Wagner (1981) - full transcript
A huge panorama of Richard Wagner's life and work, from before the 1848 revolution, through his exile in Switzerland, his rescue by the besotted King Ludwig II of Bavaria, to the final triumph at Bayreuth. Richard Wagner's radical musical and political ideas, his German nationalism, and even his anti-Semitism are set in the context of his life and times.
(crickets chirping)
(wind whooshing)
(dramatic music)
(fire crackling)
(anvil clanging)
(somber music)
(water lapping)
- [Andrew] Let me read you this
from the "Dresdner Anzeiger"
of February the 14th, 1883:
A heavy and altogether
unexpected bereavement
has befallen musicians of
every race, country and degree.
We learn by telegraph from
Venice that the greatest
of contemporary
composers, Richard Wagner,
the second husband
of Cosima Liszt,
died there at four o'clock
of yesterday afternoon.
He occupied a loftier station
than king or kaiser,
pope or president.
No monarch was ever more
enthusiastically served
than has been Richard Wagner.
Infallibility, embodied
in a Roman pontiff,
has never been more
implicitly believed in
by the most orthodox Catholic
than it has been in the person
of the Bayreuth Prophet!
Put well, do you not think?
Put well.
(dramatic music)
(chains clanking)
(fire whooshing)
(wind howling)
(gentle music)
It goes on, it goes on:
Time and space fail us even
to make passing reference
to the literary labors with
which his busiest years were
in great part occupied.
A free thinker in
matters religious,
a democrat in matters political,
of a surpassingly
combative temperament,
Wagner could scarcely
fail to involve himself
in the revolutionary
agitations of 1848,
in Dresden, where he held some
minor musical appointment.
Minor!
In the light of Wagner's future,
perhaps, but Kapellmeister
to King Friedrich August
II of Saxony was a post!
To those of us here in
Dresden, a respected post.
Irksome to have
to visit the king
in his castle at Pillnitz,
a song in one's pocket,
to have to make music in praise
of one of those very princelings
one's political soul
cried out against.
But that was the condition of
Germany in the 19th century.
Insignificant city states.
And it was a post!
(singing in foreign language)
(king moaning)
(singing in foreign language)
(cymbals crashing)
(man snoring)
- (speaking in foreign
language) Majesty?
- Who's responsible
for this noise?
- Reissiger conducted the piece,
and it was got together by
Herr Wagner, Your Majesty.
- Wagner?
- Wagner.
- Very well
conducted, the piece.
Herr who?
Herr who?
- Reissiger.
- Oh, oh.
- I lay myself at
your feet, Majesty.
This piece does have within it
some not inconsiderable
(laughs).
- Very well composed,
Herr Wagner.
Very well arse-licked,
Herr Reissiger.
Oh, do you think so,
Majesty, do you think so?
I did do my best.
Then I do dash myself under
your feet, dash myself twice.
- It's different every
time he relates it.
We were not late.
As if I'd allow him to be!
Hm, hm?
- There sat I, paws
up, tail wagging,
waiting for a pat on the
head from von Luttichau,
begging to have gold
put into my mouth
rather than into the mouth
and tooth of His Majesty.
But what does it matter?
It is the path of the liveried
servant here in Saxony.
In the event I said thank you
and gave my royal
master the lot again.
But so moved my
army in its retreat,
my Grande Armee of
ill-disciplined musical invalids
and veterans, so
moved them, cajoled,
nudged, shoved, willed them,
the whole maneuver
so steadily executed,
thanks to my
unexampled activity,
that Reissiger never
even knew we had left
until von Luttichau told him so.
The last notes falling
on an echoing dream
on the royal ulcerated
tooth and ear, mm?
Wasn't wasted though.
Later used it all
in "Tannhauser," mm?
(gentle music)
(crowd chattering)
(somber music)
- [Crowd] Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner,
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
- There is something
to being German
altogether curious, you know.
We can take a song like
"Among The Meadows And Woods,"
and set it to music
in such a manner
that we all dissolve in tears.
And yet when we look
about us and see,
instead of a united
fatherland, a hotchpotch
of 34 kingdoms and
principalities, we are unmoved.
Our eyes remain dry,
our hearts do not beat
faster by one note.
Why, why?
Are we little people
with minuscule minds,
mere servants, ruled by and
subservient to our betters?
(crowd cheering)
I say to them,
our rulers, I say,
cast your titles and
distinctions from you!
(crowd cheering)
We too, the common
people, have ancestors.
And though they had no titles,
were not ushers
of the shithouse.
(people laughing)
(crowd groaning)
Their deeds of daring, their
vassalage, their sufferings,
are writ reeking in
letters of blood!
(crowd cheering)
Their blood, our blood banner!
(crowd cheering)
Two camps have arisen in Europe.
The cry from one is Republic,
the cry from the tents
of the other is Monarchy.
Monarchy?
What do you see?
You see a blinded
and corrupt tribe,
the rulers of Hessen,
Bavaria, Prussia!
(crowd cheering)
- I agree!
- What then of our own king?
I, his Kappellmeister,
dare say this to him,
become a prince who
heeds our advice.
- [Crowd] Here!
- Banish the sniveling Junkers
and their swooning dames.
- [Crowd] Here!
- Consult instead the free
folk, the German folk,
- [Crowd] Here!
- Those noblest of
children like unto gods.
Not servants in livery
or slaves of whim,
but elected and free.
Every man with a vote.
Our minds strengthened by
understanding of our past,
the myths and legends
and religion of Germany.
Let him, our king, let him say,
I declare Saxony a free state.
(crowd cheering)
Let him rid himself
of his sycophants,
and if he will not,
a word of warning,
as Christ says, "If thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off!"
- [Crowd] Here!
- Cut it off!
- [Crowd] Here!
- Cut it off!
- [Crowd] Here!
- Your fatherland
is called Germany.
Love it above all,
and more through action
than through words.
(crowd cheering)
Germany must have
its place in the sun!
(crowd shouting in
foreign language)
(bright music)
- [Pfeuffer] I've read your
husband's latest scheme
for an opera, Frau
Wagner, "Lohengrin."
- Yes, the "Poem of
the Swan Knight."
- Oh, how wonderful!
A swan knight.
I can see all the little elves
and fairies dancing
before my eyes.
- Unfortunately
we can't give it.
These unsettled times,
your husband writes to the
newspapers, Frau Wagner,
makes speeches he
ought not to make.
The King himself has had to
prevent one of his officers
from challenging your
husband to a duel.
"Lohengrin," it is stirring
and German and wonderful.
If only Herr Wagner
were not determined
on setting it to music himself.
(dramatic music)
(audience applauding)
- Meser, why do you
remove my Tannhauser
from your window,
all the copies?
Is my work not
fit for your shop?
What do you replace them with?
What's this?
Meyerbeer, dear God, Rockel,
we used to admire this man.
- And so you should.
Meyerbeer's a master,
he sells copy on copy.
- That's because you
are not his publisher.
You're an incompetent idiot.
- Ah, am I though?
Am I?
What are you, then?
This, returned from the
Munich court theater.
- This is monstrous!
They have not even broken
the seal to read it.
- Exactly.
You ain't being given, Herr
Wagner, that you ain't.
But Meyerbeer is,
which is a fact,
hence he can go out where he
might be bought, "Rienzi"?
Outside Dresden, where?
Performed once only in Berlin.
- Yes, and?
- And?
- [Robert] Konigsberg!
- Where?
- It is successful every
time it is given here
in Dresden, so is "Tannhauser",
so too will be "Lohengrin."
Damn you, Meser, I'm of a mind
to withdraw
"Lohengrin" from you.
- Then I would remind you
that you are not entirely
drawing the town.
I will not go forward
with "Lohengrin"
until you give me some money.
- Then you will lose a
revolutionary work, sir!
And are we not all
revolutionaries in these times?
- No, we ain't, Herr Rockel.
We are not.
We ain't.
You sport with known
revolutionaries,
you have ideas
above your station
as to unions for musicians
and a total turn out of the
Dresden Opera on its head,
which you put forward in writing
above the noble head of your
director, direct to the King!
Direct in writing!
Which king you would
have murdered in his bed.
This time we live in is
no time for grand opera,
no time at all.
And a word to the wise, hear me.
Herr Director Luttichau
has intimated to me
as he ain't gonna
do "Lohengrin",
for your arrogance
and your scorn
of the established genius
such as Meyerbeer's genius,
all of which gives me no
faith in you, young man.
Get rid of this anarchy and all,
then perhaps there'll
be time for an opera,
or better still
an operetta.
- There are going to be
new theaters, new music.
All who come between German folk
and their art will be swept
away in the revolution coming.
- Will they, though?
- Barbarossa, I am considering
Barbarossa as a fit subject.
Germany looks for
another Barbarossa.
- Barbarossa like Lohengrin
is not a fit subject
for an opera, not at all.
It ain't light enough,
no laughs in it.
(coughs) And what is more, no
person will wish to hear it,
in that it involves that which
people do not wish to hear.
(door thuds)
(clock ticking)
- [Minna] Shall you not do
duty with the Communal Guard?
- I shall not, I have resigned.
- [Minna] Why?
- I suffer from a double hernia.
- Should you not go
to Doctor Pusinelli?
- It was Anton Pusinelli
who recommended
that I had a double hernia.
- [Minna] Why?
- So that I need not do duty
with the Communal Guard.
- [Minna] Why?
- Who can tell which side
they're going to fight on?
For the revolution
or against it.
- [Minna] I don't understand.
Forgive me, Richard.
- In Paris it's about
the starving rising up.
In Hungary it's
about the oppressed
shrugging off
Austrian domination,
but who in turn will be
dominated by the Russian tsar.
In Saxony, here in Dresden,
it is about being given a sop
in the form of an
assembly in Frankfurt,
which purports to be an assembly
of all Germany, but isn't.
Which should have
power but hasn't any.
We are still half in Austria
and half under Prussia.
And it's about the Parliament
which our king now
threatens to dissolve.
There isn't a Germany yet.
And until there is a Germany
or a German consciousness,
I'm not going to
have an audience.
Damn it, people like me,
people like Semper,
Rockel, Pusinelli,
people with minds, free minds,
doctors, lawyers, musicians,
are always going
to be subservient
to the likes of Luttichau,
to the court, to a court
theater run by someone
who was Keeper of Forests
and Trees to the King.
- He and Frau Luttichau have
always been very kind to us.
- Kindness, I don't
want kindness.
I want money and
I want a theater.
I have plays, ideas for plays,
they're good, well
thought-out ideas.
What happens to them?
My report on the state
of the royal orchestra,
what about that?
Three months to prepare!
Three months, not
even read by the king.
My ideas for a national theater
of Germany, what about that?
Not taken seriously.
- Well, if there
isn't a Germany.
- [Richard] Hmm?
- Liszt is going to give
"Tannhauser" in Weimar.
- Yes, Liszt.
- Your devoted friend.
- He also knows how to--
- How to what?
Tug his very beautiful
forelock to his royal masters?
- Whenever you tug any
part of him, he responds.
- [Richard] I
know, the only one.
- Oh, please, Richard!
- Don't plead with me, Minna.
This isn't a time
for pleading, hm.
How can one talk to
these sabbath Christians?
I'm a better Christian than them
because I understand
what it is to be a pagan.
Luttichau, so pure he
extricts, extracts himself
from stinking when he farts.
Talk to him about an art
that embraces everything,
music, poetry, drama.
I know what it is
I'm brooding on.
You know, I have told you,
a grand, heroic, yes, for
lack of a better word, opera.
Yes.
Siegfried's Death, hmm?
Fire, water, hmm?
Destruction, and out
of the cleansing,
a hero, a German hero.
(dramatic music)
(fire crackling)
Christ, Barbarossa,
Siegfried, the same person.
- [Minna] You know that nobody
will be able to stage it.
- Do I?
You mock me for my seriousness,
but if one's not serious
about work, what then?
There is a stage, it is out
there, it is going to happen.
You would have me a journeyman,
on call as with the
king and Luttichau,
paid to toss off a
pretty little tune,
an accompanying tremolo
to whatever hack drama
they see fit to put on.
A pluck of strings,
rumble of drum
to signify that depth of feeling
which the words have
been too shallow
to express, that is my
job as Kappellmeister!
- That is not true!
(dramatic music)
(fire crackling)
- [Robert] You're afraid.
- Yes, I am.
- I was a journeyman
once, did everything,
when I first knew you.
Magdeburg, the
scenery, everything.
- You emptied the
hall of everyone
but your most ardent creditors
with your "Battle of Vittoria."
- A triumph of noise.
Scored for bugle
drum and firecracker.
Such a battle has seldom
been more cruelly fought
in any concert hall.
And you, you, Minna,
you didn't even stay.
(clock ticking)
- I hate noise, bangs.
(cannon booming distantly)
(people shouting)
Oh, God.
It has begun.
- Come on, up here, more.
Up here, yes, as
much as you can.
Come on!
Yes, very good, come on.
we haven't got
much time, come on!
More, more, yes, that's the way.
Yes, very good.
(somber music)
Yes, come on, plenty over here!
Come on, as high as you can!
Come on.
Yes, very good!
Yes, that's good!
Come on, up here on the top!
- [Ottilie] Uncle,
uncle, what is it?
- [Clara] Uncle, is it fighting?
- Yes, it is, Ottilie, Clara,
you are present
at the beginning,
a revolution led by
artists and men of means
against privilege, intellect
against indulgence.
Get me some food
together, Minna.
I'll be gone for some
time, until it's all over.
The revolution, the
revolution at last!
(dramatic music)
(door rattling)
- (gasping) After all these
years, after years of struggle,
at last, Kapellmeister
to the King of Saxony,
respected and
secure in the post.
- Open the door!
Open the door!
Open the door!
- No, no, I shall not!
I shall not, not
at all, not at all!
No, no, Richard.
- [Richard] Open this door.
Do you hear me?
(fists thudding)
- Oh, Richard,
they've come for you.
They've come for him.
- Richard, Richard,
where is Richard?
We've started it.
The king dared to
dissolve the Parliament.
Minna, where's Richard?
When Richard comes, he's
to go to the foundry.
- (sighs) Dresden is one
of the foremost
theaters in Germany.
(sighs) We are so lucky.
- [Richard] Open this
door, do you hear me?
- We have starved.
When we first came to Dresden,
we knocked walnuts
from the trees to eat.
(crowd shouting faintly)
I was so ashamed.
- [Richard] Open the door!
- You have borrowed
money from everyone,
even from the members
of your own orchestra
who have little
enough themselves.
You rant about their
conditions, their poverty,
their ill health and then
you borrow from them.
- Open the door!
(crowd shouting faintly)
- The only friends you have
left have nothing themselves.
Anybody will do.
Anybody.
Richard?
(door rattling)
(dramatic music)
- Bakunin, see here, come, look.
- [Bakunin] I see.
You are facing your king's
soldiers drawn up in ranks.
Your own soldiers against you!
- Semper, see that it holds.
Bakunin, these,
calling on the soldiers
not to fight us.
- Ludicrous, amateurs!
- Soldiers of Saxony,
lay down your arms!
Come with me, Semper, Bakunin,
we shall inform them
of their real duty.
- Simpletons!
- Lay down your arms, fellow
Saxons, fellow Germans.
Join us, the people of Dresden,
bearing arms to defend
our liberties and yours,
our liberties and yours.
We are all in the same boat.
We have to defend ourselves
against oppression.
Whatever happens in this world,
let us all be true Germans.
- If you ask me, whole
thing is doomed to failure.
(dramatic music)
(fire crackling)
(men shouting)
(horses whinnying)
(artillery booming)
(men shouting)
- The working man must lead
in the social struggle to come.
(men shouting)
Free men, artists, all of us.
Our struggle today
must express the will
of free people everywhere,
regardless of
national boundaries.
(crowd cheering)
Our nationalism, our
nationalist socialism,
must be only an ornament,
not a limitation.
Our work will either be
to free the human spirit
or else condemn it forever to
chains of economic bondage.
(crowd cheering)
- [Crowd] Wagner,
Wagner, Wagner.
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.
- Wagner, Wagner,
someone must show us,
show us what to do, direct them.
- [Richard] Me, not me.
Ask Bakunin, he's the
professional revolutionary.
I'm just a musician.
You, Semper, you build
excellent barricades.
What do you suggest?
You?
- No, no, no.
Bakunin may well decide to throw
in his lot with this
amateur revolution,
but I'm sure he'd say that
it was doomed to failure.
The wrong people
are inspiring it.
I mean, people like you and me.
I think he's just using
us to fan up the flames.
Why don't we climb somewhere
where we can see
what's happening?
- Ah, the Church of the Cross.
- Good, good, you go.
I am an architect who
has no head for heights.
- Up there, like
Christ on a temple!
- Oh, yes, yes.
When you write your
Jesus Christ opera,
the tenor must sing nothing but
* Off with his head!
And the soprano -
* Hang him
And the basso continuo,
that's Bakunin,
* Fire, fire, it's
the only way *
* The only way is to
destroy everything *
* Rubbish
- Yeah, yeah, yes, yes,
perhaps you're right.
* Off with his head
* Hang him
* Fire, fire
* Off with his head
* Hang him
* Fire, fire
* Off with his head
* Hang him
* Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire
* Fire, fire, fire
(dramatic music)
(fire crackling)
* Destruction
* Destroy and start again
- You set fire to
your opera house!
- No, of course I didn't,
but I should have
done years ago.
Such places should be burned
down, set light to it.
One can't do anything
with such places, Semper.
The places are built for
Italians and the court,
tiny houses for tiny music,
little mice squeaking in tune.
This, this is theater.
This, flames, we need
theaters that are this.
Amphitheaters of fire,
buildings that might
encompass this, contain this.
This is theater!
(men laughing)
(fire crackling)
(horse whinnying)
(men laughing)
(men laughing)
I scribble notes,
what I see for days,
in the hope it may be useful,
may help them aim their shots.
(artillery booming)
(bird chirping)
(bullet pinging)
The lark, up there,
soars to a dizzy height.
Larks and heroes.
Oh, how long will
this all go on?
Weeks now.
The bullet that can lay
me out has not been cast.
- Left, right, left,
right, left, right!
(dramatic music)
(footsteps thudding)
(bullet pinging)
- Do you see them?
- What?
- The bloody Prussians,
thousands of them, pouring in.
(men shouting)
(guns firing)
(dramatic music)
(men shouting)
- Halt, halt single file.
Halt!
(guns firing)
Company, halt!
(man shouting)
Halt, company, halt!
(man shouting)
(horse whinnying)
- Herr Wagner, we have met.
- Go back to your
Prussian master, sir.
- Take note I come
at the request
of your king to restore
peace and order.
Ridden post to get here.
You may go back to your
rum-tiddy-dumming, bandmaster.
- Damn me, had I a
musket, I'd drum you, sir.
Go back to your royal
Prussian master.
See if he wants his
boots given a polish!
- You thought highly
enough of my king
when you were touting
your songs in Berlin.
Tell me if I disremember,
but didn't you offer
to write him a march?
- I accept royal
patronage no more.
True patronage will come
from the people of
a united Germany.
- Under Prussia, sir.
- Under no man, sir,
unless we elect him.
(sword clattering)
- Because of my
high regard for you
as the composer of "Rienzi,"
I shall not cut you
down where you stand.
I don't fight musicians.
- [Man] Right wing, fire!
- Prepare yourselves.
(horse hooves clopping)
(men shouting)
- [Man] Fire!
Fire!
- What did the Prussian say?
- He'd seen "Rienzi,"
must have liked it.
(Bakunin scoffs)
(suspenseful music)
(man shouting
drowned out by music)
(artillery booming)
(guns firing)
- [Man] Fire, now!
(artillery booming)
(guns firing)
(men shouting)
(singing in foreign language)
- [Crowd] Wagner,
Wagner, Wagner!
(artillery booming)
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
(artillery booming)
(singing in foreign language)
(men screaming)
(artillery booming)
- [Bakunin] I don't doubt
you'll get more out
of it than I did.
(metal clanging)
(people screaming)
- [Andrew] It was as well
that Wagner left
Dresden when he did.
Another day or so and he would
have been clapped in prison.
Rockel was confined
for over 13 years.
As it was, a warrant
was quickly taken up
for Wagner's arrest and return
to the scene of his
activities on the barricades,
there to be brought to trial,
to face the music as it were,
to face the music no longer
as Royal Kapellmeister
with an orchestra
at his bidding,
but as a proscribed criminal,
a fugitive from justice.
(gentle music)
For two months, he stayed
out of the clutches
of the authorities until
he was at last forced
to flee Germany entirely.
Entirely.
He crossed into
Switzerland from Bavaria,
at Lindau on the
Bodensee, in disguise.
False papers.
Alone.
But as he wrote to a friend,
"From these ruins I shall
find most whom I need,
"then I shall erect a theater
on the banks of the Rhine
"and scatter invitations
throughout Europe
"to a great dramatic festival."
He did say that.
Then, as a man on the run,
as it were--
- Which one is yours?
Are you Professor Widman
or Herr Itzenpliz?
- Widman.
(boat whistling)
(gentle music)
- [Andrew] He was not to return
to Germany, any part of it,
not Saxony, not
Dresden, not Bavaria.
No state would have him
home for over a decade.
He was not to build his theater
and scatter invitations
for 27 years.
(flag rustling)
(birds chirping)
(bright upbeat music)
(door creaking)
- We've lunched.
And now they are
removing my doors.
(laughs) For some reason
best known to themselves.
Herr Muller, why is it necessary
for Herr Wagner to
remove my doors?
- Mr. Wagner must have a stage.
- Hm?
- From which to
read us his poem.
- Ah, hm.
So, I see, so Herr Muller,
I have provided a stage, a
stage, for Richard Wagner.
- Sit down everybody, please.
Make yourselves comfortable.
Before, before reading my
poem "Siegfried" to you,
before doing this,
I would like you
to try and understand
my position.
- On a door, you are
positioned on a door.
Isn't he, Baumgartner,
on one of Jacob Sulzer's doors?
- Please, please, please!
- My position as an artist,
my reasons for being
a year in exile
without writing
one note of music,
my purpose, my quest,
my search for and
study of those myths
and legends of our German past.
The German artist of
the future will emerge
from his mythic past
as I am emerging.
I am shedding those
distractions which wasted me,
those boltholes into oblivion.
Security, success, fear
of failure, change.
I seek to change entirely
that which has led
to me being here,
searched for as a posted
criminal in my own country,
where we failed to
change anything, hm.
Out of the realm of the
womb of night and death,
there came into being a
race dwelling in Nibelheim,
that is in gloomy subterranean
clefts and caverns.
They are known as the Nibelungs.
Feverishly they burrow
through the bowels
of the earth like
worms in a dead body.
They anneal and smelt
and smith hard metals.
(gentle music)
- [Andrew] Wagner began the
years of his exile in Zurich,
a town devoid of art
in the public sense.
But it did have a
thriving music society.
And good, simple-hearted
cultured persons,
determined to be friendly,
put him in the way of a
few coins to pay the rent.
Minna had resisted
joining him for some time.
She had been happy in Dresden.
It had been all she wanted
until the barricades went up,
and she was fearful that
as soon as she left Dresden
she would be shut out,
borders closed against her
as they were
against her husband.
She could not face the thought
of a life of exile
outside Germany.
But she allowed
herself to be assured
by those of us who
knew such things
that there would be no question
of her being forbidden Dresden.
She had no charge against her
of any action treasonable.
She could therefore come
and go as she pleased.
So, blameless, she went to
be at her husband's side
in his exile in a foreign
land, his pleadings answered.
Very well, she thought.
If she was sure she
could always come back
to her beloved
Germany, she would go,
make a home for
her beloved Richel
with Natalie, her daughter
by a previous
never-mentioned liaison,
their dog Peps, her parrot Papo,
and sundry items of
furniture and comfort.
- [Richard] Siegfried's Death.
First Norn.
- First what?
- [Man] Norn, you fool!
- Norn.
- First Norn: In
the East I wove!
Second Norn: In
the West I wound!
Third Norn: To the North I cast!
What wound'st thou in the West?
Second Norn: What
wov'st thou in the East?
First Norn: Alberich
robbed the Rheingold,
bent there from a ring,
bound there by his brethren.
Second Norn: Thralls
the Nibelungen,
thrall to Alberich since
his ring was stolen.
Third Norn: Free the
elves of darkness.
Free too Alberich.
Rheingold, rest in the waters.
First Norn: In the East I wove!
Second Norn: In
the West I wound!
Third Norn: To the North I cast!
What would'st thou in the West?
Second Norn: What
wov'st thou in the East?
First Norn: The giants
built the Godsberg.
With threats they asked
"The Ring" in pay.
The Gods bereft it
from the Nibelung.
(men snoring)
(gentle music)
- [Andrew] When she got
there, in September 1849,
she rolled up her sleeves
and set to, set to.
