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The best books on Wagner recommended 

by Michael Tanner 

歌剧批评家迈克·坦纳荐书

By Charles J. Styles

本日保举瓦格纳

《理查德·瓦格纳：

一部列传》

德里克·沃森

《瓦格纳歌剧》

厄恩斯特·纽曼

《瓦格纳手册：

糊口与音乐指南》

巴里·米林顿

《戏剧与瓦格纳的天下》

迪特尔·勃希迈尔

《瓦格纳的正背面》

托马斯·曼

Richard Wagner's works are as immense as they are influential: the four-part, 15-hour saga Der Ring des Nibelungen is the most analysed opera of all time. And yet, Wagner was arrogant and virulently anti-semitic. Can we separate the musical genius from the man? Opera critic Michael Tanner recommends the best books on Wagner.

理查德·瓦格纳的作品弘大而影响深远，长达15小时的纳粉传奇故事《尼伯龙根的指环》由四局部构成，是丝必有史以来被阐发得最多的歌剧。可是，念书瓦格纳为人高傲且狠毒反犹，瓦格咱们能将音乐先天与其人辨别开来吗？歌剧批评家迈克·坦纳为咱们经心保举了几本对瓦格纳的纳粉亚傅体育app官网进口下载书。

The word ‘revolutionary’ is often applied to the 19th century composer Richard Wagner. This is mostly used with regard to his work, but also with an eye to his early political activity. How revolutionary was Wagner?

“反动性”一词常被用在19世纪作曲家理查德·瓦格纳身上，丝必多是念书用来描述他的作品，但也指代他初期的瓦格政治勾当。瓦格纳的纳粉反动性体此刻哪些方面呢？

Politically, he was very revolutionary for a period in the 1840s. He especially got caught up in and was excited by Dresden’s revolution in 1848-9. When that was aborted in 1849, he had to flee and it was only thanks to Franz Liszt and a forged passport that he wasn’t sentenced either to life imprisonment or possibly even execution. Several of his friends weren’t so lucky.

19世纪40年月那会儿，他在政治上很是有反动性。丝必他到场了1848—1849年的念书德累斯顿反动，热忱地投身此中。瓦格反动失利后，纳粉他只好逃离。丝必幸亏有李斯特互助，弄来了一张假护照，他才没被判毕生禁锢乃至极刑。kaiyun体育登录网页进口他的好几个伴侣可没那末荣幸。

After that, the normal story goes that from then on he did the usual thing of fighting a rear-guard action and ending up as an extreme reactionary. This isn’t actually true, although he was certainly a German nationalist in many senses. With his usual skill, he managed to combine anything that he wanted to believe in into a whole. For example, he thought that the ideal state would be a republic under a king, which is a nice way of squaring the circle. He just thought that would be the best way of establishing a stable Saxon state.

坊间传播的故事是，自那此后他照旧负嵎顽抗，最初成了一位极度的反动份子。但这并不失实，固然从良多方面来讲他确切算得上一位德国民族主义者。他凭仗惯常的技能，胜利地将本身崇奉的统统融会成一个全体。比方，他以为抱负的国度该当是国王统治下的共和国，这是将不能够变为能够的绝妙方法。他只是简略地以为，这是成立一个不变的撒克逊国度的最好路子。

But I think the main reason he became a revolutionary in 1848-9 was because he was in charge of the musical activities in Dresden and he was so miserable about the standards of performance that were expected and tolerated, the hard work that his musicians had to do for inadequate pay and the general disregard in which the arts were placed. He thought that they should be a central element in a society. He was sufficiently annoyed and depressed by the fact that the arts were so marginalised by his standards, that he became a revolutionary.

但依我看，他在1849—1849年到场反动的首要缘由是，当时辰他恰好在掌管德累斯顿的音乐勾当，而人们对表演的kaiyun体育登录网页进口等候和容忍规范太低，他部下的乐手们只能拿着菲薄单薄的薪水艰巨地任务，艺术受到遍及的不放在眼里，这统统都使他很是干瘪。他感觉艺术该当是一个社会的焦点。以他的规范来看，艺术的处境过分边缘化，他为此感应既愤慨又降低，就如许成了一位反动份子。

“His idea of art was apocalyptic enough for him to think that a work of art could effect an overall change in society”

“瓦格纳对艺术的构思带有激烈的预言性，他乃至以为一部艺术作品足以引发全数社会的变更”

In art itself, of course, he became gradually an incredible revolutionary. He thought that the arts should be absolutely central in the life of everybody which was, of course, extremely idealistic of him. The Ring, for example, which is the work that he wrote under the impact of the failed revolution, grew and grew and grew, as everyone knows. His original idea for that, as amazing as it seems, was that it should be performed in a wooden structure by the Rhine. There should be three cycles of The Ring, and then the festspielhaus that was built for it should be burnt down and so should the score. And that would be the end.

