OP-MLJJ140082 584..602 Music & Letters, Vol. 95 No. 4, � The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/ml/gcu081, available online at www.ml.oxfordjournals.org ‘THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS, YET THERE IS METHOD IN’T’: A COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS OF RICHARD WAGNER’S ‘TANNHA« USER’ BY ILIAS CHRISSOCHOIDIS, HEIKE HARMGART, STEFFEN HUCK, AND WIELAND MU« LLER* MUCH LIKE WAGNER HIMSELF, the eponymous hero of Tannha« user treads a path of stark contrasts and rapid swings. From the Wartburg to the Venusberg and eventually to Rome, the gifted bard is transformed from self-centred artist to seduced disciple, disil- lusioned devotee, hopeful lover, self-loathing pilgrim, and finally redeemed sinner. He tries everything and everything is trying. These contrasts reach a peak in the opera’s central episode, the song contest at the Wartburg. Tannha« user has just been welcomed at the court, received Elisabeth’s favour and affection, and is ready to compete for the contest’s prize, one as lofty as her hand. Instead of securing his reintegration within the Wartburg with a brilliant performance, however, he spoils the event with insolent remarks and the exhibitionist disclosure of his Venusberg experience. His behaviour offends his peers, scandalizes the court, breaks Elisabeth’s heart, and brings him to the edge of death. Why would Tannha« user sacrifice everything for nothing? Character flaws may be one answer. By this time in the opera, we know that his pride led him away from the Wartburg (Landgraf: ‘Kehrest in den Kreis zuru« ck, den du in Hochmuth stolz verlie�est?’ [Have you returned to the circle you forsook in haughty arrogance?]; Wolfram: ‘als du uns stolz verlassen’ [when, in haughtiness, you left us]; Act I, sc. iv, ll. 387^8, 458).1 In the Venusberg, we find him incapable of fulfill- ing his duties (all attempts to praise the goddess end up in complaints and self-pity) and his betrayal of Venus for the Virgin Mary (‘mein Heil ruht in Maria!’ [my salva- tion rests in Mary!]; Act I, sc. ii, l. 302) is followed by swapping the latter for Elisabeth and then her, too, for a moment in the limelight of swaggering self-adulation. This, in turn, he publicly regrets, committing himself to penance for sin, and even after his un- successful visit to Rome he briefly relapses into fascination with Venus. Thus,Tannha« u- ser’s irrational behaviour in the song contest is not surprising; indeed, it prepares us for the opera’s tragic end. A man of such swings of mood and action will never find peace in this world. *Stanford University; email: ichriss@stanford.edu. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and WZB Berlin; email: harmgarth@ebrd.com. WZB Berlin and University College London; email: steffen.huck@wzb.eu. University of Vienna and Tilburg University; email: wieland.mueller@univie.ac.at. Work on this essay was supported by the ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution (RES-538-28-1001). Earlier versions of the essay were presented at the ‘Game Theory, Drama & Opera’ (2010) 5http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ �uctpshu/gamesandopera.html4 conference at University College London and at the University of California, Berkeley (2012). We are grateful to Thomas S. Grey for his support of our research and to the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their constructive criticism. 1 Excerpts from the libretto are from Wagner’s Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (1871), reprinted in Richard Wagner, Dokumente und Texte zu Tannha« user und der Sa« ngerkrieg auf Wartburg, ed. Peter Jost and Cristina Urchuegu|¤a (Mainz, 2007), 491^524. 584 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpshu/gamesandopera.html http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpshu/gamesandopera.html http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ Another explanation lies withWagner himself,Tannha« user’s creator and model, who forged a story out of two loosely connected tales, recorded in the opera’s title (Tannha« u- ser und der Sa« ngerkrieg auf Wartburg). The need for formal disciplineçi.e. adhering to conventions, such as the big climax in the Act II finaleçoverrode that for dramatic conviction. Whether for structural or philosophical reasons, the Wartburg had to appear midway between the Venusberg and Rome, the song contest should stand between a life of sin and a quest for redemption, and Elisabeth had to become ‘the woman who, star-like’, leads Tannha« user ‘from the hot passion of the Venusberg to Heaven’.2 Both explanations are valid and throw light on Tannha« user’s reckless behaviour. Like most exegetical efforts with the opera, however, they take for granted the hero’s hyper-emotional nature, compulsiveness, and spontaneity: ‘Provoked to the utmost by the arrogant impotence of the other court poets’,3 he ‘becomes more and more frenzied, as if forgetting his present surroundings’,4 and acts ‘[f]aster than [he] can think’,5 ‘as if possessed by a demon’,6 so that ‘the very decision to sing appears in him as a spontaneous action bringing out the real drama’,7 which would not have unfolded had he not been ‘rash enough to boast that he had known the unholy joys’.8 For Carl Dahlhaus, in particular, ‘Tannha« user’s feelings and actions . . . are marked by impulsiveness and an extraordinary amnesia. He appears to be not completely in control of himself, a prisoner of the moment and of the emotion that happens to have hold of him. Events take place in abrupt oscillation between extremes.’9 Even a sympa- thetic reader of the opera like Carolyn Abbate understands Tannha« user’s relation to Venus as a‘compulsion’ and calls his interruption of the contest a‘rebellion against the platitudinous serenades of the other singers’ prompted by ‘frustration, pride, and the in- escapable memories of Venus’.10 So entrenched is the Romantic hero trope that issues of choice, planning, and strategy are left out of