# Should Kundry die in Parsifal?



## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

Even though Wagner wanted her to die I know many productions where she doesn't die.

I think that Kundrys death is a great redemption for her. Actually I can't think of a greater redemption. What are your opinions?


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

No pole is long enough to touch this with.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

One of the philosophical influences on Wagner in writing _Parsifal_ was Buddhism, in which salvation is expressed as release from _samsara,_ the cycle of death and rebirth in the material world, the world of _maya,_ illusion. Kundry is said to have had many lives, and to wander from world to world seeking release. Death for her is _nirvana,_ the final liberation for which she has longed.

There are other justifications for Kundry's death. Wagner in _Parsifal_ is working at his most rarified level of symbolism; every character, every bit of action and theatrical prop, means something more than it conveys on a literal level, and in fact the story taken literally is really incomprehensible and, as many have noted, possibly repugnant in some respects. Productions in which Kundry lives on are taking, at best, a more literal approach, and may be designed to please people uncomfortable with what they perceive as the misogyny of an opera in which the only female character suffers for four hours and then dies. It should hardly be necessary to point out that such a strange being as Kundry can't be viewed as a "person," but must be seen as representing certain elements in the human soul which must give way to higher ones if redemption - integration and maturity - is to be attained. Once that occurs, the pain, longing, wretched sevitude, and deadly seductiveness Kundry embodies are extinguished, and Kundry herself has no raison d'etre.

Note to Philoctetes: No pole needed. I used my bare hands. :tiphat:


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Note to self: you was right again...

I was recently caught in a discussion over the way Ulysses failed to spare the lives of Penelope's servants... so this trap looks pretty familiar...


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Kundry is cursed with undeath as punishment for mocking Jesus on the cross. She longs for redemption and death.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Once again I realize I am just too unsophisticated for Wagner...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

philoctetes said:


> Note to self: you was right again...
> 
> I was recently caught in a discussion over the way Ulysses failed to spare the lives of Penelope's servants... so this trap looks pretty familiar...


What trap? The topic is interesting, the inquiry reasonable, some responders know a few things...

If it frightens you, you can just not play.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Kundry is cursed with undeath as punishment for mocking Jesus on the cross. She longs for redemption and death.


A clever instance of Wagnerian syncretism, here mixing Buddhism and Christianity.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Who or what does Klingsor represent?

What is his relation to Kundry?


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> What trap? The topic is interesting, the inquiry reasonable, some responders know a few things...
> 
> If it frightens you, you can just not play.


Hence the pole comment. And I admit having no expertise here about Wagner or his symbolism. So I'll just watch for now. Have fun...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Who or what does Klingsor represent?
> 
> What is his relation to Kundry?


These questions go to the central meaning of the opera and are too large to answer in less than a lengthy essay.

Consider first the striking parallels between _Ring_ and _Parsifal._ We have a god or godlike figure who upholds the law and builds a fortress or a temple as an expression of his power, and an amoral, lawless being who seeks to topple the god and steal his power by renouncing love (which in both stories takes initially the form of sex). In both cases, contact between the god and his nemesis results in the god's domain being corrupted and himself being unable to remedy the situation, and therefore he must await an "innocent fool" to deliver him from the consequences of his actions. In _Parsifal_ the fool succeeds by attaining a deeper moral insight than the god and his followers; in the _Ring_ the fool fails to attain self-awareness and is killed. But in both cases the godlike being, and the flawed ideology he represents, must die.

What's relevant here about this parallel is that Klingsor is Titurel's "shadow" side (to use Jung's term), just as Alberich is Wotan's. The dark antagonist represents the unconscious side of the shining protagonist; in psychoanalytic terms, the former is id to the latter's superego, and in both stories the two "halves" of the psyche, by failing to understand and accept their mutual interdependence and fundamental identity, devolve into egoistic struggle and become unconscious colluders in destruction and death. If we see that Klingsor is Titurel's dark, unacknowledged side - his self-castration being only the crude, direct form of the sexual renunciation which Titurel enforces in the name of righteousness - we will understand Kundry, who is the frightening but pathetic embodiment of woman as experienced by the male psyche divided against itself and set against nature for the sake of gaining and holding power. This is what Alberich's renunciation of love represents, it's the inner conflict that tears Wotan apart and turns him against his daughter, and it's Wagner's view of the fundamental evil of institutional religion (and the surprising irony of his so-called "religious" opera"). Out of the fractured, immature, ego-bound male psyche arises Kundry, the deadly serpent in Klingsor's garden, who takes on every distorted role to which man assigns woman: servant, slave, wh*re, and femme fatale. In a world of men, she exists only to serve men - humbly and thanklessly in the Grail's domain, seductively and dangerously in the magic garden. And at the root of every form in which she appears lies the Mother, the beginning of all womanliness for the male, who as an infant needs her as servant, but who can only grow and mature by resisting the siren-call of her all-loving, all-forgiving, all-consuming and, should he yield to temptation, all-destroying kiss.

