Wagner
was queer. I use queer to mean outside of “heteronormity,” in
which what is considered to be normal, natural and proper is
heterosexuality, with men being masculine and women being feminine.
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| Mocking Wagner back in his day. He did like satin slippers, but he didn't have a shoe fetish. |
I
am putting this post in the “abnormal mind” series for two
reasons. One is that, more than any other thing in his life
until the last forty years (in which his anti-Semitism became the focus), the fact of his queerness was the focus
for the vast majority of attacks on him and the basis for asserting he
suffered pathological issues. His critics believed abnormal
equalled pathology. For me, in contrast, “abnormal” merely
means a minority-behavior pattern and has no necessary relationship
whatsoever to pathology. Specifically, in Wagner’s case, none of
what I write below about Wagner’s queerness is at all pathological
in my book, and there is no evidence that his true psychological
problems were related to it except, of course, for the added stress
that came from people mocking him.
In
this post, I draw greatly from the excellent book Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, by Laurence Dreyfus. While I have long believed all that Dreyfus writes about, his research has been very helpful to me in pulling this together quickly. Anyone who wants more details
should read his book.
The
feminine Wagner
Wagner
didn’t fit into masculine norms: in the privacy of his own home, he
liked to wear, touch, smell and see things—very soft things—that
he associated with the feminine, particularly when composing.
As
Dreyfus wrote in his book,
“...the
composer seems to have experienced a sensuous harmony, erotic
arousal, and a creative surge when both wearing and touching women’s
satin garments in the privacy of his personal grottos, always
enhanced by the pronounced sent of roses.”1
At
each of his homes, he developed a sanctuary of femininity for
inspiration. I described that lair in the last post. His seamstress Bertha Goldwag adds details, recounting one such
room in her reminisces in 1906:
A
single room about the size of a closest was decorated with
extravagant splendor in keeping with Wagner’s most detailed
instructions. The walls were lined with silk, with relievo garlands
all the way around. From the ceiling hung a wonderful lamp with a
gentle beam. The whole of the floor was covered in heavy and
exceptionally soft rugs in which your feet literally sank....No one
was allowed to enter this room. Wagner always remained there alone.2
Wagner
believed that “love was the eternal feminine itself,”3
and his music was always centered on love. Therefore, he wanted to
be in touch with the feminine as he wrote, to be both man and woman
at the same time. From all evidence—his autobiography, letters,
prose and music—he was personally very comfortable with his
feminine side, and considered it a crucial part of his sensitivity
and of necessity for this work. That said, he was well aware of
societal attitudes about it and that his compositional methods would
lead to public scorn, so he did his best to hide his penchants.
Normally, that meant others—people close to him who understood his
needs—were dispatched to buy his silk and satin, his perfumes, his
negligées and silk panties.
Among
his couriers was Nietzsche, according to this account from a friend
of his:
Nietzsche
asked me in the most concerned manner where he might find a good silk
shop in Basel. Eventually he admitted he had undertaken to shop for a
pair of silk underpants for Wagner, and this important matter filled
him with anxiety; for—added the smiling iconoclast—“once you’ve
chosen a God, you’ve got to adorn him.4
During
the composition of Parsifal, his principal courier—and his muse—was
Judith Gautier.
He was sending her his orders for perfume, satin,
bath oils, silk undergarments, et al., via the post. It was a very
flirtatious correspondence, so various biographers have assumed that
they had a sexual affair. However, there is only scant evidence to
make that case, particularly in that the two were rarely in each other’s
presence. And when they were, they were generally under Cosima’s
watchful eye. Judith denied the affair categorically, for what that
is worth. In any case, like Mathilde Wesondonck before her, it really
doesn’t matter whether they did or they didn’t. Wagner clearly
was in love for the final time in his life. Dreyfus writes: “The
erotic side of Wagner’s obsession [with all things feminine]
emerges most clearly when one reads his letters to Judith Gautier, in
which each successive paragraph alternates between the evocation of
soft caresses and an uncompromising list of fabrics and scents
Gautier was to supply.”5
Cosima ultimately found out about the letters and put an end to his
correspondence, but Wagner quickly found another perfume mule—this time a man, to keep Cosima’s ire down.