the picture, as if his actions were involuntary responses to external stimuli and his decisions lacked any kind of mental processing. Yet Simon Williams reminds us that Tannha« user parts company from contemporary portrayals of operatic heroes by being ‘a protagonist in conflict with himself’ to a point that his‘men- tal conflict . . . is the action’.11 Such conflict emerges through incompatible thoughts and choices. Indeed, a close reading of the opera reveals, for example, that his departure from the Venusberg is a conscious choice arrived at through rational thinking. Memories of his past life interlace and clash with his Venusian experiences, leading to 2 ‘A Communication to my Friends’, in Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, trans. William Ashton Ellis, 8 vols. (London, 1892^9), i. 340. ‘das Weib, das dem Tannha« user aus den Wohllustho« hlen des Venusberges als Himmelsstern den Weg nach Oben wies’; Dokumente, 67. 3 Dieter Borchmeyer, Drama and theWorld of Richard Wagner, trans. Daphne Ellis (Princeton and Oxford, 2003),125. 4 Claude M. Simpson, Jr., ‘Wagner and the Tannha« user Tradition’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 63 (1949), 244^61 at 259. 5 Joachim Ko« hler, RichardWagner:The Last of the Titans, trans. Stewart Spencer (New Haven and London, 2004),170. 6 Ernest Newman,Wagner Nights (London,1949), 97. 7 Reinhard Strohm, ‘Dramatic Time and Operatic Form in Wagner’s Tannha« user’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association,104 (1977^8),1^10 at 4. 8 D. Millar Craig, ‘Some Wagner Lapses’, Musical Times, 80 (1939),17^18 at 18. 9 Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas, trans. MaryWhittall (Cambridge,1979), 25. 10 ‘Orpheus and the Underworld: The Music of Wagner’s ‘‘Tannha« user’’’, in Richard Wagner,Tannha« user (Opera Guide, 39; London and New York, 1988), 33^50 at 34, 39. More recent interpretations of the opera focus on its female characters and the role of sexuality in Wagner’s life and work: Nila Parly, Vocal Victories: Wagner’s Female Characters from Senta to Kundry (Copenhagen, 2011); Eva Rieger, Richard Wagner’s Women, trans. Chris Walton (Woodbridge, 2011); Laurence Dreyfus,Wagner and the Erotic Impulse (Cambridge, Mass., 2010). 11 SimonWilliams,Wagner and the Romantic Hero (Cambridge, 2004), 50. 585 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ comparison with and, ultimately, preference for the one over the other. His longing for change and freedom in Act I shows an active mind capable of choosing between alterna- tives. This is indeed the subject of his lengthy argument with Venus. Tannha« user abandons the Venusberg fully aware of the privileges he leaves behind and the hardships lying ahead: nach Freiheit doch verlange ich, for freedom, then, I long, nach Freiheit, Freiheit du« rstet’s mich; for freedom, freedom, do I thirst; zu Kampf und Streite will ich stehen, for struggle and strife I will stand, sei’s auch auf Tod und Untergehen: ^ though it be, too, for destruction and death: drum mu� aus deinem Reich ich flieh’n, ^ from your kingdom, therefore, I must fly, (Act I, sc. ii, ll. 209^13) In another example from Act I, we find him resisting the knights’offer to bring him back to the Wartburg, which shows at least knowledge of two alternative paths. He agrees to join them only when Wolfram reveals Elisabeth’s flattering response to his songs. Based on this new information, Tannha« user revises his beliefs about the Wartburg and his decision not to look back (‘denn ru« ckwa« rts darf ich niemals seh’n’; Act I, sc. iv, l. 424). Learning about Elisabeth’s feelings makes his return there a compelling choice (‘Ha, jetzt erkenne ich sie wieder, / die scho« ne Welt, der ich entru« ckt!’ [Ha, now I recognize it again, the lovely world that I renounced!]; Act I, sc. iv, ll. 474^5). Pursuing this line of probing the hero’s mental state, this essay offers a new reading of the Sa« ngerkrieg auf Wartburg. We propose that Tannha« user’s seemingly irrational be- haviour is actually consistent with a strategy of redemption, in ways that recall Polonius’s famous diagnosis of Hamlet ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’.12 Specifically, we suggest that he consciously disrupts the contest, knowing that only a public disclosure of his sinful past can propel him onto the path of redemption. GAME THEORY The key question we pose is: does Tannha« user have to choose between alternative outcomes at the start of the Sa« ngerkrieg? To answer it, we draw on methodologies from the social sciences, specifically game theory, which seeks to account for social inter- action by assuming that individuals’ choices express some underlying preferences and beliefs.13 Such an analysis requires two steps, a reconstruction of the choice set (what else Tannha« user might have done) and an analysis of unobserved counterfactuals, namely potential outcomes of the alternative unchosen actions. What would have happened if Tannha« user had won or lost the tournament instead of interrupting it? What would his gains and losses have been in each case? Comparing these potentialities with the outcome of his real action helps us reconstruct the strategic context at a particular point in time and evaluate the significance of the decisions we observe on stage. Although not every action results from strategic thinking, the interpretation of human behaviour becomes hardly possible without assuming some form of goal- orientation on the part of its agent. For example, the conclusion that Paris prefers love to wisdom, when he awards Eros’s golden apple to Aphrodite and not to Athena, lies in the assumption that he is making a conscious goal-oriented choice. Had his action 12 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, II. ii. 206. 13 For an introduction to the topic, see Ken Binmore, Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2007). 