CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In today's landscape of popular culture - in which Michael Jackson and sister Janet, Britney Spears, and cast members from the latest reality-TV show are the gods and goddesses of the moment - the name Richard Wagner appears on few billboards or marquees.
But that's of little concern to the many Wagnerphiles out there. And they are indeed still out there - buying tickets to this spring's Metropolitan Opera series featuring all four parts of Wagner's epic musical drama, "The Ring of the Niebelungs," if they can, or arranging their Saturday-afternoon errands and activities around the Met's radio broadcasts. But why should they - or anyone else - care about this 17-hour operatic extravaganza, with its assortment of heroes, giants, gods, dwarves, Rhinemaidens, and even a dragon?
Richard Schacht and Philip Kitcher think this question has a good answer, for devotees and neophytes alike, which they spell out in "Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner's 'Ring,' " published this month by Oxford University Press.
Schacht is a professor of philosophy and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where his academic interests focus on the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and other developments in modern European philosophy. Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, where he specializes in the philosophy of science.
How did two philosophy professors come to write a book about opera?
"Philip and I are both singers - amateur singers who take singing seriously," Schacht said. Over the course of several years, the pair did what philosophy scholars tend to do when left to their own devices: wax philosophical on subjects they're passionate about. In this case, the subject was music - and more specifically, Wagner's "Ring" cycle.
Among other things, their discussions focused on the philosophical ramifications of the work's text, characters, themes and music. As they continued to compare notes, both became convinced that beyond the grand spectacle and stirring musical highpoints of the "Ring" lay some fairly deep considerations about the human experience.
That's hardly surprising, Schacht said, since Wagner was interested in philosophy, was initially captivated by the secular humanist Ludwig Feuerbach, then became an ardent follower of the arch-pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, and even befriended the young Nietzsche, who subsequently became one of the most influential German philosophers of the 19th century.
What has been more surprising, the authors admit, is the fact that the "Ring" continues to this day to fascinate so many "reasonably sane and quite intelligent people."
"Wagner's 'Ring' may be unique in the annals of opera, not only for its vastness, but also for the fascination that it inspires, and for the seriousness with which it is taken," Schacht said. One reason people are drawn to the opera, he observed, is obvious and simple: "It's the music, which is extraordinary, and at times is quite sublime." But, he added, that's clearly not the only explanation. "Another has to do with the human possibilities the 'Ring' illuminates, and with its treatment of the large human questions around which it revolves."
In the book, the authors discuss Wagner's treatment of themes such as judgment, authority, freedom, heroism and love. And they offer a new interpretation of the mythic tale's spectacular, dramatic ending, in which the story's heroes and gods all perish, and their world is destroyed.
By all appearances, the finale is pure doom and gloom. But the authors don't see it that way. In fact, they see it in very positive and affirmative terms, revealing a profoundly important human possibility beyond both naïve optimism and nihilistic pessimism.
"Though this world ends, the earth remains, still capable of renewal, and still charged with this promise that we have come to know," Schacht said. "We also know that everything that comes to be in it must end, including all order, and the very best of lives and loves. But in their mere appearance, however ephemeral, they have the power to illuminate the world in a manner that vindicates all."