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| Portrait of Judith by John Singer Sargent, 1885 |
His
precautions to hide his proclivities failed when someone stole and published
sixteen letters to his seamstress Bertha Goldwag’s—she swears that she didn’t
sell them—in which Wagner meticulously detailed his feminine needs. Those letters opened the
floodgates of mockery, and were the central exhibit in judging Wagner
pathological for over a century, as I mentioned above and wrote about
last post. All I can say is, what judgmental jerks! I mean, I personally don’t
“get” why he had those needs, as I don’t share his passions,
but I get that they were deeply a part of him. People’s desire to
put down, harass and otherwise torment those who are different from
them creates much of the ills of this world. I am rather the polar
opposite from Wagner, but am in the same queer world: I am a
transvestite myself, but a woman who will not wear feminine clothing
at all has, in this day and age, become acceptable. Hopefully,
the day comes when male transvestites are just as accepted.
The
man who coined the term transvestites—and first addressed
fetishism—was the pioneering German sex researcher and very early
gay rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld. In his 1910 book Die Transvestiten, he includes a whole chapter on
Wagner, entitled “Explanation of Richard Wagner’s Letters to a
Milliner.” Unlike most everyone else until modern day, he
wasn’t judgmental, but wrote:
Wagner’s
particular inclination justifies assuming that there is a feminine
characteristic in his psyche.... [But this inclination] in no way
deserves mockery and scorn...[but instead] gives evidence of the
unusually rich and subtle complexity of [Wagner’s] inner life, the
continued study of which would be a difficult as well as rewarding
task.6
There
is no doubt that his music was extraordinarily sensual. As Thomas
Mann wrote, “who could
fail
to notice the rustle of satin in Wagner’s work?”7
Barry Millington, in his new book The Sorcerer of Bayreuth, after
surveying the evidence of his feminine preoccupation puts it this
way:
In
the final analysis, then, Wagner’s fetish for silks and satins, his
obsessive desire to be surrounded by soft material and sweet
fragrances, is not an embarrassment to be swept under one of his
deep-piled Smynra rugs. On the contrary, these tendencies provide a
key to the music, which would not be what it is had the composer been
a model of ascetic Calvinist rigor. It is entirely appropriate that
such a man would leave this world in a pink satin dressing gown.8
The
man-loving Wagner
He
was not homosexual; from all evidence, he only had sex with women.
However, Wagner was bi-emotional. That is, he fell in love with both men
and women and had, essentially, romantic, though sexless, affairs
with both men and, sometimes, women (as I believe was the case with
both Judith Gautier and Mathilde Wesondonck).
Even
when not “in love,” he was a strikingly emotional guy. For
instance, his good friend and supporter, Franz Liszt, wrote an account of Wagner's histrionics at their reunion after a 4-year gap in 1854:
Wagner
was waiting for me at the post-house. We nearly chocked each other
in embraces. Sometimes he has a sort of eaglet’s cry in his voice.
He wept and laughed and stormed with joy
for at least a quarter of hour at seeing me again.9
Assuming he wasn't in love with Liszt, can you imagine how he acted around a man—or
woman—whom he was in love with?? (Truly, Wagner was very much like an puppy, both in good and bad ways.)
Regarding homosexuality, Wagner was very liberal-minded for his time, though he
felt it was an immature form of sexual attraction, with sexual love
between man and woman reigning supreme. That said, he had several
gay friends over the years. Towards the end of his life, he was very
good friends with the Russian painter, Parsifal stage designer, and
aristocrat Paul von Jourkowky and his lover, an
Italian of lower-class origins named Pepino, who were frequent
visitors to the house. Cosima reports Wagner as saying about their
relationship: “It is something for which I have understanding, but
no inclination.”10
Though
he wasn’t interested sexually, Wagner
was able to conceptualize, and rationalize, his romantic friendships
with men via the Greek same-sex love ideal. He wrote in the Artwork
of the Future a peaen to same-sex love:
The
higher element of same-sex love excluded the aspect of selfish
pleasure [my emphasis]. Nevertheless it not only included a purely spiritual
bond of friendship, but [one] which blossomed from and crowned the
sensuous friendship. This sprang directly from delight in the
...sensuous bodily beauty of the beloved man; yet this delight was no
mere sexual yearning, but a thorough abnegation of self into the
unconditional sympathy with the with the lover’s joy in himself
involuntarily expressed by the joyous bearing prompted by his beauty.