586 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ been determined by social forces (protocol) or biochemical processes (genetic factors, use of controlled substances), we would have been unable to infer anything about his values and preferences. This is particularly important in drama, which typically explores the clash between human free will and external forces. Much of our empathy with a tragic hero is predicated on our knowledge or inference of alternative scenarios. Adam and Eve could have refrained from eating the forbidden fruit; Antigone could have obeyed Creon; Elsa could have honoured her marital oath to Lohengrin; and Tannha« user could have praised divine love instead of Venus. A staple in the social sciences and the methodological engine in modern economics, game theory has only recently begun to be applied in the humanities, chiefly by non-humanists.14 Misconceptions of the ‘rationality’ assumptions and concerns about a universalism that favours statistical averages and downplays historical variables perhaps explain the unwillingness of scholars and literary critics to engage with the theory. As Herbert Lindenberger frankly admits, ‘Most of us [humanists] feel uncom- fortable accepting the possibility that our responses to art can be charted by science; even when such charting seems plausible, we prefer to add a je ne sais quoi’.15 Yet game theory may accommodate drama better than real-life situations. By its very nature, already analysed in Aristotle’s Poetics, drama telescopes and reconfigures reality in ways that make it meaningful to an audience. Formal divisions (three or five acts) and time^space unities allow for the creation of short and long arcs emphasizing the causality of human action. Unlike history, Aristotle insists, poetry (including drama) not only describes events but also imbues them with character, helping us understand their origin and probable consequences as a class of phenomena:16 it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happençwhat is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. . . . Poetry, therefore, is a more philo- sophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular. By the universal I mean how [people] of a certain type on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the names she attaches to the personages. [9/51a^b] Critical for the success of drama is the absence of irrationality (‘Within the action there must be nothing irrational’ [15/54b]). To achieve this the poet has to describe a person’s preferences: ‘Character [ethos] is that which reveals moral purpose, showing 14 Patricia Cohen, ‘Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know that You Know’, The New York Times, 1 Apr. 2010, p. C1. Pioneer studies include Steven J. Brahms’s Biblical Games: A Strategic Analysis of Stories in the Old Testament (Cambridge, Mass., 1980) and Game Theory and the Humanities: Bridging Two Worlds (Cambridge, Mass., 2011); George Butte’s I Know that You Know that I Know: Narrating Subjects from Moll Flanders to Marnie (Columbus, Ohio, 2004); and, more recently, Michael Suk-Young Chwe’s Jane Austen, Game Theorist (Princeton, 2013). Among the few humanists engaged in game theory-based criticism, Paisley Livingston (Literature and Rationality: Ideas of Agency in Theory and Fiction (Cambridge, 1991)) examines works by Theodore Dreiser, E¤ mile Zola, and Stanislaw Lem, and offers a broad discussion of why and how the assumption of rationality can advance literary analysis. Roughly speaking, Livingston pursues three lines of enquiry. First, he shows how the taking into account of characters’ (as well as authors’) intentions and rationality can improve our understanding of literature. Secondly, he argues that many rather ordinary statements made in literary criticism do, in fact, presuppose intentions and rationality. And, thirdly, he tries to illustrate how the analysis of literature can contribute to the advancement of concepts of rationality in philosophy or the social sciences. More recently, Lisa Zunshine has offered readings of Richardson’s Clarissa and Nabokov’s Lolita using theories of mind or metarepresentation (how to think about other people’s thoughts and to distinguish informational layers in literary genres):Why We Read Fiction:Theory of Mind and the Novel (Columbus, Ohio, 2006), and ‘Why Jane Austen Was Different, and WhyWe May Need Cognitive Science to See It’, Style, 41 (2007), 273^97. 15 Herbert Lindenberger, ‘Arts in the Brain; or, What Might Neuroscience Tells Us?’, in Frederick Luis Aldama (ed.),Toward a Cognitive Theory of Narrative Acts (Austin, Tex., 2010),13^35 at 33. 16 5http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html4; translation by S. H. Butcher. 587 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ what kind of things a man chooses or avoids’ [6/50b]. As preference and probability are key concepts in game theory, one could understand drama as the first social science la- boratory in history, a controlled space where human behaviour is exhibited, observed, and studied in optimal cognitive settings. By applying game theory to Tannha« user’s be- haviour at the song contest we will be able to test the rationality of his actions and enrich the opera’s hermeneutic tradition by offering a counterintuitive interpretation of his seemingly incomprehensible attitude. WAGNER’S MASTER PLAN While redemption is a conventional dramatic goal, the existence of a redemption strategy (extracting, so to speak, Tannha« user’s redeemer through an ‘irrational’ choice) requires a high level of dramatic craftsmanship. Such a strategy emerges from Wagner’s own writings. In his essay ‘U« ber die Auffu« hrung des Tannha« user’, he explicitly identifies the hero’s cri de coeur in the Act II finale as the opera’s turning point: Tannha« user. TANNHA« USER Zum Heil den Su« ndigen zu fu« hren, To lead the sinner to salvation die Gott-Gesandte nahte mir: God’s messenger drew near me! doch, ach! sie frevelnd zu beru« hren But, oh, to touch her wantonly hob ich den La« sterblick zu ihr! I raised my dissolute gaze to her! O du, hoch u« ber diesen