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Some of that is true, some not. There is a strong tendency among opera-goers, reviewers, even biographers and broadcasters, to depict Verdi as a noble man of the people, and to demonise Wagner, not only for his anti-Semitism, but also for his womanising, addiction to luxury (and to borrowing from friends to finance it), and his limitless self-promotion. But carrying on in this way is a dead end, unless — like most people who do it — you start embroidering recklessly. Furthermore, comparisons tend to be made across the board, so that personality, reputation, influence, the quality of the operas themselves, all get mixed into a stupefying brew. I realise that in protesting about their incomparability I am indulging in a comparison, or implying a set of them, but the point is to prevent more of this absurd game before its virtually inevitable escalation in their bicentennial year.
Verdi wrote some exciting, thrilling, touching, moving, above all energising operas firmly embedded in the tradition of, primarily, Rossini and Donizetti, until late in life when he became more ambitious and sometimes profound, without ever breaking out of the mould of opera as tuneful entertainment. Take one of his most popular works, Il Trovatore, which concerns a set of lightly drawn characters in a series of desperate situations. What guarantees Trovatore’s immortality, a miracle in the face of its ludicrous plot and text, is the reckless vitality of the music at every point. Anyone who claims that it is terrifying, upsetting, and so on is talking nonsense, as they must know. It’s an extremely enjoyable evening in the theatre, or would be if there were singers around to do it justice and no director to practise his impertinences. I know perfectly well that Verdi wrote greater though not more enjoyable operas than this, and that in Don Carlos in particular he portrayed characters and situations that we can take far more seriously. But does even that great, uneven work prompt us to think about the nature of political or ecclesiastical power, the conflict between the public and the personal, and so forth? Does any Verdi opera prompt us to think at all, to link the excitement and perhaps emotions it evokes with any other part of our cultural lives?
The extraordinary power of Wagner’s works, and a major factor in his uniquely — for an artist — prominent position in European culture ever since about 1860, is closely connected to the fact that experiencing any of his mature masterpieces — Tristan, Die Meistersinger, Der Ring, Parsifal — is inseparable from reflecting on the issues with which they deal. That is no doubt why he is the prime victim of Regietheater: he stimulates in so many ways that anyone who has the position to demonstrate what the stimulation amounts to puts it on the stage, or alternatively writes one or more books about it — hence the really phenomenal amount of ‘Wagner literature’, and the nugatory quantity of critical writing on Verdi.
Wagner’s art combines, in a way unlike any other, an extreme sensuous or sensual allure — though not always — with a strenuousness of concern with matters of ultimate interest to us. It is a great mistake to think that Wagner is a didactic artist, though many of his disciples of course have thought that he was. He explores, worries, doubts, and the intensity of his exploration, combined with his amazing musical genius, creates works which literally (meaning literally) are beyond compare. Above all, perhaps, for the almost ubiquitous erotic quality that is either explicit or implicit in everything he composed. Verdi, interestingly, wrote very little erotic music, though there are love duets and passion galore, but they are usually expressed in an idiom of poignancy or ferocity. Wagner’s insight into the pervasiveness of desire, most beautifully expressed in Isolde’s hymn to the goddess of Love at the beginning of Act II of Tristan, may well be the deepest explanation of why he is so adored and so excoriated.
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