To create Kundry, a man, Wagner, looked into his own psyche to find and project the inner state of a female character who suffers consciously all the agonies felt by a woman who exists only as the image of femininity created by a man's desires and fears. I can think of nothing else like her, and she is to me the most extraordinary character in opera.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

^^^Amazing post Woodduck! Brilliant stuff. I will read it a few times!!
Thank you :tiphat:


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## pianoville (Jul 19, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> These questions go to the central meaning of the opera and are too large to answer in less than a lengthy essay.
> 
> Consider first the striking parallels between _Ring_ and _Parsifal._ We have a god or godlike figure who upholds the law and builds a fortress or a temple as an expression of his power, and an amoral, lawless being who seeks to topple the god and steal his power by renouncing love (which in both stories takes initially the form of sex). In both cases, contact between the god and his nemesis results in the god's domain being corrupted and himself being unable to remedy the situation, and therefore he must await an "innocent fool" to deliver him from the consequences of his actions. In _Parsifal_ the fool succeeds by attaining a deeper moral insight than the god and his followers; in the _Ring_ the fool fails to attain self-awareness and is killed. But in both cases the godlike being, and the flawed ideology he represents, must die.
> 
> ...


It's always fascinating to read your insightful comments about Wagner!


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

> Should Kundry die in Parsifal?


...hold on...let me check...

Here's what Wagner thinks:

_(A beam of light: the Grail glows at its brightest. From the dome a white dove descends and hovers over Parsifal's head. - Kundry slowly sinks *lifeless *to the ground in front of Parsifal, her eyes uplifted to him. Amfortas and Gurnemanz kneel in homage to Parsifal, who waves the Grail in blessing over the worshipping brotherhood of knights.)

(The curtain closes slowly.)_

....yeah, so I am going to go with that!
I _know_ you already pointed out that Wagner wanted her to die, :tiphat: I am just chiming in on the topic to give my two cents worth. I could read books filled with erudite "reasons" why she shouldn't die, (if such travesties exist), and still come come away laughing. He, (Wagner) knew what he was doing; and Death is no small detail to be trifled with when a master dramatist is telling you his story.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

lextune said:


> ...hold on...let me check...
> 
> Here's what Wagner thinks:
> 
> ...


Wagner has a tendency to have his main women characters just kind of keel over and die for no medical reason--Kundry, Isolde, Elsa, Elisabeth. Feels to me like writing out of convenience--"what should I do with Elsa? this is clearly the end of her story, so I guess she just kind of keels over and dies? Yeah! Good ending, Richard, you did it again!"

Since Wagner couldn't be bothered to engineer a real cause of death in his plots, reference to the sanctity of his authorial intent strikes me as a little hollow.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Wagner has a tendency to have his main women characters just kind of keel over and die for no medical reason--Kundry, Isolde, Elsa, Elisabeth. Feels to me like writing out of convenience--"what should I do with Elsa? this is clearly the end of her story, so I guess she just kind of keels over and dies? Yeah! Good ending, Richard, you did it again!"
> 
> Since Wagner couldn't be bothered to engineer a real cause of death in his plots, reference to the sanctity of his authorial intent strikes me as a little hollow.


It really should be pointed out that his male characters also die for reasons at least unconventional, so I don't think we should even suspect sexism. All this death is distressing, isn't it? Howzabout we rewrite all the operas and give them happy endings: the Dutchman and Senta could land on the deck of the love boat and set sail for the tropics, Tannhauser could run off to the cathedral where Elisabeth is beseeching the Virgin and elope with her to France, Lohengrin could forgive Elsa and take her away in the swan boat... I'm not sure how we'd deal with Wotan if he didn't go up in flames, but I'm sure the geniuses at Bayreuth could think of something.

(Wagner did, by the way, consider having Elsa live at the end of _Lohengrin,_ but after discussing it with a friend via correspondence he decided that having her die was poetically right).


