stOttilien

Category: Literature & Art

Books, Movies and Fine Art

  • Leni Riefenstahl – Germany’s convient Shadow

    Leni Riefenstahl – Germany’s convient Shadow

    Whatever you can say about Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) and plenty of people have said (and written) a lot about her, she led a fascinating life.

    • She was beautiful and talented.
    • She was a woman in a man’s field.
    • She made her career during Hitler’s Third Reich.

    Three strikes and you’re out.

    Despite (I am almost convinced because of) her demonstrated talent she could not escape historical contamination attached to her during the last 5o years of her life. Leni Riefenstahl, dancer, mountaineer, actress, a trail blazing film director and cinematographer, an accomplished still photographer finally became a writer. This list makes almost speechless. By all accounts, she was not a particularly pleasant person, who manifested an extreme degree of ego, certainly grabbing and creating opportunities. Leni Riefenstahl solicited Hitler’s attention and had very sharp elbows in her professional life.

    I want to approach her life from four directions:

    • Leni Riefenstahl Work
    • Ray Mueller’s, 1993 documentary film “Die Macht der Bilder” – Leni Riefenstahl (The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl)
    • Riefenstahl’s autobiography: Memoiren (Munich, 1987)
    • Psychological evaluation of the hate and witch-hunt particularly in Germany

    Riefenstahl revisited

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    Her childhood in the Wedding district of Berlin during the 1920’s particularly gives insight and helps enormously in explaining the environment out of which Leni emerged. She was the daughter of Alfred Riefenstahl, a prosperous businessman and  Bertha Sherlach. By her own account she was a tom boy, pursuing her goals relentlessly. Leni’s three and a half years younger brother, Heinz,  would later die in Hitler’s war on the Russian front. Young Leni lived at home until she was 21. Against the wish of her father, she studied dance and was soon performing in Munich, Berlin, and Prague.  She was promoted and encouraged by the famous Max Reinhardt, but had to give up dancing because of an injury.

    Leni Riefenstahl as actress

    Because of this, she became an actress in avant-garde movies and gradually slides in the film business. In the 1920s and ’30s, Riefenstahl appeared in a series of so-called Bergfilme (nature movies) directed by Arnold Fanck. The plot of such films was secondary to the spectacular scenes of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps.

    The central theme was always human surrender to the power of nature.  Dr. Franks approach to his actors was physically tough. In the picture above,  she must perform free climbing fifty years before it was “invented” in California.  Here she discovered her love for nature, becomes professional mountaineer and acts during the most difficult shots without any double. The often confusing conditions on the set brings her also behind the camera. Her amazing talent starts to show. Those early years played a significant role in shaping Riefenstahl’s own visual approach to film-making but particularly in understanding the importance of the cutting of a movie for dynamic effects.

    Leni Riefenstahl as director

    The first film, which she directed “Das blaue Licht” (“The Blue Light”) 1932, re-edited and cut 1951) is a milestone in the history of film with excellent international recognition. In the film, Riefenstahl played a peasant girl who protected a glowing mountain grotto, the main role of Junta which is a sort of witch despised from the ordinary people. Later she will say this girl Junta preempted her life. In 1932, this film won the Silver Medal at the Venice Film Festival and attracted the attention of Hitler. He is said to have believed that the image Riefenstahl created for herself in “The Blue Light” epitomised the ultimate German woman.

    Sieg des Glaubens (1933, Victory of Faith), filmed at the Nuremberg rallies of 1933, was basically a practice run for Riefenstahl’s  much better direction “Triumph des Willens” 1934. It took her five months to cut this movie, and the movie is undisputed the best documentary ever made. Suggestive shots (“The Power of the Pictures”), instinctively utilized  Archetypes and Symbols at that time described from C.G. Jung. Absolute mastery of light conditions – particularly light from the opposite, dynamic cut of the scenes filmed from multiple innovative camera angles is still taught in movie schools and those techniques still used even in today’ advertizing clips and movie industry.

    Riefenstahl’s great success was filming the 1936 Berlin Olympics, no minor undertaking. For Olympia she had to manage a total crew of 60 cinematographers and shoot over 400,000 meters of film. In the process, Riefenstahl invented or enhanced many of the techniques we now take for granted: slow motion, underwater diving shots, extremely high (from towers) and low shooting angles (from pits), panoramic aerial shots, and tracking systems for following fast action. Riefenstahl  ensured that every event was covered, and from multiple angles. Hans Ertl was her lead cameraman in many films also her Olympia film. During World he was supposedly a lover of Riefenstahl. In the mid 1950’s he resettled in Bolivia  and became father of the guerrilla Monika Ertl.

    However, Riefenstahl was proud of Olympia, that her pictures were not limited to the strict confines of documentary but also art. When she felt she had missed an angle or had been prevented from getting close enough during the official competition, she was known to invade the Olympic Village, even rousing medal-winning athletes from their sleep to re-enact their events for her camera crew..

    The result is considered a brilliant cinematic masterpiece. Olympia premiered at on Hitler’s birthday, April 20, 1938 an became a grandiose success. On more than one occasion she mentioned her art approach versa the “Wochenschau” approach of the state run propaganda film industry. The Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels hated her for many reasons (for her access to Hitler, her excessive need of cameras which were scare at that time and other more profane reasons). It took over a year until the film Olympia was cut and is listed and is Riefenstahl’s greatest success. The documentary won international awards and prizes.  Her next major project was “Tiefland” in which she played a gypsy heroine. Filming took her out of Germany and to Franco’s Spain. By the time the war ended, Riefenstahl had yet to edit the film and it was impounded during the denazification tribunals.

    She wrote film history. Period.

    Leni Riefenstahl as photographer

    After the war, the tides suddenly turn. The name of Leni Riefenstahl was brought over and over again in connection with the atrocities of the Nazis. Riefenstahl had to face Allied charges that she was a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. Her close ties to Hitler and her propaganda films, most notably Triumph of the Will, made her an obvious target. The Americans officially “denazified”  her “without prejudice” on June 3, 1945, but she effectively became blacklisted, subsequently shut out of the film industry and continuously smeared by the press. The performances of her films are thwarted, and her new projects sabotaged. Finally, Leni Riefenstahl is forced to give up directing, although she tried again and again despite endless disappointments. She began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner, who was 40 years her junior.

    The press and “their opponents” grant her lifelong “film ban”, which draws her into away to Africa, where she is an unknown. There, within the Nuba tribe in Sudan, she finds a new objective. She photographs this unique indigenous tribe people and falls in love with Africa.  All of their numerous attempts of new film projects  failed, however. Riefenstahl encountered resistance  from too many quarters. There was almost no prospect of getting a Riefenstahl film shot, much less shown in most of the world. So, she turned to the next best talent; she took up still photography. She lived for a time with the native tribe in Africa recording images published in two photographic essay books. Again, her photos become a sensational success. Publishers and newspapers dare to publish pictures of the Riefenstahl three decades after the war. Again there were hostile and slander activities. Finally, however, this paradise in Africa dies. The natives got  “help” by the socialist Government like the American Indians. She found a new passion, scuba diving in 1970s at the age of 72, and has continued doing astonishing underwater shots and movies into her 90s. But illness and age ultimately force her to “retirement”.

