Contrary to its later appropriation by fascists, the Ring Cycle's central message is a condemnation of the pursuit of power. The ring enslaves all who try to master it. The opera cycle culminates not in triumph but in the destruction of the gods' world, arguing that only love can endure against such ruin.
The concept of an addictive, corrupting ring of power, familiar from Tolkien, does not exist in ancient Norse or Germanic myths. Richard Wagner invented this idea for his Ring Cycle. It serves as a potent 19th-century allegory for the growing, destructive potential of modern technology.
While composers before him inspired devotion, Wagner cultivated a new level of intense, personal adoration, creating a phenomenon of "Wagner mania." This was driven by his self-promotion and the overwhelming emotional power of his work, establishing a model for artist-fan relationships that persists today with dedicated fan bases.
Wagner's immense self-belief wasn't just a personality trait; it was a functional necessity. It allowed him to bulldoze through financial and institutional barriers that would have stopped less assertive artists, ultimately enabling him to command the attention of royalty and build his own theatre.
Beyond his compositions, Wagner was a pioneer of modern theatrical production. He established the model for the celebrity conductor through his fundraising tours and, at his custom-built Bayreuth theatre, introduced innovations like curtains parting in the middle and leveraged new technology like the telegraph to create global media events.
After fleeing Saxony as a failed revolutionary, Wagner stopped composing for five years. This period wasn't a depressive slump but a crucial phase of deep reading, writing, and dreaming. This intellectual immersion into Nordic myth allowed him to lay the entire conceptual and poetic groundwork for his epic Ring Cycle.
Despite his later adoption by the Nazis, Wagner's personal politics were revolutionary and anti-authoritarian; he actively participated in the 1849 Dresden uprising. His work, particularly the Ring Cycle, is a critique of power, arguing that love is the only force that can triumph over worldly ruin—a fundamentally counter-cultural message.
Unlike musical prodigies like Mozart, Wagner's early passion was for theatre as much as music, and he wasn't a maestro from a young age. His ambition was to combine drama and music, leading him to develop his compositional genius later in life, driven by a desire to control every aspect of operatic production.