Talk:Prosper Sainton

Possibly gay

Richard Wagner said that Sainton and the German pianist Carl Lüders "lived together as man and wife", clearly implying homosexuality (with which he had no problems but to which he was personally disinclined) and he found their companionship delightful enough to visit them many times. See Laurence Dreyfus, Wagner and the Erotic Impulse, p. 203.

However, Benjamin Ivry in his review of Simon Callow's book Being Wagner: The Triumph of the Will, where this gay claim is repeated, says Callow has made too much of Wagner's words, and tries to refute the claim by stating that Sainton married a female in London. Well, so what, one might ask. Many gay men were forced to marry in those days.

• Callow may be a luvvie but he is not a pseud. Only occasionally do his readings of biographical details, however well-intentioned, go awry. He takes literally Wagner’s claim in My Life that his supporters in London, the German pianist Carl Lüders and French violinist Prosper Sainton, ‘lived together as man and wife’, Whereas only five years after seeing Wagner in London in 1855, Sainton would marry the English contralto Charlotte Dolby. As Callow implies elsewhere, someone as perfectly egoistic as Wagner was not a perceptive observer of those around him, nor could he appreciate the concept of disinterested friendship. Yet Callow segues from noting how Lüders and Sainton cared for each other to remark: ‘Sex seems always to have been in the air when Wagner was about. He was notably relaxed about homosexuality, and throughout his career owed a great deal to gay enthusiasts of his work.’ This forcibly pulls the Wagner circle into our era of marriage equality rather than leaving them amid murkier Victorian emotions. Benjamin Ivry, review of Simon Callow, Being Wagner.

What do we make of all this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)