Mime, Meyerbeer and the Genesis ofDer junge Siegfried: New Light on the ‘Jewish Question’ in Richard Wagner’s Work

Abstract

AbstractBetween the initial conception in 1848 of a project on the Siegfried legend comprising a single work,Siegfried’s Tod, and its subsequent expansion in 1851 with the addition ofDer junge Siegfriedas a ‘prequel’ about the hero’s early life, Richard Wagner turned against Giacomo Meyerbeer in public denunciations in ‘Das Judentum in der Musik’ (1850) andOper und Drama(1850–1). Changes in the treatment of the Mime–Siegfried relationship between 1848 and 1851 as well as similarities between Wagner’s characterisations of Meyerbeer and his portrayal of Mime in the 1851 sources suggest that Wagner’s animosity towards his former mentor informed a new conception of the dwarf. The troubled Mime–Siegfried relationship that crystallised in 1851 allowed Wagner to give symbolic, aesthetic form not only to his criticisms of Meyerbeer as man and artist but also to his own new creative path. That Meyerbeer by 1851 had come to represent to Wagner the personal and artistic deficiencies of all Jews necessarily also means that Wagner’s projection of Meyerbeer into Mime inDer junge Siegfriedcarried with it a more generally anti-Jewish message, as is frequently asserted in the literature.