    Leni Riefenstahl as writer

    Finally, she writes her “memoirs”, the book of her life after the publishers crave for It took her  five years, a work strong over 900 pages appears. After so many untruths, which has been published about her person in numerous biographies, she finally published her own version of her life – her life, as she has experienced it, as it had been true for her. The memoirs griped me from the first to the last page.  How much of what she writes here is really true, everybody must decide for him/herself. One definitely shouldn’t rely not only on this a book to learn about the person of Leni Riefenstahl. Relying on her opinionated critics and to make a judgment without her own statement is not save either. She writes subjectively, what she felt and feels and I do believe most of it. Indeed it is like she writes in her last line of the book “not a happy book”, but I think it is very worth reading. It is a well written superb document of her turbulent life and a report, how devastating media lies can harm individuals and an incredible chronic how much strength and power a single human being can have. Hitler s mentioned only a few times but the book still is probably the most sophisticated personal account of Hitlers private life seen through woman’s eyes.

     Leni Riefenstahl as projection and hate object

    Although acquitted by American, French, and German authorities, she became the one who was handed over all the guilt. Others, who had done worse, eagerly confessing and denouncing what they had done. She never admitted political intentions in her work and insisted that Hitler was privately a nice man. Leni Riefenstahl still insists to separate her art work strictly from a possible political responsibility. Because Leni Riefenstahl refused an admission of guilt, there was no “discharge” in published and public opinion. Worse, throughout her life she made it clear, that she was once fascinated by Hitler’s charisma. She admitted that she was blinded as many millions of other German and many Non-Germans. Other artists, who had their “contact” with the Nazis, such as Heinz Rühmann, Luis Trenker (with whom she appeared in the nature films) and the famous Gustav Gründgens behaved after the coup d ‘ état “glibly”. They managed seamlessly to transfer back to the German (art) mainstream in the 50ties, the time of the “Wirtschaftswunder”. Even the director of “Jud Suess”, undoubtedly a vicious propaganda movie, was treated better by press and public opinion. Defamation of person appears up today, beyond her death with stubborn regularity. An exhibit of Riefenstahl’s movie stills and her African and underwater photographs in Hamburg in late 1997 brought out a whole new generation of protesters. There must be more behind these 50 years of hate against her, than only hypocrisy. It has been a classical projection of Germans – especially of the journalists and artists – who wanted to forget their own opportunism and maybe even mediocrity.

    Ray Mueller’s, documentary film “Die Macht der Bilder” – The power of pictures

    Ray Mueller’s excellent documentary is a fascinating, if somewhat long (188 min.) look at her cinematography achievements from her point of view. It is a must buy for everybody who is interested in movies and/or history.  The documentary starts disastrous, blending Nazi propaganda clips and Leni Riefenstahl work with the sound of Nazi drums. During the entire documentary she ridicules Mueller’s directing style and wants the movie shot differently. And she is quite right – even if the documentary won prices, it has it has major  flaws. He, however, keeps trying to steer her towards the politics of Germany in the 1930s and to admit the political responsibility for the events until 1945 almost in a cross examination manner.

    These unusual interviewing style shows involuntarily highly interesting results and discovers the truth by chance. Both let down their mask, for the first time. I understood why (IMHO mediocre so called) German intellectuals blame this outstanding artist and I understand the artist naive (if not even amoral) attitude toward art and powerful pictures. At that point I became convinced Mueller’s clumsy personal style, and that Riefenstahl and he never seem to hit it off was the biggest asset of this documentary. Ray Mueller’s trailer mentioned above, which was neither subtle (more of a bad abuse), nor professionally done was a provocation to get Leni Riefenstahl. When this documentary was made, Leni Riefenstahl was already in her nineties, but she still acted quite tough with an street wise Berlin accent.

    The key moment of this documentary to me,  is when they discuss “Triumph des Willens”. Mueller seriously asked her if she was involved in choreographing the Nuremberg rallies of 1933. She laughs at him saying that  Speer and Hitler himself did that. But that’s exactly the point; he / the political correct media blamed her not only for the Nazi propaganda and its powerful appeal to the unconsciousness via Archetypes and Symbols but basically for the reality the Nazis caused – the German history. Projecting the collaboration sins of the German intellectuals on her, she become all good and she all evil.

    Then, when Riefenstahl explains a particular shot, in which some Nazis walk down steps like in a ballet she got carried away too. She looses all distance and it becomes clear she was a victim of the Nazi imago’s too, even today. Her own victim, C.G. Jung almost was lured by the Nazis clever use of Wotan and other Archetypes,  but finally analyzed them 1936 very clearly. She fell for it. When Mueller asks her why she never apologized for making Triumph of the Will, she answers that she just documented (with  great art) what she saw. She documented the messages which were there and there’s nothing to apologize for. Again she is quite right. When he let her present her relations to the top Nazi party leadership (particularly Goebbels as propaganda guru) and political developments in Germany in the 1930′s, the viewer is much more prepared to understand Leni’s activities during this years. That becomes even more clear reading her memoirs.

    Leni comes across as a remarkable woman and Ray Mueller with all due respect as a run of the mill “Wochenschau” movie maker and clumsy interviewer. Nevertheless, the film is a not only a fascinating lecture about photography and movie techniques, but brings you as close to the truth of the person Leni Riefenstahl and the moral of art as you can get. You may not share her view, but you can’t help to admire her. She actually directs and refutes brilliantly any biased question of Ray Mueller.

    I think by the time Ray Mueller came closer. In the end of the first half he states that Leni Riefenstahl took over the guilt of all the Germans who refused to. In the words of Ray Mueller, “Her talent was her tragedy.” Five stars for Ray Mueller’s endurance confronted with a big ego (put politely), the result and objectivity he achieved, his courage to do this documentary and Leni Riefenstahl snappy answers.

  • Demian and Abraxas – Hermann Hesse and C.G. Jung revisited

    Demian and Abraxas – Hermann Hesse and C.G. Jung revisited

    In Hermann Hesse’s Demian, protagonist Emil Sinclair receives a note about the Gnostic deity Abraxas after sending a drawing, highlighting a union of divine and devilish aspects. This figure symbolizes a journey toward individuation and the synthesis of all things, prompting Sinclair to accept his complete human nature and abandon his restricted worldview. Introduced by Max Demian and explored through Pistorius, the concept encourages embracing, rather than suppressing, one’s inner darkness to achieve self-realization in Jungian terms the self.

