Word: wagnerian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...from which the Nazis borrowed much-each is essential but none is sufficient to explain Nazism. It could not have happened but for two additional qualities that in the past at least have always seemed to be part of the German character. One is romanticism, the antirational worship of Wagnerian life and death of which Nazism represented a cancerous acceleration. The Hitler regime was romantic, even idealistic, in a perverted way; as Heinrich Heine said, "We Germans are idealists even when we hate." The other, and contradictory, quality is an alarming literal-mindedness, which made it possible even for many...
WAGNER: PARSIFAL (Philips; 5 LPs). This first stereo version has top credentials: conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, an eminent Wagnerian, it was recorded at Bayreuth, where Wagner intended his "sacred dramatic festival" to be performed and where the acoustics are ideal-even, unfortunately, for coughs. Knappertsbusch slowly and hypnotically weaves the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus into a rich tapestry of sound against which budding Heldentenor Jess Thomas as Parsifal, Baritone George London as King Amfortas and Soprano Irene Dalis as the tortured Kundry eloquently play out the medieval legend of renunciation and redemption...
...Venus's-fly-trap who has devoured "Fa" (he is too contemptible to deserve the other syllable) and dragooned Daughter Lakme (Susan Anspach) and Son Sigfrid (Robert Drivas) into performing strange little rituals like strewing the air with paper petals and striking heraldic poses with Wagnerian swords...
Divorced. Lauritz Melchior, 74, retired patriarch of Wagnerian tenors; by Mary Markham, 40, once his secretary, now a top Hollywood booking agent, whom he married last May, 15 months after the death of his second wife; on grounds of extreme mental cruelty; in Santa Monica, Calif. Settlement: $20,000 in cash, with another $80,000 to follow upon Melchior's death...
Hitler's art collection is often plainly preposterous. Sharing the racks with Rubens are sexy sphinxes and snake-draped nude dancers of Max Klinger and Franz von Stuck, whose fancy for the Wagnerian concept of total art led them to stud their frames with marble, onyx and semiprecious lapidary and to incise their names in five-inch letters. Among nearly 2,000 lesser art works are monumental glorifications of the autobahns, tiers of titillating, bulky Brünnhildes in the buff, and pleasant vistas of Berchtesgaden. One canvas, called Judgment of Paris, shows three hefty maidens placidly awaiting...