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This is a book by the music critic of the New Yorker about the life and work of Richard Wagner. It is much more than that. It is a study of the impact of Wagner’s work on the broader political and cultural environment in which it was performed. Wagnerism is the broader impact of Wagner on culture and politics. Mr. Ross argues that Wagner has had a huge impact and that this impact has been most notable outside of music per se and on the broader cultural milieu.

This is an amazing book that spans the time during which Wagner was active up through his death in 1883 and continues through Gilded Age America and Fin de Siecle Europe through the World Wars and the interwar period - including Wagner’s adoption by Hitler’s regime through the Cold War and up to the present. So you have operas - long operas - that come in bunches (The Ring cycle). They are long complex works that combine, music, singing, acting, and stagecraft all in an integrated whole. Opera is often an acquired taste. You also have politics and culture and how opera is put to use in supporting politics and culture. And then you have how the plots and subplots of Wagner’s operas, the various songs and themes/leitmotifs have been adapted for use in a wide range of other cultural works from high fiction, to comic books, movies and television, art movements, and pop art.

While there are some opera aficionados who will be familiar with much in this book, I strongly suspect that most readers who have any interest in Wagner’s operas will find this book fascinating and valuable. Readers should have their tablets handy to look up the stray references and terms that are dropped on nearly every page.

I started reading this because I am still in mourning for the cancellation of the Ring Cycle that I was supposed to see last April. Opera, like choral music, has not had a good record in the age of COVID. Hard to social distance both on stage and in the audience! After reading this book, my regret is that I had not seen a couple of Wagner’s operas, which I now need to track down and listen to.

If you are interested in opera, I highly recommend this book

The book is so rich, however, that I will need to think more about this and come back to the review.