Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

The introduction of Richard Wagner’s music dramas in Stockholm
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to suggest that the Germans “cannot surpass the Swedish staging” (SvD
4/4 1887).
One issue not mentioned in the reviews was Wagner’s anti-Semitism
and the possibly anti-Semitic content of Die Meistersinger. Without doubt
the critics were aware of this aspect of Wagner’s world-view. Lindgren
mentions his “well-known hatred of the Jews” in Om Wagnerismen, and
refers to Das Judenthum in der Musik (1881, p. 62). However, he was of the
opinion that this was a personal obsession of Wagner rather than a characteristic
trait of Wagnerism. Thus, he was an early advocate of the notion
that Wagner’s anti-Semitism is not to be found in his works.
The negative reactions
Adolf Lindgren admitted in his review (AB 9/4 1887) that Die Meistersinger
was one of Wagner’s best texts, and if the musical inspiration had equalled
the poetic achievement the opera in its entirety would have been among his
most enjoyable. Unfortunately, his tendentious application of his musicodramatic
doctrine had intensified to the same extent as his musical creativity
had faded. As a result, one of Wagner’s faults was more prominent in Die
Meistersinger than in Tannhäuser and Lohengrin: “his ponderous depiction
of details, which often blocks the big picture and has a tiresome, dry and
monotonous effect.”
Lindgren repeats much of the criticism he had formulated in Om Wagnerismen,
and again turns against infinite melody and the leitmotif technique:
“Wagner claims to have created a new art form, ‘the music drama’, but
it is nothing more than a blown-up photograph of the sounds of spoken
language, with fixed pitches and intervals, mixed with some arioso passages
and surrounded by orchestral leitmotifs that appear on command
as soon as the objects they designate are mentioned, imagined or even
scented from a rather far-fetched distance. Consequently, the symbolic
play and change of the leitmotifs become a polite little mental game that
attracts the most strained interpretations, on which Wagnerians have
since written volumes.”
However, Lindgren continues, “is it reasonable to assume that people
[folket] will find it psychologically or even physiologically possible to understand
and enjoy an ‘infinite melody’ consisting of unmelodic, dry declama-
11 See Salmi 2005, pp. 197-203 for an account of Vult von Steijern.s relationship with
Wagner’s music, Bayreuth and the Wahnfried circle.