- That on night
hide once I'd fought
when the fearsome worm I slew.
Hagen: Brunnhilde, woman bold,
knowst thou a right "The Ring".
Wast it to Gunther thou gav'st?
Then is it his?
And Siegfried hath
won it by trick,
which the treacherous
years shall atone.
Brunnhilde: Betrayed, betrayed
most shamefully betrayed.
Treason, treason as
never yet was venged.
Gudrun, the Clansmen and
Women: Treason, vengeance!
(men snoring)
On whom?
(gentle music)
(bird cooing)
- Ah, Liszt.
Let's see.
"The Fairies."
37 years of age. (laughs)
The Royal Kapellmeister
Richard Wagner is wanted
for examination on account
of his active participation
in the recent uprising.
Medium height, brown
hair, wears spectacles.
That could be anyone.
Thank God.
- Wotan, Wotan, ruler of Gods!
Wotan, bless thou the flames.
Burn hero and bride,
burn eke the true horse.
In joy may greet Valhall, made
one for a bliss without end.
My venger, Hagen, my son.
Rescue, rescue "The Ring".
The end.
(men clapping)
- Herr Wagner, let
me fill your glass.
You have of course read
Wolfram von Eschenbach,
the Northern Sagas?
- [Richard] Yes, yes.
- [Man] Opera bores me, bores
me, it's got nothing to say.
- [Richard] I
don't write operas.
I write music drama.
- Ah!
- Shall I go.
- That's it, that's the thing.
That doesn't bore me at all.
Are any of your musicals
being given anywhere?
- Ah, yes, musicals.
- Liszt is giving
Tannhauser in Weimar.
- I can't go there!
- Neither can I any more.
- Switzerland is full
of people trying to flee
from somewhere, Paris, Vienna.
- Dresden.
- Ah, yes, Dresden.
He'll be arrested
should he show his face
anywhere in Germany.
- Paris.
Take this Siegfried
fellow to Paris.
But you'll have to put
songs in it for Paris.
- Ah, yes, songs.
(dramatic music)
(audience applauding)
- To meet you at
last, Frau Wagner.
Tell me, was the concert not?
- No, it was not.
- I know that most of the
orchestra are amateur musicians,
but does the music not?
- It does not.
- Oh!
Dresden has one of the
finest orchestras in Germany.
- This is a band.
- Oh!
- A small-town band.
A Swiss cheese and
mountain call band.
- Oh!
(crowd applauding)
- You were all quite dreadful!
- I think that Richard's
greatness lies in the way
that he faces adversity.
- Do you?
- Oh!
- My dear Sulzer,
come in, come in.
- I hear that your
friend Meyerbeer has had
another big success in Paris.
- My dear Sulzer, you
would not have me pander
to a swindler such as he?
Meyerbeer.
Last time I encountered
Meyerbeer was
in Paris in the music
shop of Schlesinger.
Was, at one time, Schlesinger's,
now owned by a much
more pronounced type
of Hebrew, one Brandus.
Now while I made conversation
with dear old Monsieur Henri,
the only person left at
all friendly and welcoming,
do you know,
Meyerbeer hid from me?
But I winkled him out,
brought him to face me there.
Meyerbeer, master of
melodious moonshine,
forced to come out of his lair,
stuttering and stammering,
professing false goodwill,
and here it came, here it came.
His assumption
that I was in Paris
to seek, as it were, my fortune!
- Meyerbeer was always willing
to help and did so often,
but like everyone else
who helps Richard,
they are eventually repaid
with scorn and derision.
- Oh!
- Meyerbeer gave out a
belch of manuscript dust,
his assumption dispelled
by assuring him
that the thought of
having anything done,
or underdone, or overdone
in Paris was odious to me.
But, whines Meyerbeer,
Liszt has published a
brilliant article about you.
We all read it.
Ah, replied I, it had
not really occurred to me
that the enthusiastic devotion
of a friend should be
regarded as speculation.
But, quoth he, and
here the man lies bare,
the 30 pieces of silver chink,
but the article created
a sensation in Paris,
you must surely seek to
make profit out of it
by following it
up with something.
Profit?
I told him that there were
greater occupations for my mind
when the whole world seemed
to be in turmoil and reaction.
But, a great but-erer
is Meyerbeer,
but what do you expect
to get out of it?
Are you set to write
scores for the barricades?
Whereupon I told him
it was not in my mind
to write any scores at all,
which took the ground straight
from under him and
laid him on it.
Meyerbeer, The Meyerbeer clique!
Twittering Nibelungs,
maggots deep in the flesh,
feeding on the sweet,
pretty, fleshy confection
that is Paris, a blood cake iced
and spattered with
silver and gold.
Pretty tunes,
music for brothels.
Deep inside the
cake, they twitter
and wriggle and copulate
and kiss and suck,
growing bellies that are fat,
shoulders broad enough to carry
the ponderous
crucifixion of fame.
Victors of the fame game.
I, Meyerbeer, salute
you with five acts
and a ballet decollete
called an opera!
Bravo, an opera by Meyerbeer!
The world hangs hushed
on every nauseous note,
stands transfixed in awe at
titles promising seriousness.
Hollow titles,
rattling with arias
and melodramatic arpeggios.
Empty rodomontade titles
like "The Prophet,"
a prophet who tells one nothing.
Meyerbeer entitles
his grand opera
"The Prophet" and it
prophesies nothing.
(metal clattering)
(somber music)
I can no more write operas
than I can fly to Paris
without the aid of
wires from a gridiron.
(Richard groans)
I know you have come
to encourage me.
I know.
I know you mean well, I know.
I swing, I am suspended, Minna.
I am neither here nor there.
I wait for times to change
and try to change times
by the essays I write
which you dismiss thus.
There is a Mrs.
Ritter who has a son
she wishes to be a musician.
A composer, I fear, of operas.
She and another lady have
offered to finance me while...
Oh, Minna.
- [Minna] Not yet.
How we've missed you.
- Yes.
Mademoiselle Minna Planer.
The beautiful, unattainable
actress I paid court to
for two years and two months
before she would have me.
You must not have another child.
- No.
I must never.
I must remind you, Richard,
that if I am barren,
as I am barren, it is
because your child died
before it could be born while
we fled from your creditors,
pursued by Cossacks.
- Maybe.
- To have another child
would mean my death.
- Yes.
- Never to have had
sufficient money.
Never.
It is so graceless.
- What would you have me do?
- Work as others work.
- Well, I give concerts.
I concertize for
pitiful sums of money.
(Richard sighs)
Is there something to eat?
- Tomorrow there
will be, thank God.
And Liszt?
- I thank Liszt.
Oh, I am your child, Minna.
- I sometimes think so.
Richard?
Why must you take
money from this woman?
- Mrs. Ritter?
Because she offers
it and she has it.
She's English, I think.
Or it's the other
one, one of them is.
- Is it beneath your dignity
to earn money rather
than borrow it?
These pamphlets and
essays you write.
They waste your time.
You're a conductor of concerts.
Conduct them.
You're a writer of music.
Write it.
So that we can live.
- Mm, Liszt wants
me to go to Paris.
He thinks I should, hm?
I'm grateful to Liszt,
but he needs me more
than I need him.
He is, after all,
a performer, hmm?
The darling of the salons.
They watch his
hands on the piano
and imagine them
up their skirts.
- Richard!
(Richard sighs)
- But he sees the
music of the future.
He sees it.
He sees the fusion of music
and drama, dimly, as I see it.
Very dimly.
Which is why I can't write
anything that will please you.
The form eludes me.
(gentle music)
I know it.
Greek, vast amphitheaters.
Life and worship in their art.
Sensual performances
understood by everyone.
Slaves, masters, all
equal in intellect.
Equal in sensitivity.
Same tongue, same myths.
Instantly accessible
through shared desires,
experience, food, even.
The same simple attic food.
Milk, wine, olives.
The same women,
enjoyed by master
and slave alike in
the same open manner.
Music is feminine.
It lies waiting
to be fertilized,
the dramatic seed
thrust into it.
Words, taken up and carried
further by the music.
But poetry...
Poetry is the reason for music.
And drama is the
reason for both.
(somber music)
(wind whooshing)
(fire crackling)
(crows cawing)
Paris?
Paris is for Meyerbeer
and his vapid nonsense
for which he earned in royalties
for one opera some
750,000 marks last year.
Whereas I got 900 marks for
the entire rights of "Rienzi."
- I told everyone
you were commissioned
to write something for Paris.
It was announced in
the Dresden papers.
- Why?
- So I should not
be ashamed of you.
- Ah, yes, yes.
Meyerbeer is in Paris and is
afraid of being buried alive,
given instructions that
bells should be tied
to his toes when he goes.
(sighs) He fears
suffocation after death.
I am in terror of
it happening now.
While I live.
Oh, heavens.
I have seen a theater of flames.
(somber music)
(wheel creaking)
- Liszt does "Lohengrin"?
- [Richard] Yes, something.
- Lohengrin, the King of
the Fairies. (giggling)
You remember.
Lohengrin, the swan
knight, a fairy.
- Mm?
- Silk?
How on earth have you
managed to afford silk?
- What?
- You've sent me
no money for weeks.
- I always try, Minna.
- Yes, you do.
- But silk.
- Oh, it isn't paid for.
Minna, you know I can't
wear anything but silk.
- Oh, Richard.
- Mitzel, Liszt
suggested that the court
at Weimar might pay
me a yearly sum.
A nice house might
be found for you.
"Lohengrin" might
be given in English.
London might do it.
You were right, Mitzel, my
old love, my dear old love.
Minna, the beautiful actress
laid low by the madman Wagner.
I must get something for Paris.
What do you say to
Wieland the Smith?
Shall your old Richel do that?
I know you think I should settle
to a decent living, not
live off other people.
I've been offered a few francs
a year to write something
by a lady from Edinburgh
who lives in Bordeaux.
She and Frau Ritter met
her daughter in Dresden.
Jessie Taylor,
called Laussot now,
married a young wine merchant.
He was on his beam ends.
If her mother can
put money into wine,
why not into Wieland
the Smith, what?
Where is there a
blacksmith, where?
I need to hear the sound
of metal being struck.
I must learn to forge metal.
- And I must learn to walk.
(dramatic music)
Richard, your words,
your ideas fill me
with confusion, love.
- [Richard] Yes, love.
- [Jessie] I give
it you, freely.
- Jessie, I know.
(gentle music)
Wieland the Smith.
You are his bride,
chained, iron-chained
and waiting for him to
strike off the chains.
- [Jessie] I do feel that.
(knuckles rapping)
- Enter.
(door clicking)
Did you enjoy your
walk, Mr. Wagner?
The sea near Bordeaux
is very bracing.
- (sighs) Madam, I
find it not within me
to enjoy anything at the moment.
I fear for my health.
- Oh, how distressing.
Did Jessie tire you?
- No, no, she...
She, she was an inspiration.
- I'm so pleased.
- Is the sea air of Bordeaux
helping you to recover
from that which has
brought you so low?
- Thanks also to you, sire, and
to your beautiful young wife
and to Mrs. Taylor
and, of course,
we must never forget Frau Ritter
who brought us all together.
- [Mrs. Taylor] She is a good
friend, a discerning woman.
- I see that your Dresden
friends have been sentenced
to death for their
part in the uprising.
- [Richard] Yes.
- [Jessie] Unthinkable.
- I must, you must go to her.
- Yes.
- (sighs) I was overcome.
- You are not now, overcome?
- I am recovered.
- Yes, well.
Well, we are all
upset at the thought
of what might be
lost to the world
should Mr. Wagner
have been took up
by the Dresden authorities
and so dealt with.
- Yes, it is well
known that my part
in the events was that
of a mere spectator.
- [Eugene] An
innocent laid bare.
A bystander.
- They were, are, for a
few days more, my friends.
Where will they go?
What will they find?
Is there a heavenly
place for them, a shrine?
A mossy bank?
I've tried to explain my
feelings, have written to them
in simple hope that they will
allow me into their last...
I have told them
that I am protected
by the most blessed
friendship and love.
Am I not in the
bosom, the bosom,
that place where love lurks
waits to do its healing?
I tell them nothing of the
financial plight I am in.
I tell them that,
however with renewed hope
and fresh strength to my,
in my wings I am carrying on,
going where they would
wish in my own way
and according to my own powers,
refleshed the work for which
they, supple-limbed heroes,
are laying down their lives.
- They are?
- Is there no hope
of reconciliation
between yourself and the
authorities, Mr. Wagner?
Shall you never be reinstated
in your position in Dresden?
- That, madam, I do not
desire and with your money,
which you've so generously
offered to remit me
it is not necessary for me
to be a servant ever again.
I shall go to the east.
- What an excellent idea.
- East of where?
Mrs. Taylor, with the
3,000 francs a year,
I will use it for,
I will use half of it
to provide for my wife.
- Oh.
- How far east did
you have in mind?
(gentle music)
(door clicking)
- I am going with him.
- With whom?
- [Jessie] I'm vital to his
development as an artist.
- So, too, you will find, am I.
I would remind you
that I have saved your
husband from bankruptcy.
I am delighted to help
Mr. Wagner as well
but to not to cut my
hands like a groom
so that he might more
easily mount the mare.
- I have never loved Eugene.
- No, daughter, but I have.
(Jessie screams)
Vital to his development indeed!
(suitcase banging)
(door thuds)
- I shall shoot the
fellow should he dare
to show his face in
Bordeaux ever again.
I shall indeed!
(speaking in foreign language)
(somber music)
(people chattering)
(horse hooves clopping)
(gentle music)
(chickens clucking)
- Stop!
(knuckles rapping)
- Yes?
(knuckles rapping)
Yes?
- You are Richard
Wagner of Dresden?
- I am.
If you are here to dun me, a
bailiff, I'm getting money.
I have a letter of credit
from a friend in Weimar.
The composer and
pianist, Franz Liszt.
I expect--
- Please, please.
- It is not money?
- It is by nature
of being political,
touching on state and power,
which I am encouraged,
as a guardian,
to pursue with zest and power
and to ask you these
several questions.
Might I put them
to you now, hmm?
(Richard sighs)
Why have you come back to Paris?
What have your reasons
been, apart from romantic,
for being in Bordeaux?
And have you tried
to communicate with
any here on the list?
- List?
- The list here given
of known
revolutionary-inclined persons
in alphabetical order.
- I was only a spectator.
- Read it carefully,
Herr Wagner,
and when you have finished,
I will escort you from Paris.
Ah.
Tannhauser.
(laughs) Now, this is splendid.
Revolutionary, one might say.
I am by way of being an
amateur musician myself.
- I am told that my friends
are to be executed in Dresden.
Rockel, the others.
Do you know, are they dead?
- They are not now to be
executed, merely imprisoned
though I would execute them,
for I am implacable as you were.
- [Richard] One should be.
- Herr Wagner, might I warn you,
you are marked and
will be watched while
you are on the list
and every country
has its own list
and its own influential people
who need only to denounce
you as behaving suspiciously,
as in Bordeaux, for instance.
Hm, hm?
- Mrs. Taylor, or
was it Mrs. Ritter?
Her son Karl has the makings
of a very fine musician.
Well, no, he hasn't the makings
of a very fine anything.
But, for the sake of
3,000 francs a year.
(both laughing)
- Hmm.
Might I take this?
- Please do.
- With a signature?
- Where am I to go?
Herr Wagner, you may
go where you wish
but you may not go to
Bordeaux, where you were going.
A signature.
- [Richard] I was going east.
- I am told that your wife
will arrive any day in Paris.
- Wife?
Wife, my wife writes to me,
asking that I should
not use any form
of familiarity or affection
in my correspondence with her.
In my letters, I should
address her formally,
as to a stranger
met in the street.
Wife?
- Might I suggest, Herr
Wagner, that for your safety
you should move on perhaps,
say, to Switzerland?
- [Richard] Yes.
(Richard sighs)
(Richard groans)
(dog barking faintly)
(dramatic music)
- [Andrew] Switzerland
was congenial to Wagner.
He suffered from ill
health all his life
and, like others before him,
thrashed his body
with healthy pursuits,
in Switzerland with Minna,
with two pupils taken in
to earn a modest living.
One of them was Hans von Bulow,
a law student from Leipzig.
The other, Karl Ritter,
the son of Frau Ritter
here in Dresden.
At whose house Wagner had
first met Jessie Laussot.
He had rowed a
boat one day across
from Lucerne to the
William Tell chapel.
In the boat, Franz Liszt,
Wagner's foremost
champion, always.
(dramatic music)
- [Richard] My dear
friend, my dear friend.
What it is to have you with us.
(dramatic music)
- Why does he smile so?
- He's happy.
- Is he?
No, Wagner, the gentleman
is very wealthy.
- Which gentleman?
- The gentleman I tell you of.
- Oh, that?
It would be difficult for me.
- I have taken
considerable trouble
with the hereditary
Grand Duchess Sophie
and she is becoming
a most accomplished prima
donna assoluta, as it were.
- As it were?
- Well, she can sing (speaking
in foreign language).
(both laughing)
I think the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
will pay you well
for scoring his new opera.
- My dearest, I'm sure
he will and so he should.
What was his last
opera called, "Tony"?
- Yes, "Tony," yes.
He's particularly intent
on copying your magnificent
use of trombone.
- Is he, who?
- Le Duc de Coburg.
- Who is your dear
friend and patron.
- Yes, he's a close
relative of Grand Duke Carl.
- And a dolt.
- Pardon?
- Only a dolt would copy
the use of trombones.
- [Franz] He asked me to find
out your rules in this respect
that he might apply
them in his own work.
- [Richard] Work,
he has no work.
What a doltish question.
How can you ask me such a
doltish question, Liszt?
(speaking in foreign language)
- I assured my royal
patron that I would.
- Did you?
Well, you tell him this, then.
Tell the royal buffoon
that I never use a trombone
unless I have an
idea for a trombone.
One just doesn't use trombones.
Tell him also that
I am searching
for a prince who will support me
not through my work
on whatever work
he may be amusing himself with.
I want a prince who will
support me undemandingly,
unconditionally,
unquestioningly.
By which I mean money, Liszt,
money, money, money, Liszt.
All I want is money.
Love, I abandon, and art.
- And politics?
- Ah, politics has abandoned me.
(dramatic music)
- Why do you smile
when I talk of Goethe?
He smiled all through lunch
when we discussed Goethe, why?
- Because I have a deep
admiration of Goethe.
- Do you?
And for France?
If you are not
prepared to accept
that France is the
cultural leader of Europe
then you are a baboon.
You certainly grin like one.
- Never, never argue with Liszt
about Goethe or the French.
I never do, Karl.
(Franz laughing)
(dramatic music)
(people laughing)
(people chattering)
- Karl, you must not.
- My dear Frau
Wagner, I must demand,
and get, an apology from him.
- Liszt is one of the
kindest, gentlest of men.
He would not dream
of insulting you.
- I have communicated
the outrage to my mother.
He called me a baboon.
Baboon face.
- Surely it isn't all that
important, surely not.
- Yes, it is, it is.
I am to be married.
I cannot be treated in this way.
- Marry, ought you to, Ritter?
- Ladies and gentlemen,
this telegraph has been
received from Weimar.
It is a poem to mark the
occasion of Liszt's birthday.
It will be read by one of
our own poets, Georg Herwegh.
(audience applauding)
= "The Lovers Blessed" by
Hofmann von Fallesleben.
In every nest where lovers dwell
Togetherness--
- Karl is very upset, Richard.
- Is he?
- When he was a boy, he
was teased unmercifully
and called baboon face .
- Was he?
- [Georg] Spring begets
each mother's dwelling,
with fresh, green blooms.
- The young fool isn't going
to make a scene, is he?
- So may we each
stretch out our hand
as we are led to
the better land.
(audience applauding)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(people chattering)
- Wagner, Wagner!
Is it often that you have to
play for your supper anywhere?
Wagner, well done,
far too well done.
I would much rather these
things be done badly.
- Francois!
- In what respect?
- In every respect, that
I better form my opinions.
- Ah.
- How can one correctly
appreciate and criticize
when seduced by the excellence
of Frau Heim and yourself?
- [Richard] Yes, yes, and Liszt.
- Oh, I think
Liszt played badly.
One could see the
genius, of course, but.
- Frau Wills, I am
concerned as to your--
- [Frau Wills] Pardon?
- Heine?
- Has the poet Heine, the
great German poet, Heine--
- Madame, I am aware--
- Heine?
- Has Heine been of any
influence in Herr Wagner's--
- Wagner?
It is the birthday of Liszt.
- I have the highest
regard for the poet.
- We think very little
of the poet, Heine.
- Oh, but Princess, Heine has
captured the German people.
- Karl, you must
not make a scene.
You must not, I
will speak to Liszt
and make him aware
of your feelings.
I am sure he will
apologize in his own way,
quite possibly by letter.
- I shall demand an apology now.
If I do not get one,
my mother shall not
give you another penny.
- No, no, wait!
- Why talk about Heine?
- Surely his name
will be inscribed
in the temple of immortality.
- I suppose so.
In shit.
- Are we not making
too much of it?
After all, the boy does look
very like a baboon, doesn't he?
(people chattering)
(people laughing)
- For years, I had in mind
the story of a young man,
a boy of great charm, of
great charm and beauty.
Without beauty, there's nothing.
My Siegfried is above
all those things.
Beautiful, no knowledge of fear.
A boy too stupid to learn fear.
- Whenever I have
the opportunity to
hear the Master play,
I am conscious of the
gift God has given him.
- Too kind.
- We should all pray our thanks
to God the Creator.
- I abase myself
before you, ma chere.
- What is Siegfried's
guardian like?
Well, one, small
and bent of course,
deformed, and he hobbles.
His head is huge,
a great bald head
with his small and shark-like
glancing eyes going
to the soul.
Festooned with a gray beard.
The embodiment of evil.
He does, of course,
resemble us to a hair.
- In Weimar, I am told they
plan to institute a festival
of music, opera and art for
to enjoy the whole people
of Germany and
also to cultivate.
- [Franz] Yes,
one would hope so.
- A transformation is needed.
Music must go through
a real transformation.
What is needed
more than anything,
however, is a
transformation in theater.
Listen to me, damn you!
Damn you!
Listen to me!
(glass crashing)
I'm Wagner!
(somber music)
(wind howling)
- [Karl] Herr Wagner.
- [Andrew] In 1851.
- [Karl] Herr Wagner!
- [Andrew] Wagner's
health gave out entirely.
- [Richard] Come on Ritter,
you must keep up, come on!
Semper, where are you?
- Entirely.
He was forced to spend
two months in a sanatorium
to take the water cure,
to stride the mountains
when fit enough but he suffered
from shingles, you see.
He suffered from constipation.
He suffered also
from gastric ulcers
but most of all he suffered
from black, hounding despair.
He had written no music
for almost five years.
If he could but
return to Germany.
But he could not.
He was still listed
here in Dresden
as a revolutionary criminal
but Semper, the architect
of the barricades,
joined him and
another revolutionary
friend, Hermann Muller
and there was always
the pupil, Karl Ritter,
upon whose money or rather that
of his mother, Frau
Ritter, Wagner depended.
They tried to cheer
him on his trudges
through the snow above the
clouds and sometimes did.
He wrote somewhere,
"Determined I shall return to
Zurich to die, or to compose."
(triumphant music)
- [Karl] I am on
the point of vomit!
- [Richard] Altitude,
you were not given a head
for heights, Ritter.
He is some help.
Liszt has recommended someone
else, a young man, Bulow.
He may be more, but this one's
mother pays well, Semper.
Pays well, Semper!
Look at it.
Every theater should
tumble before this
and come the day when every
German theater does tumble,
you and I, you with your
plans, I with my ideas,
we come up here and hurl
rocks we cannot yet heft
with such strength that
they will reach the banks
of the Rhine and,
there, slot into place.
We'll blow horns to call
our friends together
and perform three dramas
in the course of a week
which shall proclaim the
artwork of the future.
- Got away, by the very nick.
The nick.
I am now without
money and a refugee.
I haven't a penny to spare.
Not one, not one.
- Neither have I, I'm destitute.
- Not entirely.
- I am given to rages.
- I am covered with
the most beastly rash.
- I'm writing a play.
- I suffer from
pressure of the blood.
- I also, yes, yes,
and more than that.
An alarming, feverish activity.
Here.
For my shingles, I have
been taking sulfur.
So much so that I sweat sulfur.
Doctors, they give me poisons.
- I'm not convinced that
this water is the answer.
(somber music)
- [Man] This opera, composing
and such, are you still at it?
- [Richard] I am.
- [Man] Do you still
hope for change?
- No, I do not hope for change.
There is no hope for change.
The world is only of physical,
no moral, significance.
Then why seek to change it?
- Down, gentlemen, please.
(bell ringing)
(dramatic music)
- (sighs) I confess, I do
not understand one word
of Herr Schopenhauer.
