Wagnerism as Participatory Culture: Nordic Perspectives

Abstract

<p>The Wagner audience has often been described as special. Wagner listeners are often depicted as “Wagnerians” – fans or devotees who are different, for example, from those who listen to Johann Sebastian Bach or Felix Mendelssohn. This interpretation seems to insinuate that Wagner is a cult figure; hence, his audience is especially active. The main intention of this essay is to explore the ways Wagner’s audiences in the past, particularly in the Baltic Sea region, participated in the process of music-making and/or in what ways they participated in creating music culture outside concert halls and opera houses. This exploration has been inspired by recent studies of social media, especially the works of the media theorist Henry Jenkins. In his Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006) and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture (2006), Jenkins has pointed out the paradigmatic change to understanding an audience as interactive in its spectatorship. Instead of being passive recipients, music consumers are able to “archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content”. It is obvious, of course, that this present-day understanding cannot be projected onto the past. Still, there are grounds for arguing that, in the nineteenth century, the media world was in tremendous flux, which also meant that audiences could have a more active role than before. The essay analyses Wagnerism as a participatory culture by focusing on such areas as societal activities and tourist visits to Bayreuth.<br></p>