    The things we see are the same things that are within us. There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.” ― Hermann Hesse, Demian

    Herman Hesse is a Nobel Laureate who created four masterpieces – Demian, Siddhartha, Glasperlenspiel and Steppenwolf – that are well worth studying.  Hesse, the son of missionaries represents the last blue flower of German romanticism and the philosophical ideas that took the great journey of wisdom to the East with Schopenhauer and C.G. Jung himself (very attracted by the Abraxas). He cannot be understood if separated from the roots of his literary tradition of German romanticism of Novalis and Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche himself, which Hesse had admired so much and most of all, the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung.

    Hesse derived his understanding of the Western and Eastern religious foundation and Gnostic thoughts from C.G. Jung’s psychology. It opened a new thinking and a new, modern and fascinating way to interpret and to make his personal experiences fruitful for his poetic work. C.G. Jung’s  teaching gives him the key for the synopsis of the world religions and specifically for the combination of psychology and religion, specifically in “Demian”. Even more C.G. Jung’s psychology of religion provides the theoretical justification for the central message of Hesse in his  poetry: the identity of raising consciousness and experiencing God. It confirms his own hunches and insights on the common psychological and anthropological understanding of the world religions and thus it opens access to those “summa metaphysica”.

    The tracks of C. G. Jung’s core ideas become increasingly clear in Hesse’s Work since 1922. Central for the development of Hesse’s intellectual ideas between 1919 and 1943 was Existentialism of the subjectivity search for meaning by the way of Individuation, reinforced by the personal and longer fight – and many psychoanalytic sessions – with Joseph B. Lang and Carl Gustav Jung. With Thomas Mann, he shared the conservative (better middle) position against the Nazi attacks of the bourgeois, non national socialist readers in Germany. Both meet several times in the Switzerland and Hesse was referring Mann in the work as a friend of the later Nobel Prize winner.  In all books the Christian  theological message and those from the Far East, are amazingly preserved until today.

    Siddhartha

    The key influences are the crisis phases are 1919-22 with Siddhartha in response to the total change of circumstances: Moving to Switzerland after the failure of his first marriage, the death of his Father (a lonely painter) and his own transformation of all own values after the First World War. “But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul…” Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. At one point in the book, he says there are three things he can do – “I can pray, I can wait and I can fast. About 12 translations in Indian languages, of Siddhartha further ones into Chinese (three since 1968) and Japanese exit and proof its meaningful intercultural dialogue.

    Steppenwolf

    With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, Hesse’s best-known and most autobiographical work is one of literature’s most poetic evocations of the soul’s journey to liberation. In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He’s decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He’s rescued by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. In the German original of the Steppenwolf, the female actress Hermina means this is the feminine form of Hermann (Hesse). This is same alchemic tantric game such as in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte”: Pamino and Pamina. Hermann Hesse roots are like many other Germans in the great tradition in the music of Mozart and Bach. The female is an important and recurring motif for Hesse. Hesse pictures Freud’s Oedipus complex for Demian ( Emil’s Self) in his construction of Demians mother (Frau Eva)  and in his exploration of her relationship with Emil Sinclair. His treatment of the female becomes more intricate, however, in Steppenwolf, as the prostitute Hermine becomes the Ego for Harry Haller. According to Jung, “Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definite feminine image…I have called this image the ‘anima’.” The character diagram mirrors Hesse’s experiences with psychoanalysis and his efforts to explore his subconsciousness:

    Hallucination, fantasy, and unreality are important elements in the novel. Consequentially it was tried to portray Hesse as a bohemian, as a hippie, as a follower of the drug culture or as a pacifist vagabond (he was by the way really pacifist) and to make Hesse to a consumer product. There is an impressing movie that is worth to see even with its primitive special effects/animation technology, are not convincingly covering the fantastic emotional/surreal visions of the book.

    Glasperlenspiel

    It is easy to belittle from postmodern mindset the “overachieving” epic unity. The insights Hesse about the collapse of opposites “yin and Yang, individualism and” Serve” in the reception “Eastern meditation techniques and the associated” Attitude” is caught up today by the spiritual multiculturalism fashion “ideal, that might have proved as hollow as the ideals the traditional values of good old Europe. Nonetheless the breaking out of the “self-sufficient spiritualism” at the end of the novel, his last “magnum opus” implies the “synthesis of spirit and life” for the continuing, global reader looking for a valid meaning of life. In this book are musical polarities Hesse and mathematical abstractions and similar as by C.G. Jung’s enigmatic holistic symbols of the Mandela.

    Demian

    Demian proves tha basic thesis that Hesse – merged autobiographical experiences and fictional plot elements-in the design of the main characters and themes, as well as in the his poetry. It is critical to understand the  Jungian psychology individuation model and the dualistic view of the world to understand Demian and other works of Herrmann Hesse.

    Under the influence of C.G. Jung’s (and Lang’s) psychoanalysis treatment, Hesse fell completely for the Germanic alchemical dream whose tendons to unity and the union of opposites. The inner self was revealed in Demian; the main character of his book was named, and loved and admired by Sinclair, i.e. of Hesse. Demian tells the story of a boy coming of age as a troubled German youth prior to WWI. Its imagery and plot have been the inspiration for countless songs, whether the composers read the book or not.

    “Our god’s name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world.” ― Hermann Hesse, Demian

    The book gives a vision of the two worlds: for Emil the main character, there is a bright world to which his parents and siblings belong and where everything is good and pious, and another, dark world, which starts at the door of his home and which is both wild and ghastly as well as mysterious and fascinating. Sometimes he would live like in the dark, forbidden world because he felt the other world as boring. At other times in turn it was comforting and wonderful to live in the light, religious world and to feel like an Angel.

    Short overview of the book Demian.

    1. Chapter – The Shadow

    The story opens with Emil’s childhood experience, which earned him his first confrontation with the still so strange, dark world: Emil is little more than ten years old and visited the Latin school, when he met Franz Kromer, an older pupil of the elementary school. Franz is strong and quite malicious, so that it is feared among all kids. One afternoon, it happens that Emil and Franz talk about their school pranks. Emil spins a hero story to impress Franz how he stole apples with friends. As Emil wants to participate in the trip back, Kromer accompanied him and threatens Emil to reveal the theft, if he does not pay him two Reichsmarks the next day. After a few weeks, and Emil feels as he sinks ever further in the dark.

    If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”

    2. Chapter “The Self”

    Emil is very fascinated of Max Demian, a new older student at the Latin school. He is some years older than Emil and visited a higher class. Initially, Emil is biased, but soon they deepen in a conversation about the story of Cain and Abel. Demian tells him that there are different interpretations for each story, and never one alone the truth corresponds to. Demian promises him that he will help him against Kromer. As the Self it leads Emil to the right decision. As Emil returns home that day, he confesses his parents which surprisingly listening to him and then forgive him. From now on he feels belong again the light world.