- Oh, do you not?
- Herr Wagner thinks
it's very important.
He's read this book five
times in the last nine months.
Have you read it?
(bell ringing)
- Down, gentlemen, please.
(Karl coughing)
- I think it impresses him
because it fortifies
his own view of himself,
a genius, some
would say a madman.
But given the superfluity of
knowledge and artistic insight
beyond the normal
trivialities of paying bills
and earning a living
and, it would seem, breathing.
(bell ringing)
- Suicide, the supreme
assertion of the will.
Sacrifice and denial
of the will to live.
Stay down, all of you!
I must live on and suffer.
(Karl gasping)
(dramatic music)
(bell tolling)
(dramatic music)
(bell tolling)
(gentle music)
(bell tolling)
(gentle music)
(anvil clanging)
(fire crackling)
(dramatic music)
(wind whooshing)
(fire crackling)
(anvil clanging)
(fire crackling)
- [Bird] Naughty
Richard, poor Minna.
(tool tapping)
- [Richard] In the
mornings, I work.
In the afternoons, I walk, you?
- I work through the
night into the morning,
until I am exhausted.
- [Richard] I would ask you
to work in the afternoons
and be exhausted in the morning.
- Why?
- I am Richard Wagner.
- Success to you.
I am a gunsmith.
- I've never had need of guns.
- The pen being
mightier than the sword?
- Beating swords
into plowshares.
- So long as man strives
he makes mistakes.
- Every man is worth
studying carefully,
but not every man
is worth talking to.
Good day, sir.
(tools tapping)
(dramatic music)
(birds chirping)
(dramatic music)
- [Pfeuffer] I often
think a rich merchant
such as yourself is allowed
his prosperity, Wesendonck,
that he might come to
the aid of fine artists
such as Herr Wagner.
- [Otto] I can find
money for Wagner
but I would suggest
that his wife be asked
to control that which
we find for him.
Where is she?
- I am told she is
sickly, in Dresden.
Frau Wagner.
- Herr Wagner is, in
fact, a financial genius.
- You mean, in that
he obtains money?
- In that he persuades money.
- Now, his wife--
- Otto, were I
Wagner I would hate
to have my affairs
handled by my wife.
Indeed, any gentleman
would find it intolerable,
though, of course, in the
case of Herr Wagner, hmm.
Do you know he borrowed $1,000
from that booby, Ritter?
Yes, his mother already
remits Wagner a stipend
for the musical
education of the boy
as well as in appreciation
of Wagner's genius.
- He is that.
My own wife tells me he is.
And my sensibility confirms it.
One person who does not appear
to know this is
Wagner's own wife.
She sends him into
despair, I'm told.
Will not live with
him one minute,
cannot do without
him the next. (sighs)
I thank heaven for quiet
order in my own household.
Frau Wagner, she simply
doesn't understand the way
he writes and writes and
cudgels his brains to shreds.
You know, it's not merely opera.
It's not merely music.
That man just, well, he
wants to change everything.
But of course Wagner is music.
- Wagner, we discuss
your finances.
- Oh, yes?
- Yes.
On trust that I
shall be paid back
from future fees
from your operas
I shall let you
have 7,000 francs
which I trust will
expunge your debts.
- My dear Wesendonck,
I am grateful to you.
There is also the small
matter of some 500 francs,
I'd hoped to cover it
with a fee for "Lohengrin"
to be paid tomorrow, or they
will throw me out of my humble
(laughs) can't
sell the furniture.
Frau Wagner would never
forgive me, did I do that.
She has taken the cure.
I expect her any day.
Yes, yes, 500 francs.
Liszt does
"Lohengrin" in Weimar.
Do you know I have
never seen it?
Yes.
Nothing to do with her!
Nothing, the threads came
together, that's all.
Nothing at all to do with her!
Nothing, nothing to do
with Mathilde Wesendonck!
(gentle music)
No, no, no, never.
There was nothing she gave me
except a summer house at
the bottom of her garden.
That's all I had from her.
Nothing to do with her.
I'm sorry, Minna.
Sorry, sorry for
what I did to you.
Sorry, Minna.
Minna.
Sorry, Minna.
A house and garden
on my own. (sighs)
A haven of calm at last.
This shall be my
last move of all.
- Wagner, my dear friend!
I have something to show you.
- [Richard] Ah, of course
I shall pay you rent.
- [Otto] Of course.
- [Richard] And I shall
never put on livery again.
How I detested those breeches
and those stockings and
those buckled boots.
Most insulting to a man.
Now it is silk.
Do you know, Herr Wesendonck?
You must know, you sell silk.
You must know how
important silk is to me.
It is the only thing I can wear.
I'm mortified beyond endurance
if forced to wear anything
else next to my skin..
Covered in scrofula,
only the finest stuff.
And you would know the
finest stuff, would you not.
How well you have
done from silk.
And here you see me, who
cannot live without it.
(birds chirping)
(bells tolling)
(gentle music)
It's Good Friday.
- It isn't, church bells
are not rung on Good Friday.
- Yes, it is, yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
- Well?
- [Richard] Well?
Isn't it better here?
- Yes.
- [Richard] Aren't
you happy here?
- I had a letter from
Doctor Pusinelli in Dresden.
- [Richard] Yes,
how is the dear man?
- He thinks I take
too much laudanum.
- [Richard] I think that.
- You still owe him a
great deal of money.
He works for your reinstatement.
- What?
- That you might be taken back.
- [Richard] Back?
- As Kapellmeister,
it's my dearest wish.
- Not too much laudanum.
(gentle music)
- What have you there?
- It's a gold pen, given
to me by Frau Wesendonck.
- How kind.
How kind.
- [Richard] I see thee
in thy gorgeousness,
hear all those who
will never understand
what we are to each other.
Those who strangers
are, yet near to us,
how dare they speak to
us, speak between us?
They voyage the
questing, the voyaging
we do, you and I,
my sweet child.
Though dreams of you crowd
in, set sail with me.
Does my dear muse
stay afar still?
In silence I await your visit,
send you my barque
to transport you.
Together in our boat we voyaged,
no longer was I
alone, a lonely heart,
no longer the Dutchman,
wherever you are.
- [Mathilde] Everyone loves you.
You love many.
Your being as the sun is shown,
whose smile brings
every joy and blessing.
My heart loves
you and you alone.
So tenderly, so heart to heart,
you kissed me in my dream.
I feel it still,
that love-true kiss,
awakened though I seem.
And yet in life my waiting mouth
your lips have
scarce brushed o'er.
No look, no cry revealed to you
how sad my heart and sore.
O, do not scorn the dream
that gives high
courage to my mood.
Life looks on me
with hateful eyes,
the dream alone is good.
Then what is falsehood,
what is truth?
What life, and what dream stuff?
Let me go dreaming on and
on for I have lived enough.
Mathilde Wesendonck.
(door thuds)
(knuckles rapping)
(gentle music)
- [Minna] What does
that creature spoilt
by happiness mean to you?
- Minna, please, you must
understand she means everything.
- [Minna] That poor man.
- I don't understand.
- You treat him like a servant.
She treats me like a person
unfit to meet socially.
- You imagine everything.
- I see.
Very well, I shall go away.
You must stay and make
an honest woman of her.
(Richard sighs)
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
Here is another letter come.
(Minna gasping)
(Minna groaning)
- [Richard] You're not well.
(piano chiming)
- [Minna] No. (gasping)
Not at all.
- [Richard] This
cannot continue.
- [Minna] (gasping)
No, it cannot.
What is that?
- A drawing, a sketch.
- Where does it go?
- To Frau Wesendonck.
- No, it doesn't!
(door thuds)
(Richard sighs)
- Minna.
Minna!
Please try to behave properly
in front of the servants.
Such behavior is not understood
especially by people
like the Wesendoncks.
They don't live
that kind of life.
Such behavior is
unknown to them.
You are surely ill.
- You cannot talk
me round any more.
- Our intercourse has never
violated morals, Minna.
Minna, do you hear?
Minna!
I shall not deny our
love, but it is chaste.
Has never become carnal. (sighs)
(singing in foreign language)
My wife, were she well,
would thank you as I do,
for your kindness in
giving me luncheon.
Dear God, how I wish
they'd leave my work alone.
If they can't,
why do they think to
please me by this? (sighs)
My God, I regret ever having--
- Surely it is better
to have it given--
- What do you know
about it, Wesendonck?
What?
Do I presume to
tell you about silk?
How much in length?
If the conversation touched
upon the merchandising of silk,
would you ever hear
utterance from me?
(singing in foreign language)
I cannot go on with it.
I cannot see a way forward.
I'm stuck with it, "The Ring".
(singing in foreign language)
I'm in a parlous
state for money.
Parlous, once
again, I have none.
How it goes.
Those who said they
would publish me now
say they will not.
So I am advanced nothing,
nothing, nothing at all,
not a coin, though it is
read, published and read,
and even performed in parts,
in the bushes. (laughs)
I need money now,
a performance now.
I shall write a popular
work for ready money.
This woman, this
beautiful creature,
who has come into my
life to be my muse.
We must come to some
agreement about her.
Some arrangement must be made.
I think we should share her, hm?
(somber music)
- You use my house as your own.
I am put out.
I would wish to have said
this to you in private,
but there you have it.
Now said in company where I
would not wish to have said it.
- Otto knows about
our affection.
I have no secrets from him,
the father of my children.
- Quite so, quite so.
Do you know what is being
done in your house, Otto?
What it is we do together?
The Legend of
Tristan and Isolde.
A simple work.
Our constant companion,
these months, Mathilde and I.
Our love interwoven with the
love of Tristan and Isolde.
For the Emperor of
Brazil, he asked for it.
He will build a
theater in Brazil.
Semper designs it.
I shall put Tristan
and Isolde into it.
(man screaming)
I am going blind.
Blind, blind, blind.
(coughing) Blind, blind, agony.
(dramatic music)
(footsteps thudding)
(fire crackling)
(crowd murmuring)
(anvil clanging)
Nothing to do with her.
The threads came
together, that's all,
nothing at all to do with her,
nothing, nothing at all to
do with Mathilde Wesendonck.
Yes?
- Another dog?
- Yes, given us by Otto.
(Minna laughing)
(horse hooves clopping)
(birds chirping)
My dear fellow!
My dear fellow, how
wonderful to see you.
How do you do?
- How nice.
- Of course.
- Of course.
- More important than that.
Can I introduce?
- [Minna] Dear Hans,
you have been in Berlin.
How I envy you, you
must tell us all.
Your work, how well does it go?
- More important
than that, can I?
- [Richard] My dear
Hans, now we shall work.
- Did you abandon
the law altogether?
- Can I introduce my bride?
My bride.
- A honeymoon.
They want to spend it with us.
- Where else?
(bird squawking)
- That piano is--
- From Paris.
The only worthwhile object
to come out of that
sink, that pit,
given to me by the Widow Erard.
Frau Bulow, your husband
plays my rough drafts
as if they were already
set down for the piano.
We shall make a lot of music.
A lot.
- You'll be hungry.
- Minna will see that you
keep quiet in the mornings.
Then in the afternoon and
for the rest of the day,
we shall be with the Wesendoncks
and we shall all make
music together, all of us.
All of us, I am so
pleased to see you.
- Yes.
What can I do,
copying, anything?
- No, no.
(quiet gentle music)
How does "The Ring"
come, "Valkyrie"?
- That you should marry
the daughter of Liszt,
it is splendidly round
and come together.
There are times
when things do come
together, have completeness.
(laughs) I am so pleased,
but then you know that.
Minna, feed them.
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
The light, the light.
Oh, this light.
How long before it
was extinguished?
The sun had set,
the day had died,
but its spite was unquenched.
It kindles the signal
that holds me at bay
and sets it up by
my beloved's door,
so that I may not
make my way to her.
- What are your
feelings, Baronet?
Mine are that I'm
overwhelmed by the beauty
of the verse and the emotion.
(gentle music)
- I.
(dramatic music)
(door thuds)
(Minna screaming)
- Frau Wagner.
- [Minna] Frau Wesendonck.
I have, I am here to
tell you of my husband.
- You are?
- I've come to warn you of
the inevitable consequences
of your relationship
with my husband.
- Please, I would
rather you did not.
- I face separation
from my husband,
a man I have lived
with for 22 years.
I've been mistress
of his household.
I am the person to whom
you should hold
the utmost respect.
I am wife to once the most
respected composer in Germany,
who has in the past
done wonderful things,
been Kapellmeister to
the King of Saxony,
a position of some worth.
I have been beautiful.
Was ravishing.
Was worn down by his
constant attention.
Only this made me marry him.
But I have had to
support him for years.
I have been in the way
of becoming a very
successful actress.
I gave it up.
Gave everything up to become
the wife of Richard Wagner.
You have not anything
you have given to him.
Nothing!
- Frau Wagner, your husband
treats everything as his own,
including my house.
- Richard is in these
things quite shameful.
No, no, I do believe he
does not even consider it.
Everything is put in the
world for him to use.
He regards the
denial of anything
he might consider necessary
to him, a house, money,
creature comforts, people.
He regards such denial as
wicked, quite simply wicked.
He calls to me and says this.
Minna, we must separate.
Frau Wesendonck who admires me,
with whom I am
passionately in love,
cannot stand our
remaining together.
She cannot stomach
you, your sickliness,
your lack of children,
your barren womb.
This is not touching
on my state.
It is your vulgar letters,
the undermining of my position.
I am sick and ill and
cannot sleep unless I'm,
if I were a common woman,
I would show your
letters to that poor man,
your husband, that
he might judge.
Then my husband can
return to his work.
From which he has been
kept so shamefully!
(Minna sobbing)
(dramatic music)
(wheels rattling)
(horse hooves clopping)
(gentle music)
(water lapping)
(birds cawing)
- [Andrew] Almost
penniless again,
seeking somewhere
to work undisturbed
so that he might get
"Tristan and Isolde"
down in some shape,
Wagner chose to go to Venice
at an agreeable time of
the year, or so he hoped.
When he got there
he found it gloomy.
The gloom about him reinforced
the gloom within him.
Liszt had advised him
not to go to Venice.
Liszt was probably right.
But here he was, with his piano
and determined to work,
could he but find
lodgings, peace, quiet.
And he was ill again
with dysentery.
And he was still on the list
of wanted revolutionaries.
Venice, part of the
Austrian Empire,
should have been safe,
but all empires
distrust restless men
who find their names on
lists, and Wagner knew it.
He saw the crumbling buildings
between the buildings,
the steady lap, lap, lick, lick
of the water on the stone
and he sank deeper and
deeper into himself,
until he could
stand it no longer
and demanded the biggest
apartment that could be found.
Hang the expense.
Space was what he needed.
Hang the gloom.
He would fill the space
with warmth, his warmth.
His energy must be the source.
He would report to
the Chief of Police
and get it over just as
soon as he found somewhere.
- Herr Wagner, Herr Wagner,
you are come in
search of rooms, sir?
Not here, not here, sir.
Next door, if you would
be so pleased, sir.
- Unhand me, sir.
- Through here, Herr Wagner.
Large but not too
large, I fancy.
Are you intent on a long stay?
There is the matter
of references.
- These walls, are they filthy
or are they just
afflicted by the gloom?
Grey, hangings, I
must have hangings.
And what furniture is there?
- A small deposit, Herr Wagner.
(dramatic music)
(bell tolling)
(bright music)
- Art and Revolution.
Judaism in Music.
Opera and Drama.
A Communication To My Friends.
Sieg?
- [Richard] Siegfried.
- Siegfried's Death.
And your health, Herr Wagner?
- I improve, sir.
- Our Chief of Police of Vienna
says I am to send you packing
as soon as your health improves.
Venice being under
rule of Austria,
I am obliged to comply
with the requests
to have your letters inspected.
As well as a discreet
watch on those
that have come under suspicion
of revolutionary intentions.
Because I admire
you as an artist
and a thinker, Herr Wagner,
you shall not be inconvenienced
during your stay here.
(dramatic music)
- Well done, gentlemen,
rousing, rousing.
- [Crowd] Bravo, bravo!
- See what you can
do with Verdi next.
- [Man] Bravo!
(dramatic music)
- If you devote yourself
exclusively to your profession,
as the begetter of the
so-called music of the future,
then Venice is honored
to have you, sir.
And I shall say as much to
that Austrian, indeed I shall.
As for the Saxon authorities,
they can go to hell.
(bell tolling)
You will be watched
because I need
to show my Austrian masters
that I heed their instructions,
but my agents will be told
to help you, if they can.
- Do they copy music?
(dramatic music)
(men shouting faintly)
(bell tolling)
(gentle music)
(Robert screaming)
Nothing to do with her!
The threads came
together, that's all.
Nothing at all to do
with her, nothing.
Nothing at all to do
with Mathilde Wesendonck.
In my presence.
Do you know the story, Doctor?
Tallemant, the anecdote of
the duchess and the doctor.
The doctor bleeding the duchess,
and while he was doing
it she came to her senses
and told him he was
an insolent fellow.
How dare he have bled her
in her presence? (laughing)
(bell tolling)
- Permit me, sir,
I am Dolgorukow.
Herr Wagner--
- I am your servant, sir.
Zichy is my name.
- Yes, we are both full of
admiration for your work.
We have seen everything
of yours, everything.
- I have not seen
"Lohengrin" yet.
Not been given the chance.
- [Dolgorukow] "Lohengrin,"
yes, we saw that in Vienna.
- [Zichy] "Tannhauser"
we saw in Berlin.
- [Dolgorukow] Yes, the greatest
public success given to it.
- [Zichy] Yes.
- [Dolgorukow] Sir, you will
be transported with delight
when you can find time
to visit somewhere
where it is being given.
- [Zichy] Does
Karlsruhe not give it?
- [Dolgorukow] I
believe they do.
You may catch it in
Karlsruhe, Herr Wagner.
- [Zichy] Yes.
- [Dolgorukow] I would be so
interested in your reaction.
Do you feel it is not necessary
to see your work given?
- [Zichy] I saw
Tannhauser in the rain.
Indeed, it did not spoil
my enjoyment one bit.
At the summer
theater, Lerchenfeld,
the rain came down
and I left, but I had,
up to that moment of my
departure, been transported.
- Had you really?
- Yes, indeed.
Shall you give anything
here, Herr Wagner, in Venice?
- We leave tomorrow.
- Yes.
(gentle music)
(water lapping)
(triumphant music)
(upbeat music)
- [Richard] Where have you
been, Ritter, these last months?
You've left your wife?
I have needed money.
What is this of you
and Cosima von Bulow?
- Well, it was a shock.
The daughter of
Liszt married to my,
to our friend von
Bulow, out on the lake.
- What are you babbling about?
- Baron von Bulow.
- Who?
- Out on the lake she
threatened to drown herself.
For love, for me.
- You?
(sighs) Liszt is
gone from Weimar,
so we can't expect
anything from him any more.
He tells me Tristan
is a delight to him.
- You said my Tristan was wrong.
- What?
Oh, God, now they
re doing "Rienzi."
Salute him, salute him. (laughs)
I sometimes get a meal from
the officers of his regiment.
What Tristan?
- I tried to write the--
- So you did, that
was wrong, very wrong.
You don't know
anything about, about.
The sooner they go off and
fight the French, the better.
Give the French
"Tannhauser," boys.
There is to be a war, Karl.
(upbeat music)
- My Tristan was not
that bad an idea.
- You poor booby.
- Herr Wagner, I must warn you,
my family has very
little money left.
We cannot continue to
give you any more money.
- Well, why can't
you sell something?
Oh, very well.
My God, you are so
tiresome, all of you.
When will you understand?
Money, money, money, that's
all I want from you and Liszt.
Both of you, tiresome.
I shall go back to my true
friends the Wesendoncks.
Do not follow me to Switzerland
unless you're prepared
to put your hand in
your pocket some more.
Tell your mother that.
- See the amount I am
owed for these curtains!
And I am not the only person
in Venice owed money
by Herr Wagner.
- Months of rent he owes me.
What has he left me in payment?
Paper, paper!
Take back your hangings.
I don't want 'em, have 'em.
- "Tristan And Isolde." (laughs)
Will he dedicate it
to me, do you think?
(dramatic music)
(horse whinnying)
(footsteps crunching)
(singing in foreign language)
(gentle music)
- Your destination,
Herr Schultz?
- Paris, why not?
(somber music)
(singing in foreign language)
- [Otto] My dear fellow,
how good to see you.
- Wesendonck.
"Tannhauser",
Wesendonck, in Paris.
They want to do it,
offer me a contract.
Paris at last.
The Emperor himself,
very interested
in German opera ever since
his war with Austria.
I was in Venice when the
Austrian army was marched away.
They went off playing
"Tannhauser." (laughs)
Well, the Emperor beat them,
but has become very
pro-German since, I'm told.
Do you know my piano got
safely over the pass.
Not a bit out of tune.
Well, Tristan finished
and already I'm
thinking of a comedy.
So, do you know about
The Mastersingers?
- [Otto] No.
- Ah, a comedy, but
full of melancholy.
But to attack Paris the way
the Austrians were not able to,
I shall need funds.
How is Frau Wesendonck?
We've had some correspondence.
I would hope to see her
the longer my departure
to Paris is delayed.
- My dear Wagner--
- No, no, consider
it an investment.
Some small part of
it in actual coin,
if you would be so kind.
And do give your wife my
warmest greetings, (laughs)
Wesendonck, my dear friend.
- How much?
- Oh, well, I (laughs).
- How much?
(Richard laughs)
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
- Yes, a ballet, we
must have a ballet.
I shall do something about
the rather tame bacchanal
in the first act.
I've always thought I might
make it more voluptuous,
give Venus more, let us make
Frau Venus a real woman.
Eroticism, music to lay bare
our most secret passions,
our most sensual yearnings
to incite our senses.
Yes, yes.
- Tasteful, I hope, tasteful.
- Tasteful?
Do you know, Monsieur Royer,
this is the first time
I've been in a theater,
on the stage of a
theater, for many years.
- [Royer] In the first act.
- [Richard] Yes?
- You would put the
ballet in the first act?
- That's where it can go.
In Paris, monsieur, the
ballet is always placed
in the second act, you know,
where the gentlemen of
the town can see it.
In our experience, ballet in
the first act is too early,
in the third, too late.
The gentlemen of the
town have already
gone elsewhere for their, their.
No, no, a ballet in the first
act will not attract the town.
There you have it,
Monsieur Wagner.
Please meet Petipa.
He will design your ballet.
Please, he will explain.
- Monsieur Wagner.
- Petipa.
- Monsieur Petipa is
the ballet master.
- Whoremaster.
- Might one say, Herr Wagner,
that in Paris,
gentlemen dine at eight?
- Well, the orchestra?
- Competent, I think.
Quite a number of
them are German.
- Well, there you are,
they're the best in the world.
- Because they dine at eight,
they can repair to the opera
in time for the second act,
where they expect
to find a ballet,
as they will find tonight
in "Nabucco," as you see.
- You are ill-advised,
Herr Wagner.
- I never accept advice.
- I advise you!
- Oh, do you?
- Oh, from my heart!
- Ah, deep felt?
- You, We're
accustomed to a ballet
in the second act in Paris.
And the members of
the Jockey Club,
they will not accept your
opera should it not have.
Let me tell you
this, Herr Wagner,
without the Jockey
Club's attention we
are lost, lost, lost!
And that is fact.
- Is it?
- Absolutely fact!
- Ah, then which act will
the emperor wish to see?
If these gentlemen only
wish to see a second act,
I shall make that the best act.
- I beg your pardon,
the Emperor will wish
to see the entire
opera, of course.
- Then entire he shall see it.
Note on note, every sound,
every note as I intend it,
in the place I intend it to be.
And that does not
mean I shall give way
to gentlemen who'd rather
see Verdi in underthings,
rather lech among the
sprites than listen to them!
How well does Verdi write
second acts for brothels?
Does he prosper?
- [Man] Brothels?
- [Richard] If they can do this
to a revolutionary like Verdi,
what are they going
to do to me, Hans?
Well, we ain't going
to let them, Hans,
not an inch do we
give the whoremasters!
(train whistling)
(dramatic music)
- It goes, it goes well.
- It is a mistake,
is it not, Richard?
- I am beyond "Tannhauser."
- [Minna] But it is yours,
and you are given
this opportunity to
do it, here in Paris!
(door thuds)
What is this?
- "Tannhauser."
I'm revising the whole thing.
Well, most of it.
Indeed, some of it, the
tone of it, its color.
- Why?
- So it'll seem
the more sensual.
- This?
- Ah, a gift from an admirer.
On Wednesdays I am at home.
Minna, it might
please you to attend.
I now have a public position,
which you, as wife,
must share with me.
But this part of the
apartment is mine.
- [Minna] I am your wife!
- Yes, of course you are.
- Well, where has
the money come from?
- That is no concern of yours.
I must be able to
receive people.
