tragedy. Duncan danced in Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth summer Festival in 1904, and to parts in all three operas in years to follow.
Duncan’s Embodiment of The Birth of Tragedy
Addressing Duncan’s summer-long stay in Bayreuth in 1904 helps to reveal her views on both Greek tragedy and Wagner, and also provides a background for beginning to grapple with difficult questions raised concerning her use of Nietzsche and Wagner. That summer, which she spent studying Wagner’s notes and performing there, she danced to the love duet in Tannhäuser
(ML 105-7). Duncan also claims Wagner as one of her teachers (AD 48), which complicates her use of The Birth of Tragedy and raises the question of how she could have reconciled Nietzsche and Wagner in her thought and dance. How aware was she of Nietzsche’s philosophical development, particularly with regard to his early support and later opposition to Wagner? If The
Birth of Tragedy was indeed her Bible, she would have known of Nietzsche’s support of Wagner and Wagner’s influence on him, as well as his grounds for opposing Wagner.
“Every atom of my being, brain, and body had been absorbed in enthusiasm for Greece and, now, for Richard Wagner” (ML 108), Duncan wrote. Some time after Berlin, she arrived at
Bayreuth in 1904, though her family went their separate ways. In her autobiography, she wrote that Cosima Wagner, Wagner’s widow, invited her to Bayreuth the year before (ML 104). But it was actually Siegfried (named after the old Norse dragon-slaying hero, also hero of Wagner’s operas on the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung), their son, who having became enamored with Isadora when he saw her perform in Berlin, encouraged his mother to bestow an invitation to “the Master’s” domain (104).
In Bayreuth, Isadora met and spent time with many artists and intellectuals, and even royalty. She formed particular friendships, which she described as spiritual in nature, with
Heinrich Thode and Ernst Haeckel. Thode was a musician, and, in Duncan’s words, “discoursed to me on Art” (ML 110). He visited her at her rented villa outside Bayreuth (a hunting lodge named Phillip’s Ruhe), and spent time with her listening to the rehearsals of the operas performed that summer, including Tannhäuser and Parsifal. Duncan describes her relationship
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