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It really should be pointed out that his male characters also die for reasons at least unconventional, so I don't think we should even suspect sexism. All this death is distressing, isn't it? Howzabout we rewrite all the operas and give them happy endings: the Dutchman and Senta could land on the deck of the love boat and set sail for the tropics, Tannhauser could run off to the cathedral where Elisabeth is beseeching the Virgin and elope with her to France, Lohengrin could forgive Elsa and take her away in the swan boat... I'm not sure how we'd deal with Wotan if he didn't go up in flames, but I'm sure the geniuses at Bayreuth could think of something.
> 
> (Wagner did, by the way, consider having Elsa live at the end of _Lohengrin,_ but after discussing it with a friend via correspondence he decided that having her die was poetically right).


I wasn't making any point about sexism--just about every other opera ends with the female lead dying, this is hardly unique to Wagner.

The point I was making was just that Wagner cared about and was a genius a lot of things, but working out the mechanics of plot details was very much not one of them. He cared about the emotional impact of Isolde's death, not doing the typical potboiler plot mechanics, foreshadowing cause of death details like Ciocio-san's Chekhov's hara-kiri swords or Adriana's poisoned violets or Mimi's or Violetta's ominous coughing.

(btw, your citing that Wagner decided late in the composition to bump off Elsa because it felt "poetically right" is conceding my point--his plotting is often somewhat arbitrary according to theatrical rules of cause and effect, but the point of his operas is most definitely not those arbitrary plot points.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> I wasn't making any point about sexism--just about every other opera ends with the female lead dying, this is hardly unique to Wagner.
> 
> The point I was making was just that Wagner cared about and was a genius a lot of things, but working out the mechanics of plot details was very much not one of them. He cared about the emotional impact of Isolde's death, not doing the typical potboiler plot mechanics, foreshadowing cause of death details like Ciocio-san's Chekhov's hara-kiri swords or Adriana's poisoned violets or Mimi's or Violetta's ominous coughing.
> 
> (btw, your citing that Wagner decided late in the composition to bump off Elsa because it felt "poetically right" is conceding my point--his plotting is often somewhat arbitrary according to theatrical rules of cause and effect, but the point of his operas is most definitely not those arbitrary plot points.)


I think we agree about what Wagner was doing, or at least what he wasn't doing. Ordinary cause and effect don't rule in the world of myth, where causes are internal, not external. Wagner had an extraordinary sense of "poetic justice," and even apparently minor externals of his plots and settings have inner meaning; a cigar is not just a cigar. In the case of _Parsifal,_ the inner meaning is everything, and people not attuned to it find the story bizarre, repugnant, blasphemous, incomprehensible, or, at best, a picturesque fantasy. I suspect they can't hear the music.


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## aussiebushman (Apr 21, 2018)

Sincere thanks for these illuminating contributions. I have learned more about Wagner in general and Parsifal in particular from this than 50 years of listening and other readings!


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

howlingfantods said:


> Wagner has a tendency to have his main women characters just kind of keel over and die for no medical reason--Kundry, Isolde, Elsa, Elisabeth. Feels to me like writing out of convenience--"what should I do with Elsa? this is clearly the end of her story, so I guess she just kind of keels over and dies? Yeah! Good ending, Richard, you did it again!"
> 
> Since Wagner couldn't be bothered to engineer a real cause of death in his plots, reference to the sanctity of his authorial intent strikes me as a little hollow.


For me Kundry's death and Isolde's have a spiritual sense to them. I agree with you though on Elsa And Elisabeth! Man those both annoyed me to no end


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Sonata said:


> For me Kundry's death and Isolde's have a spiritual sense to them. I agree with you though on Elsa And Elisabeth! Man those both annoyed me to no end


I think what Elsa's death signifies is a sort of rebirth. It mustn't be forgotten that while Lohengrin leaves and Elsa dies, Gottfried is transformed back into his human form - he is a symbol of both a swan (i.e Lohengrin) and Elsa (as her brother) who are both "reborn" in Gottfried. I think we must understand Ortrud's role to understand the significance of Elsa's death and the certain inevitability of it. Ortrud and Elsa represent two different sides of a woman. Wagner said about _Lohengrin_ that a woman "with her strong natural desire for love, must love something". Elsa loves Lohengrin but Ortrud's love is the terrible insane love of ancestral pride which she expresses through her hatred of everything living. While Elsa prays to God, Ortrud invokes the old and long-forgotten gods. Otrud represents a misguided, undeveloped, objectless feminine desire for love as Wagner himself said. Ortrud's terribleness can be satisfied only though the destruction of others (i.e Elsa) or the destruction of herself. As the latter didn't happen, the former had to, but Gottfried's reign still represents the victory over Ortrud's treachery. That's how I see it but this is still quite raw interpretation - needs some thinking through.