My soirees are
attended by brilliant
and gifted people
with influence.
- [Minna] Women admirers?
- Don't be silly!
Admirers, supporters,
subscribers.
I cannot appear to
be less than they.
Meyerbeer gives money
away by the cartload.
As if it were done,
which indeed it is.
- [Minna] And you do
not soil your hands
in such dung, I take it?
- These are going
to be your rooms.
I will expect you to stay
in this part of the house.
But I hope you will make an
appearance when we have guests.
Just an appearance.
There's no need to be
involved in anything.
You, ah, you have a maid.
- Two pianos?
Where does the money come from?
- I have a contract
for nine months.
I give concerts.
- All these copyists!
You were forced to
work as a copyist once,
now you employ them
by the regiment!
How can you pay for them?
- They are paid,
they are necessary.
There is new music, a ballet.
Much to be done between "Venus"
and "Tannhauser" in French.
If the music sticks,
it's gonna be a devil
of a job to change
this back into German.
- That awful "Venus," I'm
never able to accept her!
- No, and I doubt you ever will.
- Are you given
money by Wesendonck?
- [Richard] I have been.
- [Minna] And what are
you given by his wife?
- [Richard] I shall
not suffer that again!
Go to your rooms!
I do not expect you
to enter these rooms
unless you are invited.
- I must sit down.
I feel faint.
I would not wish you to be
responsible for my death.
(Richard huffs)
(door thuds)
(Minna crying)
(dramatic music)
- Yeah, go!
No, stop!
No!
No, stop, stop, stop!
No, no, no!
Again, one, two.
(bright music)
One, one!
Go, go, and go!
Go!
Yeah, go!
More fire, go, go!
Stop, stop, stop, stop!
More fire!
Passion!
Gentlemen!
- Gentlemen, gentlemen!
- We are not Prussian
soldiers, but free men!
- Be so kind as to explain
what you mean by that, sir.
- Herr Wagner, the time
has come to say to you,
after interminable
rehearsals, sir,
some 100 or so to date, sir,
we refuse to be
drilled like Germans!
Even those of us
who are Germans!
- I shall need more rehearsals
from all of you, not less.
I shall supply you
with lunch and wine,
and I shall pay you extra,
out of my own pocket.
- Bravo!
- Bravo!
- Bravo!
- Bravo!
- Bravo!
- Yes, yes.
(bright upbeat music)
- [Hans] Sorry, my fault.
(upbeat music)
- I am Albert Niemann, I
will sing "Tannhauser."
- I'm Richard Wagner.
This is my assistant,
Hans von Bulow.
- [Albert] Do you want me?
- Mm, it is a thought.
- I am the greatest!
- I hear that you are.
- Now, what's the fee?
- I shall hear you first.
- An audition, to
give auditory trial!
- Well.
- I know the role backwards!
- Interesting, interesting,
how does that sound?
(singing in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
- By refusing to have a
ballet in the second act,
you have lost the services
of the principal dancers.
- That is so.
- Why?
- They will not appear.
I can obtain for you
three Hungarian dancers.
- Monsieur Wagner, we
beg of you, reconsider!
- No, you will have your ballet,
but it must be in the first act.
I must portion it
in the first act.
- [Manager] You will
play to an empty theater!
- You are being used!
- That does not happen to me.
- There's more to this,
"Tannhauser,"
political complexities.
- I rejected politics,
they're nothing to me.
- It is even said that
although France won the war,
there was a secret clause
in the peace treaty
which imposed a production
of "Tannhauser" on Paris.
- Huh, a German opera, at the
command of the French Emperor,
influenced, some say, by an
Austrian Princess Metternich.
Can't imagine why.
I've heard she can't tell
a fugue from a flugelhorn.
- [Hans] But you
must have friends.
- I've already been approached!
I refuse, I refuse
to employ them!
- [Hans] Then you
risk a great deal.
(dramatic music)
- All this concertizing,
simply to make money!
Bits and pieces, my
dear, bits and pieces!
- Herr Wagner, you
deal with a Jewess.
If you want money,
you must sign a note!
It is necessary!
- Yes, in the case of such
a person as Madame Schwabe
it is certainly necessary.
- Why, sir, would it not be?
I lend you money.
- You have taken a journey
into the music of the future.
Isn't that what he says?
- Hmm.
- You give me a promissory note.
- Ah, I do indeed.
For the sum of 3,000 francs.
- The whole thing is too long!
Too high and too long!
The score must be
cut, Herr Wagner!
We are doomed to failure
unless you cut, cut, cut!
I shall want to get through my
role as quickly as possible!
* Mi, mi, mi, mi, mi
My voice, you see!
This is my opera, and
unless you consider it so,
then scout out for
another Tannhauser!
- Well, take it down an octave.
Change a few notes.
Anything, it's only
music, after all.
(dramatic music)
(man groaning)
Monsieur Royer, I must
conduct the orchestra myself.
I've had 164 rehearsals
with the orchestra,
and now, within days of
giving my Tannhauser,
I'm told I'm not
allowed to conduct.
Listen to it, do!
- We must allow the music
director of the opera house
to conduct his own orchestra!
- His orchestra,
mine, I sharped it!
And the corps de
ballet is a disgrace!
- Oh, it is!
- It is not!
- Indeed it is!
- Look at that lumpish lump!
- [Manager] Oh, yes!
- I compose music for a wild
dance, wild, bold, sensual.
And look, what do I have?
- Indeed!
- If you could give a
ballet in the second act,
will you consider
a dance intermezzo
between acts so that--
- No, no, no!
To show their charms
to the admirers.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I am patronized
by the Emperor.
- Yes, simply because he wishes
to placate the republicans
by showing favor to
one such as yourself!
- It's because he's persuaded
by Princess Metternich
that he should hear Wagner
after all these years.
Wagner, do you understand?
Paris is to see Wagner.
Wagner, a serious and
dedicated artist, among this!
- There's always a grand
dislike of the influence
of Princess Metternich,
who's Austrian.
- I know she is Austrian.
We speak the same
language, to some extent.
Ah, Petipa, I'm in despair.
Look at that!
(hand thuds)
- Monsieur Wagner, I am
the finest ballet master
in the whole of France.
- Monsieur Sax informs me
there are not 12 French horns
in the whole of Paris.
- It is true.
- Then they must be made.
- What, I cannot do it in time!
Might I suggest...
- Petipa, don't you not
understand what I've written?
It is a bacchanal!
- Yes, but if I try to do
it, another to compete,
I would need all
the premier dancers,
and even so, were I
to ask of them to give
that what you demand,
the passion you expect,
and your music indicates.
Were I to, Monsieur
Wagner, in their tutus,
we would simply end
with the can can.
(French horn screeching)
Cancan.
(French horn screeching)
- [Andrew] Paris is the
center of the musical world.
It cannot be helped.
And Paris is not German.
In Europe, a success
in Paris is desirable.
Scores sold, works
taken up and given.
Wagner was well aware of the
importance of the occasion,
well aware, as he faced
his first opening night
for 16 years.
- Herr Wagner?
- Sir?
- I am here to wish you success.
- Thank you.
- [Man] You are sure of it.
- Thank you.
- I can guarantee it.
- Sir, I do not intend
to pay you anything.
You or any other
member of your claque.
- Well, I can guarantee nothing.
- I, however, can
guarantee everything.
(people chattering)
(instruments tuning)
I'm well aware that you, sir,
have these in your pocket.
- Do you talk to me, sir?
- Herr Meyerbeer,
I do talk to you.
Would you wish me
to speak in Hebrew
so that your friends
might understand?
- (sighs) I've never borne
you ill will, Herr Wagner.
Indeed, when you
were a younger man,
I thought I had done
you some service.
- The service was indeed slight,
but I thank you
for what you did.
I fancy any person
of discrimination would
have done the same.
It was obvious that my
work had to be recommended,
even by you.
- There is nothing wrong
with packing the
house with friends.
- [Richard] I don't
buy friends, or praise.
- From what one hears,
the flow of money goes
one way only, Herr Wagner.
I read your pamphlet
on Jewry In Music.
- [Richard] It was written
with such as you in mind.
- You used my name,
several times.
- [Richard] How did
you find the argument?
- I found it clever,
but offensive.
I prefer to consider it the work
of a bitter and frustrated man.
I shall ignore it.
- I have had letters
from unfortunate
Jewish musicians
who plead with me to show them
a way out of their misery.
Thus presented to them.
- [Meyerbeer] You'll have
no letters from me, sir.
- [Richard] I take it
you paid for your ticket?
- One should always
do one's best
for one's fellow musicians.
- [Richard] Allow
me to reimburse you
for what will probably be a
disappointing evening for you.
- Oh, come now, "Tannhauser"
is quite a good piece.
Overlong, but
quite well-crafted.
- It is wonderful and
wonderfully given.
It is all I would wish it to be.
That will be your
disappointment sir,
tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!
(coins clattering)
(instrument squeaking)
(gentle music)
(people chattering)
(gentle music)
(horn squeaking)
(people laughing)
- [Minna Voiceover]
Oh, the things
that have happened
to us in the past.
I try to put them
out of my mind,
but they re always there
at times such as these.
Frightening, shameful,
terrifying things.
We have both fled.
We have both been
hunted down for debt,
for intrigue, for debt.
The Cossacks,
always on our heels.
I know, even at our moments
of greatest security,
even when success trembles.
Please, please.
(gentle music)
(dog barking)
(marbles rattling)
(horn squeaking)
(people laughing)
(people whistling)
(horse hooves clopping)
(horns squeaking)
(dramatic music)
(crowd cheering)
(dramatic music)
- Get on with it, you idiot!
(crowd yelling)
(horn tooting)
- [Minna] Oh God,
not again, not again!
(dramatic music)
(horn tooting)
(crowd yelling)
(crowd whistling)
(crowd yelling)
(horns tooting)
(singing in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(toy rattling)
(crowd yelling)
(crowd yelling)
(crowd booing)
- Well?
- Politics.
- Niemann wasn't
good enough, was he?
- Quite.
(somber music)
- [Richard] When
you are recovered
you must go to live in Dresden.
- [Minna] Perhaps, you?
- Not sure.
Princess Metternich
is attempting
to obtain for me a passport.
Perhaps I shall be allowed
back in Germany at last.
I shall not stay in Paris.
Vienna, perhaps.
- I hate the French
above all others.
Such disgusting behavior!
- Yes.
If I am accorded a
passport, I will visit you.
- As you wish.
I intend to take
the waters in Soden.
- That I knew.
I have it arranged
with Pusinelli.
- You despise me.
- No.
- I hate you.
- Minerl, Minerl, you don't.
- Perhaps.
- Bulow is trying to persuade
the Grand Duke of Baden
to have me in Karlsruhe.
I shall, I shall ask
for a small pension.
- Do we like Karlsruhe?
- Perhaps.
"Tristan and Isolde," perhaps.
- That miserable moan.
That disgusting moan!
My husband wrote that,
that filth, that drug,
when he was besot with
Mathilde Wesendonck.
Culture carrion!
And impossible to perform.
I know, you will not find a
singer to sing it, I know.
- Maybe.
- Richard.
Promise me no more
lewdness with women.
No more infatuations with women
like Frau Wesendonck,
promise me.
(gentle music)
- Minerl.
- You're cruel, heartless.
I'm glad I'm going away.
(train whistling)
(train chugging)
- [Richard] Bulow,
what will you do now?
- [Hans] I'm offered
a post in Berlin.
They think of starting an
orchestra there. (laughs)
Berlin, and you?
- Switzerland, perhaps.
I must leave Paris, that I know.
Paris, look at it, Bulow.
There's a market for
anything in Paris.
Even the leavings from
the tables of the rich.
Smuggled out by servants.
Still sauced by their
master's spit, no doubt.
Back-door bones
from restaurants.
Paris won't pick on my bones,
even if I have to concertize.
Paris can afford anything,
can buy anything.
Anything, buy it and waste it.
We are gentlemen of
the three ins, Bulow.
In debt, in danger
and in poverty.
Two are enough for any man.
(dramatic music)
- [Andrew] Wagner became
a journeyman again,
concertizing, seeking a settled
existence, a place to work,
a patron to pick up his bills,
a theater to offer him welcome.
Always in his mind
there nagged a thought
that somewhere
there was a person
with the vision and the courage
to offer him everything he
might need to realize his ideas.
No state in Germany would
open its doors to him.
The insignificant princelings
Wagner and his
friends had challenged
were banded against him.
(dramatic music)
Everywhere that he went,
his piano went as well.
But most of all, he needed time.
Money to buy time.
His operas were given, true,
but the income from
them was small.
He was becoming
increasingly desperate
that he would never
be given the chance
to do the great work he
knew would assure his place.
But first he tried
Switzerland again.
Tried Wesendonck again.
- [Otto] Your wife?
- Not good.
Yours?
- [Otto] Frau Wesendonck?
She enjoys excellent health.
- Yes, good.
- [Otto] And your health?
- Mine?
- [Otto] Your afflictions.
- Yes, yes.
(sighs) The usual.
- Your skin.
- What did you say?
- [Otto] Hm?
- I hope to complete
"Siegfried."
- [Otto] And for
"Rheingold" and "Valkyrie"?
- 24,000 francs would be
an excellent investment.
I do assure you, Otto, you
will be the person who gains.
"The Ring" is going to
be a tremendous piece.
You are to be my
business partner
insofar as "The
Ring" is concerned.
I'll throw in "Meistersinger."
Soon finish that if
I can get a pension
and somewhere to live.
- [Otto] Investment
in what, Wagner?
I already hold publishing
rights to "The Ring".
Investment in what?
- In me.
In me, damn you, in me.
- Perhaps.
Have you tried Vienna?
On the other hand, I know
any reputable money-lender
would show you some
courtesy on my encomium.
- Thank you, Wesendonck,
but I will not take
money from those
who have no conception
of my worth.
I'm not a swindler.
(upbeat music)
(people chattering)
The Grand Duke of
Baden is thinking
of placing his theater
at my disposal.
- Is he?
- That's why I'm here in Vienna.
To look for singers
for my opera "Tristan."
- I shall see you
don't find them.
- Ah, but, Your Highness, I--
- Why not give us
your opera here?
- Ah, but--
- In Vienna we can
do it so much better.
- [Hanslick] Your Highness.
- Hanslick, this is Herr Wagner.
- Your Highness.
- One of the most important
critics in Vienna, Herr Wagner.
- I have a great
admiration for you, sir.
- Dr. Hanslick is a
very prominent critic.
- I know him, ma'am.
- My dear Wagner,
we must all learn to
deal with our critics.
Artists and royalty
are expected to smile.
- [Richard] He has attacked me
and my work "Tannhauser"
viciously and persistently.
He is a pedant, a time-server.
One day I shall
show him what he is.
I'll put him in a synagogue.
- My dear Wagner, the Grand
Duke is not interested
in "Tristan And Isolde."
He is interested in you.
He sees you as a political
feather in his cap.
He has told me as much.
You are the German composer
who was patronized by
the Emperor Napoleon.
You will find that
carries a great deal
of weight with minor
German princelings.
- Frau Kapellmeisterin.
- Sir.
- Herr Doctor, is that?
- Yes.
- He owes me money.
- He owes us all money.
- Is she ill?
- Yes.
She comes every day to
petition the minister
to allow Wagner back.
- [Ritter] Were we not
all revolutionaries?
I ask you that.
I was his oboist,
heaven help me.
I sought change, heaven help me.
(gentle music)
- I really want to help, but.
- [Richard] Well, if
there's nothing in Berlin,
I may as well try Russia.
- Tristan?
- In Vienna, with the Princess?
Hopeless, I continue
to work on it.
It's a simple piece,
but the difficulties.
That tenor will never
be able to sing it.
Doesn't understand a word of it.
Never been in love in his life.
I rewrite and rewrite
to suit his voice.
"Meistersinger" is the thing.
Some money, anyway.
And a household around me.
- I've arranged it for piano.
It might be something.
- You could sell your fur coat.
- He can't go to Russia
without a fur coat.
- Got it cheap. From
a Jew in Vienna.
He asked 220 thalers.
I told him, I explained to him
that I'd only been given
200 thalers for the concert.
So therefore he knocked
20 thalers off the price.
I could sell this, if only I
could find a Jew in Berlin.
The Grand Duke of
Baden gave it to me.
I asked him for a
pension and a house,
a modest retainer so that I
might settle to "Meistersinger,"
and he gave me that.
In Vienna they told me that
"Tristan" is unperformable.
"Rheingold," "Valkyrie", two
acts of "Siegfried," almost.
But not the music, not yet.
But it's there, if only
I can settle long enough.
Oh, I'm so weary.
I came near to doing
away with myself.
Maybe I shall.
- Not until you've
at least heard
my piano arrangement
of "Meistersinger."
Weitzman is your Jew,
he can sell anything.
I shall take it to him now.
At least you will
have some money
to get you to St Petersburg.
- My dear fellow.
(somber music)
(crow cawing)
(fire crackling)
(gentle music)
- Frau Kapellmeisterin,
the minister is not
able to see you today.
Would it be convenient,
might you call back tomorrow?
- Illness keeps us apart.
I would like to
be with my husband
but I cannot travel.
(dramatic music)
- [Richard] Well,
my poor good Mutz,
my Minerl, my good soul.
How do you find yourself?
I work and work in Russia,
find myself soaked to the
skin on numerous occasions,
find myself enduring all the
so-called joys of travel,
always beset by companions
wherever I can find someone
to let me stand in
front of an orchestra
and wave a baton,
a wretched baton.
How does your health?
Be patient and it will
improve, of that I'm sure.
Let me know all of your
treatments in detail.
I'm interested in
their workings.
I still suffer, but so it goes.
So keep fond of me.
Goodbye, good old Frau Minna.
Warmest sympathy
from your Richard.
(dramatic music)
You're afraid.
- [Minna] Yes, I am.
The way you would wish
to change everything.
Think more of your
position, Richard,
and less of changing everything.
You hack away and hack away
and you're not in a position to.
You sit on the branch
and hack at the tree.
I'm in the tree with you.
- [Richard] My worst enemy
is here in my own house.
- [Minna] Oh, no.
Not I.
He's so, so always in a turmoil.
Schemes, ideas,
not his business!
It is his business to
present music for the king.
That's all and
enough for anyone.
Dresden is one of the
foremost theaters in Germany.
We are so lucky.
(dramatic music)
- [Richard] Kindness,
I don't want kindness.
I want money and
I want a theater.
I've plays, ideas for
plays, ideas for reform.
They're good,
well-thought-out ideas.
What happens to them?
My report on the state
of the Royal Orchestra.
What about that?
Three months to
prepare, three months,
not even read by the King.
My ideas for a national
theater of Germany.
What about that?
Not taken seriously.
- [Minna] Well, if
there isn't a Germany.
- Pfordten, please, calling on
the soldiers not to fight us.
- Idiots.
(man chattering)
- [Minna] You know that nobody
will be able to stage it.
- [Richard] Soldiers of Saxony.
Do I?
- Yes.
- You!
- Me?
- Yes, you.
You mock me for my seriousness.
But if one is not serious
about work, what then?
Desolation.
There is a stage,
it is out there.
It is going to happen.
(dramatic music)
- [Andrew] Wagner did go back
to Vienna, destitute again,
all he had earned gone
and very little coming in.
But once again he found friends,
sought out Jews who
would advance him
on security of his friends.
Found another woman.
Settled to his stated task
of mounting "Tristan
And Isolde" in Vienna.
While here in Dresden
we began to listen
sympathetically
to the pleadings of Frau Wagner,
her husband employed
seamstresses by the score
stitching him into silk.
(Richard groaning)
- I was an enormous
success in St Petersburg.
- [Friederike] Oh, really?
- This modest
establishment in Vienna,
my favorite city in the world,
where all my friends are.
But I do need that our house,
your house, now my house,
be kept in order,
the cellars full.
To this end, my present
wife being unwell,
unable to take care of me,
perhaps I will divorce her.
I ask you to marry
me, Friederike.
- Richard.
- [Richard] Thank you.
(footsteps tapping)
- His Majesty has
again considered the
case of Herr Wagner,
and in view of the great esteem
that your husband is
afforded throughout Germany,
His Majesty is inclined
to grant an amnesty
so that Herr Wagner might
visit you here in Dresden,
in the city which was first
to recognize his genius.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
- [Purple Dress] How dare you?
- Sister?
- How dare you come into
the same theater as me?
I?
- And why not?
- I have my reputation
to think of.
You are his mistress.
I shall not rehearse while
you are in the building.
(dramatic music)
- Herr Wagner,
Master, I am unwell.
My voice is in
shreds. (croaking)
I am not able to sing Tristan.
- I'm free.
I'm free, I can go back.
Minna?
(dramatic music)
Minna?
It is I, Richard.
- [Minna] You have come.
- [Richard] Yes.
How is it here?
- Pleasant, when I am well.
- And you are not?
- I'm better now.
We have prepared
a bedroom for you.
Natalie.
- Richard, she is very
proud to have recovered
your old desk here in Dresden.
- [Richard] Yes.
- [Natalie] She hopes
you still remember it.
Will you stay?
- [Richard] A study.
I expect you still
owe everyone money.
- I expect I do.
You demand 3,000
marks a year from me
and what do you
provide in return, hm?
A settled household, hm?
Vienna is an opportunity.
Best I've had yet.
The city is welcoming,
the theater is,
oh, it's a chance, Minna,
a chance, good chance.
If I can manage to
put "Tristan" on.
Why, it's a simple piece,
written to appeal to the public
and be taken up and
done everywhere.
There's nothing very
complicated about it.
It must be very successful.
Though it is, as
I say, a hazard.
(somber music)
- The work is immoral.
- All I wish from you is
that you run my house for me
so that I might
work, nothing else.
- And what do you
offer in return?
- I've always offered you
respect and friendship.
- You once offered love.
- You once gave love.
- I was always at your side.
Your devoted wife.
- You cannot attack me.
- I do.
I accuse you of cruelty,
of infidelity and inadvertence.
- All that I ask is
that you provide a home
for me, a settled home.
- For you to come back to?
- Perhaps.
- You have thrown away every
opportunity offered to you.
A respectable life under
the patronage of the court.
- In Dresden.
- Yes.
- Where I was a
liveried servant.
- I was respected as
Frau Kapellmeisterin.
- Now you are respected
as Frau Wagner.
- I am Frau Wagner.
- Yes, you are.
You are.
Well.
(people laughing)
(people chattering)
(upbeat music)
(cork popping)
(people chattering)
(woman gasping)
(people chattering)
(cork popping)
(man yelping)
(people chattering)
(audience applauding)
"In the morning I
shine in rosy radiance.
"Soon all is lost from
blood and fragrance.
"What was won quickly
is soon turned sickly.
(audience applauding)
"Open to all was
this garden of mine,
"both to the beastly
and to the fine.
"Just bearably in
this space I'll be.
"Coinage, lead juice are
the fruits of my fee.
"From pillories the
aspirant calls me.
(audience laughing)
"On airy paths hang
I from the tree."
(audience applauding)
(audience laughing)
Second chapter.
- "Meistersinger."
Hanslick, you re
portrayed in it.
You should feel very proud.
It's not often a critic is
advanced for immortality.
(wheels rattling)
- I've called him Beckmesser.
I had thought of calling him
Arselick, as in Hanslick.
Ouch, that was my
backsliding by (murmuring).
- Is this the house of Richard?
- Wagner.
- Wagner?
- Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- [Peter] A dressing gown.
- Where does he find
the money for it all?
- He has been to
every Jew in Vienna.
- And this is what
he does with it?
- All of this?
Richard, how can
you afford all this?
- The simple answer is, my
dear Peter, that I can't.
(audience laughing)
- My dear Tausig,
you look so unwell.
- Oh, I've just agreed to
stand surety for Richard.
Signed as much.
I have agreed to cover
some of his debts.
(audience laughing)
- We're looking
for Richard Wagner.
- [Man] What are you
expecting from us?
- Frau Schott, Frau Schott.
Frau Schott, wife
to my publisher,
meet Dr. Standhartner,
physician to the Empress.
You will have lots
to talk about.
Herr Schott, Herr Schott,
you know Cornelius.
Peter, Herr Schott refuses
to advance me any
more money any more.
- I am not your--
- No, you are not, you are not.
Peter.
Peter, you are the
only real friend here.
Listen, we must live
together, we must.
(somber music)
- [Peter] Live with you?
Richard, you destroy
your friends.
Look at them.
You are generous.
- Yes.
- Too generous.
But you take everything from
your friends, everything.
Their money, their
women, their love.
Everything.
- What are friends for?
(servant whispering)
They've set the bumbees on me.
They're here to dun me.
I'm ruined, what can I do?
A miracle must happen,
otherwise it is finished.
- Then you must run.
- Where?
- You've had your
last penny from me.
- What kind of a
publisher are you?
You don't need a publisher.
