Appendix 4: Wagner should be the Patron Saint of Burning Man

Wagner as Patron Saint of Burning Man

Kinder, macht neues! Neues! Und abermals neues!  (Children, make something new! New! And new again!) – Richard Wagner¹

Wagner was an art revolutionary.  He believed that art should be at the pinnacle of society, and the thing that society should revolve around. Not church. Not state. Not business. Art. His call for art to continually change and renew was at the heart of his belief system, as his quote above clearly expresses.  His monumental life work, Der Ring des Nibelungen, demonstrated what he saw as “the artwork of the future.” He dreamed of a summer festival, in which his art would bring people together from all over the world to begin to build a new sort of community, one in which the values of art, community and love would supplant those of commercialization, greed, property and money.   

He originally envisioned that the premiere performance of the cycle would be held on the banks of a river, and  there would only be one cycle – “free, of course” (but three performances each day!) – followed by destruction of the theater, presumably by setting it ablaze, after the end of the cycle. And, then, move on to another work.² 

Brünnhilde riding into the fire at the end of the Ring

Any “burner”—the people who consider themselves part of the Burning Man community–will immediately see why I perceive a connection between Wagner and Burning Man from that description above.  Burning Man is the annual “experiment in temporary community” held in the Nevada Black Rock desert—called Black Rock City—on “the playa,” dedicated to art and “radical self-expression and self-reliance.”  

Black Rock City; the Man is that circle in the middle

Clearly, Wagner was the original burner, at least in conception.  (Important note to burners who happen on this page, haven’t read this blog, and only know Wagner by reputation:  Most everything that you have heard about Wagner is twisted, and often false, so just keep an open mind... or read more of my blog. )

I am not the only one who sees the connection.
This guy took Wagner on a Burning Man tour.
I don't know if the hole in the head has significance.

We brought Wagner (and Jack) along to Burning Man, too, but they stayed in the RV

For those who don't much about Burning Man, here is their website.  Much of the art is ephemeral and is burned at the end of the week. This is the quintessential Burning Man experience: lots of art; lots of fire. The artists then create something new the next year, whether they burn it or not. The pinnacle of the experience is the annual burning of “the Man.”³   

The Man burning

However, not all art is burned. Some artists painstakingly bring their art installations to the desert, assembled it, then disassembled it, and take it home a week later. Very labor intensive, believe me.  And then they, too, do something new the next year. To get a sense of the art, here are some photos. 

Wagner, who was obsessed with the cleansing and renewing nature of fire, would have been absolutely enchanted with the burner community. These were the droids he was looking for!

The ethos is anti-commerce. The only things you can buy at Burning Man are ice and some beverages.  Everything else you must bring yourself or trade for.  This can lead to lovely things, really. Lots of people bring things to give away to others.  In 2012 Mark Zuckerberg helicoptered in to give away grilled cheese sandwiches. Isn’t that swell? Seriously, even relatively poorer people give a lot a way. There is a whole lot of generosity built in to the Burning Man culture and is certainly my favorite thing about it.

Both festivals were founded on clear ideals, and succeeded wildly in some ways. In both cases, true believers come from all over the world, create a community around art, then go back to their homes renewed. However, ideals are one thing; reality is often far different. 

Wagner first conceived of his festival before he had written any of the music dramas, in 1849.  Over twenty years later, he was still nursing his dream when he began the Bayreuth project.  He had given up the hope of setting the site on a river—I am sure reluctantly—as impractical, however, according to biographer Barry Millington:

Wagner had every hope and intention of adhering faithfully to his original ideal conception of the festival: the theater was to be a provisional construction only…the enterprise was be be strictly non-profit making…with no admission charges and a number of seats to be distributed free of charge to the residents of Bayreuth.⁴ 

All this would be paid for through a world-wide fund-raising program, with Wagner societies throughout the world springing up to help make this a reality, and a lot of free labor.  And, of course, with Wagner’s patron, King Ludwig II, chipping in the lion’s share (though it came in the form of a loan.)

The reality was that the cost of building and putting on the festival left Wagner greatly in debt, forcing him to give up his ideals in the attempt to leave his family with a way to survive financially. (His wife Cosima was only 45 at his death, and had four children to support.)  He didn’t build Bayreuth to be a shrine to himself or his art; that was not his purpose.  Cosima, after his death, created that. But he had to turn it into a money-making enterprise or his family would have had no means of support.

He was, in fact, deeply disappointed in Bayreuth, in a number of ways.  Certainly foremost is that the people he wanted to see it—young people, university students and choral societies—couldn’t afford it.⁵  Instead, the rich turned out, and he hated the rich.⁶  He wrote to his supporter Friedrich Schön, “Since we have had no choice in the matter, these performances, as before, will have to be reserved for paying audiences,”⁷  but he then went on to ask Friedrich to rally his supporters to set up a foundation to “make it possible for people without means of their own to attend the performances.”⁸  This was done, and it still exists today.  It’s something, but very, very far from his dream.⁹

As for Burning Man.  I think everyone who was a participant in the early years would agree that it has strayed far from its ideals.  It started as ritual, evolved to be an affordable and unique art festival in the early years, and now has become a money-making business where it is difficult for people who are not fairly well-off to afford to come.¹⁰  I have been twice (1999, 2004) and I will never return.  To me, the bad (the horrible outhouses, the constant techno music, the drugged or drunk gawkers and “shirt cockers”,¹¹the cramped density of the “city”, and the dust or the mud) overwhelms the good (lots of generosity and amazing artistic imagination).  

Here I am — with my wife and sister-in-law – sweeping the dust from our golf course
 at our“AOK” trailer  park. We stayed on the outer rim, which is quieter and much less dense.

However, my wife Leslie—who is awed by the art and imagination there—still kicks around the idea of returning. To me, it is the planning of the “theme camp,” which is at the heart of the Burning Man experience, that is the most fun. The doing is often a schlep. So, I wouldn’t mind helping with the prep and the clean-up for that. But I would rather save my money and go to Bayreuth.




End Note

1 Millington and Spencer ed., The Selected Letters of Wagner, 269

2 Ibid., 216

3 Of course for more dedicated burners, many actually consider the pinnacle of the festival is the burning of the Temple the night after the Man burns. Most of the unwashed (unburned?) have left at that point, so it is considered a more pure or, perhaps, spiritual experience. 

4 Letters, 599

5 Millington, ed. Wagner Compendium, 168

6 He wasn’t wild about the volk, either, which was the whole point of his enterprise: to bring the stupid—his word—masses out of their slumber. See the “America Dreaming”  section.

7 Letters, 922

8 Ibid.

9 Of course, much later, Bayreuth became an absolute disaster, which it is still trying to recover from.  That story here. And my suggestions for how Bayreuth should redeem itself will appear next week.

10 Here is a good post about the cost to one burner, which was $1568. He notes that if you live in the area and don’t have to buy a plane ticket, it would be cheaper. But, obviously, it is not a cheap camping trip either. As for the transformation to a capitalist enterprise, see here. 

11 At Burning Man, clothing is optional. Men are much more likely to reveal their genitals then women, by a huge margin. Many women do go shirtless, many men are either nude or are so-called shirt-cockers (they where a shirt but no pants). Thus, the gawkers are the guys who ogle the women, which is creepy, and the shirt-cockers are, to me, just a whole different level of creepy.