    3. Chapter Ego and Persona

    A few years later Emil and Demian in confirmation classes meet each other again. In the confirmation, the story is of the dying of Jesus tells them that there is no free will, however, it could affect the will of others if you focus just enough. A few days later Emil and Demian discuss the two worlds. Demian is impressed, and feels confirmed in his own, and comes to the conclusion that every person must find the right measure for themselves. The day of the confirmation is getting closer, and Emil decides to commit his recording in the mind at the same time with his inclusion in the Church. However, his parents decide that he should visit another school after the shortly upcoming holidays.

    4. Chapter Beatrice the Anima (Dantes »Divina commedia«)

    In his new boarding school, Emil receives little respect and sinks stages into melancholy and self-pity. Emil is now often in pubs with friends, where there lavishly richly celebrate and get drunk. So, his grades in school get always worse, and he is threatened even with the dismissal from the school. After the Christmas, which he spent at home, he falls in love with a girl, but does not dare however to attract them, and so he gives her the name Beatrice. His school grades improved, and again like he deals with spiritual themes. Also he starts to paint; first ornament and plants, and finally Beatrice. When the image is completed, Emil finds it not really resembles her, and later, he realizes that he had painted no her, but Demian. One night, Emil has a dream by Demian and the heraldic bird, which is placed over the door of his own home. He decides to paint this bird, and to send the image to Demian.

    5. Chapter – Abraxas

    Emil sends the drawing from his dream bird to Demian which come to a piece of paper. On it, he writes about a God named Abraxas, which is a combination of divine and devilish attributes. Emil is interested to understand this God and provides research, which remain however largely unsuccessful. One night Emil comes past on a walk on church organ music and stops and listens. The organist plays Bach is the pieces however, as Emil thinks, a passionate own note. From that day on, he often stands in front of the Church and listening to the music. One day he follows the musician, Pistorius, as he leaves the Church. He enters a bar on the outskirts of the city, and Emil sits down at the table to him. They start to talk amongst other things about and come on Abraxas.

    6. Chapter  The Jungian Adviser

    From his conversations with Pistorius Emil finds his self-esteem and learns more of Abraxas, his new God. One evening, he is approached by a classmate named Knauer, who asks him about spiritualism. On the same evening still Emil begins to paint a picture. Again, it’s a face that he can map not a particular person. Emil comes to the conclusion, that for everyone a particular work or task is intended, and that Pistorius had missed his. The only important work in a person’s life, it is however to find themselves.

    “Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.”

    7. Chapter – The Great Mother  the fulfilment of individuation

    In the holidays Emil does looking after Demian and they meet and Demian recognizes his old friend, he invites him to his house, so that he could get to know his mother. During his visit, Emil discovered that Demian has his picture of the dream bird in the entrance hall to on slopes, what affects him deeply. He falls in love with Demians mother – his  The Great Mother, but the (sexual) desire  is rejected. Later in the war he gets injured by a grenade. Sinclair witnessed in one overwhelming vision the desirable rebirth of personal and collective by projecting the great mother into this:

    “In den Wolken war eine große Stadt zu sehen, aus der strömten Millionen von Menschen hervor […] – Mitten unter sie trat eine mächtige Göttergestalt, funkelnde Sterne im Haar, groß wie ein Gebirge, mit den Zügen der Frau Eva. In sie hinein verschwanden die Züge der Menschen, wie in eine riesige Höhle, und waren weg […]. Ein Traum schien Gewalt über sie zu haben, sie schloß die Augen, und ihr großes Antlitz verzog sich in Weh. Plötzlich schrie sie hell auf, und aus ihrer Stirn sprangen Sterne, die schwangen sich in herrlichen Bögen und Halbkreisen über den schwarzen Himmel. Einer von den Sternen brauste mit hellem Klang gerade zu mir her, schien mich zu suchen. Da krachte er brüllend in tausend Funken auseinander, es riß mich empor und warf mich wieder zu Boden, donnernd brach die Welt über mir zusammen.”

    C.G. Jung’s Psychology offers also attempt an explanation of this rebirth phenomenon.  Jung  notes that a mobilization the deeper archetypes – such as the “Anima” or of the “Self” only in a withdrawn and introverted life is possible. The Conclusion is valid, that Hesse was stimulated by reading C.G. Jung’s  ” Symbole der Wandlung / Icons” of the”Conversion” to his haunting poetic design of Sinclair’s  rebirth experience . The nature of incest fantasy is explained as  regression of the libido into the unconscious, where they enable the compensating and healing powers.

    I want to end with the power of the Self as a (spiritual)  leader, which I have experienced over and over again:

    Wenn der, der etwas notwendig braucht, dies  ihm Notwendige findet, so ist es nicht der Zufall, der es ihm gibt, sondern er selbst, sein eigenesVerlangen und Müssen führt ihn hin.”

  • Wagner Ring Cycle – so called Kupfer Version at Bayreuth (German).

    Wagner Ring Cycle – so called Kupfer Version at Bayreuth (German).

    Harry Kupfer’s Wagner Ring Cycle, particularly its opening conception of Die Walküre. Kupfer’s Bayreuth Ring demonstrates that radical abstraction need not obscure Wagner’s dramaturgy. His minimalist stage language consistently serves a single conceptual idea. One may disagree with his interpretation, but it remains internally coherent. Compelling theatrical images arrive at an equally clear interpretative centre.

    In Harry Kupfer’s legendary Bayreuth Ring production (1988–1992, designed by Hans Schavernoch), the traditional World Ash Tree (Weltesche) in Die Walküre was reimagined within a bleak, post-apocalyptic universe.

