Wagner in Russia (5/9)
Wagner in the Soviet Union : Lohengrin as an enemy of "progressive" socialist art. Part 1.
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The end of World War I in March 1918 meant that the ban forbidding the performance of German music in Russia could finally be lifted, thus making it possible for new productions of Wagner’s works to take place. The swiftness with which Wagner’s works returned to the repertoires of the newly nationalised Petrograd and Moscow opera houses, however, is testament to the intensity of Russian enthusiasm for Wagner, which had somehow survived the four-year moratorium and a major revolution: Parsifal was revived at the Theatre of Musical Drama within days of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty. The revival of Parsifal was swiftly followed by a concert of Wagner’s music (conducted by Albert Coates), and revivals of Die Meistersinger at the Theatre of Musical Drama and Die Walkure at the Mariinsky Theatre, which also played to packed houses.
New Soviet operas with revolutionary content would have been the ideal material for the post-1917 repertoire, but in their absence, Wagner’s works were evidently judged a good substitute. Parsifal may have been considered ideologically unsuitable for the new Soviet repertoire because of its absence of positive heroism and the religiosity of its subject, but Das Rheingold, Tannhäuser and Die Walküre had all passed muster and these three works were revived at the Bolshoi Theatre in October 1918, February and April 1919 respectively. Emil Kuper (who had now become chief conductor at the former Mariinsky Theatre), Ershov and other avid Wagnerians were responsible for the revival of Wagner’s works in Petrograd
Despite the theatre’s freezing temperatures (there being no heating during the winter months in the early years after the Revo lution), the revival of Wagner’s works at the Mariinsky was greeted with ‘jubilation’, according to the critic P. Konsky, who later maintained that Wagner’s music sounded at that time ‘particularly poignant’ and ‘made everything worth while’. The legendary pianist Mariya Yudina was amongst those for whom Wagner’s music had a particular resonance just after the Revolution: “It was a cold and hungry time, but it was a time full of hope and inspiration. It was the renaissance of Wagner. His music embodied the spirit of the first revolution ary years.”
The 1917 Revolution paved the way for theatrical experimentation of all kinds, however, and some of the early Soviet Wagner stagings were amongst the most radical Soviet opera productions of the time, with designs by leading avant-garde artists. A key figure here was the founder of Russian Constructivism, Vladimir Tatlin, who created some strikingly original designs for Der fliegende Hollander between 1915 and 1918. Tatlin had spent several years in the navy, and clearly retained a deep love of the sea, for it was the nautical setting which principally drew him to Wagner’s opera, to judge from the numerous sketches he made of masts, decks, sails and rigging. Dominating Tatlin’s final design for the set were several large masts which he intended members of the cast to climb up and down during performances, in order to exploit the full potential of both the vertical as well as horizontal space of the stage. Tatlin’s innovative ideas for producing Der fliegende Hollander were sadly never realised.
The iconoclastic aesthetic of constructivism left its mark on the opera stage. This was a matter not just of abstracting scenic locale into its structural and symbolic components , but of insisting that the stage picture should always be fluid, its elements forming and re-forming the stage space. Where Appia had required that the lighting should create a dynamic sense of stage space, the constructivists saw that there was no reason why the components of the set should not themselves be in a state of flux. It was therefore no surprise that the first new Wagner production after the Revolution, opening the second Soviet operatic season in Moscow on 5 september 1918, should have been Lohengrin at the former Zimin Theatre, with abstract settings by Ivan Fedotov. In his speech at the opening of the season, the newly elected People's Commissar for Education, Anatoli Lunacharsky, emphasized the importance of opera in general and Wagner's opera in particular to the new society.
Jukka von Boehm stelt dat van alle werken van Wagner, naast Parsifal, Lohengrin de meest negatieve inhoudelijke kenmerken had voor de voorstanders van realistische, socialistische kunst. De cultureel-politieke harde lijn in de Sovjet-Unie was de lijn van een kwalitatief nieuwe realistische kunst, van het socialistisch realisme, dat Jozef Stalin en Andrej Zjdanov in 1934 hadden uitgeroepen tot de enige legitieme vorm van creatie. Volgens deze harde lijn in de cultuurpolitiek had kunst een duidelijk doel, namelijk het socialistische bewustzijn van de bevolking versterken en daarmee een productieve invloed hebben op de realisatie van de grote socialistische utopie, de totstandkoming van de nieuwe mens. Maar terwijl Wagners laatste muziekdrama Parsifal gemakkelijk van het socialistische repertoire kon worden geschrapt als een levensvernietigend, pessimistisch werk, lag de situatie met de andere Graalopera Lohengrin gecompliceerder. De ironie van de geschiedenis schuilt in het feit dat Lohengrin, die als "linkse" opera ontstond in de context van de Duitse Vormärz tussen 1845 en 1848, na de totstandkoming van het Duitse Rijk door "rechts" werd overgenomen en daarom in de 20e eeuw grotendeels werd verworpen door politiek links. Wagners sociale utopische ideeën waren te symbolisch en te vaag om te worden overgenomen door de cultureel-politieke harde lijn in de Sovjet-Unie of de DDR. Maar de "linkse" ideeën in Lohengrin boeiden liberale marxisten en kunstenaars in beide landen, wat een reden kan zijn geweest voor de zeer emotionele geschillen die volgden. De nieuwe productie in Moskou in 1918 toont aan dat Lohengrin in het begin van de 20e eeuw niet werd gezien als iets dat volledig antithetisch was aan het socialisme.