Erdengru« nden, Oh Thou, high above this land of earth, die mir den Engel meines Heil’s gesandt, Who sent the angel of my salvation to me, erbarm’ dich mein, der ach! so tief in Su« nden have mercy on me who, oh, so deep in sin, schmachvoll des Himmels Mittlerin verkannt! shamefully failed to recognize heaven’s mediator! (Act II, sc. iv, ll. 417^24) ‘These words’, Wagner declares, contain the pith of Tannha« user’s subsequent existence, and form the axis of his whole career; without our having received with absolute certainty the impression meant to be conveyed by them at this particular crisis, we are in no position to maintain any further interest in the hero of the drama. If we have not been here at last attuned to deepest fellow-suffering with Tannha« user, the drama will run its whole remaining course without consistence, without necessity, and all our hitherto-aroused awaitings will halt unsatisfied.17 This moment is important because until now Tannha« user is really a fugitive from the Venusberg, his options being atonement for his sins or the reunion with Elisabeth. But her saintly response to his betrayal generates so much pain that redemption is no longer a choice, but rather fate that he can neither embrace nor resist. As Wagner explained to audiences in 1853, This chastened erstwhile knight of Venus has seized [without discrimination] upon the sole path to salvation now pointed out to him, terribly aware of the outrage he committed against 17 ‘On the Performing of Tannha« user’, in Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, trans. Ellis, iii. 179. ‘Diese Worte, mit dem ihnen verliehenen Ausdruck und in dieser Situation, enthalten den Nerv der ganzen ferneren Tannha« userexistenz, die Axe seiner Erscheinung, und ohne den durch sie hier, an diesem Orte, beabsichtigten Eindruck mit vollster Gewissheit empfangen zu haben, sind wir gar nicht im Stande, ein weiteres Interesse an dem Helden des Dramas zu bewahren. Wenn wir hier nicht endlich zum tiefsten Mitleiden mit Tannha« user gestimmt werden, ist das ganze u« brige Drama ohne Zusammenhang und Nothwendigkeit in seinem Verlaufe, und alle bis dahin angeregten Erwartungen bleiben unbefriedigt’; Dokumente,127. 588 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ his good angel Elisabeth. He is stung with remorse and animated solely by the desire to perform the direst acts of penance for the deadly blow dealt to the pure heart of this loving maiden.18 So crucial was Tannha« user’s epiphany for Wagner that, when his lead singer Tichatschek failed to meet the dramatic challenges of the role, he preferred to cut the entire passage at the opera’s premiere rather than to suffer an embarrassing perform- ance.19 To further stress its importance, he silenced all other voices in the final (Vienna) version of 1875 (bb. 907^26). If Wagner intended to create such a powerful moment in the drama, one that would engender the utmost sympathy and pity in the audience, he may well have remembered his Aristotle. We read in the Poetics that ‘tragedy is an imitation . . . of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect.’20 The surprise we experience in the opera comes from an anticipated victory turning into disaster. From the closing of Act I and until the disruption of the contest the theme of redemption disappears altogether and we are prepared for Tannha« user’s reunion with Elisabeth. To make their Act II duet even more suggestive, Wagner draws on the Leonore^Florestan reunion duet in Fidelio (perhaps influenced by the presence in his cast of Wilhelmine Schro« der-Devrient, the most celebrated Leonore of her time). Tannha« user’s volte-face, his failure to perform what everyone (on- and offstage) has been expecting of him, is a brilliant coup that makes the opera work as drama. We will discuss later whether or not there is causality involved here. Far from a cheap diversion to renew the redemption plot, Elisabeth’s sacrificial rescue is meant to be the catalyst for Tannha« user’s salvation. As in Fliegender Holla« nder and Lohengrin, the hero needs not only redemption but also a redeemer, a woman who can bear personal responsibility for his salvation. If prior to the contest Elisabeth was a patron or potential bride, she now becomes a guardian angel, the ‘star-like’ object leading the sinner to redemption. (To emphasize this contrast in her function, Wagner decided to excise Tannha« user’s Act I reference to her as ‘Engel’ in the opera’s first prose draft.21) Indeed, for Wagner, Tannha« user embarks on the pilgrimage ‘not for the pleasure of his own redemption, but only so as to be able to return with a pardoned soul and thereby conciliate the angel who has wept for him the bitterest tears of her life’.22 It is true that they will never see each other in this world and their love can only be completed beyond this life. But this is secondary to the fact of their spiritual bonding as redeemer and redeemed. The Sa« ngerkrieg is thus not ‘merely a fac� ade . . . filling the second act with theatrical parades and noisy disputes’, as Carl Dahlhaus asserts,23 but a sanctioning device for 18 Concert programme for the May 1853 Zurich concerts, in Thomas S. Grey (ed.), Richard Wagner and his World (Princeton and Oxford, 2009), 502^3. ‘Vom Innewerden seines Frevels an Elisabeth, dem Engel seiner Noth, auf das Furchtbarste ergriffen, zerknirscht von Reue und beseelt von dem einzigen Verlangen, durch Martern aller Art den Todesschmerz zu su« hnen, mit dem er das reinste Herz der liebenden Jungfrau traf, ergreift der entnu« chterte Venusritter wahllos das Heilmittel, das die Welt ihm zeigt’; Dokumente,153. 19 See Dokumente,127, and Patrick Carnegie,Wagner and the Art of the Theatre (New Haven and London, 2006), 34^5. 20 Aristotle, Poetics, ch. 9, [52a]. ForWagner’s knowledge of the work, see Jeffrey L. Buller, Classically Romantic: Clas- sical Form and Meaning inWagner’s Ring (Philadelphia, 2001). 21 Dokumente, 341. 