4 h 37 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if Wagner’s gods and giants tell a story about gold, power, and the laws that trap their makers?
In The Perfect Wagnerite, Bernard Shaw reads Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung as more than a grand legend. Beneath its treasure, treaties, and struggles, he sees the politics of Wagner’s own century. This is a guide to the plot and its people, but also an argument about what their world reveals about power.
The Rhinegold opens beneath the river Rhine, where three Rhinemaidens guard gold. In The Valkyrie, Wotan seeks escape from the treaties that bind him. Siegfried introduces a hero raised by Mime, who wants to use him to win the ring. Through these dramas, Shaw asks you to hear how the orchestra connects scenes and reveals what characters cannot—or will not—say.
What you’ll discover
- A legend with teeth Explore Shaw’s claim that this world of gods mirrors struggles over gold, law, and revolt.
- The ruler caught by law Meet Wotan, whose own treaties prevent him from taking back the ring.
- A hero others need Follow Siegfried’s place in a struggle shaped by Wotan’s hopes and Mime’s plans.
- Listen beyond the words Discover why Shaw treats orchestral themes as essential clues to the drama.
- An argument worth having Enjoy a committed socialist’s bold reading, whether you accept it or argue back.
Who will love it
For opera lovers who want a way into the Ring, readers of Shaw who enjoy his arguments, and anyone curious about art and politics.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Shaw reads the Ring as a parable
- Gold and the loss of love
- Wotan, the ruler bound by his own laws
- The Valkyrie and the need for a free hero
- Siegfried and the anarchist hero
- How the music argues, and how the reading has fared
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- 15-minute summary
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The Perfect Wagnerite
by Bernard Shaw · 1898
Shaw hears gold, power, law and revolt in Wagner's Ring, where rulers are trapped by their own laws.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
Shaw reads the Ring as a parable
Shaw begins by refusing the usual view of the Ring as a grand legend from the misty past. He says it is a drama about the world its author lived in. The gods, the dwarfs and the giants stand for classes and powers that Shaw's readers would know from daily life. Once you see that, he says, the story stops being a pretty puzzle and starts to make sense.
He has reasons to think Wagner would allow this. Wagner was no quiet court musician in his younger years. He took part in the uprising in Dresden in 1849 and had to flee the country. Shaw treats the Ring as the work of a man who had seen a revolution fail and who thought hard about why. The poem was written before the music, and Shaw pays close attention to the words as well as the notes.
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What is The Perfect Wagnerite about?
It is Bernard Shaw's guide to Wagner's four Ring operas. Shaw reads them as a story about money, power, law and revolt in the modern world, and he explains the plot and the main musical themes as he goes.
When was The Perfect Wagnerite written?
Shaw first published it in 1898, when he was a socialist and a working music critic. He later revised and extended it, so later editions carry added material and a fresh preface.
Is Shaw's reading of the Ring what Wagner meant?
Not necessarily. Shaw gives one political reading, and many scholars find it too neat, because Wagner's views shifted over time. It is best taken as a lively argument, not as the final word.
The author
Bernard Shaw
1856–1950 · Irish playwright and critic
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and critic. Born in Dublin, he moved to London in 1876 and later lived in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, where he died. His plays include Arms and the Man (1894), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), and Pygmalion (1912).
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