From Russia with Wagner: The Russian Alternate Perspective with Slava Vlasov

Welcome back to Music and Global Politics. Please like, rate and subscribe and support on Patreon at musicandpoliticspod.com

As a thank you and gift to listeners, please enjoy Slava'a "Wagner in Drinks": https://viacheslavv.substack.com/p/richard-wagners-favorite-drinks-announcement

Russia is a font of alternative perspectives usually unavailable in the West. With its strong Byzantine past, Russia, arguably now still, and forever remains an exemplar of Caesaorpapism - the subordination of the church and matters sacred inside the state, a strong symphony or church and state lending the country's overall arc an air of the messianic. This background greatly shaped what is distinct about the Russian reception of the ever popular, if controversial German composer and father of the "total work of art," Richard Wagner.

If in the West Wagner is seen as a problematic arch-reactionary, even a proto-Nazi, however looking out from Russia westward, if anything, Wagner has had a progressive role in musical aesthetics. His works challenged the old regime of the Tsars, and even the Soviet Union championed his work during and after the Nazi invasion. Our guest, Slava Vlasov, a passionate Wagnerian and author of much creative fiction based on Wagner, highlights how in his early career, at least in terms of his contacts and circles, Wagner can be seen as much a Russian composer as one German. This is a very personal journey, a special Russian journey into the world of Wagner.

In this episode we discuss Wagner's Russian side:

• the controversy over his semi-sacred, mostly heretical Parisfal
• Wagner's breaking open of the possibilities on the Russian stage.
• How Wagner was viewed by the Soviet Union and in Post-Soviet Russia.

Our conversation is enclosed by two lovely piano renditions of Wagner :

1. The Quintet from Mastersingers of Nuremberg
2. Album Leaf for Dutchess Metternich