    Ich maße mir nicht an ein Kunst- oder gar Wagnerkritiker zu sein. Es geht um 7 hochwertige DVDs und ob diese Bayreuth und Wagner korrekt abbilden. Die Antwort ist, ja unbedingt.
    Die Neuauflage der Produktion bietet Breitwandformat und Surroundklang, so dass die Aura Bayreuths zumindest technisch ins Wohnzimmer übertragbar ist. Wagnerliebhaber – und solche wie ich die es werden wollen – sollten hier nicht vorbeigehen. Günstiger kann große Kunst nicht erfahren werden. Sowohl Kamera als auch Ton sind von hoher technische Qualität und das Orchester und die Stimmen in optimaler Balance. Die Darsteller des Bayreuther Rings haben wie zu erwarten Weltklasse, allen voran Siegfried Jerusalem als Siegfried, dramatisch Anne Evans als Brünnhilde und der starke Bass Philip Kangs als Hagen überzeugen. Die Nahaufnahmen, welche die Kameraperspektive ermöglicht, zeigen die Gestik alle Protagonisten allerdings teilweise in sehr gewöhnungsbedürftigen Kostümen. Die musikalische Leitung Barenboims wurde seinerzeit groß bejubelt und gefeiert – meines Erachtens nicht zu Unrecht. Barenboim hat Kupfer bis an die Grenze des vom Gesang her Möglichen nachgegeben – es wird gerannt, gelegen, geklettert, gerutscht, gekniet. Parallel zur Oper lese ich ein Buch des Kunsthistorikers Richard Wagner’s Robert Donington ‘Ring des Nibelungen’ und seine Symbole: Musik und Mythos. Er zitiert in der Einführung Richard Wagners Bemerkung sinngemäss: “Ein allzu offenes Aufdecken der Absicht stört das richtige Verständnis durchaus: es gilt im Drama – wie im Kunstwerk überhaupt – nicht durch Darlegung der Absichten, sondern durch Darstellung des Unwirklichen zu wirken”. Anders gesagt, Kunst kann durch sich selbst überzeugen. Ich kein Freund der unbedingten Werktreue, aber mit der Bühnenbildgestaltung durch Hans Schavernoch und der Inszenierung Harry Kupfers kann ich mich anfreunden. Wenn ich mich auf den Begriff Regietheater mal einlasse, sollte es besser Musiktheater heißen, mit guten Regisseuren und klugen Dramaturgen. Die Regie sollte nicht vorne stehen.
    Bei Wagner frage ich Simpel mich zudem immer, transportieren die Inszenierung die Bilder der Symbole und Mythen in der ganzen Vielschichtigkeit? Ein klares Ja, bei der genialen Laser Unterwasserszene in Rheingold (die den Ton störte), geschieht das hier immer. Die Götterdämmerung ist ganz besonders beeindruckend.
    Ein durchgängiges Moment des Regietheaters im negativen Sinne ist ja der pädagogische Zeigefinger: man will aufklären, erklären, den wahren “Gehalt” des Kunstwerkes zeigen, den Komponisten und Textdichter besser verstehen als der Bildungsbürger (der ja dafür zahlt), die Wichtigkeit des Werkes für heute zeigen. Letzteres ist ja auch in Ordnung. Zwei Kinder suchen den Weg aus der Katastrophe und ziehen von der Bühne.
    Die Konzeption des Gesamtkunstwerks der Ring entstand zur Zeit zwischen 1850-1890. Diese Epoche ist durch die Erstarrung des Bürgertums nach dem Scheitern der Märzrevolution (1848). Dies Erstarrung der Bürgertums – oder was heute noch davon übrig ist – und die Kapitalismuskritik Wagners ist heute aktueller den je. Andreas Kriegenburg im derzeitigen Ring im Nationaltheater München transportiert Wagners Metaphern meines Erachtens etwas besser. Trotzdem, unbedingt hörenswert, sehenswert – ganz besonders wenn man minimalistisch mag,

  • Richard Wagner from Scene to Scene utilizing C.G. Jung

    Richard Wagner from Scene to Scene utilizing C.G. Jung

    “Wagner’s Ring and Its Symbols” originally published 1984.  (English and German article). Applied in my article C.G Jung and Wagner – Rainy Götterdämmerung in Munich.

    I wanted to learn more about Wagner and bought therfore recently a used copy of the English musicologist Robert Donington. He provides an allegorical interpretation of the Wagners Ring Cycle according to the criteria music, drama and the psychological analysis of C.G. Jung. I have worked through the book scene for scene based on a DVD of the Bayreuth production of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen’ from the year 1991-92 (Kupfer / Barenboim). The author impresses with broad and in-depth knowledge suitable for the description of the complexity and richness of relationship the musical symbols of Wagner’s opera. Donnington analyzes and describes the entire ring from Rheingold and Götterdämmerung. The underlying ring myths and fairy tales are set in context with the poetic and musical symbols (e.g. recurrent sequences) of Wagner in an exciting way. From the symbolic and artistic consciousness he goes towards intellectual and analytical penetration of the substance. A very good appendix (notes of the sequences / relationship diagram) and scriptures complement the book.

    I am Opera fan, but (was) not a Wagner fan) but this very systematic approach in regards of general background lasting has significantly sharpened my senses (and reception). I have been subscribed to the scheme of C.G. Jung for a long time, and considers Robert Donnington’s approach to use it for Wagner brilliant and all in all valid. He does justice to the complexity of Wagner with a comprehensive knowledge of literary and musical material. C.G. Jung has dealt precisely with Archetypes of the hero and Wotan. Concepts of animus and Anima, shadow do very well describe Wagner’s poetic figures.Alberich pays by his own self. He gives up love for power, loses the power, which represents the Ring.  His life is hell.

    The appearance” of the “Unwillkürlichen”  is the subject of the ring according to Wagner’s own information. That fits in well with C.G. Jung’s unconscious, his view of consciousness functions – Sensing and Intuition and the a-causal contexts (synchronicity). Robert Donington used once in a while the vocabulary of modern psychology s quite arbitrarily. Then, I had to put a question mark and the edge in the “split shadow”. There is also a mix of Freud and Jung and concepts and occasionally heavily psychological charged sentences, whose meaning and benefit are not immediately clear to. However, for me a very successful and engaging introduction to The Ring.

    See also my article C.G Jung and Wagner – Rainy Götterdämmerung in Munich.

    Meine Rezension:  Richard Wagner’s ‘Ring des Nibelungen’ und seine Symbole: Musik und Mythos

    Der englische Musikwissenschaftler Robert Donnington gibt diesem Buch eine allegorische Deutung des Ring-Zyklus nach Kriterien Musik, Drama und der Psychoanalytik von C.G. Jung. Donnington analysiert und beschreibt den gesamten Ring von Rheingold bis Götterdämmerung. Die dem Ring zugrunde liegende Mythen und Märchen werden dabei auf sehr anregende Weise mit den poetischen und musikalischen Symbolen (z.B. immer wiederkehrende Sequenzen) von Wagner in Verbindung gebracht. Vom symbolischen und künstlerischen Bewusstsein geht es in Richtung intellektuelle und analytische Durchdringung des Stoffes. Ein sehr guter Anhang Noten der Sequenzen / Beziehungsvdiagramm) und Stichwortverzeichnis ergänzen das Buch. Ich habe das Buch Szene für Szene anhand einer DVD der Bayreuther Aufführung von Wagners ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ aus dem Jahre 1991/92 durchgearbeitet(Kupfer/ Barenboim). Bei der Beschreibung der Vielschichtigkeit und Beziehungsreichtum der musikalischen Partitur beeindruckt das breite und fundierte Wissen des Autors. Ich bin zwar Opern-Fan, aber (war) kein Wagner Fan) und diese sehr systematische Herangehensweise des Buches über gesamthaften Hintergrund und Zusammenhang hat meine Sinne (und Rezeption) entscheidend geschärft. Ich fühle mich durch die Systematik von C.G. Jung seit langem sehr angesprochen, und halte Robert Donnington’s Ansatz diesen bei Wagner zu verwenden, für brillant und alles in allem gültig durchgeführt. Der Komplexität von Wagner wird er mit einer umfassenden Kenntnis des literarischen und musikalischen Materials gerecht. C.G. Jung hat ja sich ja eingehend genau mit dem Archetypen des Helden und Wotan auseinandergesetzt. Konzepte von Animus und Anima, sowie Schatten beschreiben sehr gut Wagners poetische Figuren. Die “Darstellung des Unwillkürlichen” ist nach Wagners eigener Auskunft Gegenstand des Rings. Das deckt sich gut mit C.G. Jungs Unbewussten, seiner Sicht der Bewusstseinsfunktionen – Empfinden und Intuieren und der akausalen Zusammenhänge (Synchronizität). Nur verwendet Robert Donnington das Vokabular der modernen Psychologie einige Male recht willkürlich. Dann musste ich ein Fragezeichen and den Rand setzen, so bei den “gespaltenen Schatten”. Auch gibt es manchmal ein Gemengelage von Freud und Jung und gelegentlich stark mit Psychoanalytik geladene Sätze, deren Sinn und Mehrwert mir nicht sofort einleuchtet. Für mich ein sehr gelungene und fesselnde Einführung in den Ring.

