Richard and Cosima Wagner: marital conflict due to migraines

Wedding photo of Cosima and Richard Wagner

The interview about the Wagner-BMJ article with Liliane Jolitz from the Lübecker Nachrichten

Lübecker Nachrichten: As a migraine expert, you are known far beyond Germany. Apparently, you are also a Wagner expert?

Hartmut Göbel: A few years ago, I was treating a prominent conductor from Bayreuth. Through him, I had the opportunity to experience the "Ring of the Nibelung" in Bayreuth. Although I play the organ and piano myself, I hadn't had any deep connection to Wagner until then. It took me a year or two, and then I was fortunate enough to see the "Ring" performed in Lübeck in Anthony Pilavachi's production. Since then, I've been completely immersed in the world of Wagner. And it hasn't let me go.

LN: What is it about Wagner that you find so captivating?

Göbel: It opens up new ways of experiencing music, profound perceptions and feelings that only Wagner conveys so uniquely in the history of music. That's how I came to Wagner – without Lübeck, that wouldn't have been possible.

LN: How did you come to the conclusion that Wagner might have suffered from migraines?

Göbel: I was in Lübeck for the premiere of "Siegfried" and heard the opening bars. The barely perceptible timpani tremolo introduces the first act, conveying a throbbing in one's own head. The strings add the first subtle pulses. The warning signs of a migraine become immediately tangible; the migraine's fuse is already lit. Bar by bar, the attack builds; with the sword motif, the pounding escalates, hammering and pulsating like the peak of a migraine. Anthony Pilavachi staged this perfectly in his production, and Stuart Patterson, as Mime, conveyed it with immediate empathy. Mime clutches his temples, contorts his face in pain, seeks support from the doorframe, and then collapses to the floor, his face contorted in agony. As a complete work of art, you experience a migraine attack as precisely as it could be described in the current headache classification. And then Mime sings in despair, "Compulsive torment, toil without purpose," slides to the ground, and protects his head with his hands. But that's not all: In the third scene of the first act, Richard Wagner allows the audience to experience a migraine aura. The melody line scintillates and flickers, incidentally at precisely the same tempo as an actual migraine aura in laboratory measurements. Mime also expresses the visual disturbances during a migraine attack with fearful words, in Lübeck also superbly and faithfully staged with flickering light and shimmering: "What flames the air there! What flickers and flickers, what shimmers and swirls." Such words can only be found by someone who has personally experienced the visual disturbances during a migraine aura.

LN: So the composer knew the migraine course precisely?

Göbel: During the intermission, I kept my wife on tenterhooks from the first act and asked: "How did Wagner know how this would play out? Did he suffer from migraines himself?" My wife replied: "Of course he suffered from migraines." I hadn't heard or read about it anywhere, but like my wife, I was convinced: If he could write music like that, then he must have experienced it himself.

LN: Did the idea of ​​investigating the matter further arise at that point?

Göbel: Only after a year or two. But the scene wouldn't let me go. We probably heard "Siegfried" five or six times in Lübeck. During the following summer holidays, I read Wagner's memoirs and letters, as well as the diary entries of Cosima Wagner, his second wife. After just a few pages, it became unequivocally clear to me that Richard Wagner suffered from severe migraines, even describing them as the main torment of his life.

LN: Wagner himself does not use the term migraine.

Göbel: When he wrote "Siegfried," he reported suffering from constant, severe headaches. He usually refers to them as "nervous" headaches – a very good description for migraines and their accompanying symptoms.

LN: Did the term migraine not yet exist, or had he not received a corresponding diagnosis?

Göbel: The term wasn't common back then. Incidentally, Cosima frequently described headaches in herself and their children. She even describes a full-blown marital spat between Richard and Cosima over headaches in her diary entries. 150 years ago, there were no painkillers, no aspirin, no ergotamine, no triptans. Chronic pain debilitated people much more than it does today. We can be thankful that we live in this era in this respect.

LN: You consider it proven that Wagner suffered from migraines?

Göbel: Based on our detailed analyses, there is no doubt about that. And yet, this had not been reflected in the scholarly literature until now. While working on Siegfried, Wagner's health, particularly his nervous system, was severely compromised. In a letter to Franz Liszt, he complained at length about his excruciating headaches, describing his head as a "detuned piano" and lamenting his life as a dog's existence. It was a stroke of genius to transform a migraine attack into a "grand opera" in this time of distress. Wagner, like no other, was able to convey emotions in music and staging in an unparalleled way. For him, that was the very purpose of art: to make feelings directly accessible to others within a total work of art. His works allow us today to empathize with his deepest emotions.

LN: You say that Wagner could have written more and even more complex works if he hadn't suffered from migraines.

Göbel: Wagner abandoned work on Siegfried midway through the second act for many years. The Ring cycle was too complex; his health prevented him from managing and completing it. He interrupted work on it for about twelve years, turning to simpler subjects. This leap in time can be directly experienced between the second and third acts of Siegfried. If he could have been treated with today's technology, he might have been able to compose Siegfried quickly, and music history would have taken a different course. Even today, many people with migraines have to give up their careers. Schoolchildren can miss months of school. University students drop out. A famous example is Marie Curie, who, at the age of twenty, wanted to abandon her studies because she suffered from severe migraines. However, she persevered and later, as is well known, received two Nobel Prizes in Science. Even today, many young people, despite their high level of creativity, retreat to simpler training programs and professions that don't demand as much of them.

LN: Do you hear Wagner's music differently now?

Göbel: Yes, absolutely. With each listening, new perceptions, emotions, and thoughts unfold. Richard Wagner's "memory motifs" are particularly effective when repeated, yet always perceived anew. As a newcomer, one often can't make sense of them. It takes a considerable amount of activation energy before the reaction occurs spontaneously. But then worlds open up with ever-new levels of awareness and experience. This is probably why Wagner appeals to so many people worldwide. With each listening, one hears more and new connections. That's why one can never get enough of Wagner's operas.