000 francs. Wagnerian societies were formed all over Europe, and in the United States, and the interest of financial men in Germany was secured. The foundation stone of the Festival-Theater was laid with great ceremony by Wagner himself on May 22, 1872, the 59th anniversary of his birth. The work of construction proceeded rapidly, although the subscriptions were short of the total sum required. Ludwig made up the amount lacking.

Thus, after forty years of struggle, Wagner saw his colossal project realized in 1876, when the Festival-Theater was opened for the production of the Ring of the Nibelung. Three representations of the Ring took place during the summer of that year. Then for six years it was impossible to open the theater for want of money. In 1882 Parsifal was produced there, and since then festival performances have taken place there about every two years. Wagner, however, died in 1883, so he saw only two of his own great music festivals.

The theater was a model in its way--which means in Wagner’s way. It was planned entirely with the thought of the performance and not at all for the display of the audience. It contains 1344 seats, arranged in a fan-shaped amphitheater. There are thirty rows of seats, and at the very back of the hall there are nine boxes, reserved for royalty and for Wagner’s invited guests. Above the boxes there is a large gallery containing 200 seats. The orchestra is sunk, and invisible. Musicians descend on steps a long way under the stage into a kind of cave, which has received the name in Bayreuth of “the mystic abyss.” The space reserved for the stage is even larger than the hall. The curtain divides the building almost into two equal parts. There is no foyer for the public. The audience steps out readily from any of the rows in the auditorium directly into the outer air, and can find refuge and refreshment in one of the many cafe restaurants in the vicinity. On the same floor with the royal boxes an annex was built in 1882, which affords entertainment rooms for privileged guests.

The spirit that permeates the Festival-Theater is one of unselfish devotion. The characteristic of everyone who takes part there is a complete surrender of personal interests. Each one comes to Bayreuth with a sole purpose of contributing the utmost to the festival play. Therefore, no one, singer or members of the orchestra or chorus, instructors or conductors, scene shifters or aides, receive any salary or reward. Their travel expenses are paid and they are lodged in Bayreuth at the expense of the administration--that is all. And in return they are treated not as paid artists, but as honored guests.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 3, No. 24, SERIAL No. 100 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course

In the beginning Gold, the symbol of human desire, lay in the bed of the Rhine. It was worshipped and attended by the daughters of the Rhine. Then it was stolen from them. In the end it was restored to them, but between the beginning and the end it carried its curse through many tragic chapters.

This treasure was called the Rheingold, and, when wrought into a ring it gave its owner universal power. One condition only went with the Rheingold,--he who owned it must renounce love forever.

Three beautiful Maidens of the Rhine guarded the gold, and Alberich, the ugly King of the Nibelungs--the dwarfs who lived underground--tried to make love to them. They rejected him scornfully, and so the dwarf, seeing the gold in the river and knowing its power, forswore love forever, and seizing the treasure, bore it off to his underground home.

Just at this time Wotan and the other gods were building a marvellous castle. They did not have the strength to build this palace by themselves, so they had called the giants to their aid. For their pay Wotan promised them the goddess of youth, Freia. As her loss would bring old age and decay upon the gods, he never meant to keep his promise--a habit of Wotan’s, by the way. He trusted to the cunning of Loge (Ló-gee), the Fire god, to get him out of the predicament.

When appealed to, however, Loge declared that after searching all heaven and earth, he could find no way out of the difficulty. But he also reported that he had heard of the stealing of the Rheingold, and suggested that perhaps the giants would take the ring of the Nibelung in place of Freia if the gods could get it away from Alberich. The giants, between whom and the Nibelungs a feud had existed for a long time, knew that if Alberich kept the ring he would have dominion over them. So they agreed that if the gods would get them the Rhine treasure they would give up their claim to Freia.

Therefore Wotan and Loge descended to Nibelheim. There they found Alberich gathering together a great hoard of treasure by the aid of the magic ring. Furthermore, Mime, one of his lieutenants, had made him a helmet by which he could change his shape or become invisible. Loge suggested that, to prove the power of the helmet, Alberich change himself into a toad. The dwarf did this, and the gods promptly seized and bound him. They then forced him to give up the helmet and the ring. Alberich had to agree, but he uttered a curse on the ring that brought death and destruction to everyone who owned it.