RICHARD WAGNER’S VISUAL WORLDS: THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK AND THE SPECTACLE OF EMPIRE

In 1849, the opera composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) theorized a new art form, the Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art that would integrate the arts of music, painting, architecture, and poetry. Wagner conceived of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a global communist utopia. The harmonious integration of art and society, through the participation of many artists, would spread throughout the world, replacing every other art form. Wagner labored for three decades to realize the theoretical Gesamtkunstwerk on the stage, as The Ring of the Nibelung (1876) and Parsifal (1882). For these works, Wagner wrote the music and text, guided the design of the stage sets and costumes, and constructed a purpose-built opera house. Through the process of realizing these works, the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk changed in fundamental ways. Rather than a communal art, the Gesamtkunstwerk came about through a single artist’s mastery over the entirety of its artistic forces. The community was replaced by the audience, and the most advanced theatrical technology was employed to absorb it into Wagner’s operatic vision. Throughout, two constants defined the Gesamtkunstwerk: the aesthetic ambition to integrate the greatest possible artistic forces, and the political dream of creating an artwork that would operate on a global scale. This dissertation argues that the Gesamtkunstwerk’s aesthetic and political totalities were the product of the culture of nineteenth-century imperialism. Its influence is found in Wagner’s writing on the Gesamtkunstwerk, his selection of source material for his works, and in the design of their stage sets. Recovering this context reveals two concurrent, conflicting undercurrents that shaped the Gesamtkunstwerk. Institutions of imperial spectacle demonstrated the exercise of power through the display of the diverse cultural products of the earth. From these institutions, Wagner developed methods of concentrating the Gesamtkunstwerk into a sophisticated spectacle. At the same time, Wagner’s increasing preoccupation with nineteenth-century theories of race undermined the fantasy of human fraternity for which the Gesamtkunstwerk was first imagined. In the end, the idea of empire, of total control founded on inequality, fractured the Gesamtkunstwerk’s seamless totality.