Michele Masin

Richard Wagner's "The Art Work of the Future" by Michele Masin

"Since I have settled down quietly in my new home, I have been seized with an ungovernable desire to undertake a fresh literary labour. "The Art-work of the Future" (R. Wagner's Letters to Uhlig; Zurich October 26, 1849.) "I thought you would like to look through my new work before it came with due ceremony before the world. . . This will be my last literary work. If I have been understood, and if I have convinced others even if few in number others must and will fulfil that portion of the task which is the work of many, not of one." (Ibidem, Nov. 1849.) The Art Work of The Future represent the maximum expression of Wagner's Philosophy of music, the drama, the Opera, the arts . Wagner goes on to talk of the three basic elements of art, which he lists as 'Dance, Tone and Poetry' which were originally united in ancient Greek drama (as extolled by Wagner in Art and Revolution). Modern attempts to unite these give rise to the 'unnatural abortion, the Oratorio', and to the 'shameless insolence' of contemporary opera Only when these and other tawdry entertainments are swept aside will the Artwork of the Future arise.