Schlepping 104 miles (round trip) to attend a lecture on myth and symbolism is, understandably, very few people’s idea of a good time. But then, I am no ordinary person, and I would even venture to suggest that most of those in attendance at Monday evening’s symposium at the University of La Verne were far from ordinary as well. I was pleasantly taken aback as I strolled into an unexpectedly packed ballroom in ULV’s campus center for yet another Ring Festival LA event. The lecture, entitled “My Precious Illusion: Rings of Power in Wagner and Tolkien”, was led by Professor David Werner, head of La Verne’s English department. It offered an interesting and thoughtful look into the very nature of myth, especially the mythologies that pervade Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen. A dutifully rapt and attentive audience sat for over an hour as Professor Werner, an enthusiastic Wagnerian to be sure, presented a cogent and compelling case for the value of myth within our modern cultural context.
In Werner’s view, myth plays an important role in giving shape and meaning to human experience insofar as it attempts to answer those three inscrutable questions famously represented in the eponymous painting by French post-impressionist Paul Gauguin: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Despite frequently describing the familiar Judeo-Christian creation narrative recorded in Scripture as mere myth akin to Wagner’s Nibelungen and Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Werner was able to draw out the single most im
portant element inherent in all three narratives, human failing. Be it Alberich plunging the world into chaos by stealing the Rhinemaidens’ gold, or Tolkien’s Hobbits lusting after the One Ring, or Adam and Eve devouring forbidden fruit, myth, Werner believes, is mankind’s attempt to reenter the Garden, to return the gold. The evening concluded with a challenge to the audience to find their own gold. “There is gold in all of us,” exhorted Professor Werner. “The function of each of our lives ought to be about brining that gold out so that it illumines us all.” A fascinating premise, to say the least.
Nota bene: The opinions expressed on this blog and its related media are solely those of J. Anthony McAlister. They in no way represent the opinions of Los Angeles Opera, Ring Festival LA, or any of their associated partners.