Juka von Boehm argues that of all Wagner's works, apart from Parsifal, it was Lohengrin that had the most negative characteristics for the advocates of realistic, socialist art. The cultural-political hard line in the Soviet Union was the line of a qualitatively new realist art, of socialist realism, which Josef Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov had proclaimed in 1934 as the only legitimate form of creation. According to this hard line in cultural policy, art had a clear purpose, namely to strengthen the socialist consciousness of the population and thus have a productive influence on the realization of the great socialist utopia, the emergence of the new man. However, while Wagner's last music drama Parsifal could easily be removed from the socialist repertoire as a life-denying, pessimistic work, the situation with the other Grail opera Lohengrin was more complicated. The irony of history lies in the fact that Lohengrin, which was created as a "left-wing" opera in the context of the German Vormärz between 1845 and 1848, was appropriated by the "right-wing" after the foundation of the German Reich and was therefore largely rejected by the political left in the 20th century. Wagner's social utopian ideas were too symbolic and too vague to be appropriated by the cultural-political hard line in the Soviet Union or the GDR. However, the "left-wing" ideas in Lohengrin captivated liberal Marxists and artists in both countries, which may have been one reason for the highly emotional disputes that followed. What the new production in Moscow in 1918 shows is that Lohengrin in the early 20th century was not seen as something completely antithetical to socialism.
LOHENGRIN in Moscow 1918
At first glance, it may seem strange that after the Bolsheviks came to power, an opera was performed that around 1918 could be associated more with the hurrah-patriotism of the German Reich than with the radical Russian left. In Russia, however, Wagnerism had developed in a different direction after the turn of the century than in Germany. The reason for this lies in the Russian symbolism of the turn of the century, which had been influenced by Wagner and which had become politicized in the course of the first decades of the new century. The bloody suppression of the 1905 revolution was a decisive event in the politicization of Symbolism. It had become clear to some Symbolists that they could no longer remain aloof from the political situation in the unequal, corrupt tsarist autarchy. The politicization of the movement led to many Symbolist artists and Wagner admirers eventually becoming supporters of the Bolshevik Revolution. The most important of these were the poet Alexander Blok, the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold and Anatoly Lunacharsky, who was also a poet and playwright in addition to his political activities.
Russian Symbolism spanned the years 1890-1917 and, as with French Symbolism, its foundations were of a musical or Dionysian nature. According to the famous Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy popularized by Nietzsche's ‘Birth of Tragedy’ (1872), the Apollonian stood for form, order and the fine arts, while the Dionysian stood for chaos, irrationalism, intoxication and music. What distinguished Russian Symbolism from French Symbolism was its political undertone as well as its mystical and eschatological connotations. Following Schopenhauer's ‘The World as Will and Representation’ (1818) as well as Wagner and Nietzsche, the Russian Symbolists attributed to music the potential to restore the shattered wholeness in Russia. For the Russian Symbolists, music was associated with the end of conflict; disunity would become harmony and contradictions would be resolved. Most Symbolists saw music as a bridge to a post-apocalyptic world of harmony, regeneration and rebirth. This idea was expressed particularly clearly in numerous statements by Alexander Blok. He saw music as a popular rebellion or popular culture that was making its way through bourgeois culture.
Unlike Karl Marx, who often compared the revolutionary process to a teleologically developing drama, the idea of a revolution in Russia was often equated with music by the Symbolists. Marx had described the failed revolution of 1848 as the first act in the great revolutionary drama. The analogy implies the idea of a lawful continuation of the class struggle in future acts. Anatoly Lunacharsky, on the other hand, adhered to the idea of a revolution as a ‘grandiose symphony’. After the October Revolution, he regretted that the composer Alexander Scriabin, who had become famous for his synasthetic and mystical experiments, had already died and was no longer able to witness the revolution. These aesthetic ideas of the revolution as an abstract rebirth of humanity had little in common with the teleological approach of scientific Marxism. It is therefore hardly surprising that this unorthodox, Dionysian tendency of Bolshevism was hushed up in official Soviet historiography.
