The Dark Matter of Wagner’s Dream: Chaos and Creativity in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Abstract

Richard Wagner’s opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg embodies his fundamental belief that all acts of creation are wrestled up out of darkness and confusion. Wagner foreshadows Freud’s theories of dreams and those of contemporary psychoanalysts who consider the composition of the dream, whether awake or asleep, as a chaotic and reorganizing experience that. when worked upon in consciousness, comprises an aesthetic act. Temporally and musically punctuating the opera with a riot scene at the end of Act II, Wagner creates the catalyst for the young knight Walther’s morning dream, its transformation, and the dark permutations that penetrate the latter half of the opera. While sounding the depths of the unruly unconscious and reconciling the opposing forces of creation and destruction, Wagner infuses Act III with the musical beauty and emotional intensity that elevate and transform Wagner’s dream opera into a work of great art.