Richard Wagner: Grandiosity,Entitlement, and its Metastases

Richard Wagner was a genius. About this there is little doubt among musicians and musicologists. It is also a judgment with which Wagner, himself, would have readily concurred. There was also little doubt among those who knew him that he was a scoundrel. As a genius, he felt entitled. The two-dimensionality of his character stands in sharp contrast to the complex, three-dimensional characters that populate his operas. However, his evil characters are all Jews, and his anti-Semitism reigned supreme in his life and art. His creativity died with him, but his grandiosity, entitlement, and anti-Semitism metastasized to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and found a welcome home with Adolf Hitler. In this article, I describe Wagner’s early life, his near-death experience shortly after he was born, his recollections of his cold mother, his unclear paternity, and his self-aggrandizing autobiography in which he depicted himself as having had the childhood and parents that he felt would have befit the extraordinarily creative person he considered himself to be. Nevertheless, his impact on the musical world was revolutionary.