La recepción de la obra wagneriana en el Madrid decimonónico

Zusammenfassung

The object of this thesis, The reception of Wagner’s works in nineteenth-century Madrid, is to carry out a "history of the effect", putting Wagner interpretations in chronological order (concert auditions and opera performances) and also the writings of Richard Wagner (or about the composer) published in daily and specialized press. Although there are some isolated precedents, the documentation seems to indicate that the resounding failure of Tannhäuser in Paris (1861) marks the start of the "massive" reception of the German composer’s work in Spain. From that moment onwards, we observe a strong polarization of opinions regarding the figure of Wagner, his aesthetic thought and his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk. In this regard, there is a debate that questions the essence of formal opera, establishing a contraposition between the Italian and the German national schools (belcanto versus wagnerism). However, the influence of Krausist thought will cause this discussion to have its own typical features in Spain, proposing as a solution, a national opera house which combines universal and particular, traditional and modern. Likewise, the disputes between wagnerists and antiwagnerists become agents of change of other philosophical, moral and ideological disputes present throughout the period under research (1861-1893/94). It is precisely in the conclusions of this thesis where we try to highlight the dialectics orthodoxy / heterodoxy, basis of the opposition Parsifal / Nietzsche typical in finisecular (mysticism versus egotism) Spain. This debate occurs in an enormously syncretic context characterized by the so-called ‘Decadent spirit’, marked by the spleen, i.e. the exhaustion of the Western European cultural model.