  • C.G Jung and Wagner – Rainy Götterdämmerung in Munich.

    C.G Jung and Wagner – Rainy Götterdämmerung in Munich.

    This is a very personal take on Götterdämmerung the last one in the four of the opera cycle by Richard Wagner’s  “Ring” from a Jungian perspective. However also if the themes of the Ring, though universal, specifically apply to our lives today.

    The Conductor Kent Nagano

    The Munich Opera Festival draws for over 130 years opera fans to Munich, and as one of the oldest international festival continues far beyond the city and national borders. Since fifteen years there is a free eopen air event “Opera for all”.  Since the charismatic Conductor Kent Nagano came to Munich Opera, those two events “Opera for all” became even more cult for young folks not used to rattle the jewelry in plush seats. I saw him first time in California (Berkeley) and still appreciate Kent Nagano’s courageous and creative ways to transfer his subtle understanding of classical music to the audience. Already on Saturday – on a beautiful  night – he conducted open air with the Bavarian State Orchestra excerpts from Richard of Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen”, an arrangement on 16 hours of Wagner’s ring issues put together in one hours without singer. Already raising eyebrows, as a bonus, there he played still another ring – parts of the film music for “Lord of the Rings”.

    In any case, not entirely being  a usual Wagner fan.

    What’s the “Ring” all about?

    Actually, Richard Wagner wanted not only to edit the well-known the German and Scandinavia legend of Siegfried’s death, a saga of gods and people of faith and fraud. Wagner takes the world of the Norse gods to the ring as a template for a critical interpretation of human society, around the failed revolution 1848. The ring and the gold as symbols of power and of the capital,  the power versus rebellion and the failure of the hero Siegfried are all universal archetypes still up to date.

    The Casts

    In the figures we see the relationships of the various races of mortals and immortals: the immortal inhabitants of Valhalla, the Walküren who move between the worlds, the mortal Vaelsungs of the Forest, the Giants of Earth, the Gibichungs who inhabit the Rhine Castle, the Nibelung dwarfs of the shadows, and the Rhinemaidens who inhabit the source of life.

    • Rhinemaidens Woglinde (Sopran), Wellgunde (Mezzosopran), Floßhilde (Alt),
    • Alberich (Bariton), ugly dwarf and counterpart of Wotan
    • Wotan (Bariton),  the God
    • Fricka (Mezzosopran), Wife of Wotan
    • Freia (Sopran), Godness of etrnal youth
    • Donner (Bariton), God of Power and Thunder
    • Froh (Tenor),  Brother of Freya
    • Loge (Tenor),  TrickySemi God
    • Mime (Tenor),  brother of  Alberichs,   created stealth helmet
    • Fasolt and Fafner ( Bass),  Giants, Fanfer later turns into a dragon
    • Erda (Alt), Wise women and mother of  Walküre Brünnhilde (by Wotan)
    • Siegmund (Tenor)  Human and son of Wotans
    • Sieglinde (Sopran),  Sibbilibing of Sigmund and later his lover.
    • Hunding (Bass), Sieglinde’s Husband
    • The Birds (Waldvogel)
    • Brünnhilde (Sopran), Walküre, and favorite daugter of Wotan und Erda.
    • Eight other Walküren ((Gerhilde (Sopran), Ortlinde (Sopran), Waltraute (Alt), Schwertleite (Alt), Helmwige (Sopran), Siegrune (Mezzosopran), Grimgerde (Alt), Rossweiße (Mezzosopran))
    • Siegfried (Tenor), Son of Sieglinde und Siegmund  kills Fafner, wins the Ring and looses Brünnhilde
    • Dragon Fafner (Bass), guarding the the Ring
    • The Nornen (Sopran, Mezzosopran, Alt), three wise Daugters of  Erda
    • Gunther (Bariton), Leader
    • Gutrune (Sopran),  his Sister
    • Hagen (Bass), the son Alberichs and half-brother of Gunther.
    • Waltraute (Alt), Sister Walküren of Brünnhilde

    The Ring Cycle

    The Ring consists of four operas begins with a symbolics Genesis of the world (Water) and  with its destruction (Fire).

    • Das Rheingold, Munich, 22 Sep 1869
    • Day1  Die Walküre, first Munich, 26 Jun 1870
    • Day 2 Siegfried, first Bayreuth, 16 Aug 1876
    • Day 3 Goetterdaemmerung, first Bayreuth, 17 Aug 1876

    Prelude: The opera:  ” Rheingold“

    The Rhinemaidens have a magical gold treasures with magical powers. Alberich an ugly dwarf, trys to score on them but they laugh at him. So he robs their treasure with  the ring (the key to power and wealth). To do this, he must renounce love. At the same time had the gods (Wotan) built a castle (Valhalla) built by the Giants Fasolt and Fafner. They price is the goddess Freia who guards the secret of eternal youth of the gods.  As Wotan learns about Alberich’s theft he manages to remove the treasure and the ring, forged from the Rheingold from Alberich. Alberich curses the ring. The gods pay their castle with that treasure and the ring to the giants. The cursed ring does its effect one of the Giants (Fafner) which kills his brother (Fasolt). At the end of the story, the gods take the Castle Valhalla in possession. Wotan begins his reign based on free coexistence; from but still fears the danger of ring and its curse is not yet banned.

