Verdi and/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries

Scholar and critic Conrad (Christ Church, Oxford; A Song of Love and Death: The Meaning of Opera) here assays an ambitious comparison between Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) and Richard Wagner (1813–83), two musical titans of the 19th century—and the 20th, their presence sustained in myriad ways ranging from the Bayreuth Festival to Hollywood—who never met. The book is epic in scope, the titular conjunction indicative of its refusal to exclude one composer in favor of the other, even if Conrad's attention to his subjects does not seem precisely egalitarian: to Verdi he is sympathetic, with Wagner, he's fascinated. The organization is primarily thematic, secondarily chronological, which makes for some odd juxtapositions, as everything from the composers' grasping after national characters for their respectively disjointed countries to the emotional freight of their creative efforts to their family pets is considered. The result sometimes leaves the reader wondering whether advanced reading in history, cultural anthropology, and perhaps even economics is warranted. In the end, it's hard to know who is best served by this work, as in some ways the author seems to be writing for himself.