Stephen Fry - Wagner and Me [DVD] [2010]

I was really looking forward to hearing a fellow Wagnerite confess his guilty pleasure in the wonders of this supremely fascinating music and I thought Stephen Fry would be the ideal populist polymath to do the job. Sadly the programme never took fire, never got beyond a surprisingly poorly informed fanalogue and watching became rather a duty. Completley wasted interview with Eva Wagner and it was embarassing seeing Fry plead for approval from Elizabeth Wallfisch. What the programme shied away from was any serious analysis of the music, the drama and the issues from people with informed and passionate opinions. Sorry, meant to like it, just didn't, amazingly it made Wagner and Bayreuth just rather dull.

This DVD is essentially the documentary by Fry which has recently been shown on BBC4 which sees the airing of a controversy that will not go away. This is not Stephen Fry as in his "America" series which tried a bit to hard to find the quant and the surreal at the expense of tackling some bigger issues. It is Fry coming to terms in a serious fashion on why he a man of Jewish ancestry with relatives killed in the death camps would have an abiding love for one of the someone whose name rightly or wrongly became intrinsically linked with the rise of Nazism in Germany, the composer Richard Wagner. As Fry's mother once perplexingly protested to him whilst loudly playing music from Wagners Ring Cycle "I know you like it and that's fine, but really you know, what's wrong with Mozart? There is little point in this review again setting out again in great detail into that fierce debate of Wagners connection with fascism. Suffice it to say that he remains one of the most controversial genius's in music, part wunderkind - part monster, and it is the prime purpose of Fry's programme to forensically examine this dichotomy. Nazi appropriation and distortion of some of Wagner's key themes has always been a issue and Fry is clear on the danger of viewing the composer solely through the prism of the dark lens that led to the horrors of the 20th Century and not as a man set in the context of his own historial era. Yet in reality there was always a theme running through Wagner's later "Germanic" thinking which provided a rich source for the rampant anti semitism that was tragically exploited by the national socialist movement. The composer was by any standards a contradictory beast and he had a tyrannical and egoistical streak as wide as the Rhine. That said in the 1840s a different Richard Wagner can be located a man who was a revolutionary, distinguishing himself in the liberal-socialist cause particularly at the time of the 1848 revolutions.

A college lecturer of mine once wisely advised that "you should learn to love the contradictions" and perhaps this is the best way to approach Fry's appreciations of the German composer. The scene in this DVD comes as he sits on the steps of Nuremburg after flatly refusing to climb the infamous podium from where Hitler ranted and raved at a nation. Fry agonises in turn about his love for a composer whose legacy that has been "stained indelibly" by the association with Nazism. There are throughout poignant and powerful scenes none more so than when Fry meets Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a renowned cellist and survivor of Auschwitz whose love for music survived the horror of that terrible and vicious place. Similarly you cant help but be caught up in Fry's enthusiasm and rapture when he sits next to virtuoso pianist, Stefan Mickisch, who brilliantly plays some of the more emotional pieces from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Fry also spends much time at Wagners spiritual home particular to the theatre he designed the Bayreuth Festspielhaus where the most sought after ticket in classical music comes in the opening which will see performances of works like monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal. It is at this point that Fry is very much the "fan" as opposed to the angst ridden analyst. He meets Wagner's grandaughter Eva and even manages to happily acquaint himself with the original score of Wagners opera Gotterdammerung. One contentious note is despite the eloquence of his argument and central thesis you remain unconvinced of Frys ultimate judgement that Wagner "was on the side of the angels". Granted his music's inspirational quality cannot be denied and even as a Wagner novice you find that the hairs stand on the back of your neck with the sheer raw power and beauty of this work. Some would also say that anti Semitism was very common across the German intellectual landscape in the 19th century which is undoubtedly true. Fry's programme does therefore do a good job in redressing the balance and presents a more rounded view of a composer who has been massively misunderstood but who at the same time remains clouded behind a dark shadow from which he is unlikely to ever escape.

I'm very fond of Stephen Fry as a comic actor when he is given a script to follow and a director to restrain his silliness, but with this effort to reconcile his own existential angst with his enthusiam for highly emotive music he nearly succeeds in spoiling my enjoyment of Wagner by introducing associations in my mind that have no place there. Wagner was a 19th century composer and poet at a time Europe was searching for a new moral order, rule of law and justice, there seems little point in associating him so damningly with events of the 20th. If anything, this will put non-Wagnerians off altogether rather than encourage an enjoyment of the music for its own sake. Fry's guilt-ridden musings are balanced by his embarrassing burbling and gushing around which reaches its climax in his interview with Wagner's great-grandaughter who raises a quizzical brow at his almost incoherent questioning and walks off with a dismissive "ja,ja." In between these two extremes there is some lovely camerawork and interesting insights into background, production issues and talks with musicians. Whatever about the visual aspect of Gergiev's Mariinsky staging, as conductor I consider him faultless so that brief interview makes it worthwhile. A more indepth exploration of the different styles of interpretation would have made this a more rewarding film long-term for others than fans of Fry the amiable blunderer.