# Is Wagner's Parsifal pessimistic?



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I was listening to a speaker (whose field is not music), and he made the statement that Wagner started optimistic, citing Die Meistersinger, and ended pessmistic, citing Parsifal.

I haven't paid much attention to either opera, so I'm curious: Is he correct in saying Parsifal is pessimistic?


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## Resurrexit (Apr 1, 2014)

I'm not sure what context the statement was made in, but to say Wagner "started" optimistic by citing one of his final operas leads me to believe that this speaker really didn't know much about the topic either and was making a reductionist claim based on the fact that Meistersinger is a "comedy" (therefore optimistic) and Parsifal is not (therefore pessimistic). But the truth is its impossible to reduce or analyze his operas on such simplistic terms, and there is a dose of pessimism in all of his operas, including Meistersinger, and a good dose of optimism in even his most serious works, like the Ring or Parsifal. I will say that I find that Wagner is never bleak, and with the possibile exception of Lohengrin would not even call any of his operas tragedies as they all deal with the idea of sacrifice and redemption. Parsifal ends with the promise of redemption and rejuvenation to a fallen order.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Resurrexit said:


> I will say that I find that Wagner is never bleak, and with the possibile exception of Lohengrin would not even call any of his operas tragedies as they all deal with the idea of sacrifice and redemption. Parsifal ends with the promise of redemption and rejuvenation to a fallen order.


Thanks for your insight. I can tell you have spent a lot of time with this music. This speaker had read a book about Wagner and based his conclusions on that. It just shows you, one book doesn't make you an expert.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Meistersinger is not an early work, and was written after Tristan, one of his more pessimistic.

If anything, Wagner starts pessimistic (Rienzi) and gets more optimistic as he ages. Redemption underpins all of Wagner's works. But in Rienzi this redemption is a failure. Rienzi's final words: "May the town be accursed and destroyed! Disintegrate and wither, Rome! Your degenerate people wish it so."

His early works (Dutchman, Tannhauser) we see redemption, but at terrible cost of self-sacrifice and death wrought by a woman's love.

In his later, mature, works, we have this same central theme of redemption via sacifice, but it more pessimistically/optimistically ambiguous. 

In Tristan we have the idea that love spiritually transfigures and surpasses death, whether it is a tragedy then that the lovers die then is subject to interpretation.

In the Ring Cycle's Gotterdammerung we ultimately have the cleansing and rebirth of the world of men, not the apocalyptic end. Only their Gods meet their doom, this releases men from tyranny. 

In Parsifal, the titular character redeems a base religion after undergoing an enlightenment of compassion which is a realization and understanding of the "redeemer's" self-sacrifice and the pain carried by Amfortas. Kundry dies, but this is a release from her own suffering after several lifetimes of being enslaved to others. It's arguably one of his most optimistic works.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Very interesting post Couchie

You made me think of the (unforgettable) ending of Chéreau's first Bayreuth Ring






If I remember right Vickers used to lead the living Kundry into the shrine at the end -- there doesn't seem any good reason for her to die, nor any good reason for the grail brotherhood to remain an all male preserve. Amazingly, there doesn't seem to be a video recording of Vicker's Parsifal on youtube, I'm sure I used to have one, but maybe not!

Is The Ring optimistic? Wotan systematically fails to find a solution, who's to say that the survivors will be more successful at organising their world?

I think there's a very naive way in which the optimism of Parsifal is unavoidable. I mean, it ends on a beautiful spring day! And the grail is opened, Parsifal has saved us.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I don't see any indication that Kundry has any interest in joining the Brotherhood. Instead what she craves most is sleep - eternal sleep, never to again awake in horror that she is still alive. Maybe that's a bit pessimistic, but how many lifetimes does one have to endure until they become a bit tired of the struggle of living?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Resurrexit said:


> I'm not sure what context the statement was made in, but to say Wagner "started" optimistic by citing one of his final operas leads me to believe that this speaker really didn't know much about the topic either and was making a reductionist claim based on the fact that Meistersinger is a "comedy" (therefore optimistic) and Parsifal is not (therefore pessimistic). But the truth is its impossible to reduce or analyze his operas on such simplistic terms, and there is a dose of pessimism in all of his operas, including Meistersinger, and a good dose of optimism in even his most serious works, like the Ring or Parsifal. I will say that I find that Wagner is never bleak, and with the possibile exception of Lohengrin would not even call any of his operas tragedies as they all deal with the idea of sacrifice and redemption. Parsifal ends with the promise of redemption and rejuvenation to a fallen order.


Well said. I would add that Wagner, in his life and thought, underwent a rather ordinary evolution in which wild youthful optimism about what human beings could accomplish to create a better world was greatly tempered by experience.

Wagner always viewed the political and economic structures of his society as oppressive to the human spirit, and as a young man he participated in the socialist/anarchist revolutionary uprising of 1848, with the consequence that he had to live for years as an exile to escape punishment. During those years he discovered the philosophy of Schopenhauer as well as Eastern religions, and these had a considerable influence on his operas, which had always dealt with the theme of the exceptional or alienated individual in a world hostile to personal fulfillment, but which came increasingly to emphasize the necessity of an internal, spiritual evolution.

_Parsifal_ was the culmination of that change in focus: in it, a society (the Knights of the Holy Grail) ostensibly devoted to noble ends is helpless to prevent its own corruption through either enforcement of law or heroic action - these only make things worse - and salvation comes only through purity of spirit and inner transformation. It might be viewed as saying (among other things) that although suffering is intrinsic to life itself, and although even our highest ideals become distorted and corrupted when they are embodied and enforced by institutional powers, there is hope for humanity in the capacity of the individual for self-knowledge and right action. If this view of the work is correct, "pessimistic" is not the right word to describe it, and is less applicable here than to earlier operas such as _The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin,_ _Tristan und Isolde,_ and the _Ring._


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

No, the opera is not pessimistic. It was modern and pointed forward as an example of great music.


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