JOSEPH HOROWITZ: ANTON SEIDL, WAGNER, AND THE HISTORICAL IMAGINATION Wagner Society of New York, October 15, 2026 Speaker: Joseph Horowitz, cultural historian and novelist Principal book discussed: The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale of the Gilded Age (2026) I attended my first remote lecture with the Wagner Society of New York this week. They brought the novelist, music critic and cultural historian Joseph Horowitz in to discuss his novel, The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale of the

Unfortunately, I think there has always been an element of hatred even in the best of conservatism, and what conservatism always lacked was an inability to appreciate substantive critique, especially of beloved things, and the wonder and beauty of new things when the old is surpassed. Hatred and blind nostalgia go hand in hand. One upshot of this particular rabbit hole was finding out Scruton has written a lot about Wagner. "A conservative is someone who has found something t

I wrote this short piece on the MOOC for my Wagner class. I wanted to make a recommendation among our readings, which I have found to be both dense and deliciously written, and informative. Understanding that all of us are busy adults, and sometimes forced to skim what we might savor if we had more time, I found chapter 4 of Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring and the Germanic Tradition to be the beating heart of that book. Everything before leads up to it, and everything after fee

Wagner wanted myth to transform modern culture. Within a generation, modern consumer culture returned the favor. It put Wagner on trading cards and used him to sell concentrated beef extract. It’s a thick, concentrated meaty pasty glop you could dissolve in hot water to make broth. Think beef bouillon. That’s close enough. Meet Liebig Company’s Fleisch-Extract, or Liebig’s Extract of Meat. It was manufactured in Fray Bentos in Uruguay. The picture is not a poster, but a Liebi

At the end of Wagner's Die Walküre, Wotan punishes his favorite daughter for disobeying him. Brünnhilde disobeyed because she showed compassion, and although he is furious, he also knows that she acted on the deepest part of what he himself wanted. Wotan's punishment is terrible. He takes away her immortality, puts her into a supernatural sleep on a mountaintop, and leaves her there to be claimed by the first man who finds and awakens her. But Brünnhilde begs him for one last

I am about halfway through Die Walküre. This was a very busy week, and I am only now coming up for air. For me, the two most powerful scenes so far in the Ring cycle are when Wotan takes the ring from Alberich in Scene 4 of Das Rheingold, and the argument between Wotan and Fricka in Act II, Scene 1 of Die Walküre. I should note a discovery I made while writing that sentence is that Das Rheingold is not divided into acts. I hadn't noticed that before. Wagner wrote it as a cont

For those familiar with Norse mythology, but unfamiliar with the work of Richard Wagner, there will probably be an eyebrow-arching moment while watching the Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 Robert Lepage production of Das Rheingold when Richard Croft as Loge the god of fire strides onto the stage. Loki wasn’t a god of fire. The effect is pretty cool. The fiery aura or “dancing nimbus” around Richard Croft is principally an interactive projection effect, not ordinary stage lighting.

I'm taking a break from watching the 2010 production of Das Rhinegold at the Met, and I had to say this. First off, I'm deeply enjoying this opera. So I don't want to detract from that. But every time Wotan turned towards the camera, I couldn't help but notice his golden Batman ab armor stretched across a stomach which has definitely not seen ab lines in many years. In noticing this, I accidentally stumbled across a HILARIOUS element of the critical response to this productio