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‘Alienated from his Own Being’: Nietzsche, Bayreuth and the Problem of Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Christopher Morris
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Abstract

A central theme of Nietzsche's Wagner criticism is the theatre and acting. Nietzsche professes a deep suspicion of the ‘herd mentality’ promoted by theatre and the shallowness and persuasive power of the actor. Wagner and Bayreuth, he claims, embody these characteristics in their most intense form, compounding the theatre's worst features with a thoroughly modern set of blind contradictions. But Nietzsche's writings can also embrace theatrical masks and ‘histrionics’, presenting them as the key to a conception of identity as plural, mobile and random. In fact the very form of his writings, with its weave of multiple authorial identities, reinforces this view. This article argues that Nietzsche's anti-Wagnerian rhetoric is a mask that conceals more sympathetic attitudes. While repelled by Wagnerian theatre on many levels, Nietzsche also positions Wagner and the experience of music drama as a model for new definitions of identity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 127 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 44 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2002

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References

Note on translations: Previously published English translations of German texts are used in this article (and cited in the footnotes) where they are satisfactory; elsewhere the translations provided are my own and the footnotes refer to editions of the original German texts.Google Scholar

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