Wagner at the Movies

[Richard Wagner Society of SA, Adelaide University, 17 August 2025]

Although Wagner, in his essay, foresaw “The Artwork of the Future,” as a communal matter, a ‘fellowship of all artists,’ it is hard to contest Stephen Whittington’s surmise that had Wagner lived in the time of film, he would have been something of an intractable auteur. What one would give to see a discussion between Wagner and Jack Warner, or for that matter, with Errol Flynn. Yet as Stephen pointed out in his entertaining and informative Brian Coghlan Memorial Lecture, the Maestro looms large in the Hollywood firmament (to borrow a phrase from Jean Hagen) in terms of influence.

The Hitchcock soundtracks of the 1950s by Bernard Herrmann come to mind (e.g., North By Northwest, Vertigo) but his traces are everywhere, and stray well beyond the classical composers he touched (vide, for example, the linking music in Red Dwarf, which is a straight steal of Trauermarsch). Stephen went further back, however, to earlier days of film and the work of émigrés such as Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, Miklós Rózsa, Dimitri Tiomkin and in particular, the child prodigy, Erich (Wolfgang) Korngold.

Films had always been accompanied by music, but generally from the tinkling of a sole pianist in the cinema, or by a small chamber orchestra. Famously, in 1927,The Jazz Singer revolutionised the medium by synching sound (words and music) with the images on screen. Many technical issues soon arose, some humorously dramatized in Singin’ in the Rain, and there were especial hurdles in composing music for film in the days before technology made it relatively easy. For example, in 1931’s Dracula, scratchy, pre-recorded excepts from pieces such as Swan Lake and Meistersinger were featured.

Korngold developed the theory of ciné-opera, a sort of homage to Wagner’s idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, dispensing with a bits-and-pieces approach and writing a soundtrack of continuous flow, with the richness of a full orchestra, leitmotivs, and set pieces to accompany action or the mushy romance scenes (an application of the “Musical Analogy”). Stephen, Associate Director International at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, explained with musical examples how this was done.

Stephen took as an exemplar Michael Curtiz’s swashbuckler, “The Sea Hawk” (1940), with Flynn modelled on Sir Francis Drake, where Korngold wrote a full symphonic score, with ingenious switches of notes to heighten the sea battles and swordplay, and to soften the quieter moments. To be quite candid, the Korngold score is a tad too sugary for this writer’s taste, but after all, in 1940s American cinema, the colour of corn was gold.

Mr. Whittington’s lecture was not corny, however; but an erudite, amusing and educational presentation.