He
goes on for some time about this topic but basically he concludes:
same-sex love is awesome if you take out the sex. As with the Greek
ideal, it is about an older man as teacher and younger man as
inspiration. Wagner says of this collaboration, “the most
beautiful and noble love would blossom forth.”
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| Tausig |
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| Cornelius |
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| van Schnorr |
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| Ludwig II |
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| Porges |
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| Nietzche |
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| Levi |
In most cases, the younger man was more smitten than Wagner, though there is a good case to be made that in Ludwig and Nietzche’s case, the passion was mutual. In any case, Dreyfus argues in his book, “the biographical evidence shows with some consistency that Wagner encouraged, even groomed, each Romantic Friend to understand and fulfill his assigned role as the adoring, self-sacrificing younger lover.”11 Nietzche’s celebrated break-up with Wagner can best be understood as the philosopher casting off this role of underling to be able to spread his own wings; Wagner was heartbroken. The story of their remarkable friendship has been told many places, but a good place to start is the 60-page appendix “Wagner and Nietzsche” in Bryan Magee’s Tristan Chord.
Just
to get a flavor of his romantic friendships, I will quote from just
one of his many très romantiques letters to his benefactor,
King Ludwig II:
Dearest, dearest, magnificent Friend!...
Dear,
Dear heavenly Friend! How you brighten my poor harassed existence.
I feel so deeply, deeply satisfied and elevated through your love,
through my — through our love! No words can express what this
wonderful relationship between us means. Might I die—on the
evening of my Tristan, with a last glance up to your eyes, with a
last grasp of your hand!
Affectioned,
blessed, divine Friend!
How
deep, how deep is the bottom of our Love!
Suffering,
but blissful–
Eternally
yours
Some
have argued that Wagner, needing Ludwig’s money, was just trying to
string him along. However, Wagner wrote many letters to friends
also extolling Ludwig and his love for him. For instance, to his
good friend—and confidant—Eliza Wille, he wrote many letters of
this type. Here is an excerpt from just one:
At
last a love relationship which doesn’t lead to suffering and
torments! This is how it is when I see this magnificent youth before
me.... He stays mostly in a little castle in my proximity; in 10
minutes the carriage takes me to him. Our conversations are
ravishing. I always fly to him as a lover.13
Yes,
there came a time when the “in love” period faded for both of
them and conflicts set in. But, that he had an emotional
affair—romantic love—with Ludwig, and several other men, there
can be no doubt.
Tristan
and Isolde: a very queer opera
Wagner
showed support for love that strayed beyond normal societal bounds,
including same-sex love, in more than one opera. I’ve always
thought that Die Walküre—in which Woton (read Wagner) made it
clear that true love between siblings was morally better than any
marriage without love— was particularly supportive in a rather
over-the-top way. This was appreciated early on, as Wagner enjoyed a
robust gay following then and now.
Dreyfus
investigated the history of reaction to Wagner’s homoerotic themes
and found that most of the writing was critical to damning. However,
with the beginnings of the early gay rights movement, that begin to
change. According to Dreyfus,“[t]he first writer to reject a
defamatory approach to Wagner’s homoerotics was the German author
Hanns Fuchs, whose book Richard Wagner and Homosexuality
appeared in Berlin in 1903.”14
Dreyfus relates, “Fuchs scours Wagner’s opera librettos and
poems for traces of intense Freundeslibe (romantic friendship)
and has a fairly easy time of it. He finds “spiritual
homosexuality” all across Wagner’s oeuvre, beginning with Die
Feen, but it is particularly concentrated in Tristan and
Parsifal.”15
I
am going to ignore Parsifal because, really, all the
characters in it are very...odd. Sure, many of the guys could be seen as
non-heterosexual—Klingsor and Parsifal, particularly—but they
hardly seem like they they are having feelings of romantic love for
men. But Tristan and Isolde: now that is one queer opera!
