Is Wagner a man? Is he not rather a disease?” asked Nietzsche, the first but not the last to balk at the conflict between his helpless love for the music’s “dangerous fascination and sweet, shuddering infinity” and his loathing for the composer’s political ideas.
Alex Ross, the distinguished music critic of the New Yorker, takes up the question, examining how this musico-political problem has played out worldwide through many facets: Socialist Wagner, Feminist Wagner, Gay Wagner, Black Wagner, Theosophical Wagner, Dadaist Wagner, Sci-fi Wagner, Comic-strip Wagner, Porno Wagner, Hollywood Wagner, Alt-right Wagner, Communist Wagner, et al. The book is at its best when charting the struggle of big figures such as Theodor Herzl, the architect of the Zionist state, WEB Du Bois, the African-American writer and activist of the 1930s, and Martin Luther King Jr, who described listening to Wagner as akin to standing in the presence of the divine.
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