22 Concert programme for the May 1853 Zurich concerts, in Grey (ed.), Richard Wagner and hisWorld, 503. ‘nicht um die Wonne der Entsu« ndigung fu« r sich zu gewinnen, sondern als Begnadigter den Engel zu verso« hnen, der ihm die bitterste Thra« ne des Lebens geweint’; Dokumente,153. 23 Dahlhaus, Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas, 23. 589 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ Tannha« user’s redemption through Elisabeth.24 (The fact that his identity as an artist practically disappears in Act III supports this view.) In order for Elisabeth to reveal her redemptive qualities, however, Tannha« user has to do something sufficiently unfor- givable and offensive to incur universal condemnation. Praising Venus exactly when he was supposed to publicly solicit Elisabeth’s favour (and possibly her hand) is an act of dramatic necessity serving the opera’s goals. TANNHA« USER’S DILEMMA According to Dieter Borchmeyer, Wagner draws ‘a veil over the motivation behind the tournament in the libretto’ in order to cover the ‘fundamental contradiction at the root of the opera’s conception’, namely Tannha« user’s incoherent behaviour.25 Yet a close reading of the score provides clues about the hero’s state of mindçwhat he knows, what he is aware of, and what he hidesçwhich help us understand his seem- ingly incomprehensible actions. To begin with, Tannha« user leaves the Venusberg determined to repent for his sinful life there (‘Den Tod, das Grab im Herzen, / durch Bu�e find’ ich Ruh’’ [Both death and the grave they are here in my heart; through penance I shall find peace]; Act I, sc. ii, ll. 293^4) and sticks to his choice until just before the end of Act I. Not only is he moved to tears by the pilgrims’ chorus but also he fully adopts, singing solo, the second stanza of their hymn (see Ex. 1): Tannha« user. TANNHA« USER Ach, schwer dru« ckt mich der Su« nden Last, Alas, the burden of my sins weighs me down, kann la« nger sie nicht mehr ertragen; I can endure it no longer; drum will ich auch nicht Ruh noch Rast, I will know neither sleep nor rest therefore und wa« hle gern mir Mu« h’ und Plagen. and gladly choose toil and vexation. (Act I, sc. iii, ll. 360^3) Why then does he decide to return to theWartburg? True as it may be that Elisabeth’s name and memory cast a spell upon him, we find that his conversion actually requires both persuasion and peer pressure. The knights’ first attempt to recruit him meets with strong resistance: Tannha« user. TANNHA« USER La�t mich! Mir frommet kein Verweilen, Let me be! Delay avails me naught, und nimmer kann ich rastend steh’n; and never can I stop to rest! meinWeg hei�t mich nur vorwa« rts eilen, My way bids me only hasten onward, denn ru« ckwa« rts darf ich niemals seh’n. and never may I cast a backward glance! (Act I, sc. iv, ll. 421^4) The intensity of their effort is evident in the multiple renderings of the concluding two lines in diminished-seventh chord arpeggiation leading to a rhythmic stretto. And even after Elisabeth is invoked, Wolfram launches a second round of discourse, putting a rational case for Tannha« user’s return to the Wartburg: verschlo� ihr Herz unsrem Lied; her heart closed to our song; wir sahen ihre Wang’ erblassen, we saw her cheeks grow pale, fu« r immer unsren Kreis sie mied. ^ she ever shunned our circle. 24 MaryA. Cicora, too, finds that the song contest ‘helped realize or ‘‘redeem’’ the Tannha« user legend’ by providing ‘the crucial plot element’ in the opera: From History to Myth:Wagner’s Tannha« user and its Literary Sources (Bern, 1992), 165,174. 25 Borchmeyer, Drama and theWorld of Richard Wagner,145. 590 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ O kehr’ zuru« ck, du ku« hner Sa« nger, Oh, return, you valiant Singer, dem unsren sei dein Lied nicht fern, ^ let not your song be far from ours. den Festen fehle sie nicht la« nger, Let her no longer be absent from our festivals, auf’s Neue leuchte uns ihr Stern! let her star shine on us once more! (Act I, sc. iv, ll. 459^65) Only afterWolfram’s long and eloquent narrative, reinforced with a new round of pleas by the knights, does Tannha« user shout: Zu ihr! Zu ihr! O, fu« hret mich zu ihr! To her! To her! oh, lead me to her! Ha, jetzt erkenne ich sie wieder, Ha, now I recognize it again, die scho« ne Welt, der ich entru« ckt! the lovely world that I renounced! (Act I, sc. iv, ll. 473^5) It would be unfair, then, to interpret this long discourse as an ‘instant’ change of heart. Without necessarily betraying his resolve to repent, Tannha« user embraces a task that is more urgent and close to hand (theWartburg is visible in the background;26 Rome is far away). In a sense, he is on a rescue mission to restore Elisabeth’s mental health and, we may assume, the court’s proper function. Elisabeth being the Landgraf’s next-of-kin, her melancholy and absence from the court’s tournaments are indeed matters of state, and so is Tannha« user’s return to the Wartburg. EX. 1. Tannha« user, from Act I, sc. iii 26 See Richard Wagners Tannha« user-Szenarium, ed. Dietrich Steinbeck (Berlin,1968), 87. 591 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ Indeed, the brilliance of the festivities’ music leaves no doubt of the significance of the song tournament. Statements by both Elisabeth and the Landgraf create high anticipa- tion for Tannha« user’s appearance. Never explicitly stated in the libretto, yet present in Wagner’s first prose draft,27 the idea of a marital union sealing the contest hovers in the air (hence Wolfram’s regret ‘So flieht fu« r dieses Leben / mir jeder Hoffnung Schein!’ [Thus vanishes, for this life, my every gleam of hope!]; Act II, sc. ii, ll. 106^7). Tannha« user’s affection for and commitment to Elisabeth are evident in the early scenes of Act II. Upon glancing at her, he throws himself at her feet (‘ungestu« m zu den Fu« �en Elisabeth’s stu« rzend’; Act II, sc. ii, l. 25) and their synchronous cries of joy in their duet leave no doubt of their destined union. But there is a shadow. When Elisa- beth inquires about his past (‘Wo weiltet ihr so lange?’; l. 39), Tannha« user’s singing freezes to recitation and the haziness of his statement is matched with descending lines in the lower register, as if the heathen forces of his past drag him down to the cavernous Venusberg: Tannha« user. TANNHA« USER Fern von hier, Far from here in weiten, weiten Landen. Dichtes Vergessen in broad and distant lands. Deep forgetfulness hat zwischen heut’ und gestern sich gesenkt. ^ has descended betwixt today and yesterday. All’ mein Erinnern ist mir schnell geschwunden, All my remembrance has vanished in a trice, und nur des Einen mu� ich mich entsinnen, and one thing only must I recall, da� nie mehr ich gehofft euch zu begru« �en, that I never more hoped to greet you, noch je zu euch mein Auge zu erheben. ^ nor ever raise my eyes to you. (Act II, sc. 2, ll. 41^7) Either his memory is clouded or he just lies to protect Elisabeth from damaging knowledge of his past. The second seems to be the case. Elisabeth is absent from his deliberations and longings at the Venusberg, and his surprise at hearing her name from Wolfram suggests that his memories of her were deeply buried. Even more sug- gestive of his concealment is the use of the masculine form ‘Gott der Liebe’ before Elizabeth, when everywhere else in the opera we encounter the feminine ‘Go« ttin’: Venus. Die Liebe fei’re, die so herrlich du besingst, da� du der Liebe Go« ttin selber dir gewannst! Die Liebe fei’re, da ihr ho« chster Preis dir ward! (Act I, sc. ii, ll. 111^13) Tannha« user (hingerissen). Den Gott der Liebe sollst du preisen, er hat die Saiten mir beru« hrt, er sprach zu dir aus meinenWeisen, zu dir hat er mich hergefu« hrt! (Act II, sc. ii, ll. 82^6) 27 [6 July 1842:] ‘so bleibe hier und wirb um Elisabeth!’ the Landgraf urges the hero in Act I. Wagner notes ‘Die folgende Schilderung von der Entdeckung der Liebe Elisabeths zu Tannh. tra« gt Wolfr. vor.çDer Landgr. nimmt dann das Wort u. gestattet Tannhr um Elisabeths Hand zu werben.’ Immediately after the reunion scene, the Landgraf says ‘Was der Gesang Wunderbares weckte u. anregte, soll er denn heute kro« nen u. zur Vollendung fu« hren! Tannha« user, dir zeig’ ich den Weg auf dem du diese Edle erringen kannst. / Ein Fest hab’ ich bereitet, du, Elis., sollst seine Fu« rstin sein! Die Sa« nger alle berief ich,çmeine Ritter u. Edlen sind geladen. Sie nahen’: Dokumente, 341, 342. The explicit references to their impending marriage disappear in the second prose draft dated 8 July. 592 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ Tannha« user (in ho« chster Verzu« ckung). Dir, Go« ttin der Liebe, soll mein Lied erto« nen! Gesungen laut sei jetzt dein Preis von mir! (Act II, sc. iv, ll. 322^4) Most importantly, his lie is exposed by his music, which shifts from A flat major to C major with descending lines in the bass linking his statement to a similar denial of his past in Act I. In particular, the claim‘All’ mein Erinnern ist mir schnell geschwunden’ receives swinging chromatic semitones in the bass line, a harmonic challenge to the solidity of his claim (Ex. 2). Actually, Tannha« user remembers very well, as we discover in his next statement. To Elisabeth’s question ‘Was war es dann, das euch zuru« ckgefu« hrt?’ (What was it then that brought you back?; l. 49) he answers: ‘Ein Wunder war’s, / ein unbegreiflich hohes Wunder!’ (ll. 51^2) (Ex. 3(a)). Miracles defy explanation and have no traceable cause. But while he claims ignorance, his music identifies the exact moment that led him to the Wartburg. As Carolyn Abbate has observed, his musical statement is a re- casting of his Act I epiphany following the pilgrims’ chorus (Ex. 3(b^c)).28 It was his resolve to repent for his Venusberg years that brought him back. In other words, in the middle of his reunion scene with Elisabeth, when all attention goes to the lovely couple and the redemption plot is about to be forgotten, Tannha« user shows awareness of the causal link between his salvation and his return to the Wartburg. At the start of the Sa« ngerkrieg, then, Tannha« user faces a dilemma. He has a past that he cannot reveal, an obligation waiting to be fulfilled, and a present desire to be united with Elisabeth. What should he do? By winning the contest, he gets the girl but will be in danger of losing her once his past is revealed (an outcome that Wagner explores in his next opera Lohengrin).29 If he loses, he is free to make the pilgrimage but Elisabeth’s hand may well be offered to the winner. Both options are problematic because Tannha« user participates in a high-profile competition while still being a sinner, and therefore vulnerable. Since there is no time to atone before the contest, his best option is to cancel or postpone the event and avoid the danger of Elisabeth being committed to another minstrel. His strategic situation can then be described as follows: make pilgrimage unite with Elisabeth Win the contest NO / PERHAPS YES Lose the contest YES NO / PERHAPS Sabotage the contest YES YES / PROBABLY The table rows list his possible actions, the columns his aims, and the entries where rows and columns meet indicate whether the actions are likely to achieve the specific aims. The table shows that both winning and losing the contest have undesirable consequencesçconsequences he can avoid by sabotage. So, however irrational and self-defeating his behaviour at the contest may appear to everybody, on- and offstage, it actually serves his twin aims of redemption and union with Elisabeth better than any other choice. Like Hamlet, he may have ultimate goals that only the semblance of madness can help him realize. Praising Venus creates a scandal, interrupts the competition, generates public pressure for his repentance, and keeps Elisabeth 28 ‘Orpheus and the Underworld’, 45^6. 29 Ilias Chrissochoidis and Steffen Huck, ‘Elsa’s Reason: On Beliefs and Motives inWagner’s Lohengrin’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 22 (2010), 65^91. 