I am not a chronic migraine sufferer, thank God, but for the past two days I have been oppressed by headaches, and this morning’s is worse than yesterday’s (which finally subsided last night). Suffice it to say, I am typing this on my laptop with the brightness turned way down.
By coincidence, I happen to be reading Simon Callow’s compellingly-written “Being Wagner.” Callow, in addition to being a grandiloquent character actor (you may recollect him from “Amadeus,” “A Room with a View,” “Shakespeare in Love,” or “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), has portrayed some of the great artists (notably Charles Dickens) in one-man stage shows. He’s also written a comprehensive, three volume biography of Orson Welles.
It was in the scripting of his Wagner play that he became consumed with this complex figure. So he decided to write a book. The subtitle, in its first printing, was “The Story of the Most Provocative Composer Who Ever Lived.” Apparently, it has since been amended to “Triumph of the Will.” Both would be equally valid.
Wagner’s antisemitism was as pervasive as it was irrational. As a frequently struggling and misunderstood artist, he received nothing but support from his Jewish acquaintances – including Giacomo Meyerbeer, the most successful opera composer in Paris, who helped secure him his big break. Wagner rewarded Meyerbeer’s generosity by making him his bête noire. In fact, Wagner would often froth about the Jews, much to the discomfort of nearly everyone around him. His mania is chillingly prescient of the social corrosion that would allow Hitler’s rise to power. But yes, there is a double meaning in the latter subtitle in that Wagner, for all intents and purposes, willed himself to success.
With all that I know about Wagner and his music, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I googled “classical music headache” and what popped up, but Little Richard himself. I had forgotten that Wagner, always very tightly wound, was a migraine sufferer.
Leave a Reply