Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   Not a NAZI--- but a malcontent Date:   11/30/2018 9:10:32 AM

Richard Wagner was the Bob Dylan of his time. He was politically discordant and incoherent… his politics were as chromatic and strident as his music (atonal).  Wagner was both dark and uncooperative.  His music is grandiose and harsh… and his operas LONG and require stamina.  He managed to get himself kicked out of (or fleeing) several countries because of his disruptive political behavior.  Despite all of this crap, Wagner thought highly of himself.

Wagner was unsuitable for marriage.  He had a wandering eye and a wandering… um… WELL, anyway he had a number of affairs.  He himself was, quite likely, a bastard.  And his second wife, Cosima was also an illegitimate child (of Franz Liszt... who hated Wagner).  (His first wife was Minna Planner, a dark and insufferable woman.)  I can imagine… with no proof… that Wagner richly diluted the gene pool.

Wagner spend the first half of his life amassing debt and avoiding creditors.  He spend the second half of his life screwing his very generous patrons (and on one case, the wife of a patron).

(“Mad”) King Ludwig II of Bavarian wasted both his political and fiscal fortunes on Wagner (imagine LBJ lavishing stipends on Bob Dylan... including a villa by the Lake).  Wagner’s life ended by painfully progressive heart failure.  Ludwig II’s life ended by “drowning” in Lake Starnberg… while accompanied by his doctor. (Ludwig II built… but never lived in… Neuschwanstein, the castle after which Walt Disney patterned his castle.)

In my OPINION… there is not much good from the life and works of Richard Wagner.  He certainly was a drag on everything and everyone he touched.  On this forum, he’d have a Karma rating of -12.

- LMF Curmudgeon