Gottfried Wagner Seeks to Patch Up a Family Feud

Normally, the legacy inherited by any descendant includes carrying on a family feud. But how often is it that the descendant--especially the offspring of the famed--dedicates himself to clearing the name of one of his family’s most renowned attackers?

Philosopher and essayist Gottfried Wagner--the 41-year-old great-grandson of Richard Wagner--is not only taking steps to mend the historical rift between his famous ancestor and Friedrich Nietzsche, but is trying to rectify current misconceptions of the two Romantic thinkers’ philosophies.

“Of course! They tell me ‘You should not say those things as a Wagner!’ ” said Gottfried of the reaction he receives from some of his family and followers of Wagner’s music and ideas. “When I gave my lecture in Bayreuth, some of the old traditional Wagnerians stood up and tried to shout me down, calling me names.”

Gottfried will give a multimedia lecture on the complex Nietzsche-Wagner relationship tonight at 8 at the Goethe Institute in Beverly Hills. It will be part of a five-day series examining the lives and works of Wagner and Nietzsche, sponsored by the Goethe Institute and USC.

“My lecture will center around the development of Nietzsche starting around 1878--the human, psychological aspect,” continued Gottfried in a telephone conversation from Victoria, Canada, one of the many stops on his current lecture circuit. “My idea is that Nietzsche needed Wagner to find himself as a philosopher.

“If you examine his letters and other various writings, his journey into being a philosopher was a painful procedure. He suffered a lot.

“From a superficial framework his writings were perhaps a criticism of Wagner, but mostly they are full of marvelous polemics on Wagnerians. I have to laugh when I read Nietzsche because I think his criticisms apply to the Wagnerians of today, as well.”

Late in 1868, when Nietzsche and Wagner first met in Leipzig, Wagner was 55 and working hard to finish his operatic tetralogy on German mythology, “Der Ring Des Nibelungen.” At 24, Nietzsche, who was a young philology professor, knew Wagner primarily through his earlier operas and was eager to meet the composer, later embracing him as almost a father figure.

The rift between Nietzsche and Wagner exploded in 1876 when Wagner gave the premiere of “Der Ring Des Nibelungen” at his new theater in Bayreuth. Nietzsche then began writing critical essays attacking the new Wagner operas, and how they seemed to embrace bourgeois ideals.

“Nietzsche’s criticism of Bayreuth was a criticism of the followers, not the composer,” insists Gottfried.

“He saw that the situation could become very dangerous and had a bad feeling about the future. Wagner also had this feeling and was also dissatisfied with the development of his public.”

Gottfried feels this dissatisfaction was fulfilled by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler embraced both Wagner and Nietzsche as champions of German culture, and distorted their philosophies for use in propaganda which promoted anti-Semitic goals.

“Look at the vulgar and brutal way Nietzsche and Wagner were both misused during the 1930s and ‘40s in Germany,” he added. “This is a good example of the misunderstanding of the ideas of Wagner and Nietzsche.”

The Wagner Festival in Bayreuth continues to take place every year and the post of general director has been passed on to members of Wagner’s family since his death. Wolfgang Wagner, Gottfried’s father, has held the position alone since 1966.

When asked if he thought he would succeed his father, Gottfried admits that it is a question that he gets all the time. Yet he is adamantly opposed to doing so.

“Basically, I need space for my own artistic endeavors,” he said. “Yes, I know, I am a Wagner too, but I don’t want people to see us (the Wagners) as a clan. Don’t put us in a pot! We are all very separate people.”

Gottfried, who studied musicology, philology and philosophy at the University of Vienna, is not a composer himself, but has staged several operas in Europe and writes for television and radio. As an essayist and dramatist, his work centers around new innovations in contemporary art and the undesirable consequences of the will to power.

“I don’t want to make anyone happy--art takes courage,” he adds.

“The Wagnerians of today don’t like the word innovation, but Wagner was an innovator. That was his tradition, my tradition and the tradition of our family.”