Bavarian Rhapsody

ludwig

 

Ludwig II of Bavaria was a remarkable king known mainly for two things: his patronage of Richard Wagner and his lavish castle buildings. In the castle of Neuschwanstein, the two strains met opulently, as it’s basically a structure inspired by Wagner’s work and myths, to the extreme.

Ludwig was a lonely aesthete who found great emotional solace in Wagner’s rich sense of mythic drama. It gradually became an obsession which turned into a win-win situation for both men. Wagner was not appreciated by the petty bourgeoisie at the time, as he was seen as too radical and experimental. But King Ludwig couldn’t care less. His own indulgence in not only Wagner’s occasional company at the nearby castle Hochschwangau but also in Wagner’s complex psychodramatic myth-probing turned the young king more and more convinced that the new construction Neuschwanstein was an absolute necessity.

The castle looks staggering as it hugs the rocky but forested territory. This is right where the Alps begin, which provides both natural drama and majesty. Neuschwanstein has served as a model for many Disney-like adaptions of what a European castle should look like. Although constructed in the late 19th century, the style is romanesque and tries to emulate a medieval sense of fairy tale times, with knights on horseback looking up at maidens waifishly waving from castle towers.

 

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When you enter into the castle proper, you do so squeezed into sweaty groups led by guides who have probably delivered the same unengaged and stripped speech a million times. But the amount of tourists each year makes it impossible to handle the situation in any other way than herding. If that’s what’s required, then fine by me. Because what you do get to see is remarkable. There is luxury, yes, but not in any kind of decadent French way where every little item is gilded just for the hell of it. Neuschwanstein is actually quite economic in that sense. There is a wealth of incredible handicraft and decoration, but more in romanesque, neo-gothic and occasional byzantine styles. It’s all dark wood, heavy furniture and many framed paintings and murals displaying the romantic world of Richard Wagner’s operas.

Our guide, a 50-something woman with a symmetric grey page haircut, is a fine example of crystal clear German efficiency, and declares – between the lines, I should add – that if we lag behind or touch anything, she will kill us, efficiently.

Already in the second room we enter, a small group of overweight American men fall silent in awe. Their previous loud concerns with how much this must have cost turn pointless in the inevitable immersion. And, in many ways, it’s beyond comprehension anyway. There were of course loud voices of criticism in Ludwig’s own time. Wouldn’t it be better if the king focused on ruling his country rather than spending the fortune amassed by his Wittelsbach predecessors during eight centuries of strict rule? When visiting today, you quickly realise that all critical voices have been and still are in vain. Neuschwanstein and Ludwig’s other castles are highly profitable cash cows these days, with millions of of tourists every year. The Bavarian treasury may have been strained by King Ludwig temporarily, but he certainly made sure to pay back, eventually.

 

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The king’s own bedroom, as well as many parts of the building, had running warm and cold water (in his case, emanating from a silver swan’s beak), a water closet and an electric communication system. Central heating was installed, with the heat coming from wood-burning and excess warmth from the kitchen. Intricate woodwork abounds: the ornaments in Ludwig’s bedroom alone took 14 sculptors and carvers four years to finish. And everywhere Wagner! A stove has Tristan and Isolde embedded as figurines. Lohengrinean swans abound. Murals and paintings act as visual enhancers of the general Wagnerian oeuvre. Even Ludwig’s official throne hall room, with pillars of Lapis Lazuli, a dais of Carrara marble and grand biblical murals, feels more like something out of a Wagner opera than the real thing (which it also was).

It is a stunning place in every respect. The quality of the handicraft, the architectural skill and the detailed parts as enhancing the awe-striking totality is, when you think about it, the work of one single mind: the Bavarian king that his contemporaries called “mad”. In that sense, Ludwig certainly not only revelled in Wagnerian concepts but also integrated the essential and main one: the Gesamtkunstwerk aspect. Neuschwanstein is like a total opera in itself. Only the music is lacking. However, even that aspect was covered in the planning. There is a “singer’s hall” on the fourth floor, where there are nowadays Wagnerian revelries each September – a kind of miniature Bayreuth.

The people in our stressed tourist group look on up with big eyes as the guide relentlessly tells us amusing anecdotes about aspects of the construction: the trapezoidal vestibule with its embossed pig-skin bolsters, two million pieces of mosaic tiles in the floor in the throne hall, the chandelier that weighs one ton and can be winched up and down, etc. The fact that photography is forbidden makes people do something they seem quite unused to: watching reality with their own eyes. As what they’re watching is to a great extent “unbelievable” anyway and it doesn’t stem from a justifying electronic screen, it seems they are perplexed. I’m certainly no exception.

 

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I have only experienced a similar kind of awe in front of pure magnitude at the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Although that too is an utterly amazing place in every respect, it can never escape its own vulgarity, stemming in part from French “lavish” tradition and in part from Russian incomprehension of subtleties. Neuschwanstein is a completely different story though. Ludwig’s architectural brainchild was made specifically for indulgence. Not in vulgar wealth or quantity-as-quality, but mainly in the imaginative force that transcends (or has the ability to transcend) both time and space. To be in an environment that “pure” (as in “untainted by the contemporary”) is strangely invigorating.

In many ways, Ludwig got more Wagnerian drama than he bargained for through Neuschwanstein. He was slyly outmanoeuvred by politicians and contenders, and far too busy to pay heed to their demands of constant warfare and a possible unified German Reich including a mighty Bavarian principality. After a treacherous conspiracy, King Ludwig was declared insane (without proper examinations to prove it) in 1886, dethroned and strangely enough (?) wound up dead in a nearby lake with his own medicus only two days later. Tragedy, treason, possibly murder, Götterdämmerung all around. Perhaps, after all, a fitting end for someone so immersed in the essence of Richard Wagner: a romantic yearning for a violent end and total devastation.

If Ludwig looks down from his Valhalla, I’m not sure what he feels about the hordes of Chinese tourists invading his castle (although also a great symbol of impending devastation and Götterdämmerung, only on another level). But one thing is certain: any financial debts he may have had to the Bavarian government have now been paid in full many times over. Judging from his popularity within contemporary Bavaria, it’s fair to say that the last laugh was certainly the “mad” king’s. And another thing should not be forgotten… Without Ludwig II of Bavaria, very likely no Richard Wagner as we know him and his works today.