Symposium on Wagner to Make a ‘Stab at Truth’

Among a number of events scheduled around the performance of four complete cycles of Richard Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” at San Francisco Opera next month, the most fascinating may be the symposium on “The Threat to Cosmic Order” being mounted at UC San Francisco on June 8 and 9 (the San Francisco Opera “Rings” commence June 6 and end July 1, in War Memorial Opera House).

Organized and overseen by Dr. Peter F. Ostwald, the two-day event will bring together the Wagnerian insights of psychoanalysts, medical doctors and specialists, of historians, Wagner biographers, singers, stage directors, scholars and even music professors. The participants will gather for panels, speeches and the reading of papers at the Laurel Heights campus of the university.

In a recent phone interview, Ostwald outlined the activities of this symposium on the tetralogy and the work’s relevancy to our time.

“Wagner is always timely,” Ostwald said, “but in 1990, the issues he raises are more close to us than ever.

“The reunification of Germany, much in the news these days, is only the most obvious issue. Throughout his life, Wagner was obsessed with the unification of the German states. A friend of (the Russian anarchist Mikhail) Bakunin, the composer participated in the revolution, and as a result was banned from (his native) Saxony.”

Then, too, Ostwald points out, in addition to its musical/dramatic content--the many separate elements in the actual plot of the four “Ring” operas--”There are the health-related issues: incest, dwarfism, gigantism and death in childbirth, among others. And don’t forget that Wotan has only one eye.”

That is a very symbolic point, Ostwald believes, and one that will be dealt with in a talk by Los Angeles ophthalmologist Sherwin Sloan, who is scheduled to speak June 9 at 11 a.m. Sloan says he will illustrate “Sexual Symbolism of the Eye” with more than 100 photos.

The question of German identity will be addressed in a talk by historian David Large. Wagner’s personality is the subject of two different speakers, the first, Leonard Zegans, a professor of psychiatry at UCSF, the other, Wagner biographer Robert Gutman. USC voice professor Herta Glaz will speak on “The Women in Wagner’s Operas.”

A Jungian analyst, Jean Shinoda Bolen, will open the section called “The Ring in the Mind,” with a talk “about gods and goddesses and their archetypal meaning,” Ostwald added.

And the issues of aging, death and immortality will be the subject of a speech by Dr. George H. Pollock, who is a professor and director of research at the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. Dr. F. C. Redlich of the UCLA Health Sciences Center will discuss “Wagner’s Impact on Adolf Hitler.”

One of Wagner’s recurring problems was, according to Ostwald, that “he didn’t know who his father was. This was exactly the same problem that Hitler had. There is evidence that Wagner might have suspected his father was Jewish,” which may have been the root cause of the composer’s outspoken anti-Semitism.

Still, Ostwald thinks, the most controversial discussion in the symposium may be the talk titled, “Taking a Stab at the Truth: Violence and Betrayal in Freud and Wagner,” by David Levin of the Department of German at UC Berkeley.

“Once in a while a person comes along who can put into words what others are thinking,” Ostwald says. “Both Freud and Wagner were good at this. In bringing together a lot of contemporary thought on both of these minds, we will truly be taking a stab at the truth.”

For information on the symposium “The Threat to the Cosmic Order: Psychological, Social and Health Implications of Richard Wagner’s ‘Ring of the Nibelung,’ ” write Extended Programs in Medical Education, UC San Francisco, San Francisco CA 94143-0742.

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