The cultural forces that Richard Wagner reflected, embodied, and propelled

Review of Wagnerism by Alex Ross

Wagnerism seems to have been reduced to an eccentric cult, a hobby and obsession for that few. Once, I seriously prepared to experience the entire Ring cycle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, both by listening to it first and researching Wagner’s philosophy – he personally knew Nietzsche and read Schopenhauer – in historical context. It was fantastically i…