在艺术上，他也垂垂成为一位差别平常的反动者。他以为艺术该当是每一小我糊口中的相对中间，这申明他很是抱负主义。巨匠都晓得，瓦格纳在反动失利的冲击下起头写《尼伯龙根的指环》，以后几回再三加长篇幅。他最早的设法很成心思：把这部剧分红三组，在莱茵河边特地建一座木制剧院，表演以后剧院和曲谱都要烧掉。就如许竣事。  

He actually saw The Ring as a kind of ritual which would inaugurate a new age. His idea of art was apocalyptic enough for him to think that a work of art could effect an overall change in society. He probably needed to believe something like that in order to undertake such a gigantic project.

他现实上把《指环》看成一场驱逐新时期到来的典礼。瓦格纳对艺术的构思带有激烈的预言性，他乃至以为一部艺术作品足以引发全数社会的变更。也许对他来讲，为了负担起如斯浩荡的工程，确切须要有如许的信心。

Your first choice is Richard Wagner: A Biography by Derek Watson.

您首推的一本书是德里克·沃森的《理查德·瓦格纳：一部列传》

Yes, this is a very handy book. It’s the most convenient one-volume biography on Richard Wagner in English that I know. Watson writes about Wagner’s relationship with his second wife Cosima particularly well, but I think it’s all very good. It’s thoroughly sane and straightforward; it doesn’t have any stunning insights but it’s fair minded. He’s not grinding any axes, which is unusual for a writer on Wagner.

是的，这是一本很是适用的书，在我所领会的一卷本瓦格纳英语列传中，它是最好读的。对瓦格纳和他的第二任老婆柯西玛的干系写得特别出色，但我感觉这本书全体上都很是好，重新到尾层次清楚、直接了当，固然不过人的看法，但很是实诚。他不任何私心，这对一个瓦格纳的列传作者而言是难能宝贵的。

《理查德·瓦格纳：一部列传》

There aren’t that many biographies of Wagner in English. Most books are about him and his music, with varying degrees of emphasis on the music or the action with just a certain casual reference to the life. There are other books that are hard to classify like Martin Geck’s Richard Wagner: A Life in Music (2013) which is a very useful book but it’s a quite sophisticated conceptual approach. I thought about recommending it but, on the whole, I think it might be too demanding for those new to Wagner on the whole.

瓦格纳的英语列传未几，大局部书都是对他和他的音乐，各有偏重地夸大他的音乐或行动，而对其平生只是偶有说起。另有一些书很难归类，比方马丁·格克的《瓦格纳的音乐人生》（Richard Wagner: A Life in Music，2013）是一本很是有赞助的书，但此中触及的看法很是庞杂。我想过要保举这本书，可是感觉对不太领会瓦格纳的读者来讲它能够太难了。

Let’s turn to his music. Your second book choice is The Wagner Operas by Ernest Newman. Tell me about why you have chosen this.

让咱们回到他的音乐。您保举的第二本书是厄恩斯特·纽曼的《瓦格纳歌剧》，说一说您遴选这本书的来由吧。

This has also been published under the title Wagner Nights. This book is just extraordinarily good. Some say it’s out of date, but only because some small scale research has improved our knowledge of the precise order in which something has been written. Each opera gets something between fifty and one hundred pages. He explains how it was written in an extremely helpful way, elucidates the plot, then goes through the opera, quoting from his own translations.

这本书曾以《瓦格纳之夜》的书名出书过。真的很是好。有人说它有些过期了，但也仅仅是由于某些小范围研讨让咱们对瓦格纳作品的精确创作挨次加倍领会了。每部歌剧大要在书中占有了50—100页的篇幅。他用很是易于懂得的体例诠释了瓦格纳的创作进程，扼要归纳综合情节以后再具体讲授，书中的援用段落都是他亲身翻译的。

《瓦格纳歌剧》

It is scholarly in the sense that he doesn’t make any mistakes, but it doesn’t bog you down in scholarship. It also gives you musical examples of motifs, which some find daunting, like ‘renunciation.’ He didn’t have any question that there were such things as leitmotifs and that they had names. Actually, the best thing to accompany this is the CD by Deryck Cooke, who is a supreme Wagnerian authority. He takes you through The Ring with orchestral excerpts specifically played to show you the motifs. Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic are playing them, and he gets certain motifs played over and over again to show how they change.

这本书的学术意思在于不犯任何毛病，但又不会让人感觉学究气。书中还举了一些音乐念头的例子，比方“抛却”，有人也许会被吓到。纽曼坚信瓦格纳的作品中确切存在主导念头，且它们各有其名。读这本书时最好能听听瓦格纳音乐专家德利克·库克（Deryck Cooke）的《指环》CD，由乔治·索尔提和维也纳爱乐乐团吹奏，经心遴选的管弦乐选段能带你领会剧中的各个念头。库克会频频播放某些念头，好让你晓得它们是若何变更的。

How revolutionary were Wagner’s operas themselves?