Yes, the opera centers, it is true, on the fateful True Love romance
between Tristan and Isolde. But, simultaneously, it is also, as
Fuchs puts it, a “consecration of romantic friendship” as well.
Beyond the central protagonists, all the characters seem to be in
love with someone of the same sex. Brangange and Kurnewal, servants
to Isolde and Tristan, are a matched pair, each in love with those
they serve. Both the music and lyrics tell us this, reinforced
through the stage instructions that Wagner left. For instance, here
is Brangage trying to calm Isolde with sweet endearments:
O
Süsse! Traute! [My sweetheart! Beloved!]
Teure! Holde! [Dearest! Beautiful one!]
Goldne Herrin! [Golden mistress!]
Lieb' Isolde! [Dear Isolde!]
Teure! Holde! [Dearest! Beautiful one!]
Goldne Herrin! [Golden mistress!]
Lieb' Isolde! [Dear Isolde!]
Wagner’s
stage instructions: first Brangagne “flings herself upon Isolde
with impetuous affection,” and then “gradually draws her to
the couch.”16
The music is of utter desperation.
In The Artwork of the Future, Wagner had written of same-sex
male love that the bond between the men “knit the fellowships of
love into battalions of war and military order that prescribed
death-defying tacts to rescue the threatened lover or to exact
vengeance if he fell in battle.”17 In Tristan, Wagner put that idea in the opera. Kurnewal exacts vengeance
on the traitor Melot, sacrificing himself to be with Tristan. To
music of sad love and longing he sings: “Tristan!
Beloved! Scold me not, so the faithful one may follow you!” Thus,
there are two love-deaths in the opera, Tristan and Isolde’s and
Tristan and Kurnewal’s.
And
then there is King Marke, who sings the—to me—extraordinarily
touching 13-minute soliloquy to Tristan about his tremendous hurt
that his beloved—Tristan—would betray him. Isolde is basically
irrelevant in this. That is absolutely not the way it normally works
in traditional opera, where the woman’s betrayal would be the focus. But Wagner
clearly wanted to highlight Romantic Friendships between same-sex
people; he did it beautifully and movingly, might I add.
Then
there is the betrayer and former friend, Melot. There are a whole
lot of clues that he, too, was in love with Tristan. Melot becomes
jealous when Tristan becomes enraptured with Isolde. Thus, it is the
old “if I can’t have you, nobody can.” When he dies on
Kurnewal’s sword, his last words—of course—are to Tristan: “Weh
mir, Tristan,” (Woe is me, Tristan.)
Six
major characters: four in love with someone of the same sex, two
dead, two in mourning. All of the four suffered from unrequited
love. As for Tristan and Isolde, they never consummate their union
but suffer greatly through yearning for the other. Only in death
do they actually become one. There you have Wagner’s view of the path
to true love!
2 Spencer,
ed., Wagner Remembered, 149
3 Millington
and Spencer, ed., Selected Letters of Wagner, 307; in letter
to August Röckel in January, 1854
4 Dreyfus,
135
5 Dreyfus
147
6 as
quoted in Dreyfus, 150
7 Thomas
Mann, Pro and Contra Wagner, 137, within the wonderful essay
“The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner”
8 Millington,
the conclusion of his chapter 15 “In the Pink.” I read it on-line so I do not have a page reference, but the whole chapter is available to searching Google Books.
9 as
quoted in Newman, Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, 384
10 Cosima
Wagner Diaries, vol 2, 631, February 25, 1881
11 Dreyfus,
214
12 as
quoted in Dreyfus, 199
13 Selected
Letters, 602-603
14 Dreyfus,
188
15 Dreyfus,
204
16 as
quoted in Dreyfus, 205
17 as
quoted in Dreyfus, 207
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