VIFF Review: Wagner and Me

Wagner and Me
Granville 7 Theatre 5
Thursday, October 7 2010 6:00pm

I think for almost everyone of a certain age, including me, the first introduction to the music of Richard Wagner is when Elmer Fudd sings the immortal line, "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!". For British actor Stephen Fry, the first hearing of Tannhäuser on his parents' record player was the first kiss of a life long love affair with Wagner. But rare is the affair that is untroubled by complications, and Fry's Jewish heritage comes into uneasy conflict with Wagner's indelible association with Nazism.

There is no doubt that Fry is madly in love with both Wagner's music, and clothing in bright primary colours. His face beams as brightly as his wardrobe when he talks about the minutiae of the music. In one five minute segment we get a thorough musicology lesson in the "Tristan" chord and how Wagner developed the dramatic tension in his tragic love story Tristan und Isolde through the development and structure of the music through this one chord.

Fry journeys across Europe from Switzerland, to Castle Neuschwanstein in the Bavarian alps, to Nuremberg, and even Russia to follow the story of Wagner's uneasy life. On the trip to the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia to see a production of Das Rheingold, we learn this was a turning point in Wagner's life. Invited to conduct permanently here, he instead returned to Germany to complete the Ring cycle and seal his place in music history.

Fry is veritably giddy as he tours Bayreuth for the first time in his life. He takes us backstage, into rehearsal spaces, workshops, and underneath into mechanical staging areas. He interviews everyone from chorus members, costume makers, valkyrie singers, and even Wagner's great granddaughter Eva.

Throughout the documentary, Fry discusses the indelible stain upon Wagner's musical legacy. Fry's distress surfaces in Nuremberg and the rally grounds. Unlike the other tourists, he cannot bear to climb up to the platform where Hitler stood. He interviews a Holocaust survivor who lived because she was a cellist who could replace the deceased prisoner in the prison band. She does not like Wagner and will not play his music, but will not dissuade Fry from going to Bayreuth.

Fry does come to provisional terms with the dark associations of Wagner, and proudly presents his ticket to the opening night performance of the Bayreuth Festival. In the end it is the music that matters and it transcends any indignity, any tyrant, great or small.