    Day1:  The opera “Die Walküren”

    Walküren collect heroes from the battlefields and bring them toValhalla. A pair of twins: Siegmund and Sieglinde are separated by fate and now meet again in Hundings house and fall in love.  Sieglindes husband, Hunding, challenges Siegmund therefore to fight with him.  Wotan gives  Brünnhilde (one of the Valkyries) order that should to support Siegmund.  The wife of Wotan, Fricka does not accept Siegmunds adultery and incest and Wotan has to reverse e the order. But Brünnhilde  decides to help him Siegmund anyway and Wotan influences the fight by himself. Siegmund  is powerless against Wotan and dies, his famous sword shattered. Brünnhilde advises Sieglinde, who is pregnant, to move  in the forest  where Fanfer the dragon the dragon lives.  Brünnhilde awaits Wotan’s anger and Wotan banishes her to a mountain, but  protects her wit a ring of fire which only strongest hero” can redeem her (Brünnhilde thought this might be Sieglindes son …).

    Day2:  The opera “Siegfried”

    Mime, Alberic’s brother and blacksmith raises Siegfried, Sieglindes son. Mime is hoping the boy would take  the ring  from Fafner who turned into a dragon .  Mime is not able make Siegfried a suitable sword, so he refurbishes himself  the sword Nothung of his father and kills the Dragon. A Bird (Waldvogel) whose song Siegfried can understand tells him what happens next: he should take the ring and the cloak of invisibility. Then, he advises him or how he would be  able to get “the most beautiful woman” – Brünnhilde – on their fire rocks. Siegfried gladly accepts this advice rushes to Brünnhilde and falls in love with in infinity.

    Day3:  The opera “Die Götterdämmerung”

    It is indeed my favorite Wagner opera. At the beginning, we see the Norns, weaving the rope of destiny. They tell the events of the beginning of conscious action on. As they approach they pull the rope. The Norns flee to Erda – the fate of the world is open.

    Brünnhilde and Siegfried had married. At the Court of the Gibichungen Hagen (their sleazy half-brother and  Ablrbrichs son) the weak royal brother and sister Gunther and Gutrune pointed out meanwhile that he can’t get Gunther Brünhilde as wife and Gutrune Sigfried as husband. Due to his magical drunk, Siegfried falls in love with Gutrune, and brings (his wife) Brünhilde to Gunter in the persona of Gunter and takes the ring from her.

    The double marriage happens. Brünhilde, recognizes the Ring on Siegfried’s hand and outraged of Siegfried’s betrayal, let Hagen kill him. Haunted by nightmares Gutrune wanders through the night. The dead Siegfried is brought. Hagen boasts defiantly with murder and wants the ring. Gunther rejects, but Hagen kills him too and “grabs Siegfried’s hand which lifts up ithreatening”. Brünnhilde appears now. She orders to build a stake on the edge of the Rhine to burn Siegfried and herself. She draws the ring from Siegfried’s finger. As the fire blazes, the Rhine water comes over the shores with the Rhine maidens. who get the treasure back and pull Hagen into the depths. In a bright glow of fire in the sky, you can see the burning Valhalla. As the gods of the flames are completely hidden, the curtain falls.

    Götterdämmerung

    The most intense drama in the opera “Gotterdämmerung” as well as the ring cycle comes after Siegfried’s death,  the central character in Wagner’s opera. Siegfried is dead, and his body is brought back and shown to both Brunnhilde and Getrune,who are taken with attacks of grief at the sight of the corpse of the man whom they both loved. The only real issue for the mischievous Hagen is the ring and to whom it should go to and  he rids himself of his own brother to obtain the coveted ring.  Siegfried’s dead hand moves in a clear indication that he is not ready to give up the ring.  It is also as Siegfried’ body is being carried that we hear one of Wagner’s most powerful pieces which truly captures the moment with all that Siegfried was, the Archetype of the hero from dragon slayer to the one who was able to defeat Wotan but also Brunnhilde’s tender lover. In my opinion Wagner’s music captures the somber mood which is about as this once mighty hero lies dead and to illustrate in its harmonies the glory. Wagner’s music increases to the force of a hurricane as the fire from the pyre rises as high as to consume not only Valhalla but the deities who rule the world. Hagan however tries to prevent the ring from going back to where it came from and in doing so is drowned by the Rhine maidens, who finally have back what was taken from them at start.

    Wager and psychoanalytic models

    Lets allign  the key concepts of Wager to psychoanalytic models. Both the Freudian and Jungian models of the psyche rely on the  balance of forces among the elements of the psyche. A major difference between the two is in the chosen center-point or balance point. Freud’s model is primarily centered around the healthy functioning of the Ego in the society and (sexual) relationship; his model focusses on consciousness and the outer world – the unconsciousness is almost treated like a malfunction. By contrast, Jung’s model is Self-centered. That is, the whole self, conscious and alike. Jung uses the term Self both for the personal (experienced) god, and for the whole human psyche. Whereas Freud considered religion to derive from illusion, Jung considered religion as a way to the whole self, seeking to integrate the roalm of the spiritual with our lives in the outer world.

    The Freudian view

    Siegmund falls in love with his long lost sister Sieglinde. And, make no mistake, they know they are brother and sister and still engage in lust and plan on marriage even Sieglinde is already married. Their father is the god Wotan. Wotan had many affairs and Siegmund and Sieglinde are the product of one of those.  Those characters would indicate Freud’s approach, that all thrive comes from sexuality. Fricka, Wotans wife wants Siegmund killed in a fight despised by such immorality.  As the Goddess of marriage you’d expect her to say that, she represents the repressive factor.  Very simplistic.

    Adler’s view

    Another superhuman being, Alberich, has given up love to more fully pursue power.  Alberich’s giving up all love to gain power teaches Adler’s main force the lust for power may have different values but are playing to win. Wotan’s realization teaches us that power cannot be taken for granted and it cannot be sustained by constant uncontrolled,irresponsible and inconsiderate lust. Again too simplistic.

    The Jungian view

    Micha Brumlik interprets the depth psychology as romantic theory of the unconscious and uncovers their archetypical references to Richard Wagner’s magnificent operas, The Ring, provides an intense and amazing example. In high drama we get answers to the Authoritarian breakdown. Incest is one of this. There is some significance in Jung’s belief — or his occasional claim — that he was a descendant of Goethe. He was completely out of sympathy with the narrow materialism of nineteenth-century science. In an essay on Wagner, Thomas Mann quoted a dignitary of Seville cathedral, who is supposed to have said to the architect: ‘Build me a cathedral so enormous that people of the future will say: the chapter must have been mad to build anything so huge … ‘ Mann pointed out that the nineteenth century was full of this spirit of  Balzac’s Human Comedy, Hegel’s System, Zola’s Rougon Macquart cycle, Wagner’s Ring, Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Jung’s sympathy was all with transcendence and myths. His psychology is built of the same mythological material as Wagner’s Ring.