You need a rich banker or a
prince with bottomless coffers.
- I'll talk to them.
You go, Richard, go.
- Yes, yes.
- [Karl] My name is Tausig.
I am surety for Herr Wagner.
- And who, if I may ask, is
surety for you, Mr. Tausig?
- Gentlemen.
- Mr. Tausig.
- Heavens.
(dramatic music)
(horse whickering)
(dog barking)
- Your Majesty, the strangers
list from the Chief of Police.
Every stranger in Munich today.
- [Princess] Is he on
it, Pfistermeister?
- No, Your Majesty, although
there are several Wagners
and even one Richard.
After all, it is a
very common name.
But this one is far too young,
a mere youth of 19, a boy.
- [Prince] Then if he
isn't going to come to us,
you'll have to go to him.
- Majesty.
- [Prince] I can't
wait another minute.
Not another day.
(dog barking)
(gentle music)
(horses whickering)
(wind howling)
(somber music)
(horse hooves clopping)
- [Richard] 24,000 francs would
be an excellent investment.
I do assure you, Otto,
you will be the
person who gains.
"The Ring" is going to
be a tremendous piece.
You are to be my
business partner
insofar as the "The
Ring" is concerned.
I'll throw in "Meistersinger."
Soon finish that if
I can get a pension
and somewhere to live.
- [Otto] Investment
in what, Wagner?
I already hold publishing
rights to "The Ring".
Investment in what?
- [Richard] In me, in
me, damn you, in me.
- Ah, Herr Wagner.
A gentleman has been
making inquiries about you.
- Name?
- Not given.
- Official?
- Very.
Come up for my luggage in
10 minutes, I'm leaving.
- Sir.
- Thank you, Wesendonck,
but I will not take
money from those
who have no conception
of my worth.
I'm not a swindler.
(dramatic music)
I can't live like this,
the miserable life of a town
organist, like Master Bach.
I must have beauty,
splendor, light around me.
I am not as others.
I have nerves that are
as sensitive as touch.
The world owes me
a consideration
and yes, yes, luxury.
Is it such a shocking
request that I,
who have so much enjoyment
to give the world,
should ask for some
little comfort in return?
(knuckles rapping)
Come in, my luggage is ready.
- [Pfistermeister]
Herr Richard Wagner,
musician and composer?
- Yes, yes, I am he.
- My card, sir.
- Private secretary to
the King of Bavaria?
- I have that honor.
Pfistermeister, sir.
- A young man, just
come to the throne,
everything before him.
He has everything he needs,
he is denied nothing.
- As the ruby glows
in "The Ring",
so the heart of His
Majesty burns with desire
to greet the poet of Lohengrin.
His portrait.
He wishes to see you at once.
He desires you to
accompany me to Munich.
Can you be ready for
the five o'clock train?
- Ah.
- Herr Wagner, I
shall expect you.
Good day, sir.
- Yes.
Yes.
(upbeat music)
- [Andrew] It was
a fascinating time.
Bavaria had a new young king,
brought to the throne of Bavaria
by the early sad
death of his father.
I knew him.
So, high hopes, the
things that were expected
of young Ludwig.
On the surface all was
expectation and anticipation.
A strong young king
and a strong people.
Strong enough to depose
young Ludwig's grandfather
when he shocked them by
his liaison with a person.
Shocking, a lady
called Lola Montez.
But Germany was still in
a turmoil, not yet united,
and Prussia intending to prevail
by force of arms if necessary.
The only state strong enough
to stand in Prussia's
way was Bavaria.
Here in Saxony, Dresden,
well, Prussia had
never forgiven us
for allowing our
little revolution.
But Bavaria, her strength
lay in her people,
eager to be led by
their young king,
looking to a new golden age,
aware that politicians
were jostling for power,
putting themselves
forward for recognition
by the new young king.
Aware that these
politicians would seek
to influence the King,
perhaps towards a
treaty with Prussia.
(upbeat music)
Perhaps towards a surrendering
of Bavaria's sovereignty
for the sake of a
united Germany at last.
Into this cauldron of
politics stepped Wagner,
seeing only the calm surface,
not the simmerings
and seethings.
Seeing only his swan king,
his perfect patron at last.
(footsteps tapping)
- Herr Wagner, we have
searched for you everywhere.
Vienna, we heard you were there.
Russia, Paris,
Switzerland, everywhere.
Since "Lohengrin," as a boy,
I have wished to meet you.
We intend to give
you everything.
I have found you
and I shall be true to
you to the ends of time.
- My debts are considerable.
- Ah.
- They amount to
considerable sums.
Considerable to me.
To His Majesty they are,
of course, as nothing.
I had to sell my snuff box
to buy my train
ticket to get here.
- Ah.
- Do you have a note of that?
My refund, of course.
A house, the Briennerstrasse,
fashionable but quiet,
near to the King.
Big enough for me
and my assistant
von Bulow, his
wife, her children.
His Majesty has offered me
everything I need
to perform my works.
He owns me and my works.
So together we shall give
to the world a model.
First things, a theater.
We must build a
theater, a real theater.
- Ah.
(gentle music)
- This is the Grail
Room, the thinking room.
- Yes.
- You understand?
- Yes.
- It is so called
because, because here.
- You will find sanctuary.
- We will find sanctuary.
(bright music)
- What?
- Semper is to be
sent for from Zurich
to make a start on the plans.
I am to complete "The Ring",
then an opera called
"The Victors,"
then "Parsifal" in 1872,
then in 1873 my happy death.
As far as the world is
concerned, I'm dead already.
Work is the only thing.
There shall be no distraction.
Nothing the world
can do can obtrude
because we are under the
protection of a prince.
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
- [Ludwig] The
first time I saw it.
- [Richard] Where,
where did you see it?
- [Ludwig] Here, in Munich.
I was a boy, but I
knew, when I saw it,
it was what I'd always known.
- [Richard] How was that?
- [Ludwig] Since, oh,
from the first awareness,
"Lohengrin" must be
about us, my family, us.
- I know, I know.
In Bavaria, everything
comes together.
The purest luck.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Ludwig] I intend to make up
for what you have
suffered in the past.
Though you cannot know,
you have been the sole
source of my delight
from my earliest boyhood.
I have lived in
waiting for the day
that I might give you life.
See here.
(singing in foreign language)
You who spoke to my
heart as no other,
you are to be simply my friend,
no duties, no
official appointments.
- Simply, simply, Majesty,
that I shall be the friend.
- Every day, come to
me, every day, forever.
Look over here, see?
Everything is known to me.
I have read everything there
is to read on the sagas.
My imagination
pictures them all.
"Siegfried,"
"Brunnhilde," "Parsifal."
But most of all, for I am he,
Lohengrin the Swan Knight,
we will breathe life
into them all together,
better than this, better.
Real flesh and blood
and sounds, what sounds.
(dramatic music)
(horse whickering)
(anvil clanging)
(horse whinnying)
(fire crackling)
First, because we are still
in mourning, a few concerts.
- Yes, of course, of course,
whatever Your Majesty commands.
- Some private studyings
of "Siegfried."
- Bulow.
- Bulow.
- Yes.
- Yes, Bulow.
I shall appoint him.
My prime minister
Pfordten shall arrange it.
- Yes, 18 years ago, when
you were born, Majesty--
- Friend.
- Ah, friend, friend, yes.
Then I had not done anything.
- "Rienzi," "Dutchman."
- Ah, yes, yes, but
Rienzi was flawed,
haunted by the
ghost of Meyerbeer.
- Your music makes kings.
Not too many of them,
I hope, in Bavaria.
- There is only one king
in Bavaria, only one.
You will adore "Tristan."
It's so simple, easy to stage.
- "The Dutchman" first.
- Of course,
whatever you command.
(singing in foreign language)
(fire crackling)
(people screaming)
(wind roaring)
(birds chirping)
- I am very angry.
- [Richard] You are?
- Your husband, Bulow, is
an old friend and pupil.
Apart from the pain it
will cause to Bulow,
to Minna, to all of us,
this amour you declare
could be very dangerous.
You are under the patronage
of Ludwig II, King of Bavaria,
and that is something
quite, quite splendid.
Now, you will know how
wonderful life can be, la vie,
perhaps yes, as it has to
some extent been for me
under the patronage of
the Grand Duke, le duc,
but there are
certain obligations.
- He asks nothing of me.
I don't have to wear livery.
I don't have to perform for
him like a monkey on a stick.
He asks nothing of
me but friendship.
- I see. Well, well,
(speaking in foreign language)
I must confess some--
- Envy?
- Cosima is my daughter,
(speaking in foreign
language) Richard.
Her mother and I, well.
Well, if your friendship
with Ludwig II,
(speaking in foreign
language) is--
- Is fast, safe, true.
He is a god, a young god.
- Surely there is something,
(speaking in foreign
language) to be cherished.
Cosi, you must understand.
Munich, is not a great
and cosmopolitan city
like Paris or Berlin.
The people can be scandalized,
shocked by a liaison
such as you appear
to contemplate.
Surely you understand
that if this happens,
it will damage your
standing with Ludwig,
destroy everything, the great
opportunity you, Wagner,
are at last presented with to.
And there is the
religious aspect.
- The what?
- Yes.
The spirit.
- Oh, I have always been
concerned with the spirit.
There is much work to be done.
- Yes, there is.
- When Bulow is better, he
will be of tremendous help.
- Is he unwell?
- Yes, poor fellow, his nerves
are shattered, shattered.
He reels from one
sickness to another.
I've obtained a position
for him at the court.
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
- [Pfistermeister] It
will pass, Majesty,
and even if it doesn't,
the King your son can
hardly come to harm
by consorting with a
composer of operas,
some of considerable
merit, I am told,
all of them very German.
- Is he political?
- There was Dresden.
However, the Saxons
have now seen fit
to permit him to return.
We are.
- Yes?
- Not disturbed.
- Well, I am.
Born a Saxon, imprisoned
for debt, I hear.
Ran away from his
creditors, stateless.
Swiss passport, probably forged.
Now a Bavarian citizen.
I ask you--
- Your nephew, sir, the King,
is filled up with
romantic intentions.
He sees knights with flags
trot down every lane,
cross every mountain.
Not, I venture to
hazard, a bad thing
for a new young king
not yet married.
The more he thinks romantic,
the less he will come to harm.
Youth, I value it.
- [Pfordten] He is
not, this Wagner,
not too much
artistically inclined?
- [Pfistermeister]
No, no, he is a person
of quite ordinary
tastes, except--
- [Queen Mother] Except?
- Well, his work, his music.
It is considered
sensual, erotic.
Young people are seduced by it.
But there is no
reason to believe
that they are seduced
to acts wayward.
The King's mind will be filled
with thoughts of swan knights,
maidens aswim in the Rhine,
Venus.
Why not?
Why not?
- The sooner he gets
married, the better.
- Indeed.
- Wagner must not be
allowed to influence unduly.
- At the first sign.
(birds chirping)
- (sighs) Very well.
(gentle music)
- Sire, might I present to you
one of the sins of my youth?
"Das Liebesverbot," one of the
first by a young man of 23,
never properly
heard to this day.
First performed, if that is
the word, in Magdeburg in 1836.
The tenor could remember
very little of it
at the time, took refuge in
chunks of other, other operas.
Would not have happened
at all had my wife
not sold her bracelet
to pay the copyist.
(bright dramatic music)
- There, that is the
ship you sailed in.
- [Richard] Yes,
yes, it's wonderful.
But--
- What?
- [Richard] May I suggest?
- Of course.
It must be right.
- Chased out by Russian
Cossacks, we were.
Debts, debts.
From Riga.
On the run, no
escape but the boat.
(gentle music)
The boat.
And then caught in a storm.
A storm so violent
that it dashed
against the protecting rocks,
throwing up a great barrier of
spray against the leaden sky.
And then the calm.
Peace.
A great stillness.
The feeling that we were lost
without a resting place,
like the Dutchman.
Alone, time standing still.
The beginning of a quest.
(dramatic music)
Peace, a great stillness.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no.
Look, if you look
after the little notes,
the big ones will
look after themselves.
So try it again now.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
No, no. (speaking
in foreign language)
Do you realize what it means?
Art thou mine?
It's a confession of love.
Now let's have
some passion in it.
Now try it again.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
- No, no.
If you just remember the words.
Remember what the words mean.
Forget the music for a second.
Just look at the words.
You must remember that
the words are equally
as important as the music.
It is, after all,
meant to be poetry.
I hope it is poetry.
So let us think the words
and the meaning will
then be perfectly obvious
to the audience.
We mustn't just get mellifluous
like those funny Italian operas.
Let's try again.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
- Maestro.
Does this high C
have to be there?
It's very difficult to get.
- If you can't sing the high C,
we will put it lower for you.
- Do we have to keep
the tempo there.
- You can take it
a little faster
and you can make
it a little softer.
You don't need to be fortissimo.
Ignore what I've
written down here.
Try it again.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Richard] I don't know
whether your voices are tired,
but you're shouting now,
you're not singing,
you're shouting.
- But it's so high, Maestro.
We're almost forced to.
- There's no line.
- How can we sing this top C
and then these things?
- [Richard] If you
cannot sing the top C,
we will find somebody who
can sing the top C, shall we.
- Well, I'll think you'll
find it rather difficult
at this particular moment,
with this coming round.
- [Richard] Well,
let's try it again.
Let's not lose our tempers!
Let's try again.
- Yes.
- Shall we?
(dramatic music)
(gentle music)
- Carry on.
Carry on!
Right!
Carry on!
Carry on!
Right!
- [Soldier] Right
turn and forwards!
Carry on!
Carry on!
(men shouting)
(dramatic music)
- [Soldier] Carry on, right!
(horse whickering)
(singing in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
- Was that good right there?
(singing in foreign language)
- Good, good, good, good.
Very good.
That's it.
(singing in foreign language)
That's it, now, you
see how it works?
- It is, your Majesty,
as if you were able
to see your dreams,
I would hope by
placing of a proscenium
within a very wide
proscenium directing the gaze
of the spectator towards
the object, the illusion,
a world focusing and refocusing,
until one is drawn
into the illusion.
- Wonderful.
- Every seat in the
theater is the best seat.
Everything can be seen.
- The orchestra?
- Under, under.
Unseen in a great
bowl under the stage.
An amphitheater in
the Greek fashion.
Semper, can we flood it?
- Well--
(Richard laughs)
(horse whickering)
- Herr Wagner!
You must help me to protect him.
- Who?
- Our king.
- Is he in danger?
- He has a great destiny.
It's written in the stars.
- Really?
- Wagner.
Herr Wagner, you
must protect him.
- Mm, yes.
- You do believe in the stars?
- Of course, of course.
- [Woman] Oh, Herr Wagner!
Herr Wagner!
Oh listen, Herr Wagner,
why don't you listen to me?
(somber music)
(woman speaking faintly)
- Oh, look here, somebody
ought to do something
about that woman, oh, look here.
- Dangerous.
- No, no, just silly.
- Wagner is very
dangerous in my opinion.
- Oh, no, just ambitious.
Aren't you?
Aren't we all?
Majesty.
- It is taking so long.
- Majesty?
- "Tristan."
Aren't you longing
to hear "Tristan"?
- Oh, longing, Majesty, longing
(singing in foreign language)
- There must be more
room for the orchestra.
How can we find more room?
Are you not used to full-size
orchestras in Munich?
Remove those seats.
- [Manager] Seats?
- Yes, the first
few rows of seats.
Or do you wish us to go back
to the Residenz Theatre?
- [Manager] Surely,
surely, Herr Bulow--
- Surely?
- We would lose
more than 30 seats!
- Does that matter?
Does it matter whether
we have 30 Munich (speaking
in foreign language)
in the audience more or less?
- There are people are
waiting to see you, Richard.
- [Richard] Who?
- Two people, they want
you to ask the king
for mercy on behalf of their son
who's been condemned to death.
- Me?
- [Cosima] What is she?
- [Richard] Tell her to go away.
- They've tried everyone else.
- [Woman] In the matter
of the king's life.
- His life is dearer
to me than my own.
- He must be protected!
- [Richard] Is he not protected?
- Do you want me to
tell them to go away?
- There are more
important things.
- [Cosima] Are there indeed?
- It is your duty to help
this wonderful young man
to fulfill his destiny.
- You must understand, Frau.
- I spoke to his father
and his grandfather.
I advised them that
they would fall
to the machinations of
evil men and be destroyed.
They would not listen to me.
I can see it in the stars.
You are his destiny!
- Do you want to
see these people?
- People, no.
(glass crashing)
- Ah, Richard.
- Richard...
- Bulow, it goes well?
- Yes, sir, thank you.
This is Ferdinand Lasalle,
who wishes you to
intervene on his behalf
so that he might marry
the daughter of Baron.
Well, sir, it is
because he's Jewish.
- Herr Wagner, our son is
condemned to death, sir.
- Can we not go elsewhere?
- Franz, get rid of them.
- Our son, sir.
- Condemned.
- I know Herr
Lasalle is a friend
and that he's deeply
involved in this affair
of the daughter of Von--
- [Mother] We wish only
to keep our son alive.
- We love each
other, Herr Wagner.
You must understand
that, you of all people.
- I must tell you this, sir.
You are ambitious.
The sort of man who
does not scruple
to use friends, who
does not scruple
to use anybody and
anything for private means.
- Without her I shall die.
- Perhaps, perhaps.
- Herr Wagner!
Our king!
You must help him
through the morass
of evil influence,
false advice given
by politicians
interested only in
self-advancement,
owing allegiance
only to Prussia.
You are his hope!
- [Father] Condemned
to death, Herr Wagner.
- Herr Wagner, help us
to keep our son alive.
- Get rid of them!
Get rid of them!
(dramatic music)
(dog barking)
- Yes, I said it.
- It is not you, not you.
They're beginning
to howl, the dogs,
consumed with jealousy for me.
The musicians, those that
call themselves musicians.
They had nothing worthwhile
in Munich until we came.
They will have
everything when we leave
because we give instead of take.
Give rather than take,
that's the truth of it.
What are we trying to do, huh?
A school so that we
might produce singers
like Schnorr here, who
can sing as well as act.
A theater big enough, what?
Nothing that is not essential,
food, wine, clean and soft
clothes so I do not erupt in--
- I am sorry.
- I suggest that you apologize
to the people of Munich.
- My apology is that
I have failed you.
But, if you wish me to, I
shall apologize to them.
- You must.
- Nothing must
spoil what we have.
All right, Isolde.
- Filth and money.
The artwork of the future
is filth and money, Wagner!
I know it.
Is Bulow still here?
Who gets into his
wife's petticoats, eh?
Bulow!
Who is it who worms
into your bed, eh?
(glass crashing)
- Excellent.
Everyone else is a blockhead.
Wagner is the only
intelligent man I know.
- Indeed, sire.
- [Pfistermeister]
There is the question
of the bill for 1,000--
- Paul, ask Wagner
to come and see me.
- Majesty.
- [Pfistermeister] Guilders.
- What bill?
- The bill for the
artist commissioned.
- I apologize, and I
have written my apology
so that it might be published.
When I spoke of (speaking
in foreign language)
I was not referring to the
cultivated Munich public.
(men imitating pigs snorting)
We have always shown
a proper appreciation
of the work of this
man you are privileged
to have in your midst.
- Paying to have in our midst!
- [Hans] Yes, paying!
Why should you not?
I call you (speaking
in foreign language).
You who scheme and
plot against Wagner!
You who seek to undermine
his friendship with the king!
- [Pfordten] Herr Wagner.
- [Richard] Sir?
- [Pfordten] You wait?
- [Richard] The King
has sent for me, sir.
- [Pfordten] Not
today, thank you.
Your wares are not required
today, Herr Wagner.
- [Richard] The King
wishes to see me, sir.
- His Majesty will not see you.
- [Richard] His Majesty sent
his ADC to bring me to him.
I was at rehearsal.
That man, that man, is my enemy!
- No, no, but, you
see, the portrait--
- [Richard] The King
does not like it?
- Yes, but in the
matter of the bill.
He doesn't regard it as
the action of a friend.
- I beg your pardon?
- No, not the action of a friend
to send his Majesty a portrait
and then ask his
Majesty to pay for it.
- But he asked me
to have it painted.
My boy commissioned it.
- His Majesty regards
this as a gift.
He's very displeased
that you should ask.
- Even chorus girls who give
to the King anything, anything,
they are reimbursed,
are they not?
- Certainly, so.
But you are no chorus
girl, Herr Wagner.
We must remember Lola Montez.
- Must we?
- She is still fresh in the
memory of the people of Bavaria
that little business between her
and the king's
grandfather, you know.
- Is that any reason why
I should be concerned?
- Oh, yes, Herr Wagner, oh yes.
You are already being spoken
of as another such as she.
- How disgusting.
- And there are stories
being circulated
about your relationship
with the Baronin von Bulow.
- How petty.
- How true?
- I cannot answer.
I am set back on my heels
always by scurrility.
I am astounded that such
things should be said.
The house is being bombarded,
stones at the windows, why?
- Herr Wagner, we love our king.
We are jealous of
him, he is ours.
You come from nowhere,
bring others with you,
foreigners, Protestants,
people who are not
the people of Bavaria.
It is a very ancient kingdom.
There is a bond between
monarchy and people
you have been seen
to come between.
He, our young king, seems
to prefer your company
to that of others for the
proper exercise of his duties.
He seems to.
Oh, now that is not
altogether wrong,
provided that you are an
influence for the good.
Like the beautiful
Princess Sophie.
How well he rides with her.
Oh, do look at them.
He delights in her company.
The pleasure they
take in each other.
Altogether good,
altogether proper.
Tea, Herr Wagner, tea?
- I must go back to the theater.
- [Pfistermeister]
How goes the opera?
- How goes it?
How is it?
How goes it?
If I told you, would
you understand?
- Perhaps not.
I was simply being polite.
I will now be somewhat
less than polite and ask,
While whilst the whole of
Munich waits with bated breath
for your "Tristan And Isolde"
or "Siegfried," is it?
Or whatever else
in years to come
you will slowly and laboriously
and, I have no
doubt, very well do,
is it anywhere in your nature
to be a little quicker and
a little less extravagant?
Sufficient comfort and
food and reasonable wealth
should surely be
enough for any artist.
Actors, singers, dancers,
some of them can be very
good on very little.
Horses do wonders with
a little kindness.
- I am not a horse.
- Oh, no, why should you be?
But, (laughs) there are those
who would have me removed.
Me, your friend.
Pfordten jostles, influence.
If you could see your way
to influence the King.
After all, you have your house,
money, a very snug jointure.
Good heavens, anything you wish.
Would you be so kind as to
present certain political facts
that I shall give you to
his Majesty on my behalf?
- Minister, what do you suggest?
As if I were some paid hireling,
some little actress, some
kept and remunerated creature
in an apartment on
the Briennerstrasse
waiting on visits
and chocolates,
legs spread, arse cushioned,
whispering your requests into
the ear of my royal paramour!
- Herr Wagner!
- I assure you, sir,
I am no Lola Montez.
- [Pfistermeister] Lolotte?
- (sighs) There are
suggestions, gossip.
- Do not listen.
I do not, not to gossip.
- Herr Wagner's love of silk.
That he corrupts the minds
of the young with his music.
That he wraps himself in
dress lengths like a woman.
- A revolutionary
once, a pederast now.
Such nonsense.
Herr Wagner loves only himself.
- Well?
- If he refuses to see me,
it would be all over
Germany in weeks.
I shall be ruined.
I have said humbly,
"Do I stay, shall I go?
"Shall I stay?
"Your will is mine." (sighs)
If I go it will be
to some distant land.
- Some payment, please.
- [Richard] I will
never return to Germany.
For my works I
will do what I can.
- It is for six
cases of champagne.
- [Richard] But I will sever
completely the connection
between the man--
- No more for Richard Wagner.
Musician.
- And the Glorious Youth, no.
- You shall hear more
of this, I'm sure.
My master, Herr Wagner--
- Your master had his
last bill paid by my king.
It is well known.
- Huh.
(somber music)
- "So it is for The Friend,
"Friend, to decide.
"One word and joyfully
accept my fate."
What?
"My spiritual forces are
at their utmost tension.
"I must know by which
decision, to go or to stay,
"will bring peace to
you, my dear one."
What?
The boy is an innocent.
He will never
understand our love.
- [Cosima] Bulow looks forward
to the birth of his child.
- [Richard] Bulow,
ah, dear Bulow.
(birds chirping)
- There must be no more gossip.
Nothing more must
reach the King.
Your boy.
- (laughs) How is the child?
- Strong. (laughs)
- [Richard] You?
- Exultant.
- Hm, I want to
claim that child.
- Bulow looks forward
to the birth of his--
(knuckles rapping)
- A gentleman here to
see you, Herr Wagner.
The name given as Dr Schauss.
- Are they all
gathering, vultures?