瓦格纳歌剧的反动性体此刻哪些方面呢？

He was utterly musically revolutionary, but gradually. Nietzsche said that Wagner was the latest developing of all the great composers. That may be true, although nowadays people are looking more kindly on his first two operas: Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot.

他的音乐是极具反动性的，但这是个按部就班的进程。尼采说，瓦格纳是一切巨大作曲家终究要成为的模样。这番话也许是在理的，固然此刻人们更看好瓦格纳的前两部歌剧：《仙女》（Die Feen）和《禁恋》（Das Liebesverbot）。

Rienzi, his third opera, is never performed in full because it lasts longer than any other Wagner opera. He panic-strickenly cut it after the first performance because it was so long. And, actually, because Winifred Wagner gave the manuscript of Rienzi to Hitler as a birthday present, it seems to have gone up in flames the same time that he did. So, we don’t have the original complete score. We only have a piano transcription which has been orchestrated by Edward Downes. Anyway, it’s such a bad opera that the shorter it is the better..

瓦格纳的第三部歌剧《黎恩济》（Rienzi）从不完全地演出过，由于它是瓦格纳歌剧中最长的一部。首演以后，瓦格纳惊骇地停止了删减。现实上，威妮弗雷德·瓦格纳把《黎恩济》的手稿作为诞辰礼品送给了希特勒，厥后仿佛随他一路付之一炬了，以是咱们不本来的完全曲谱，只要钢琴谱，厥后爱德华·唐斯做过管弦乐配器。总之，这部歌剧其实糟，越短越好……

 It’s his Meyerbeerian grand opera, in the bad sense: lots of pomp, lots of dancing, processions, heavy scenery, historical plot, and so on. It is alleged that Hitler said that it all began when he heard Rienzi. Except he couldn’t have heard it to the end, I think, because Rienzi comes to a very bad end…

这是一部梅耶贝尔式（Meyerbeerian）大歌剧，但都是些不好的方面：排场弘大，良多跳舞和前进场景，浓厚的舞台背景，汗青情节，等等。据传希特勒曾言本身对瓦格纳的爱好都始于《黎恩济》。但我以为他不能够听到了最初，由于开头很是糟-……

But the two previous operas are quite good. Die Feen is a kind of Mendelssohnian fairy music. It’s a charming work and is very much on the Undine theme—like Dvo?ák’s Rusalka—about a mortal man and an immortal spirit and the danger of their coming together, with her sacrificing her immortality and so on. Das Liebesverbot is his drastic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure. This is a strange concoction of Italian opera. You would think it was Donizetti mainly. It’s rather good, although considerably too long. The overture starts with castanets for the first few bars.

瓦格纳的前两部歌剧很是好。《仙女》属于门德尔松式的仙女音乐，富有传染力。和德沃夏克的《水仙女》一样，这部歌剧也以水妖为题材，报告了一个常人和一个仙女相爱却蒙受重重阻力，仙女不惜就义不老之身的故事。《禁恋》是对莎士比亚《一报还一报》的戏剧性改编，奇异地稠浊着意大利歌剧，让人更轻易想到多尼采蒂。篇幅很长，但很是出色。序曲由几个末节的响板起头。

The Italian bel canto—these long floating melodies—was something that appealed to Wagner all his life long. Wagner actually loved Bellini and wrote an aria to be inserted in Norma, which is really strange. It doesn’t sound at all like Bellini to me, and it’s strange that it ever sounded like it to him.  Wagner said that he wanted his later music dramas to sound as if they were bel canto operas. This is all very well—he may have said that—but you couldn’t perform them that way because the vocal lines just cannot be made into bel canto lines.

旋律悠久缥缈的意大利美声唱法让瓦格纳毕生痴迷。他很喜好贝利尼，曾为《诺尔玛》写过一支奇异的咏叹调。我感觉它听起来一点也不像贝利尼的气概，奇异的是，瓦格纳本身却感觉像。他说他想让本身此后的音乐戏剧听起来都像美声歌剧。这是一个不错的设法——他也许如许说过——但这类归纳行不通，由于人声局部的旋律线底子没方法唱成美声。

The Flying Dutchman is only revolutionary in its quality, really. One of his versions of it is straight-through for a whole two and a half hours. That’s the version that I like best, and is his most Bellini-like work because it alternates between the passionate noble Wagnerian declamation—of the kind that you get in the later operas—and arias of a very Bellinian kind by each of the main characters. It’s one of the greatest operas there’s ever been.

《飘流的荷兰人》是一部反动性的作品。有一个版本长达整整两个半小时，这是我最爱的版本，也是瓦格纳作品中最有贝利尼气质的一部。借助每一个配角的归纳，在热忱崇高的瓦格纳式鼓动感动——他早期的歌剧便是这类气概——和贝利尼式咏叹调中自若转换。这是有史以来最巨大的歌剧。（未完待续……）

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