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Jean-Jacques Nattiez. Wagner Androgyne: A Study in Interpretation. Translated by Stewart Spencer. Princeton Studies in Opera. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. xx, 359 pp. ISBN 0-691-09141-2 (hardcover).
In early 1854, Wagner opined to August Rockel that "the true human being is both man and woman," and concluded that "it is the union of man and woman, in other words, love, that creates (physically and metaphorically) the human being."1 Jean-Jacques Nattiez contends that the figure of the androgyne - essentially the fusion of opposites - was central to the interpretation of both Wagner's prose writings and musical works. Nattiez's book is devoted to the exploration of the significance (both literal and metaphorical) of the figure of androgyny "in Wagner's works and theoretical writings when seen within the context of the texts, the composer's life, and the age in which he lived" (xiii-xiv). But it is more than that: it is the embodiment of androgyny itself.
Wagner Androgyne first appeared in French in 1990,2 and now, in Stewart Spencer's unobtrusive translation, forms part of the Princeton Studies in Opera series. For the English edition, Nattiez has taken the opportunity to correct some small errors in the original, as well as to add two short sections to the sixth chapter. The first appendix of the French edition (a translation of Wagner's unpublished first prose sketch for Wieland der Schmied) was dropped from the English translation, but fortunately is now available in both German and English (translated by Spencer) in the journal of the British Wagner Society.3 Happily, the other appendix was carried over into the translation. This lengthy (19 pages; 301 items!) list of Wagner's prose works is a simplified version of an unpublished, detailed catalogue currently being assembled by Nattiez, and for which all Wagner scholars wait in expectation.
Apart from the figure of androgyny, Nattiez's central argument is that one ought to read Wagner's works as "artistic metaphorfs]" of the "theoretical constructs] elaborated in tandem" with them (91 ). While this is not a new point to make with regard to Wagner, seldom has it been elaborated with such admirable thoroughness and clarity. Since, in his prose writings, Wagner often turns to myth to illustrate a theoretical point, Nattiez is quite right to regard the...