593 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ EX. 2. (a) Elisabeth^Tannha« user duet (Act II, sc. ii); (b) Act I, sc. iv 594 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ available. As in all games, of course, at the start of the competition there are variables he cannot control, namely Elisabeth’s reaction, the punishment imposed by the court, and the Pope’s decision.30 Still, under the given circumstances his choice of Venus is strategically superior to any other, and as we find in the end, it is the only one that can lead him to salvation because Elizabeth’s pain and sacrifice will become his path to freedom, peace, and spiritual union with her. The question here is whether Tannha« user’s praise of Venus is conscious, premeditated, planned.31 To be sure, the flashes of Venusberg music suggest that Tann- ha« user is gradually being overtaken by past memories,32 exactly as memories of his mortal life had spoiled his service to the goddess of love in Act I. Yet Wagner’s stage direction describing him in a trance-like state was an afterthought resulting from the elimination of Walther’s song in the last two versions of the opera.33 In the Dresden version of 1845, the deterioration of the contest from competing statements on love to Ex. 2. Continued 30 For a game-theoretic treatment of the latter (in particular, the use of the staff miracle), see Heike Harmgart, Steffen Huck, and Wieland Mu« ller, ‘The Miracle as a Randomization Device: A Lesson from Richard Wagner’s Opera Tannha« user und der Sa« ngerkrieg auf Wartburg’, Economics Letters,102 (2009), 33^5. 31 While economists would typically be agnostic about whether decision-making is conscious or not, content with ‘as if’ approaches, it appears to us that applying these instruments to drama and opera requires a fuller approach, taking into account mental processes. 32 ‘Tannha« user . . . scheint sich in Tra« umereien zu verlieren’ (ll. 195^6); ‘Tannha« user (in ho« chster Verzu« ckung)’ (l. 322). 33 For the problem of the opera’s multiple versions, see Barry Millington,Wagner, rev. edn. (Princeton,1992),177^8. 595 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ ad hominem attacks appears much more gradual, thus more controlled and rational. Im- patient to reach the scene’s climax much earlier,Wagner ‘stages’ him, in 1875, as a spon- taneously possessed artist. The idea of a premeditated choice has already been suggested in a 2007 production of Tannha« user by Robert Carsen at the Paris Ope¤ ra. Turning the Sa« ngerkrieg into an early twentieth-century exhibition, Carsen had the hero calmly choose the ‘Praise of Venus’, a large (presumably nude) painting he had started working on in Act I, as his entry for the competitionçbefore he has a chance to see or hear any of the other com- petitors and to become agitated by their hypocrisy.34 Eliminating temporality makes EX. 3. Tannha« user’s ‘cries’: (a) Act II, sc. ii; (b) Act I, sc. iii; (c) melodic and harmonic com- parison of Tannha« user’s two ‘cries’ 34 [unsigned], ‘‘‘Tannha« user’’, fre' re deWagner; Lyrique. Le metteur en sce' ne Robert Carsen fait du he¤ ros un artiste incompris. L’ope¤ ra, a' Paris, est porte¤ par des voix et un Seiji Ozawa tre' s inspire¤ s’; Le Temps, 29 Dec. 2007. 596 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ things easier, of course, as each contestant makes a decision prior to the event. But is there anything in the score that could support the idea of premeditation? The answer is yes: we do find signs of thinking and calculation in Tannha« user’s performance.35 In a radical departure (‘a brutal musical interruption’ according to Abbate36) from Wolfram’s key of E flat major, Tannha« user launches his praise of Venus in E major, the two keys representing the ‘opposing spheres’ of the divine and the sensual in the Ex. 3. Continued 35 Many of the musical similarities below have already been discussed in Reinhold Brinkmann, ‘Tannha« user’s Lied’, in Carl Dahlhaus (ed.), Das Drama Richard Wagners als musikalisches Kunstwerk (Regensburg, 1970), 199^211; Abbate, ‘Orpheus and the Underworld’; and ead., In Search of Opera (Princeton, 2001),117. 36 Abbate, ‘Orpheus and the Underworld’, 43. 597 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ opera.37 He thus continues the pattern of ascending semitone keys in his Act I eulogies (D flat, D, E flat), which signalled his renewed efforts to please the goddess of love while pleading for his freedom (Ex. 4).38 Resuming this sequence after an entire act EX. 4. Tannha« user’s four verses in praise of Venus: (a) Act I, sc. ii; (b) Act II, sc. iv 37 Millington,Wagner,177. 38 This point is not affected by the opera’s different versions, since Wagner began with a single strophe in E flat major (1845) and kept adding extra strophes a semitone lower each time (D major in 1861 and D flat major^D major in 1875). 598 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ and in a contrasting environment can hardly be a coincidence; it rather suggests an in- tensification of the process. The fact alone that he never reached tonal alignment with the goddess while at the Venusberg (actually, the one-strophe praise in the Dresden version is in E flat major) invites us to probe the sincerity of his statement. Indeed, exactly when his words prepare us for the climax (‘zieht in den Berg der Venus ein!’) his music swerves away from the initial key and concludes in D major. This is unex- pected and breaks the pattern of tonal consistency represented by his previous praises. What is more, the new key is associated with invocations of Maria and Elisabeth in Act I, and his closing phrase, however conventional it may sound, is a recasting of his liberation shout ‘mein Heil ruht in Maria!’ in Act I, whose power instantly dematerialized the Venusberg (Ex. 5). This musical betrayal of Venus is not an accident. Being a master musician, Tann- ha« user surely understands the difference between the two keys and has memorized enough music to know which cadence is attached to which text. Had he been genuinely transported and sincerely enthusiastic, he could not have produced such a glaring contradiction between the rhetorical and musical aspects of his performance, between his song and his signal.39 And the fact that he is the only one in the Hall aware of this Ex. 4. Continued 39 For Carolyn Abbate, the recurring musical references in the opera represent the hero’s ‘conscious memory’: ‘the orchestra is the sound of Tannha« user’s mind. . . .The music is what is inside his mind as he recovers the past’ (‘Orpheus and the Underworld’, 44, 47). 599 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ betrayal renders the scenario of an engineered crisis more, not less, likely. (Remember that he wants this disruption and if everybody else understood the double entendre his strategy might become effectless.) Within a few bars, Tannha« user succeeds in sabotaging both the contest and his own attachment to Venus. While everyone hears him praising the goddess of sensual love, he himself reaffirms his denial of her. (His decision to rejoin her in Act III comes only after his strategy fails, leaving him without absolution and any hope of returning to Elisabeth.) It is a brilliant coup that tricks both the Wartburgians and the audience. It also helps resolve the chronic com- plaint about his swift (and thus unconvincing) change of heart from praising Venus to submitting to Wartburg’s strict morality. This new interpretation of Tannha« user’s faux pas works not only because he is a full human beingçsomeone who cannot just feel and love but who is also able to think, reflect, remember, and revise his beliefsçbut also because he is a music artist in control of two different informational tracks, verbal and musical.40 Thus he is able to produce statements of varying truth depending on the convergence of musical and rhetorical content. A musical gesture and phrase already associated with a thought or decision can later be used for the exact opposite claim, as we saw above. When and why this happens is predicated on social context. Tannha« user is unable to put down roots in any establishment because he is constrained by convention and re- EX. 5. (a) Tannha« user’s self-dedication to Mary in Act I, sc. i; (b) the conclusion of his praise of Venus in Act II, sc. iv 40 As James Garratt puts it, Tannha« user is ‘highlighting the predicament of art’ and his story is ‘that of art itself’: Music, Culture and Social Reform in the Age of Wagner (Cambridge, 2010), 49. 600 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ petitiveness. The eternity he is offered at the Venusberg becomes as torturous as reliving the same winter day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day (1993). What the recurrence of his Venus aria tells us is that he keeps repeating himself like an assembly-line worker and no renewal of sensual ecstasy can revitalize him. In the Wartburg, too, he finds an institutionalized setting with pompous rituals and a strong division between acceptable and forbidden themes. As long as these external forces restrict his self-expression, Tannha« user is compelled to be untrue to others and to make contradictory statements. The semblance of irrationality is his only shield against attachments that threaten his ultimate goal of redemption. Ex. 5. Continued 601 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ Thanks to his musical track, however, we are able to see into his mind and detect a strategy of redemption. The remarkable aspect of Elisabeth is that she turns from a romantic pursuit to a vehicle of salvation for him. She came to love him because of his art, but unlike Venus she is pure and spiritual enough to sacrifice her love, even her life, for his salvation. Her intervention in the Act II finale is what revitalizes Tannha« u- ser’s mission and becomes his source of inspiration. It is the epiphany of realizing the pain he has caused to her that sanctifies his Act I resolve to expunge the impurities of sensuality in his life. This is why his two cries in Acts I and II are identical musical gestures yet of different musical content. They are signposts in his progress towards re- demption and spiritual renewal. Spoiling the Sa« ngerkrieg is a strategic choice that leads from the one to the other. Unsure as Wagner had been through to the end of his life about the dramatic perfection of Tannha« user und der Sa« ngerkrieg auf Wartburg, he may, in the end, have produced an opera that works better if approached from a cognitive perspective than from a historical, formal, or stylistic one. ABSTRACT The eponymous hero of Wagner’s Tannha« user treads a path of stark contrasts and rapid swings that culminate in the opera’s central episode, the song contest at Wartburg. Instead of securing his reintegration within the court with a brilliant performance, Tannha« user spoils the event with insolent remarks and the exhibitionist disclosure of his Venusberg experience. His behaviour offends his peers, scandalizes the court, breaks Elisabeth’s heart, and brings him to the edge of death. Why would he sacrifice everything for nothing? Existing interpretations of Wagner’s Tannha« user blame either the hero’s flaws or the young composer’s unconvincing dramaturgy, and take for granted Tannha« user’s hyper-emotional impulsive nature. This essay offers a radic- ally new perspective on the opera by drawing on game theory, the dominant method- ology in the social sciences. Through a detailed analysis of the hero’s decision-making, it argues that his seemingly irrational behaviour is actually consistent with a strategy of redemption. Musical evidence in the score indeed suggests that Tannha« user may have consciously disrupted the contest, knowing that only a public disclosure of his sinful past can force him to make the pilgrimage to Rome and secure a permanent union with Elizabeth. 602 at V ienna U niversity L ibrary on A ugust 26, 2015 http://m l.oxfordjournals.org/ D ow nloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/