Do you stand for Richard Wagner or do you not? That question was enough to sever friendships fifty years ago. It created a riot at the Paris Opera in 1861. Wagner’s Art admitted of no compromise. It was either Gospel or Apocrypha, and it had to be accepted as one or the other. It commanded enthusiastic admiration or provoked strident resentment. Many came to rail and remained to worship. Some came in curiosity and left in dismay. For half a century Richard Wagner was the center of bitter conflict. But the people listened to him and seemed to appreciate and understand. In the blackest hours, the messages of Franz Liszt, Wagner’s best friend, sustained him: “be of good cheer, the people are with you.” So through half a century the Music Drama withstood the assaults of criticism and ridicule—and the burden of proof now rests with the opposition.

The secret of Wagner’s success with the people and of his influence on dramatic art lies in his naturalness of expression. His dramas are epic poems of primitive elemental life, and they breathe the fresh, vigorous spirit of the morning of time. His music commands our interest even before we fully understand. It makes an irresistible appeal to our feelings. His art is the art that conceals art. His music seems to us so natural. As the dramatic situation rises in intensity, so his music seems to lift us on an ever-swelling flood until we are moved to our depths—though we may not know why. We are simply conscious of having assisted at something which has swept us momentarily out of ourselves into a world of throbbing emotion. And the proportions of the drama before us are so well determined that it is hard to say which of all the various scenes has touched us most. It is as though we had walked in a great forest where the rich variety and completeness of nature’s handiwork had been so absorbing that the memory could not recall vividly the outlines of single objects. We get a certain intellectual satisfaction from following the details of Wagner’s Art, but the supreme enjoyment is in the effect of mass.

The Ring of the Nibelung