(somber music)
Shit, Schauss, shit!
Do you all gather
on the carcass?
- Herr Wagner, Madam Schwabe
simply requests payment
of the few francs
extended to you in Paris.
- I know what she requests,
that grotesque Jewess, I know.
- Rather than send a clerk or
a distraint, I came myself.
Now you have come
into substantial...
- [Richard] I am a kept man!
- But surely the
king and all this
and your great
opera about to open.
Madam Schwabe has the
greatest admiration for you.
She always makes--
- She charges,
she charges interest!
- That is consequent
on your putting
your name to stamped
paper, Herr Wagner.
- This, this, this is because,
has come about simply
because you've all heard
I was spurned by the king!
- Oh, surely not.
- Spurned for a paltry
few hundred guilders.
Damn you, I'll pay for
the portrait myself!
Interest, she charges interest!
This bloody woman, this bloody
Jewess charges interest!
- The theater alone
will bankrupt the state.
- If we allow it to be built.
- I do not for the life of me
see how it can be prevented.
- Oh, we can.
- We started so well.
- Well?
Who?
- Our young king.
So well.
- Did he though?
- Did he not?
I always thought he
was a regular chap.
Well, at least he
has all his wits.
Not like his brother, Otto,
wandering naked around altars.
At least he does
have all his wits.
- Let us see if he's
able to keep them.
- [Pfistermeister] Yes,
there is something in that.
- [Advisor] Well,
there is something
in that, there's something.
(somber music)
(dogs barking)
(gentle music)
- [Cosima] Richard must be
reconciled with the king.
It must happen for his good
and for the good of the world.
How I hope for it soon.
"Tristan And Isolde" must
enter the lives of everyone.
It will change them.
Show them how to
suffer through love,
how to die in love, how to live
in the natural condition
of ecstatic pain.
And it can only reach the stage
if Ludwig gives it
his full support
and embraces Wagner again
as a friend and genius.
Our hope is that this summons
to the castle at Hohenschwangau
is not another cruel rejection,
not another plot by our enemies
who surround us here in Munich.
(dramatic music)
Dear Hans, devoted Hans,
he works and works.
Will not be taken from
his task as he sees it,
a simple task to show
Wagner complete and perfect,
down to the last dot and quaver
for the first time ever love.
The king must not
fail to respond.
He must feel it also.
(dogs barking)
(birds chirping)
(dogs barking)
- [Richard] All goes well.
- [Ludwig] It will be soon.
- [Richard] And now that we
work together again, Majesty,
it will be a work of real magic.
The changing of
hatred into love.
"Tristan And Isolde."
Huh?
(fire crackling)
- [Ludwig] Does von Bulow
keep up his strength?
His is a task.
- [Richard] It is, Majesty,
and he is indefatigable
in his devotion.
He is my second self.
- Wonderful.
That is devotion.
- At one rehearsal, he so
concentrated his energies
that they drained from
him on completion.
He fainted clean away.
- I shall reward it as
I shall reward you all,
you most of all.
You, my friend.
(baby crying)
- [Ludwig] Day of rapture!
Tristan!
Pen, paper, Tristan!
* La, la, la, la, ah
* La, la
* La, la, ah
* La, la
* La, la,
(gentle music)
(door thuds)
- It's a girl.
- Oh, Isolde.
(singing in foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(horse whickering)
- A letter from his Majesty.
(footsteps thudding)
- From the King.
"How I long for this evening.
"'Tristan,' if
only it were here.
"My love for you,
"I need not repeat it,
will endure forever."
(knuckles rapping)
- There must be another letter.
Who are you?
- Herr Wagner, we are bailiffs
come on distraint of
goods and chattels
by authority of the
court to exercise,
- And monies.
- Monies.
- Monies owing one Frau--
- Schwabe.
- Schwabe.
For which repeated
requests have been made.
- [Bailiff] Repeated
requests have been made.
- Do you realize
that today is the day
of the first performance
of Herr Wagner's opera
by command of the King?
- I am by way of being
a musician myself
and I have every sympathy.
I must say here and now
before saying anything else,
that your music
sounds a bit difficult
but maybe was worth the effort.
- Our cart is arriving
for such items
as we feel might fit the bill.
- The bill, yeah.
- The bill.
- [Bailiff] We have
taken the liberty
of taking out your
excellent piano.
- [Cosima] Am I
allowed to leave?
- Where do you go, if one
might ask respectfully?
- Money.
You require money?
- My dear lady we're bailiffs,
employed to collect, you see.
The law, just a law, Madam Hans.
- I shall get the money.
- No, no, no.
It's too humiliating.
No, no, no.
You can't.
It's all over, you can't.
- Nothing in connection
with you or your work
affords me anything
other than satisfaction.
You need the money,
I shall demand it.
It is my duty.
- Attar of roses, I believe.
And 10 pounds is remaining.
- Which can be arranged.
You are musicians, here.
This note will ensure tickets
for the first performance
of "Tristan And Isolde."
- Thank you, sir.
- It would be unthinkable
to perform without a master.
- Come, now, sir.
Only the perpetrator of this
opera is kept under restraint.
The practitioners
are still in situ.
(Richard sighs)
(dramatic music)
(footsteps tapping)
- Frau Wagner?
Oh, oh.
Then I shall not embarrass you.
No.
You may sign any name you
will wish in receipt of--
- I shall sign my own
name, Baronin von Bulow.
- Wife to the famous person
who's mentioned so much
in the pages of the newspapers?
- Am I to have the money?
- You are.
The King's coffers are
seemingly as the wealth
of the fields and hedgerows
in respect to Herr Wagner.
He may pluck as he will.
However it must be accounted
for the eventual reckoning.
(accountant laughing)
(dramatic music)
- [Richard] Schnorr, why
are you not at the theater?
Malvina?
- She can't.
A bath.
The steam.
- Her voice?
- Completely hoarse.
- (groans) I'm fit for
nothing more in this world!
(piano clanging)
- The performance, postponed.
Just the better.
All that, all that.
I spoke to one brave soul who
attended the private rehearsal
at the special
request of the king.
It went on and on and on
and on and not a tune in it.
"One felt it would go on
and on and on forever,"
said the poor soul.
Five hours of barbaric passion.
"Something simple. "
- Well, I, for my part--
- You know, you know, I doubt it
if we could have guaranteed
protection for von Bulow.
I believe it must
have been postponed,
I do believe for fear of von
Bulow being torn to pieces
by the (speaking in
foreign language).
- I, for my part, am sorry.
The king was so
looking forward to it.
He will be impossible,
impossible.
- No, no.
No, no, we can
provide protection.
We can...
The principal singer
lost her voice.
She'll never sing
again, I'm told.
Her voice is ruined
by the vile rubbish
she was asked to utter.
- [Pfistermeister] That
innocent people should suffer!
- [Advisor] The whole
thing's gone too far.
- Well, I, for my part,
am nonetheless sorry.
The king had to have his opera.
The sooner, the better, surely.
Simply to postpone means
that we should have to go
through long, tediously
long, agonies of frustration.
He will not settle to anything
till he has had his opera.
- And a new theater.
- I have gone on the supposition
that given the
extremely boring nature
of the opera work
undertaken by Herr Wagner
enough will very soon be enough
for a high-spirited young
man like our dear king.
He will soon be more
interested in other things,
ladies, soldiers,
leading his army,
taking the concern
of his ministers.
Then we might point out
what all this is costing,
this monumental stone
theater, this new music school
and then the financing
of Herr Wagner
for years to come,
years to come!
What's more, there
is this "Ring" thing.
(birds chirping)
- [Andrew] We heard
of it even in Dresden.
The delays, the scandals
the difficulties
of mounting Wagner's latest
simple, practical opera.
In any event, they moved
from the old Residenz Theatre
as too small not just
for the orchestra,
but for the storm of
sound Wagner had created.
All this for an opera,
the score of which
had been published
for at least five years.
Only tried once
before in Vienna.
Disaster, disaster.
Wagner had at one time thought
of writing "Tristan and Isolde"
in the form of
the Italian opera.
But he did not.
He wrote it as a
single, writhing thread
with not a break from its spell.
Not at all simple, or
practical, not at all.
I looked forward to it.
(dramatic music)
- [Richard] To fulfill the wish
of my royal patron and friend,
King Ludwig II of Bavaria,
I am undertaking
my autobiography.
The contents of these
volumes will be written down
by my friend, who wishes me
to tell her the
story of my life.
As the value of this
autobiography consists
in its unadorned veracity,
which under the circumstances
is its only justification,
there can be no
question of publication
until some time after my death.
I was born at Leipzig
on the 22nd of May 1830.
The same year as Verdi,
did you know that?
No need to mention him.
It was in a room
on the second floor
of the Red And White Lion.
Two days later I was
baptized at St Thomas Church.
Well, I wasn't in fact,
not quite, but it will do.
My father Friedrich Wagner,
and, to tell you the truth,
he was not, but
we'll say he was,
died in October of the same year
from the exertions
of police work
during the Battle of Leipzig.
I do not remember it but
I must have heard it.
Did I?
Our family was not given to
outward manifestations
of affection,
yet the fact that I
was brought up entirely
among feminine surroundings
must have developed
the sensitive side of my nature.
- [Andrew] Then, well,
it happened, it happened.
Disgust at the sensuous nature
of the music was to come.
Feeling had no place
in the theater.
All must be bright and light
and as frivolous as possible.
Poor Ludwig.
His opera, you know,
or so he believed.
(singing in foreign language)
And so it was.
He drowned himself years later,
murdered his doctor
and drowned himself,
seeking, begging, redemption.
Out of death, life itself,
just as in his opera.
(singing in foreign language)
At the first
performance, I'm told,
the poor king became so excited
that he left before the end,
aboard his train,
into the night.
Quite extraordinary.
(singing in foreign language)
(gentle music)
(train whooshing)
(brakes squealing)
(train chugging)
(audience applauding)
(audience cheering)
(birds chirping)
(people chattering)
- Richard.
Schnorr is dead.
- Which Schnorr?
- Which?
- Oh, God.
Schnorr.
Oh, God.
He was the only tenor, the
only singer, the only artist.
The first singer I ever admired,
the first singer with a brain.
- [Cosima] They said that no
tenor could ever sing Tristan.
They said Tristan killed him.
- He could, Schnorr could.
He was triumphant,
he was Tristan.
I shall not permit another.
Art is perhaps a crime.
(somber music)
- Well?
- Majesty, a king must
be seen by his people.
They are jealous of him,
they want him as their own.
- My people loved me.
- Indeed they did, sire.
- They also destroyed me.
- [Pfistermeister] Indeed
they did, oh, come, now, sire.
- Herr Pfeuffer,
as Chief of Police,
what in your opinion is the mood
of the people in
regard to Herr Wagner?
This meddler, this
one-time revolutionary.
- Oh, come, now, we
might all be called--
- Might we?
- (laughs) Well, to
be a revolutionary is
often the sign of an artist.
And His Majesty pardoned
all revolutionaries
on the occasion of the
premiere of "Tristan."
- Yes.
- Well, there are those
who dislike Wagner
and his Prussian henchman Bulow
because they are foreigners,
what's more,
they're Protestants.
Second, there are those
who despise the luxury
that Wagner lives in.
Of course, the king is
using his own money.
I mean, it is not as
if there is profit
to be made in this
music. (laughs)
But third, there is the time
that the king gives
to Herr Wagner.
These are the political,
military and academic classes,
who may perhaps agree that
art is all right in its way.
Even the King's castles,
if you like that sort of thing.
But not today, not
in this day and age.
To devote oneself
to music and castles
in the middle of the
19th century is perhaps,
perhaps, foolish of the king!
The king is not a hermit.
He is the leader of society.
He should attend court balls.
There is deep resentment
among the people of Bavaria
because of what they see
in this young king's infatuation
with this.
- Well?
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
- Good morning, Herr Wagner.
The king desires to know
that you slept well.
- Herr Cabinet Secretary Lutz.
- A poem, written
by His Majesty.
- Ah, oh.
"Still true to thee I
stay, imperiled friend,
"By deed revealed,
nobility to me.
"Might I but thy protector be
"and end the evil trail
that doth encircle thee."
Ah, Majesty, your
wonderful poem.
I shall attempt a
reply, in verse.
- What of the music "Lohengrin"?
- [Richard] I awoke to it.
- Yes, yes.
- Lutz, get out, ministers!
I am giving a pageant
tonight on the lake.
And this, this, for you.
(gentle music)
May the blue of the
sapphire be a symbol
of our eternal faith.
- He's asking for more
money, don't you know?
Let me say, I have a great
regard for Herr Wagner.
I like his feeling
for the fables.
For the past that is Germany.
I like his feeling for the folk.
But as a man, Herr
Wagner does seem
to leave a lot to be desired.
- I'm told the man boasts
he'll reconstruct the Cabinet.
Boasts of his unshakeable
friendship with the king.
Boasts that he, Richard Wagner,
has unlimited access
to the privy purse.
It's unthinkable, unthinkable.
The effrontery of it.
My God, what's all
this going to cost?
- [Pfistermeister] We
all have our own incomes,
are people of not
inconsiderable worth, but.
- [Advisor] We are not clerks,
civil servants, lackeys, but.
- Compared to my emolument.
- I must however say.
- Indeed.
- After all the years
we've served the state.
- He earns more than the
three of us put together.
(fire crackling)
(gentle music)
- It is suggested that I should
replace Herr Pfistermeister
as your personal contact
with His Majesty.
You have the ear of the king.
Money will be found for you.
- Rid yourself of these people,
Lutz, Pfistermeister, Pfordten.
Be a monarch, be a prince.
Surround yourself
with trusted men.
Seize the initiative.
Use the banner I am weaving.
Hold it high above the land.
From Munich, go forth to
lead a united Germany.
Become Lohengrin.
(singing in foreign language)
Your Majesty.
Friend.
My enlightened German prince
must be the leader
of his people.
(singing in foreign language)
We too, the common
people, have ancestors.
And their vassalage,
the oppressions
and indignities they have
suffered are writ reeking
in letters of blood.
(crowd shouting)
Their blood!
Our blood banner!
(crowd shouting)
There is something
to being German
altogether curious, you know.
We can take a song like
"Among The Meadows And Woods"
and set it to music
in such a manner
that we all dissolve in tears.
And yet when we look about us
and see instead of
a united Fatherland,
a hotch-potch of 34 kingdoms
and principalities,
we are unmoved.
Why?
Are we little people,
mere servants,
ruled by and subservient
to our betters?
(crowd shouting)
As Christ says, "If thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off!"
Cut it off!
Cut it off!
Your Fatherland
is called Germany.
Love it above all,
and more through action
than through words.
Germany must have
its place in the sun.
- [Crowd] Wagner,
Wagner, Wagner,
Wagner Wagner, Wagner!
(fire crackling)
(anvil clanging)
(fire crackling)
(horse whickering)
(anvil clanging)
(fire crackling)
(crowd shouting)
- Your Majesty,
this is quite simply
a fearful and decisive moment.
We must arm ourselves
against Bismarck.
Prussia is at the gates.
War is imminent.
You must decide between
the love of your people
and your friendship with
this man called Wagner,
this man who is despised
by the Bavarian people,
by every section
of the community,
no matter what their standing.
They despise him for his
ingratitude and shamelessness
with which he openly exploits
the undeserved favor
of your Majesty.
This person called Wagner
must be got rid of at once.
(dramatic music)
- [Ludwig] No!
Wagner!
Wagner!
No, no!
(metal clanging)
(dramatic music)
Wagner!
No, no!
No!
Wagner!
- His Majesty commands
that I hand you this.
His Majesty commands that
you leave Munich forthwith.
His Majesty commands--
- May I have time to pack?
- His Majesty commands!
- His Majesty commands!
Bastard, the lot of
you, Jews, sodomites!
Hebrews, Hebrew Jews, sodomites!
Arseholes, the whole
pack of you are filth.
Filth, that's why
you have snouts,
so you can find where
the truffles are!
You swine, no-good swine.
- Control yourself, man!
- That's why you're a swine!
- [Advisor] I am here
in an official capacity!
- You're swine.
- Control yourself, man!
I am here in an
official capacity.
- Pigs, swine, ah, get out!
(dramatic music)
(train chugging)
(horse whinnying)
- [Andrew] Poor Wagner,
thrown out now from Munich,
this time without even
Minna to comfort him.
Minna, Minna, who had
always been at his side.
(gentle music)
- [Minna] Oh, chased
by Cossacks again.
(wheels rattling)
- [Richard] I remember, I
remember, chased from Riga,
the clumsy conveyance
upset near a farmyard,
and you were so severely
hurt by the accident.
- [Minna] After this, I could
have no children, remember?
- No.
- [Andrew] I don't
have the facts of it,
and of course she always
loyally denied it,
but the truth is, when he
was being kept by the king,
by Ludwig, I'm
afraid he, Wagner,
kept her very short of money.
- Just not true, it is not!
- [Andrew] And I do
regret to say it,
he did not even go
to her when she died.
- I could not.
I did not.
(train chugging)
(wind whistling)
- [Guide] We are to
take a historic trip
on the lake of Lucerne.
We will see the place
where Switzerland was
founded 600 years ago,
that you can be sure,
under the Seelisberg.
It is set up to be
historic, by subscription,
I shall take special care
to point it out to you.
(bright music)
Do you see the Rigi yet?
A mountain, you may see it, yes.
And for the moment, look back
at the historic
community of Lucerne.
- Lovely.
- Do you see it, Lucerne?
Do you all have tickets?
(upbeat music)
Do you all know the
legends of Switzerland?
Would you like me to
tell you the legend
of Arnold von Winkelried,
a very famous Swiss soldier
who truly did
something very brave?
(laughs) He truly did.
Do you know the story?
In 1386, a long time ago,
he threw himself on the long
lances of the Austrians.
Do we have any
Austrians on the boat?
I am sorry, he died.
But we won.
And there is Triebschen,
where the famous German
composer, Herr Richard Wagner,
is living with his friend
the Baronin von Bulow,
and her children. (laughs)
(singing in foreign language)
Madame Hans is a daughter
of the famous Hungarian composer
and virtuoso Franz Liszt.
Hans von Bulow is Kapellmeister
to the court of Bavaria.
Ludwig II of Bavaria is
patron to Herr Wagner,
for whom Herr Wagner wrote
all his operas (laughs)
which include
"Tristan And Isolde"
which some would consider
to be quite shocking.
- Was.
- I beg your pardon?
- Was the Kapellmeister.
Our king sent him packing.
- I presume you talk of Bulow?
I hear he resigned
for ill health.
- That's right, packing.
- Herr Wagner is quite simply
the greatest living
artist that Germany,
indeed the world, possesses.
- [Passenger] That's right
he is and he's very loud,
so loud he cannot be heard.
His music, it blows your head
off so no one can hear it.
And he wears clothes
that women wear,
for which, and other things,
Ludwig sent Herr Loud And
Silky Wagner packing too.
With all his friends,
packing, all of them.
Let the Swiss have
them. (laughs)
(singing in foreign language)
(ship horn tooting)
(knuckles rapping)
(door rattling)
(birds chirping)
- Your Majesty, Frau von Bulow.
- I cannot believe
that we have not met.
- Your gracious Majesty,
in our hearts we have.
- Your husband can stay with me.
I need him with me
so that I shall never
lose sight of our work.
- Frau von Bulow is very
helpful to me, is unselfish.
She has left her
husband for a few days,
has brought her children here
to live with me in exile.
Is my muse, my secretary,
in which role she excels.
- She does, she does,
of that I'm sure.
Now, Meistersinger.
How near, how near, wonderful.
I've all the time in the world.
I have come to live
with you, work with you.
Regard me as your copyist.
Set me to, Master, set me to.
- [Richard] It is very near.
Would you like to hear?
(dramatic music)
(door clicking)
- Newspapers, newspapers.
- Here, this.
Sit down, my dear
fellow, sit down.
- An official denial has
been given to that lie.
Unfortunately, it is the truth.
I have an official
report here confirming
that the king left
Schlossberg with Prince Paul
early on the
morning of the 22nd.
Yes, and was seen boarding
a train, incognito.
- Incognito!
- A beard.
He was in Lucerne by the
morning with Herr Wagner.
- Will he come
back, do you think?
- Parliament cannot
open without him.
- The question of the
mobilization of our army
against the Prussian
threat cannot be debated.
How can His Majesty
be so headstrong?
He is expected to place himself
at the head of his troops.
- Under an umbrella?
- [Pfistermeister]
Is it raining?
- Will he come back?
- We will know if he does.
- What?
- Come back.
I shall be the first to know.
I have men on every
road, every station.
- [Advisor] Do they
know what he looks like?
- Oh, yes.
We'll know.
- Excellent. (laughs)
(dramatic music)
* La, da, da, da, la, la, la
* La, da, da, la, la, la, la
* La, la, la, la, la, la
* La, la, la, la, la, la,
* La, la, la, la, la
* La, la, la, la
* La, la, la, la, la, la
(singing in foreign language)
(gentle music)
* La, da, da, la
(singing in foreign language)
* La
(singing in foreign language)
(gentle music)
(girl crying)
(singing in foreign language)
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
Dear one.
If it is your wish and will,
I gladly renounce my
throne, its empty splendor.
I shall come to you,
be with you, forever.
- No, you must bear all.
All.
For the good of your people.
- Well, so much
for Meistersinger.
How goes the great enterprise?
How goes my "Ring,"
our greatest adventure?
- Well, well.
- When?
When?
- Would Your Majesty hear some?
- Please.
(speaking in foreign language)
- How long does His
Majesty intend to stay?
- Forever.
- No, no, we must get him back.
- Prince Paul explains that
the king has fled Munich.
They are waiting for his
command to mobilize the army.
- Prussia will attack
before we can get our
army in the field.
- He talks of living here.
- [Ludwig] Exalted one!
(Richard groans)
(dramatic music)
- If His Majesty did
come to live with us,
how would he live?
- Live?
- Money?
- Money.
Some lands but not a great deal.
- Enough?
- For the needs of
His Majesty, yes.
But for his plans in
regard to Herr Wagner,
certainly not enough.
- Then he cannot abdicate.
- No, for the sake of
Bavaria he must not.
- Quite.
(speaking in foreign language)
(gentle music)
- If he abdicates,
who will reign?
- Who?
His brother, Prince
Otto, I imagine.
- Otto?
Didn't he throw
himself on some altar,
raving,
stark-bollock-dangling-naked,
and raving? (sighs)
Bavarians are true Germans.
The people of Bavaria unite
the versatility of Franconia
with the imagination of Swabia
and the native
strength of Bavaria.
I see in Bavaria, under
your enlightened rule,
a release of the ideal
of the German spirit.
- I love no woman, no parents,
no brother, no people,
no one fervently and from
the depths of my heart
as I love you.
- I will never return to Munich.
- How can I govern if we
are forced to remain apart?
You,
our work,
give me everything.
- Majesty, if you,
friend, the friend, if you
will not listen to the argument
that you are the
leader of your people,
their only hope in the face
of the chaos of democracy,
as well as the ignorant
might of Prussia
and the thick-skulled
persuasion of Bismarck,
if you will not, then let
me try to persuade you
with the argument
that without you,
there would have
been no Tristan,
there will be no
"Meistersinger," no "Siegfried,"
no "Ring of the
Nibelungen," "Parsifal."
All the work that
I do, have done,
with you, will do.
Is all this to be wasted?
Lead your people, be a king.
Dismiss the
twittering Nibelungs,
Pfistermeister,
Pfordten, Pfee, Pfi.
Only a king can
realize our plans
on the magnificent
scale we envisage.
A German king.
- Yes.
I?
I.
Yes, only I.
(somber music)
(shutters squeaking)
(birds chirping)
Paul, fetch me my
helmet and my sword.
(both sighing)
- I thank God.
- How dare you?
- Herr von Bulow,
is it not the truth?
- It certainly is not.
- So sure?
- What was said about my
wife is more to the point.
It's a scandalous attack
on my very name and honor.
- Yes, yes, your wife, yes.
- It says that
Wagner is in Lucerne.
- [Editor] Does it?
- That your wife, the carrier
pigeon, Baronin von Bulow,
daughter to Liszt,
is with Wagner,
where they were recently visited
by a certain exalted person.
- Here it says, "The musician
Wagner, her friend or what?"
- Or what?
- An apology sir, an apology.
- Do you wish me to say
what everyone knows?
That she got away with
40,000 gulden for her friend?
- My seconds will
call on you, sir.
- (laughing) Herr von Bulow!
You are a Prussian, are you not?
Then I would advise you
to leave the country
rather than fight duels.
What do you suggest,
glissandos at 30 paces?
No, (laughs) no, Herr Wandwaver.
There will soon be enough
fighting going on bloodily
between Bavarians and Prussians
on the field of glory,
sir, the field of glory.
- If you will not believe me
with regard to the
honor of my wife,
perhaps you will
believe your king.
