Wagnerian symptoms

I was reading the not very interesting memoir on Ernest Newman, the great critic and author of a four volume biography of Wagner, by his wife Vera. It's all pretty banal and spends more time talking about her vacations with the Koussevitskys, than on his musical life and ideas. I was struck though by one passage where she voices her concern that listening to the entire of Parsifal on recordings might be too tiring for him in his final days.

That reminded me of a quote from the Musical Times, December 1891, which was included in the libretto of the LP version of the Decca/London Siegfried:

The Boston Home Journal reports: Marie Wilt, the soprano who lately committed suicide, once learned the part of Brünnhilde in three weeks. "That finished me," she said, shortly before her death. Schnorr died shortly after Tannhauser, Anders went mad studying Tristan, and Scaria after Parsifal, died insane.

I believe it was after Tristan that Schnorr died (and his widow then developed an obssession with Wagner) but never mind. What struck me is the obviously hazardous nature of listening to, learning or performing Wagner. One hears often about the vocal problems, but obviously not enough about the other phyiscal complications.

On the other hand, I had a slightly different reaction as I was getting over the flu bug and watching the recent Met DVD of Meistersinger. I felt a moment of ectasy as Mattila began the Quintet and then a racing of my pulse as Heppner reached the climax of the Preisleid. After I was done watching this, I felt better. Whether it was Wagner or the regular course of the flu (after all it did take 4 1/2 hours to watch), I'll never know. But I'd like to think it was the music.