Wagner's Ring Cycle and interpretation

Cafe Society
1

A while back, I read George Bernard Shaw’s “Perfect Wagnerite”, only later seeing Wagner’s Ring Cycle Operas.

For those who aren’t familer with the book, Shaw argues that Wagner was using the Ring, at least in part, as an indictment of Capitalism, using the fact that in Rheingold, Albreich is enslaves his fellow dwarves/nibelungs using the Ring, forcing them to dig up more Gold for him. Shaw, as I remember, seemed to argue that the ring was a metaphor for money and capitalism(I could be wrong. As I said, it’s been a while since I read it, and I hadn’t seen the Opera at the time). If I’ve gotten this wrong, I’d appreciate being corrected.

My questions:

  1. Obviously Albriech is a greedy little bastard and the Ring gives him great power, but does that mean it’s all a metaphor for “Capitalism= evil”? Obviously Shaw thought so, but Shaw seems to have had definate Leftist sympathies, so he very well could have been projecting his own beliefs onto Wagner’s works.

I have no idea where wagner’s political beliefs lay, and I haven’t really seen much of the stuff wagner was working from. I do, however, realize that Tolkein had several of the same themes in his work, working off the same sources, and I’ve never heard anything about him being leftist(Though some hippies made Frodo a folk hero), so I’m inclined to believe it’s drawing more from the ancient source material then from any 19th century political thought.

To reiterate: How much was Wagner injecting politics into his art(if at all)?

  1. In tandem with the above question, Is Albrich considered to be an anti-semetic jab(Since Wagners distaste for the Jews is well known)? His behaviour is similar to stereotypical Dwarves, but some have speciulated that dwarves were originally Jewish Stereotypes as well.

What do dopers think about this? And I’m sure this has been a topic of dicussion over the last century or so.

2

Shaw says in *The Perfect Wagnerite[/] that Gotterdammerung is merely grand opera, Wagner says it’s the most important part of the Rung Cycle.
Wagner took some part in the Revolution of 1848 for whatever it’s worth.
Although he was anti Semitic, his favorite conductor (Richter?) was Jewish.

I think Shaw is using the Ring to blow his own horn, and that it’s much more art than politics with Wagner.

3

IIRC, Shaw claims that Wagner endorsed his interpretation, giving it some legitimacy. I seriously doubt that it’s the only possible interpretation, however, or even that this is mainlay what Wagner had in mind while writing and composing it.

I mean, if the whole point was supposed to be this politico-economic interpretation, and Shaw was the only guy to correctly interpret it, then the operatic cycle is kinda a failure, right? What good is an allegory if it’s too obscure for virtually everyone to grasp?