(dramatic music)
(artillery booming)
(horses neighing)
- [Soldier] Halt!
(men shouting)
(gunfire popping)
(horses neighing)
(wagons clattering)
(people chattering)
- Attention!
(horses neighing)
(dramatic music)
(men shouting)
- [Soldier] Fire!
(artillery booming)
(horse neighing)
(men moaning)
- [Soldier] Ready to
go again soon, sir.
(men groaning)
- [Soldier] God
bless Your Majesty.
- [Soldier] We'll be ready
to go again soon, sir.
- [Soldier] Well
done, sir, well done.
- [Soldier] We tried
to do it well, sir.
- [Soldier] God bless you, sir.
- [Soldier] Well done, sir.
- I'm ready.
- Well done, sir.
- [Soldier] I'm ready, sir.
- [Soldier] God
bless Your Majesty.
(somber music)
(artillery booming)
(men screaming)
(man gasping)
(wagon rattling)
(birds chirping)
(bright upbeat music)
(door thudding)
- Ah, Hans! (laughing)
- Oh.
Ah, yes, I am very
impressed with Bismarck.
The poor king.
Do you think,
because of the war,
he will abdicate, do you think?
- Oh, this is shocking.
- Hm.
Is Bismarck the man to
lead Germany to greatness?
- Oh, this is shocking.
- I called on the editor
and demanded an apology.
- Thank you.
- Something must be done.
- Yes, the king, my
friend, must be asked
to write you a letter, Bulow,
in which he states that
you are vitally important
to the artistic life of Munich,
and that he's shocked by
the scurrilous treatment
accorded to you and
your blameless wife
in the newspapers.
How will that do?
Which letter being received,
you may publish
it for all to see.
The king's letter giving
the lie to all this,
this filth and innuendo.
Some of "Meistersinger." (sighs)
- Will the king do such a thing?
- If I ask him to, yes.
Look at this.
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
- But it is not lies.
- I need the king
and I need Bulow.
Listen to him, he has
only seen that piece
for the last hour or so
and already he has
it on the piano.
- It could be a difficult
letter to write.
- No, no.
- Is it the honorable
thing to do?
- It is necessary.
Bulow works himself
to death for me.
He should not have to face such
ridicule in the newspapers.
- Is it not dishonest?
The truth is I am your mistress.
I have given birth
to your children.
I am, I am.
Everybody knows this.
- The king does not.
- No.
Nothing matters but you,
that which is in you.
You are the cause
we serve, all of us.
- Thank you, you're right.
There are those of us,
artists and strong
men in other ways,
who must for our own ease,
so that we may do that
which we have to do
with conviction and strength,
must be unwaveringly
supported, never questioned,
set above all other
persons, given everything.
All is clear if one
understands that.
There is nothing dishonest
or dishonorable about it.
What shall you write?
- I will...
I'll think about it.
(birds chirping)
- Ah, Bismarck, what?
Poor Ludwig, soundly
trounced by the Prussians.
I always said it would
come through Prussia.
If the Prussian king had
accepted the crown of emperor
and leadership of
Germany as a whole,
we would not have needed
to fight him in Dresden.
What, Bulow?
Bulow.
You are not looking well.
You look exhausted.
Is "Meistersinger" going
to be too much for you?
Is there somebody
who can help you?
I'll get somebody.
(somber music)
- I've written it.
- Ah, what have you said?
- You may wish to read it
and you may wish to add to it.
- No, no, no, read it to us.
- "Royal Lord, I have children,
"and it is my duty
to hand down to them
"their father's honorable
name unstained. "
- [Richard] Yes.
- (sighs) "For the sake
of them, these children,
"that they may never cast
aspersions on my love,
"which love you share
for our friend."
- [Richard] Let me read it.
- Bulow, free me.
- You are free.
- Divorce.
As soon as the king knows,
he must know one day,
promise me my freedom.
- Oh no, our religion
and your father.
- Hans.
For Wagner.
You love him as I do.
He wants a son.
You must help him to have
a son he can own as his.
My father, I'll go to
Rome, I'll talk to him,
I'll renounce my religion.
- You must not, I beg of you.
Consider it deeply.
Please.
The friendship of Wagner
and Liszt is a great one,
which must last.
- See here what I have appended?
"She is the faithful
wife to Hans von Bulow,
"the father of her children."
(gentle music)
"My royal Lord, my friend.
"For the first and last time,
"I implore you to act for us.
"I fall on my knees
before my king,
"and in humility and distress,
"beg for the letter
to my husband
"that we may not leave
in shame and ignominy
"the country in which
we have desired,
"perhaps, dare I say, have
done nothing but good."
- Summoned?
- Why?
- I fear I shall be dismissed.
- We are to be blamed?
- We advised the
war against Prussia.
- Did you?
- Did you not?
- Look at Lutz,
our war minister.
Leapt from his horse, banged
his head against a door.
- [Richard] "My
dear exalted friend.
"If you make this public
statement, then all is well.
"You who came into our lives
like a divine apparition.
"Oh, do not consent
that we, the innocent,
"shall be hunted out.
"Your royal word alone
can restore our honor
"which has been attacked."
Good, very good,
very, very good.
That should do it.
- Have you read that
disgraceful letter
that Wagner's published
from the king?
- Well, the king is
really an innocent.
I'm just beginning
to realize it.
He inquired of me, "What
is done when rape is done?"
The other day. (laughs)
Innocent.
- Hm.
- My dear Bulow.
The sound of cowbells. (laughs)
Cowbells.
My dear Bulow.
Cowbells, cowbells?
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
- [Crowd] Bravo, bravo!
Your Majesty, if you allow--
- What do you say now that I
have stilled the malicious lies
about Wagner and
Baronin von Bulow?
What do you say
after this triumph?
What do you say to the
return of Wagner to Munich?
- Why not?
Why not?
- I consider Richard Wagner the
most evil man under the sun.
A man who would ruin your
young majesty in body and soul.
And turn your subjects
so strongly against you
that you would be
unable to rule.
I'm told Schopenhauer
has a great influence
over Herr Wagner.
I'm not surprised.
I'm told Schopenhauer
denies the state
any moral function,
any function at all,
except that of the
protection of the lives
and property of
such as Herr Wagner.
With which to serve your
majesty until death.
I'll only do so
if I am committed
to make the moral judgment
that such as Wagner is not seen
to enjoy Your Majesty's love,
on pain of Your Majesty
losing your throne.
(gentle music)
(birds chirping)
(wheels clattering)
- How, Frau von Bulow, do
you imagine I'm going to do
without Herr von
Bulow in Munich?
- Please do not shout at me.
- You have driven him from me.
You are jealous of my
love for him, is that it?
- If you loved him,
you would have seen that
he is very, very tired.
He needs rest.
- From me?
- He's worked at your
side all these years.
If you saw him now, you would
think he had one year to live.
- [Richard] He is
longing for "The Ring."
He longs for it.
- He must leave Munich
if he wishes to.
- You must go and persuade him.
Persuade him to stay
on as Kapellmeister,
to do the work of
Wagner in Munich.
- I shall not see him
again until he divorces me.
- I don't care about divorce.
It is nothing to
do with divorce.
It is to do with
work, woman, work.
Don't you understand
the importance of that?
- How can you say that to me?
(Wagner growling)
(dramatic music)
Eva, Eva, Eva.
What am I to do without
him, Frau Bulow?
- Have you given thought
to using Hans Richter?
- Yes, we'll send for him, yes.
- Thank you, Herr Wagner.
You may now move.
- Ow!
- [Cosima] Come on there,
Birdie, let's go find Bonnie.
Let's go find Bonnie.
- Oh.
- [Cosima] Go find Rusk.
- Oh, no.
- Yes.
- See if it's the fellow
I knew in Leipzig.
(dramatic music)
(birds chirping)
- Herr Nietzsche?
Herr Nietzsche?
Have you done it?
- I did, indeed.
- [Man] Miss Morgan?
Herr Nietzsche.
- Ask Herr Nietzsche
to stay for supper.
- [Nietzsche] I cannot bring
myself to consume meat.
- [Richard] Then you
deny yourself strength.
- How?
- [Richard] You're a
carnivore, you need meat.
- No, I tell you the truth.
I've sworn an oath that I
will only eat vegetables.
- Rabbit.
- No, it's important
on moral grounds.
- Arrogant rabbit,
Cosi, have you ever
met an arrogant rabbit?
Here he is.
Have you ever met a
professor of philology
who is an arrogant rabbit?
- Frau von Bulow may not have,
but I have, many of them.
- You need good nourishment
in this climate.
You need good red meat.
We are here, you and I,
to provide a means of escape
from the futility of life.
You regard life as futile?
- Of course, you know that.
- Schopenhauer.
Eat not other people,
nor mutilate them,
for that is the great wrong.
It denies them
their individuality.
Therefore eat animals and
produce a temporary respite
from the futility of life
and the slavery of the will,
for which you will
need your strength.
I do, but I cannot
do it on milk.
- Hm.
Siegfried could not
forge his sword on milk.
- Mm, no.
And Richter here could
not work as he does
without the food we give him.
I'm feeding him up
to stamp on the heads
of the Nibelungs.
Go forth, Hans
Richter, into Munich,
and slay the (speaking
in foreign language)
with "Rheingold."
He likes pig meat as well.
Don't you, Richter?
- Well, I--
- After "Tristan And
Isolde" in Leipzig,
the overture, remember?
I heard it for the first time.
I wanted not food nor drink.
- Ah.
Ah.
(dramatic music)
(woman moaning)
- The experience,
yes, Schopenhauer.
But the physical
strength we acquire
when we train our bodies
helps to harden ourselves
against anything else
they might fling at us.
What does he say
against unhappiness?
Danger?
Loss?
Injustice?
(dramatic music)
Let me read you from my
student days at Leipzig.
I write my life.
Frau von Bulow is dictated to
whenever "Rheingold" and
"Siegfried" leave me time.
A few pages of it
might amuse you.
Would you care to hear?
- Yes, please.
- I managed to find
time in those days
to finish quite a substantial
lot of composition.
Richter, this will amuse you.
"How I went about it.
"Different Coloured inks
"to bring out the mystic
meaning in the orchestra.
"Black ink for the brass,
red ink for the strings,
"green for the wind.
"But I was not able to
get red or green ink."
(men laughing)
(dramatic music)
The maiden theme of the overture
was contained in four bars.
But after every
fourth, I added a fifth
which had nothing to do
with the melody at all
which I expected to be announced
by a bang on the kettle drum.
(Richter laughing)
You see?
(dramatic music)
See?
The fatal kettle-drum beat,
brutally hammered out,
deprived one of my senses.
Then the audience began to count
one, two, three, bang!
One, two, three, bang!
One, two, three, bang!
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(Cosima screaming)
Bang, one, two, three, bang!
One, two, three, bang!
One, two, three, bang!
One, two, three--
- Herr Wagner, Herr Wagner.
- Bang.
- You have a son.
- Siegfried.
Victory in peace.
(Nietzsche laughing)
(gentle music)
(baby crying)
(gentle music)
(baby cooing)
- Well, you.
Yes, yes.
(triumphant music)
- [Andrew] This child,
held high, shown the world.
Shown to the world.
This child Siegfried
at last born.
For Germany.
A German sword.
A leader of stout,
German, Aryan stock.
A sword in his eyes.
He will be the
beginning of a new age,
will carry the
flame and the sword
and the lights,
through struggle.
Nothing without struggle.
Attack and defense.
Suffering and struggle,
victory and defeat.
Domination and servitude,
all sealed with blood,
will lead us on the quest
that is Wagner's quest
to help us all cross
the sacred river,
will show us that it
is our quest as well.
The quest for the grail.
And for truth.
What truth?
What truth?
What truth?
What truth?
(somber music)
(water lapping)
(birds squawking)
(birds chirping)
(gentle music)
(baby crying)
- Siegfried.
- Now our real child is born.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Baby, sweet baby.
Lovely child.
(baby crying)
Our child.
(dramatic music)
- [Andrew] We were, I
was very much afraid,
going to find
ourselves at war again.
Bismarck of Prussia
to fight France.
He was set on it.
France equally determined
to fight Bismarck.
It was only a question of when.
And because Bavaria had lost
her last war against Prussia,
as we did, we were all
going to have to fight
alongside Bismarck, and like it.
I didn't, Ludwig didn't like it.
But an excuse was to be found
to bring about one
Germany at last.
All the states under one Kaiser
and under Prussia, of course.
Wagner's hopes for a united,
strong Germany realized.
The events which had to some
extent started in Dresden
were at last to come to fruition
for Wagner, through war.
Wotan rides,
but first Lohengrin
had to be persuaded,
though he had little
choice, little choice.
(dramatic music)
- What you must do (sighs)
the designs are not what I
wish but that can be put right.
What is important
is that we control
the entire production
without interference.
Now that Pfordten's
been dismissed,
we must seize our chance.
And you, young master Richter,
you must be in a position
of complete power,
able to grab them
by their pizzles
and twist some sense into them.
You will obey my
instructions to the letter.
Now, the character Loge,
yes, you must tell Schlosser.
Is it Schlosser who
is to portray him?
You must tell him that he
is to avoid being comic.
It could so easily become comic.
This won't do.
His hair must be
flames, red flames.
So at last it begins.
(gentle music)
(footsteps tapping)
- Wonderful, they
look wonderful.
Where is everybody?
- Switzerland.
Everybody is in
Switzerland, Majesty.
(dramatic cacophonous music)
* Rheingold
* Rheingold
* Rheingold
(singing in foreign language)
(baby crying)
- Mummy!
Mummy!
Mummy!
(singing in foreign language)
(instruments squeaking)
(woman whimpering)
- Tune those B flats, horns.
* Da, da, da, da, da
Fs, Fs, tune the Fs.
* Da, da
Can't you read the notes?
There are few enough of
them, for God's sake.
* Da, da, da, ah
(women screeching)
* Da, da, da, da, da
* Da, da, da, da
Louder, louder, I can't hear.
* Ya, da, da, da
* Ya, da, da, da, da, da
* Ya, da, da, da, da
That's better.
Sing it, sing it,
breathe, four bars.
* Da, da
Not two bars, four.
* Da, da, da, da, da
Longer phrases.
* Da, da
Stop, stop, stop.
It's terrible.
You have to take it
in four-bar phrases.
Breathe in.
* Ya, da, da, da, da, da, da
* Ya, da, da, da, da, da, da
No tugging in the middle, not
* Ta, ta, ta, ta
* Ta, ta, ta, ta
Let's try it again.
And this time, come with
my beat rather than yours.
(dramatic music)
Softer, horns, softer.
Sh, sh, just breathe,
just breathe.
That's good, that's good,
that's good, sweet, sweet.
* Da, da, da, da, da, da, da
* Da
Yes, but in four bars, cellos.
Not two bars, four bars.
* Da, da, da, da, da, da, da
Cello, cello, that's it!
* Da, da, da, da, da, da
Keep up with me, you
re getting slower.
* Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta
No, stop, stop, stop,
stop, terrible, terrible.
- [Cosima] Well?
- It is as well we are employed.
Gloves and white neck
cloth cost money.
- [Cosima] What do you intend?
- Well, you re still my
wife, it's quite simple.
I see you, I want to
be able to see you.
Always.
- I do not wish to
see you ever again,
until after we are divorced.
- [Hans] Wagner
seduces everyone.
You, me, our children next.
- [Cosima] Bulow, that is
evil, that is shocking.
You owe everything
to him, as I do.
- I have--
- You owe everything
to Wagner.
- There's no small
ability myself.
- [Cosima] Do you love him?
- I do.
I do.
- You were given the opportunity
to be the finest, the
greatest exponent of Wagner.
- I am.
Or at least I have been.
- I ask you because Wagner
will never ask you himself.
- No, of course he won't.
I shall not divorce you.
- [Richter] "Rheingold"
cannot be ready.
- The king insists.
- Never mind the King.
- Never mind the King?
You forget yourself, young man.
If we do not mind the king,
we are in danger of not
minding anything any more
for we will be elsewhere
then in Munich.
- His Majesty expects
the world premiere
of this opera
"Rheingold" tomorrow.
You, sir--
- I will not.
- I am tired of being harangued
by an absent composer.
- His Majesty will expect
to see a performance
on such and such a day.
Whatever day that happens to be.
- September the 5th,
I obey only Wagner.
- The money that has been
poured into this undertaking.
Singers traveling
more than 200 miles
to exercise their tonsils.
And not only this.
What kind of an opera is this?
- Herr Minister, this
is the kind of opera
that makes young women seasick.
The stage is flooded with water.
There is no interval.
Giants, a dwarf, and
a possible rainbow.
But most of all, the
kind of opera it is,
nobody's given a chance
to sing properly.
- (gasps) I resign!
- Herr Richter.
You are suspended.
- I shall see "Rheingold"
on the 5th September.
It belongs to me.
I have paid for it.
Wagner is being impudent.
I want to see "Rheingold."
I have waited too long.
He sends me a telegram saying
that it must be postponed.
I have every right,
in view of the fact
that I own the whole work,
to see it when I wish to see it.
- Majesty, your command.
However, I have been
forced to suspend Richter.
He was insufferable.
- Find someone else!
- [Ludwig] They tried
Lassen in Weimar,
Herbeck in Vienna,
Levi in Karlsruhe
and Saint-Saens in Paris.
- [Richard] Bulow?
- [Ludwig] Yes, none
of them accepted.
Possibly the chorus
master, Herr Wullner.
- [Richard] Tell him to take
his filthy hands off my score.
Let him conduct glee clubs
or one of Perfall's
operas, but not mine.
No chorus master will
conduct anything of mine.
Who is he, this chorus master?
Some Jew, many
times passed over?
What?
I will hold a full
piano rehearsal with
scenery, lighting.
Ah, he who is to portray Wotan.
- Thank God you
are come, Richard.
They call me a spy
because I write to you,
you, the genius who
has done so much.
- No, no, no, no,
no, Herr Wagner,
you are not permitted
to enter the theater.
- Sir.
- Wait here.
I shall speak to the king.
- Sir, the king
is not in Munich.
(Richard screaming)
(dramatic music)
- [Cosima] My dear Hans.
I learn from Richter
that now you have submitted
your resignation from the
court theater in Munich,
you intend to leave Germany,
and that you wish
me to give my views
about the fate of our children
and the disposal
of our property?
If you are leaving Munich
because you feel
incapable any longer
of enduring the intrigues
and unpleasantness
by which you are
surrounded and overwhelmed,
permit me to say you are wrong.
Your character's well-known.
There's nobody who
does not respect you,
and everything which
causes an indignant outcry
will be directed against me.
In the first place, I am a woman
who is expected to
uphold the moral order.
In the second
place, I am a mother
and I appear to be
sacrificing my own children.
And in the third place,
you are a man of honor
whom I married of
my own free will.
Whatever my good intentions,
I have never made you happy.
I do not believe that you
can scoff at these feelings.
And it is in their
name that I ask you
whether you have the strength
to separate from me officially
to allow me to bring
up our children
and to remain in
contact with me.
Of course, the world and your
family are within their rights
in advising you not to leave
the bringing up of
our children to me,
for they claim the
right to see me simply
as a woman who has
broken her sacred vows
to indulge her passion.
(dramatic music)
- Well, he can rave about
"Rheingold," how good it was.
Of course it wasn't.
How could it be?
How could it be?
As for "Valkyrie",
well, we'll see.
But he won't have "Siegfried"
because I haven't
finished "Siegfried."
Have I?
Have I, Fidi?
It will remain very
carefully unfinished.
Until I get my own theater
in which to perform
the whole of the "Ring"
in the way I think it
should be performed.
- You should go to Munich to see
what they've done
with "Rheingold."
- No, did you see it?
- No, I refused to go out of
respect for your feelings.
Perhaps you should.
- No, I will never
go to Munich again.
The king would not see me.
The theater was closed
to me, never again.
Ludwig owns me, owns
me and my works,
but I shall never
condone his action
by going to see my
work travestied.
- That is good news.
- Ah, Judith.
The light in your eyes.
Look at Fidi, his eyes.
Somebody said of him that
he has a sword in his eyes.
(somber music)
(bright music)
(baby crying)
The French.
- Push me.
- Look at them.
The Jew, Mendes, famous
critic, likes my work.
Must be mad.
Brought his friend Villiers,
another mad Frenchman.
As for his wife,
daughter of Gautier,
another critic, look at her.
How would you like
to go bird's nesting
in that girl's garden?
Huh? (laughing)
I shall.
- Richard, what are you doing?
- Climbing, climbing.
(people chattering)
You French must do something
to expiate your crimes.
- [Villiers] Crimes?
- The crimes of
France, Nietzsche?
- Nobody will deny
that France has given the
world a great deal, ah.
- Is it criminal for France
to defend herself, monsieur?
- Yes, Monsieur Villiers,
it is a great crime
to resist the civilizing
influence of the German peoples.
Whatever the arguments
between France and Bismarck
over who should be placed
on the throne of
Spain or wherever,
there reality is that there is
a struggle between the French
and the Germans over
who should lead Europe.
A war will solve the problem.
And I hope it will also lead
to a united Germany at last.
I believe that this is the
first intention of Bismarck.
In this noble aim, France
has a part to play.
You must be defeated,
and soundly.
And indeed you will be.
For the French
character in comparison
with the German is
appallingly narrow,
filled with false poetry, false
logic, misplaced eloquence.
You have forgotten
how to be Frenchmen,
a once noble race akin
to the German race.
Brothers, searchers
of the grail.
You have become
Parisians, kept women.
Streetwalkers, whores.
(laughs) Paris, (speaking in
foreign language) of the world.
Paris, oh, I see I
have shocked you.
We confess, that when
we knew you were coming,
we thought it might be
unpleasant to have you,
even though you are friends,
because of the behavior of
your country in declaring war.
But I determined to try
and help you understand.
Sit you down, feed you,
dash some cold water on you,
in the hope that some French
at least will come
to their senses.
What does the Herr Professor
have to say on that?
- I'm frightened.
- N, no.
- I'm frightened that
we might not win.
Very frightened.
But it is only through
a new, united Germany
that I can see any
hope for the world.
We must break our intellectual
subservience to France,
break it once and for all.
We must win.
I regret I have become
a Swiss citizen.
I cannot fight myself.
Would I could
rejoin my regiment.
- But you were
wounded the last time.
- I sustained a chest injury
while mounting my horse.
But I have made inquiries
and the only way
I can involve myself is by
way of the ambulance service.
This I shall do.
- How noble.
I wish I could do the same.
- Oh, no, Cosima,
that would never do.
You'd be shot as a spy.
She has the regrettable habit
of crying out in her sleep.
In French.
(all laughing)
- Might I remind
you of something you
said some years ago?
You said something to the effect
that in longing for
German grandeur,
the German can usually dream
of nothing other than
a kind of revival
of the Holy Roman Empire.
Such an idea filling even
the most good-natured German
with an unmistakable
appetite for mastery,
and a craving for supremacy
over other people.
Good night, Herr
Wagner, Frau von Bulow.
- Typical Frenchman.
(Cosima laughing)
(somber music)
- Gentlemen, is there
any more to be said?
- No, Majesty.
No.
- Hohenlohe, is there no way
of avoiding war with France?
- [Hohenlohe] No,
I've been to Berlin.
The King of Prussia and
Bismarck are determined on it.
- [Pfistermeister] I fear so.
- This time with France.
- [Pfistermeister] Yes.
- [Hohenlohe] At least this
time there's a good chance
of being on the winning side.
- Is there?
- (sighs) The ordinary
people of Bavaria
would rather have
a century of France
than a year of Prussia.
- Our treaty which
brought about the end
of our disagreements
with Prussia means
that we are expected
to fight with Prussia.
However, I am trying very hard
to actually avoid doing so.
I shall do it in French, hmm?
(speaking in foreign language)
(artillery booming)
(somber music)
- [Soldier] There's a
French body over here!
- [Cosima] The little
professor is gone to war.
- [Richard] Who?
- [Cosima] Nietzsche,
gone to war.
- [Siegfried] I should go.
I should volunteer.
- [Richard] No,
you're an artist.
The duty of military service
rests with the ordinary person,
especially those
that are German,
indeed, also those who are not.
The Jews, certainly, a race
that accepts all from Germany
but rarely contributes.
All Jews would profit from
service in the German army.
They would thus gain
a German attitude
and be the better for it.
- [Loldi] Are the
Jews not Germans?
- [Richard] No, Loldi,
no, they're not.
They are the
Nibelungen, Nibelungen.
Ah, I shall suggest
that Bismarck brings
back the beating of women
just as soon as he's
beaten the French, what?
With words, my words.
(somber music)
(artillery booming)
- [Nietzsche] Is there
going to be anything coming
from this frightful misery?
Do I want greatness
to come from this?
Must I not only bear
this but love it?
Wagner, are you not perhaps
looking at things too simply?
