Satoshi Akima writes:

>The last thing I want is another polemic with Christopher Webber, who ever
>the defender of the cause of 'opera' continues to attack Wagner, whereas I
>the opponent of opera must defend Wagner against him!  The world is mad.

Oh dear.  Please Mr Akima, try to understand that I am not and have never
been in the business of attacking Wagner - though I'm prepared to face some
facts about him which even Wagnerites of the subtlety of Mats Norrman seem
unable to contemplate without the most combative special pleading,
rutabagas and all.

Mats Norrman, try to understand that I am very far from "condemning" Wagner
for anything.  It is a curious naivety to claim that his operas are in some
strange way insulated from those embarrassing personal beliefs - at least
the ones we don't happen to share.

But then of course I prefer to study Wagner as a fascinatingly flawed human
being who wrote marvellous operas, rather than as an enskied and sainted
Cult Deity.

I'll leave aside the fundamental theme of racial superiority, which is all
too apparent both within and without the operas (Parsifal especially) to
need further tedious space-wasting.

Still, if it is "perverse and twisted" to acknowledge the composer's own
instructions about his characters, then I happily plead guilty.

A note on Alberich to add to Mats Norrman's on the Nibelung brothers.
First, read the text out loud - trying hard not to think of Schopenhauer -
and pick up on Alberich's Jewish-German diction.  Next, go to the archives
to confirm Wagner's instructions to the original singer to use "semitic
gestures" in the role.  Enough?

>As for this "intense homosexual" stuff in Tristan, things I am afraid are
>going from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The homo-erotic strand in "Tristan and Isolde" is neither sublime nor
ridiculous; but it is certainly intense enough, particularly on the
Tristan-Mark-Melot axis.  Without this, I doubt whether the opera would be
quite as richly suggestive as it is about the complexities of human love
and desire.

Isolde herself is highly aware of Tristan's ambiguities when she taunts
him in Act 1 ... "I cared for the injured man, so that when he recovered
he might be slain in vengeance by the man who won him from Isolde" - which
is precisely what happens, when slayer-Melot dies with Tristan's name on
his lips.  (King Ludwig became increasingly obsessed with the sexually
tormented Tristan, compared his relationship with Wagner to that of his
hero with Mark, and called his lover Prince Paul 'Melot', by the way.)

Mr Akima may not care for any of this, but I'm afraid it's plain enough in
the text and action of the opera, as Mats Norrman points out.  What's more,
it enhances the richness of the piece.

Ducking the next volley of rutabagas, I'm glad at least not to have roused
the ire of our tame Wagnerites by mentioning the composer's role in nascent
atonalism!

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"