     Symbols

    Though there are many symbols in the story, four symbols of personal power are central to our theme:

    •  Wotan’s spear, his symbol of conscious (Ego) power is carved from the world ash tree of life.
    • The Chain of possession starts with the Rhinemaidens and ends with Flosshilde, a Rhinemaiden. The chain turns upon itself to form a ring.
    • The tarnhelm, or helmet, confers the power to change but it also entails the power to deceive. Wotan used it to get the ring from Alberich; Siegfried used it to regain the ring from Bruennhilde;
    • The sword, the weapon for the heroic struggle, was given by the father (grandfather Wotan), but it was broken; Siegfried had to reforged his own weapon for the struggle;

    The Self

    The ring itself represents for us the lure of gold, or or lust of power, from the Rhine,  a them which has been reused by the lords of the ring. Possession of the ring confers power over the world. We set out to relate the life-cycle of the ring to the life-cycle of the psyche. The figure suggests how this might be done. The story begins in the realm of the Self, which has its origin in the value of life.

    The Shadow

    Alberich and his son Hagen inhabit the realm of Shadow, where reside rejection, frustration, anger, hate, evil.

    In these storms of life are all the human ills — theft, deceit, betrayal, murder, incest, and all such. This is the considerable shadow energy of the psyche, seen in Alberich’s evil reaction to rejection, in Wotan’s awful betrayal of Youth and Beauty (Freia) to build his castle; in his stripping Bruennhilde of her immortality and his imprisoning her in the ring of fire in order to regain the ring of power.

    Shadow energy is also seen in the struggle between Siegfried and Mime, his evil stepfather — the orphaned Siegfried is raised by his shadow, Alberich’s brother! That same shadow energy also provides resistance to the reintegration of the psyche. Siegfried had to slay a dragon, but he also had to struggle with the Gibichungs. They defend the castle which guards access to the Rhine.  This reasoning teaches us that the underpinnings of morality rest on the ability to distinguish good from bad, the sacred from the profane.

    The Ego

    Wotan and his castle building express the realm of Ego inflation in which he and we deal with the giants of earth.The return of the ring into the deep currents of the flow of life completes this life cycle. The self is made whole. The cognitive conscious world of Ego is reconciled with its spiritual origin; the Self is reconciled.

    The Archetypal Hero – Animus and Anima

    Siegried reprents the  archetypal hero. But re-establishing balance in the psyche requires an heroic struggle. Siegfried’s slaying of the dragon represents the start of re-establishing balance. His love of Bruennhilde represents the necessary union between the conscious realm and the realm of his Anima.  In Siegfried’s death we see the individuation becoming, and in Bruennhilde’s immolation, similar burning away her self taken human mortality.

    The Persona

    As is morality, Wagner is very personal and philosophical. Wotan is a God.  Watching his son die will not be easy. But as his son has transgressed the basic rules of decency in society Wotan understands the necessity of killing him. He tells his daughter, Brunnhilde the Valkyrie, but emotions cause her to disobey the cold moral.Like all great art, Wagner’s The Valkyrie teaches fundamental cultural lessons about society.

    Rainy Sunday

    On Sunday Nagano‘s  new production  “Götterdämmerung” of  National Theatre completely sold out for a long time, came on a big screen. The weather did not want to play along on that day, and so the Open-Air visitors were hit repeatedly by – some long-lasting – showers. But with the right equipment, some fans including me held out over six hours on the Max-Joseph-Platz before the National Theater and eagerly pursued the Opera broadcast on the big screen. The singers of this show and Conductor Kent Nagano came out after the end of the opera to say thank you for this dedication.

    Like the psyche, Wagner’s work has had influence for both good and evil. Nietzsche and Hitler both much admired Wagner’s work, and that nihilistic chain of influence was to give in the 20th century full expression to destruction and evil until today. Yet the same work also had a considerable influence on may others, notable King Ludwig the II. As we look back,  it often seems as if the necrophiliac shadow aspects of our collective psyche have had the upper hand. In Goetterdaemmerung, one of the three Fates sings that the rope of the world’s destiny has been severely frayed by evil. As she sings that, the rope breaks completely.

    We now are in Europe in the beginning of a turbulent transition from democracy to some new type of world-order at the threshold of another economic war – the “Third Geldkrieg”. The twilight of the gods will not be the twilight before the dawn, but before a new darkness. The lust for power and greed will represent the extinguishing of Psyche’s gods.

    In that respect, Wagner is pointing to the current economic system, whose manipulator think they are gods. Our society would be better grounded if  it spent more time with great art; pieces like Wagner’s Ring are entertaining, they create a shared vocabulary within our culture  just like C.G. Jung’s Archetypes.

    “Wagner’s Ring and Its Symbols” originally published 1984.  Robert Donington (Wagner seen mainly throug C.G. Jungs eyes)

    Index to “Richard Wagner”in the Collected Works of Carl G. Jung (mainly he was concerned with Wotan)

    Volume 5: Symbols of Transformation

    par. 421 (p.275) — fig. 28: Wotan on eight-legged horse Sleipnir; Wotan as Drosselbart  half-man, half-horse

    par. 422 (p.278) — horse \ wind; Wotan galloping in storm chasing the wind- bride

    par. 555 (p.358) — Siegfried’s hero’s entry; Siegfried’s feelings for Bruenhilde; brother-sister incest;

    Sieglinde as “human mother”, Br. as “spirit mother”; Br. banished by Wotan for complicity (approval) of incest; Siegfried \ Horus; Sieglinde’s “night-sea journey to the east”;

    par. 556 (p.358) — broken sword \ dismemberment

    par. 559 (p.359) — Wotan \ persecution motif

    par. 560 (p.360) — Bruenhilde “split off” from Wotan, a feminine emmisary for a martial god “somewhat remarkable”

    par. 563 (p.360) — Bruenhilde. as anima attached to masculine deity, a dissociation; Wotan unconscious of his own femininity

    par. 564 (p.361) — Wotan’s lament for Bruenhilde

    par. 565 (p.361) — Br. support of Siegmund; the incest a projection: Wotan’s entering “into his own daughter to rejuvenate himself

    par. 566 (p.361) — Sieglinde’s death; Mime of “a race who has abjured love”

    par. 567 (p.362) — Br. asleep in ring of fire; Mime a masculine representative of the Terrible Mother; Siegfried drawn away by longing for Mother-imago

    par. 568 (p.363) — the song of the Forest Bird \ mother Jung Index: “Richard Wagner” 10:18:36

    par. 569 (p.363) — gold \ “treasure hard to attain” \ the “mother” \ unconscious; “magic cap” (tarnhelm) changes Alberich into serpent \ motif of rejuvenation; dragon’s blood \ understanding nature.

    par. 598-600 (385-6) — Wotan (Wanderer) and Erda \ “fatal charm of the mother”

    par. 602-11 (p.387-391) — Siegfried’s encounter with Bruenhilde, evokes mother; Br. \ mother-sister wife anima archetype; Siegfried as archetypal hero

    Richard Wagner Links

    My Review Harry Kupfer Wagner Ring cycle

    Opera for All

    Richard Wagner from Scene to Scene utilizing C.G. Jung

    Vladimir Jurowski

    Bavarian State Opera