No, of course you're not.
I write to you this.
For the first time, I feel it.
The strongest and noblest
will to life does not reside
in our puny struggle to exist
but in the will to power.
Yes.
The will to power.
(gentle music)
(man whistling)
(singing in foreign language)
("Wedding March")
- [Cosima] So, I shall
write and say in my diary
for Thursday August
the 25th, 1870.
Mm, how shall I put it?
This day at eight
o'clock, we were married.
Richard Wagner and I.
Oh, may I be worthy
of bearing that name?
A very ordinary German name.
But simply the most
glorious German name.
(dramatic music)
Bismarck has done it.
What a christening
present for Fidi.
(singing in foreign language)
The local newspaper prints
pictures of French soldiers.
And from them all,
the wretchedness
and degeneracy of the
people stare out at me.
In those bestial, besotted
faces, one sees complete idiocy.
Soon be Christmas,
the winter upon us.
Richard will want to perform as
the great German
hero Santa Claus.
(singing in foreign language)
Yesterday, Richard read
to me from his biography.
And the shameless conduct
of his wife Minna towards
him made me shudder.
When we returned from our walk,
we found an Italian
in the courtyard.
His countenance
moved me to pity.
The whole eclipse
of a nation was reflected
in it like a dream.
This race is likable,
but I doubt whether it is
still capable of active deeds.
Garibaldi is an old fool.
There, that is
what I shall write.
(gentle music)
About this day,
plainly and dully,
I will tell you what happened.
As I awoke, my
ear caught a sound
which swelled ever
fuller and fuller.
No longer could I imagine
myself to be dreaming.
Music was sounding.
And what music!
When it died away, Richard
came in with the five children
and presented me with the score
of the "Symphonic
Birthday Greeting."
"Now let me die," I
exclaimed to Richard.
He replied, "It would
be easier to die for me
"than to live for me."
(dog barking)
- [Richard] For
you, happy birthday.
A symphonic birthday greeting.
Bismarck.
The hero of the future.
- And what will
he do, this hero?
Rise up booted and spurred
over the bodies
of his neighbors?
Perhaps.
Philosophers are
out of place in war.
- [Nietzsche] Philosophers!
They plunged us into the
dark ages, the shits,
made us speculate on existence
instead of getting on existing,
and taking the only path
apart from immolation
that could possibly alleviate
the suffering of existence.
I refer, of course, to art.
- Do you see the Greeks,
after their golden revels,
ever having very sore heads?
- It's we who have
had the sore heads,
2,000 years of sore heads,
brought about by philosophers.
And I include among
them the hedge-priests,
and God chanters
and brisket beaters
who taught us to
despise ourselves,
made self-disgust the
highest virtue given to man,
kicked our pride in the
arse and left us nothing,
came between our pure,
primitive and artistic yearnings
and our hearts,
produced half-men.
We shall make man whole again.
Through art.
Do you tell that
to your students?
(dramatic music)
(anvil clanging)
- Then money must be found!
This castle will be built!
I command it!
- Your Majesty, it's other
matters I would wish to press.
- Don't talk to me
about other matters!
- They are important.
There comes a time
when messages cannot be
passed from groom to king.
- Groom?
This is not a groom,
this is my friend.
I had another friend,
a great friend.
They drove him away.
- I hear he has
other friends now.
- Other friends? (laughs)
- He makes approaches
to the kaiser.
He is suggesting a
festival to be dedicated
to the peaceful
conclusion of the war
and asks for a subsidy
from the kaiser,
suggesting a new theater,
his theater, in which
to stage the festival.
- His theater?
It will be our
theater, ours together.
I am his king and his friend,
the only person who
understands him.
Go away!
Go away!
(dramatic music)
(people chattering)
- I can't hold the book,
my fingers are freezing.
- Here, let me, let me.
"Let no one believe that the
German spirit has forever lost
"its mystical home when
it can still understand
"so plainly the voices of the
birds that tell of that home."
(dramatic music)
Listen, Nietzsche, listen.
- [Nietzsche] I don't need
to, Wagner. I wrote it.
- [Richard] You wrote it for me.
- [Nietzsche] What
are you, Wagner?
- [Richard] Listen, "Some
day it will find itself awake
"in all the morning freshness,
"destroy vicious
dwarfs, wake Brunnhilde,
"and even Wotan's spear
will not stop its course."
- [Nietzsche] I wrote
that before the war.
- But it is even more
true now, and inspiring.
- [Nietzsche] Is it?
Is it?
Is it?
- [Richard] Any
theater, Nietzsche,
any theater will do, what?
Now which is the
biggest theater?
Which opera house has the
biggest stage in Germany?
- [Nietzsche] Heavens,
how would I know?
- [Richard] Come
on, we'll find out.
(bright music)
Cosima?
- [Cosima] What is it?
- Cosima, look at this.
- My Christmas present to you.
A manuscript.
It's to be published.
Please, give me your views.
- [Richard] It is wonderful.
It is everything we
believe to be true.
- Are you fully recovered?
- I think so.
- It was a glorious
thing you did.
It must have been
such a privilege.
To see a real German
army take the field,
how it must have inspired you.
- I don't think discipline
in war, courage in battle,
the actions of heroes and
leaders, unity, obedience, duty,
has anything to do with culture.
- Do you not?
- [Richard] Cosima,
which opera house has
the largest stage in Germany?
- I'm not sure.
Bayreuth has the deepest stage.
- Bayreuth?
I seem to remember.
Now where is it?
I've been there.
Come, you re a soldier.
You.
- Me?
- Yes, where is it?
- All right, Franconia?
- Franconia, yes.
- Here.
- Ah, Berlin here.
- A small town, Protestant.
- Yes, Berlin.
With Pfistermeister
replaced by Lutz,
who knows what that will bring?
Yes, Bayreuth, halfway
between Berlin and Munich.
Halfway between Bismarck
and the king, ideal.
(gentle music)
- [Cosima] Wonderful.
- Rococo, it won't do.
Can you see "The Ring"
with all its primeval
splendor being done here?
This is a Mozart house.
- I fear so.
- You will go elsewhere?
- No, no, no, my dear fellow.
You don't get rid of us as
easily as that, does he?
- Oh, no, Bayreuth
has been decided on.
- May I on behalf of the whole?
Madame Wagner, may
I, Madame Wagner,
may I, on behalf of the whole?
- [Cosima] Well,
we will just have
to build something of our own.
- Ah.
- We can't build
anywhere else, not now.
My wife has decided on it.
This house has failed us.
I shall not burn it down.
I shall simply tower over it.
- Herr Wagner, the people of
Germany have always loved you.
May I on behalf of the?
- [Richard] Because
I write pretty tunes?
- No, because you have
helped us find our destiny.
May I, on behalf of the whole?
(sneezes)
This is where the king comes,
where he stays when
he comes to Bayreuth.
- When does he come to Bayreuth?
- Well, not just yet,
but should he come.
Herr Wagner, may I, on
behalf of the whole?
- Well, he will now.
- Yes.
- [Cosima] We're
looking for a house.
- We're looking for a hill
on which to build a theater.
- [Cosima] We
can't find a house.
- Must it be on a hill?
- Of course.
- We'll have to build a house.
- When we've built the theater.
- While we're building it.
- Mm-hmm.
- Subscribers.
I can conduct everywhere.
I can always make
money conducting.
What we need is 1,000
subscribers at 1,000 marks each.
Then we don't need the king.
He can go on building his
castles and his follies.
- Yes, well, there is a hill,
just outside the town
with nothing on it.
Herr Wagner, may I, on
behalf of the whole?
(groans) Oh.
(dramatic music)
- And so, on this
auspicious day,
to be remembered until
the ends of recorded time
on this glorious occasion,
amid so many loyal friends
and with the blessing
of your mayor,
I chose Bayreuth because it has
no real standing
theater of its own.
Though Berlin wished
me to build there,
Baden-Baden offered me a site,
here in Bavaria in
the center of Germany,
near enough part of the kingdom
of my beloved patron
King Ludwig II,
who has (groans)
who has sent us this
message, his seal,
his own words, delivered to me
to be placed within
the foundation stone.
- [Ludwig] What did I
say to him, my friend?
From the depths of my soul,
I sent him my warmest
and sincerest
congratulations on this day
that is so significant
for all Germany.
He is building.
So am I.
Which of us will show the truth?
Which of our creations
will be the greater?
(dramatic music)
Come and live with me
in my world, our world,
which I have created for you.
Be blessed, my stone.
Long may you stand
and hold firm.
That is what I wrote to him.
Long may all my stones stand.
Do you hear them,
the stones singing
of the glories of the
past that was Germany?
Gone, long ago, but
living in my stones.
Let our blessing and
good fortune attend
our great undertaking.
Seal it in your
stone, my friend.
(man groans)
(man laughs)
- [Nietzsche] At last!
- [Richard] What?
- [Nietzsche] At last,
this, coming together.
- [Richard] What?
- [Nietzsche] Well, it
will come together, it has.
Yes, I'm convinced,
after all the work.
- [Richard] Money.
- What? Oh, yes.
- There isn't any.
There just isn't enough
to build a theater.
We must have money
to put something on.
There will be one performance,
only one, that's all.
You, what are you doing?
- What?
- You, you, all of you?
- Well, the Wagner
societies are really busy--
- Wagner society, they're not
getting the money, not enough.
And do you know, some of
them have the damned cheek
to demand expenses?
- [Nietzsche] Even
so, this is something.
- What?
- This.
- Ah!
(bright music)
- [Andrew] "We are come looking
for singers," said Wagner,
"to every opera house in
Germany, or so it seems."
The length and breadth of
the country, they traveled,
their ears assaulted by
the most appalling noises,
their imaginations never
engaged beyond the initial bars,
hearing music dragged or rushed.
At every fresh place they hoped,
hoped to find just
one actor, one singer,
not too far gone down the path
of vulgarity to be of use.
(singing in foreign language)
And all for his wonderful
new theater at Bayreuth.
(dramatic music)
- Herr Wagner, water!
- I see that.
- Struck water.
- I intend to fill my house
with water and fire, anyway.
- [Andrew] We all did our best
to help set up Wagner societies,
devoted to the raising
of money for Bayreuth.
Every German city had one.
In Dresden, we had two.
Banquets were given and the
money trickled in slowly.
- [Nietzsche] And I should
like to propose a toast
to all those,
including the king,
who subscribe to the
building of our theater,
your theater, and to all
those other dilettantes
who have formed Wagner societies
throughout the world,
including America. (laughing)
(triumphant music)
- [Cosima] In England, we went
to Windsor to see the queen.
A small woman, Richard
said, and not very pretty.
She stated she had heard
of Herr Wagner. (laughs)
And wished him every success
with his fundraising.
Windsor, so dark and damp,
and such hideous pictures.
Some 20 concerts were
planned in London
at the Royal Albert Hall.
But in the event,
only eight were given.
And he concerts
themselves were dreadful.
The queen asked how we
found the music in England.
Richard found it
difficult not to answer
that he was still
looking for it.
- Perhaps the theory is all.
- [Richard] What?
- [Nietzsche] I said--
- I know what you said.
I don't theorize, Professor.
You're not a musician.
- No, no.
Do you write to the king?
- I am coming to think that I
know this world less and less.
I do believe that for all
their banquets and compliments,
I am soundly hated by
the whole of Germany.
- Does the king
answer your letters?
- What?
What are you doing here, you?
- I came to see you.
To see this.
- Piano compositions.
- Ah, yes, I hope
you feel you can--
- Piano compositions.
You write piano pieces.
Look, look, look at this, look.
(dramatic music)
- [Nietzsche] I
hoped you would find
my piano composition
had some merit.
- [Richard] Bayreuth.
Everything must
relate to Bayreuth
and what we are
trying to do here.
Piano pieces do not.
And what was that piece by
Brahms left on the piano?
You insult me with Brahms.
Jews, Jews, Jews!
They write vileness about me.
They must be attacked.
You must all attack
them, all my friends,
all those who are
faithful to me.
There are proofs to be read,
articles to be written,
work to be done.
Nietzsche, what do you do?
Piano pieces!
- [Ludwig] I need no
messages in my stones.
I speak, I sing, I create
my own poetry here.
This is how it was.
This is where the Meistersingers
sang, our Meistersingers.
Ours, I am the Swan Knight.
Born to be another Wartburg.
(singing in foreign language)
(people screaming)
(fire crackling)
(anvil clanging)
- Good, good.
- Thank you.
- I'm thinking of
changing the title.
What do you say?
- [Copyist] Say?
- "Twilight Of The
Gods" is all right
if you know what twilight
means in this context.
But if the meaning isn't clear,
the title is hardly
precise enough.
"Judgment Of The
Gods" might be better.
- [Copyist] What?
(bright music)
(singing in foreign language)
- Rocks, rocks, anyone
can paint rocks.
You don't have to squint at it.
For goodness sake, hurry up.
(horns blaring)
(singing in foreign language)
- Soft, soft.
* Ah, ah
This is the Rhine,
not a steam engine.
(gentle music)
Softer, gentlemen,
softer, please.
Terrible!
Long phrases.
No rests!
Softer, horns, softer!
Three, figure three!
Keep up with me, you
re getting close.
And...
Back, back, back!
* Ah, da, ah, da
God knows where we are.
- Are there still
holes in the ceiling?
- The building supervisor is
doing what he can, but heavens!
There's worse than that.
There's no hope of
fitting all the musicians
into that orchestra pit.
None.
- Tune that top E flat,
that's right, tune it.
Gentlemen, gentlemen,
(murmuring).
- [Violinist] Herr Richter,
my violin strings
have broken again.
It's too hot down here.
Yesterday the violin
itself cracked.
- [Richter] Well,
then, get it repaired.
- It's almost impossible
to find anyone to
repair a violin.
It will have to go to Munich.
- Yes, yes, this town!
Everything costs twice
as much as it did.
Everything.
And this pit.
It's like the engine
room of a ship.
- Young Master
Richter, are you ready
to get off your arse
and do some work?
- Yes, Master.
- Morning, boys, morning.
- Only 702 subscriptions!
- Morning.
- I have done my best.
- Yes, Herr Feustal,
yes, you have.
5,200 marks, enough to keep
us running for two days.
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
- [Manager] No, I can't
get up enough steam
for the bridge to
work the rainbow.
- [Richard] Why?
- The simple fact is, Herr
Wagner, we can't afford it.
I am told to save on vapors.
They are considered expensive.
- Never mind, never mind.
We must do something about the
glare from the orchestra pit
during the "Prelude
to Rheingold."
The effect is being
entirely ruined.
- Apparently, your
musicians need to see.
- What, to play in an
E flat and a B flat?
Two notes, mad, mad.
(dramatic music)
- Well, it worked in Munich.
- Did it?
- We had one or
two difficulties.
Had to change the base.
The problem is the singers.
Not exactly
sylph-like, are they?
- Then I'll try it.
(singing in foreign language)
- Frau Wagner, was it not agreed
there should be no free seats?
Not even for rehearsals.
- Yes, of course.
The Master wrote to every
patron, and every friend,
explaining that there was not
to be any free seats, ever.
- The entire Bayreuth
Fire Brigade!
Every man!
Admitted by Herr
Wagner, gratis, free.
I give up.
- [Cosima] Shh!
(singing in foreign language)
- For you and the children.
- Master.
- What now, Brandt?
- An instrument to
replace the orchestra.
(accordion wailing)
- Richter, Richter,
come and see this!
It may mean the
end of the world.
(somber music)
If "The Ring" coincides with
Germany's victories, something.
- I'm not staying.
- You must.
Cosima, he's not
staying, he leaves us.
- [Cosima] Why will you not?
- I have admired you both,
devoted my thoughts to you both.
- [Cosima] Not me,
it is none of it me.
- I am sick, of that
there's no doubt.
I have the most
dreadful headaches.
I really must take
a cure somewhere.
Oh, all these people, Wagner!
All these Germans who
flock to Bayreuth!
The clubs, the societies,
decked in ribbons,
blowing trumpets, slashing
at each other with sabers,
spouting their
anti-Semitic rubbish.
You.
You have the nerve to write
that Christ was not
a Jew, do you not?
Do you care?
To imagine you could
herd all the Jews
into a theater of your choosing
and then burn it to the ground.
As if that would solve
the world problem.
Whatever you think
the world problem is.
Not to mention a cellar
full of silk, in boxes.
A house fit for a king,
paid for by a king.
Children who treat
you like a god,
your tomb built already,
waiting to receive your body.
That picture.
The Holy Family.
Claptrap, mumbo-jumbo
and claptrap!
Not you, your music will still
rise above the posturing,
but this is all play-acting.
You're a small-time
theater manager
who by some strange
trick of fate
has been given the
biggest, brightest,
most glittering,
over-decorated barn
to call a theater ever
seen, and it is all to you!
Opera is all, there's
nothing else of value to you.
The whole of Germany
must flock to you.
In your estimation,
they fought their wars
simply so that you
might tug on a curtain
and shout, "See
the face of art!"
as according to Wagner.
And what we sometimes
call the Almighty,
those of us who
should know better.
The Cross, the
Grail, the Search!
"Suicide, the purest
form of birth."
Claptrap!
Silk-clad dances of
glee at the rare show
you have persuaded a poor
deranged royal romantic
to buy all the tickets for
and pay for the tambourines
into the bargain.
I have things to do.
I have hopes and
aims beyond Bayreuth.
You have come into your own.
You know what it
is the people want,
your so-called German people.
You know what this
age brought about
by war and the yearnings for
power is in the market for.
You throw it all together.
Music, war,
death, ecstasy, torment,
bangs and crashes,
floods and conflagrations,
exquisite neuroses, obsessions.
Sensual and profane hand-in-hand
with vulgar coarse
twitchings of sexual fantasy.
And potent, real grandeur.
Dangerous, elevating
and plunging and
convincing stirrings
in such a soup will feed
criminals as well as genius.
You're dangerous.
You're a dangerous man, Wagner.
You talk of gods
but you know there is no
god but Wagner. (scoffs)
Yet you have the power
to convince fools
they might become gods.
Not you, not you.
Know that I know you.
At last.
That which you create,
I would not want to
answer for its effect
on a nation sniffing at power.
(Nietzsche coughs)
(door thuds)
(somber music)
- [Richard] Well, tomorrow.
(people chattering)
(somber music)
(set scraping)
(people chattering)
(horse neighing)
(train chugging)
(bell clanging)
Majesty.
You came, you came.
At last.
(birds chirping)
From here you can see it.
- [Ludwig] Yes.
- [Richard] It has
taken five years, more.
We laid the foundation
stone in May of 1872.
It poured with rain, I told you.
Last week, the rain was still
coming through the roof.
- All I've ever
wanted, our dream?
- Real.
- Your house?
- Built.
The money you sent.
And for the theater, most kind.
- Everything ready.
(horse whickering)
(set scraping)
- Until the last minute,
the very last minute,
it was nearly impossible
to show you anything.
We are letting you see it first
in private, as you wished.
I hope the resonances
won't be too much for you.
It will be very loud.
After your Majesty has
seen his own performance,
we will have the gala opening
and let the kaiser in with
the others. (laughing)
(dramatic music)
(singing in foreign language)
(anvil clanging)
(fire whooshing)
(anvils clanging)
(fire whooshing)
(singing in foreign language)
(crowd cheering)
(dramatic music)
(crowd cheering)
(fire whooshing)
30 years ago, that, that,
sent his soldiers to
Dresden to crush us.
That prince who is now a kaiser.
- That dragon, absurd!
- [Ludwig] Photographs,
photographs.
Herr Wagner.
- Majesty.
- How future generations
will envy us.
Those of us who have had
the incomparable happiness
of being with you,
now at this moment.
Long after we both
have ceased to be,
our work will remain.
- You, Majesty, my co-creator.
You.
(gentle music)
(birds squawking)
- [Franz] It has
become difficult.
- [Richard] It has
become impossible.
"Parsifal," yes.
"Parsifal."
- [Franz] You had the nerve
to suggest that
Levi was baptized.
- [Richard] What?
- Levi, the rabbi's son,
the conductor of "Parsifal."
- [Richard] What about him?
- Baptized.
- [Richard] About time.
- No, no, no.
You wanted him baptized before
he could conduct "Parsifal."
- (laughs) He was very upset.
He should have understood.
The things, the things.
I conducted the last
performance myself.
- [Franz] Yes, so you said.
There's always Bayreuth.
- It still totters from day
to day, from month to month.
Still no money.
"The Ring" performed in '76.
Complete financial disaster.
You know, we had to sell
everything to pay for it.
Lighting, machinery, costumes.
Then "Parsifal,"
the last, the last.
Well, they liked that.
And it was good, very good.
And the money rolled in and
I thought, at last some rest.
But no, always dries up, always.
Concertizing all over Europe,
just to try and keep a
roof on the building.
(sighs) Bayreuth is in danger
of never opening again.
Money, I even thought of
giving up and going to America.
- Do you want me
to play it for you?
- What?
- Very well, if you
don't wish me to.
- Do you remember Siena?
In Siena, that's where,
Siena, the cathedral.
That Russian, Joukowsky.
The painter.
(dramatic music)
(door clicking)
I stole that from you, Liszt.
- [Franz] What, what bit?
- That bit.
- Then there was that Miss
Pringle, English girl.
A flower maiden. (laughs)
Well, at least
she was until you.
- Ah, Miss Carrie Pringle.
- Do you want me
to play it for you?
- What?
God has been my strength.
(gentle music)
- [Richard] Cosi
worried about vulgarity,
that such a work as "Parsifal"
should not be
sullied by vulgarity.
She tells everyone now
that we wanted no applause.
I wanted applause.
I have always wanted applause.
I was thunderstruck
when we did not get it.
Thunderstruck, hmm?
He should have been baptized.
Levi, you should
have been baptized.
I finished with Bismarck
when he actually gave German
Jews equal citizenship
with the rest of us.
I had three Jews
working on "Parsifal."
All hard workers.
Gifted even.
(sighs) Levi led me a dance.
We still are friends.
He has not abandoned me.
Ah, the desertion of friends.
The list is so long.
Cornelius, Ritter.
He was a booby but he
could still be useful,
still do something.
Took Joukowsky there.
Took him to Ravello in the
south, the magic garden.
Have you seen it?
Have I shown it to you?
Joukowsky knew what
I wanted, what, huh.
I have shown everyone so much,
given people such inspiration.
Whoever accuses me
of insincerity must
answer for it to God,
but whoever accuses me of
arrogance is a fool. (laughing)
Tausig.
Do you remember
Tausig, in Vienna?
My surety?
Surety.
Now, there's a Jew
who was tormented
by his origins,
tormented to death.
Minna, dead.
Nietzsche came to
see me in Sorrento.
I thought him still
worth talking to,
told him of "Parsifal,"
the great Christian legend,
expounded on it for him.
All friendship dead there,
too bound up in his
wretched headaches
and vomits, blind as a bat.
I wrote to his physician
to tell him to curb
his masturbating.
Nietzsche masturbates, you know.
I told him, persuade his patient
to stop masturbating,
eat vegetables
and take cold-water plunges.
Now they're all gone,
all my so-called friends
who would support me
to the ends of life.
Minna.
Ludwig.
(sleigh bells ringing)
(dramatic music)
- I consider it the beginning.
"Parsifal," a success.
It will be done everywhere.
- "Parsifal" will never be
done anywhere but in Bayreuth.
It must be kept for Bayreuth.
Bayreuth, a madman's whim.
And the weather!
- Do you want me
to play it for you?
- What?
(door clicking)
Your father, the old humbug.
- [Cosima] Humbug?
- Yes, humbug.
The life he has led and now
he fancies himself a priest.
The old lecher.
Wants to play me his
latest "Ave Maria."
Get rid of him!
I can't stand it any more.
- Please, wasn't it you who
said he inaugurated the new age?
- Yes, in fingering.
(gentle music)
(door thudding)
(water lapping)
(dramatic music)
- [Crowd] Wagner,
Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
Wagner, Wagner, Wagner!
(crowd cheering)
(somber music)
(bell tolling)
(dramatic music)
(water splashing)
(bright music)
- Ludwig must go.
Ludwig must go.
(gentle music)
(door clicking)
(door thudding)
- That bitch is here.
- Bitch?
- That English flower maiden.
Pringle.
Says she can't live without you.
Beseeches you.
Hypocrite.
Lecher.
English flower maiden?
- Minna.
My watch.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Andrew] Three years later,
King Ludwig walked
into the lake, arms up,
drowning, seeking
redemption, died.
(dramatic music)
Cosima held the dead body
of Wagner for 25 hours,
so I'm told but herself lived on
for another 47 years.
While the theater, the temple,
on a hill outside Bayreuth,
like that other hill
outside that other city,
(wood creaking)
so long ago.
A temporary structure,
still temporary,
still there.
And Wagner?
Well.
(singing in foreign language)