Being Wagner: the Triumph of the Will
by Simon Callow, William Collins, £14.99
For those who haven’t experienced Richard Wagner’s musical dramas or know about the composer’s life, this book offers a brief, intoxicating introduction. Given that Wagner deliberately set out to capture his audience in an entirely different way from earlier composers – indeed, to transport them to another world which involved a total “sensual and emotional immersion” – intoxicating seems the appropriate word.
Simon Callow, a self-confessed Wagnerian since early adolescence, has done one-man shows about Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Wagner. With the exception of Shakespeare, about whom we know little, Callow is clearly drawn to colourful characters of exceptional talent or self-proclaimed genius.