In view of the Dionysian approach that clearly emerged in the statements of Blok and Lunacharsky, one can try to decipher the meaning of the Lohengrin production of 1918. Before 1918, this opera had already had a long performance tradition in Russia. At the turn of the century, such important modernists as Sergei Djagilev and Wassily Kandinsky were just as enthusiastic about the expressive power of Lohengrin's music as Franz Liszt or Charles Baudelaire in the 1950s and 1960s. Not only Baudelaire, but also the painter Kandinsky imagined images and colors synesthetically when listening to the Grail music: "I saw all my colors in my mind; they stood before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me." These statements are of fundamental importance because they provide information about the fact that in the Russian artistic avant-garde it was precisely the music, which is associated with the abstract world of the Grail, that was received as the most important part of the opera. From this point of view, Lohengrin could be interpreted as the introduction of an abstract human revolution for collective rebirth.
The most important dramaturgical strand in Lohengrin is the higher mission of the Knight of the Grail. His altruistic task is to lead the people of the earthly world to a higher existential level. The Grail, which lies "in a distant land, inaccessible to your steps", is a utopia whose existence the earthly world only learns of through Lohengrin's Grail narrative at the end of the opera. The utopia of the Grail kingdom is of a Dionysian nature. It is something abstract, it lies beyond the concrete events of the stage, and it only appears musically: in A major. And as we know from Wagner's programmatic explanation, the prelude is about the encounter between the supernatural sphere and the earthly sphere. Interpreted as a collective longing for a higher life, the idea of revolution appears in Lohengrin. It is an inner process of an aesthetic-utopian nature. In a similar way, many Russian symbolists perceived the Bolshevik Revolution as part of a larger human revolution that would lead to the overcoming of bourgeois values.
Although little source material on the 1918 production has survived, there are indications that the Lohengrin production can be interpreted according to this interpretation. This is supported by the fact that the director, Fyodor Fyodorovich Komissarzhevsky, was a romantic idealist who shared the utopia of a cosmic-mystical theater with many Russian symbolists. This was clearly evident in the constructivist, timeless aesthetic of the production. The futuristic, three-dimensional stage design with cubes and cones was closely linked to the aesthetics of Kazimir Malevich. The choir was divided into static groups and gave the impression of a moving harmony of colors. The whole was radically opposed to realism and rejected all specifically German or medieval elements in the material. In this production, Lohengrin was a mystical knight, not a medieval figure, and his costume was reminiscent of a priest's robe.
In order to further elaborate on the close connection between Wagnerism, Symbolism and revolutionary utopianism in Lohengrin 1918, a comparison with the ideas of the "Mystical Anarchists" is appropriate. This radical symbolist group emerged after the events of 1905 and was particularly active between 1906 and 1908. It is significant that both of the main representatives of mystical anarchism, Vyacheslav Ivanov and Georgy Chulkov, were Wagnerians. Their ideas can be seen embodied in Lohengrin in two ways. Firstly, the conflict between Ortrud and Lohengrin, the old and the new world, can be seen in the dichotomy of the empirical and mystical person, as used by the mystical anarchists. Unlike the egoistic empirical person, the mystical person searches for the world soul and asserts itself through love. In Lohengrin, Ortrud - the egoistic person - came to stand for the old society of reaction, politics and intrigue. Lohengrin, on the other hand - the mystical person - was a herald of the new, higher order. Secondly, Chulkov spoke of the "true revolution", which overcomes "mechanical relationships" and leads to a society guided by love. This idea comes close to Lohengrin's idea of revolution. The knights of the higher order of the Grail are committed to an altruistic task, just like Lohengrin. That is why they must remain anonymous in the earthly world.
If one connects this Lohengrin production with the time in which it was created, it must be seen in the context of the post-revolutionary optimism shared by many symbolists. The miraculous arrival of the Knight of the Grail in a hopeless world "of hatred and strife" may have symbolized similar hopes and dreams cherished by many after the fall of Tsarist autarchy. In 1918, the old structures of power had collapsed, but the new had not yet been able to emerge properly. However stimulating and hopeful the events of 1917 may have seemed to many, the bloody civil war, the failure of the world revolution, isolation from Europe and famine disillusioned many. The Dionysian character of the revolution, meanwhile, had gradually evaporated.
Next installment :
Wagner in the Soviet Union : Lohengrin as an enemy of "progressive" socialist art. Part 2