Break with Wagner

"All free spirits who are not on guard against magicians will lose their freedom".[Nietzsche TSZ LXXV]

Nietzsche's growing disquiet with the Wagnerian conception of Total Art reached a peak at the time of the first performance of the Ring in total at Bayreuth in 1876; Nietzsche was suffering the crisis of confidence of one who had put so much into a movement which he now had come to inwardly disavow.There was at first a veiled note of criticism when Nietzsche wrote at the time;"Wagner's Nibelung cycle, strictly speaking, are DRAMAS TO BE READ with the aid of the inner fantasy".

Indeed, while at the said performance, Nietzsche had to make his excuses and leave before the final curtain, saying;"We are witnessing the death agony of the LAST GREAT ART: Bayreuth was convinced me of this".

Here is a clear break in Nietzsche's career; - Wagner, like Bayreuth was no longer dear to Nietzsche, - this was not the regeneration for which Nietzsche had planned; now he must needs tread the paths of Solitude.But Nietzsche will never be able to completely reject the influence of Wagner [nor of Schopenhauer] on his future thinking.

"The tradition of the Ancient Olympic Games endured for nearly a thousand years. That results, it seems to me, from a mystery similar to that which lies at the origin of Bayreuth".[ Hitler, 1942]