Regarding Elisabeth, I think her death is very meaningful and also essential. Elisabeth makes a very clear sacrifice to save Tannhäuser. The conventional church structure, which Rome represents, wasn't able to give Tannhäuser his salvation or provide the mercy which we generally regard as an essential part of Christian doctrine. It's also interesting to point out that the human characters in _Tannhäuser_ (except Tannhäuser and Elisabeth) are almost separated from their human aspect. Just compare the way how quietly Wolfram loves Elisabeth and how passionate is Tannhäuser's love. Elisabeth represents the innocent sacrifice which is required for Tannhäuser to gain his redemption. As far as I've understood, this could represent the idea of "eternal feminine" which Goethe made famous and which Wagner quite possibly knew (we know he had read Goethe and imo _Faust_ as well). We can see multiple such female characters, whose death or sacrifice is required for either redemption or further process, in Wagner's operas. I wouldn't be too surprised if thanks to Goethe, the female not male characters were the ones to bring that salvation.


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## zxxyxxz (Apr 14, 2020)

annaw said:


> I think what Elsa's death signifies is a sort of rebirth. It mustn't be forgotten that while Lohengrin leaves and Elsa dies, Gottfried is transformed back into his human form - he is a symbol of both a swan (i.e Lohengrin) and Elsa (as her brother) who are both "reborn" in Gottfried. I think we must understand Ortrud's role to understand the significance of Elsa's death and the certain inevitability of it. Ortrud and Elsa represent two different sides of a woman. Wagner said about _Lohengrin_ that a woman "with her strong natural desire for love, must love something". Elsa loves Lohengrin but Ortrud's love is the terrible insane love of ancestral pride which she expresses through her hatred of everything living. While Elsa prays to God, Ortrud invokes the old and long-forgotten gods. Otrud represents a misguided, undeveloped, objectless feminine desire for love as Wagner himself said. Ortrud's terribleness can be satisfied only though the destruction of others (i.e Elsa) or the destruction of herself. As the latter didn't happen, the former had to, but Gottfried's reign still represents the victory over Ortrud's treachery. That's how I see it but this is still quite raw interpretation - needs some thinking through.
> 
> Regarding Elisabeth, I think her death is very meaningful and also essential. Elisabeth makes a very clear sacrifice to save Tannhäuser. The conventional church structure, which Rome represents, wasn't able to give Tannhäuser his salvation or provide the mercy which we generally regard as an essential part of Christian doctrine. It's also interesting to point out that the human characters in _Tannhäuser_ (except Tannhäuser and Elisabeth) are almost separated from their human aspect. Just compare the way how quietly Wolfram loves Elisabeth and how passionate is Tannhäuser's love. Elisabeth represents the innocent sacrifice which is required for Tannhäuser to gain his redemption. As far as I've understood, this could represent the idea of "eternal feminine" which Goethe made famous and which Wagner quite possibly knew (we know he had read Goethe and imo _Faust_ as well). We can see multiple such female characters, whose death or sacrifice is required for either redemption or further process, in Wagner's operas. I wouldn't be too surprised if thanks to Goethe, the female not male characters were the ones to bring that salvation.


Now Elsa's death I see as harking back to the concept so often proved in myth that no matter the gods intention (Lohengrin) and no matter how much they love us (Elsa) it will always end in tragedy for us. More of a tie to classical myth eg. Zeus and the swan.

For Tannhäuser as they both die at the end I see it completing the traditional christian cycle of sacrifice for forgiveness. In fact made all the better by a blood sacrifice as by this point in the opera only a miracle by god can forgive Tannhäuser. So I see it as a happy ending as they are together in heaven. In fact Tannhäuser annoys me far less than Parsifal.

As a plot Parsifal annoys me as I disagree with it philosophically and sprirtually. And to be honest I hate the fact that Kundry's redemption comes from death while Amfortas doesn't die when finally forgiven. (according to my libretto at least) Despite in a way Amfortas suffering more and begging for salvation more. To be honest if there is no god then it is within man's power to forgive man and by punishing Amfortas for being human and humiliating him with the grail ritual despite the failings he himself recognises makes it difficult to see why anyone would save such a selfish order.

Kundry is along with Amfortas the most sympathetic of the lot. I agree she deserves her redemption I feel the tragedy of her death adds nothing.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

zxxyxxz said:


> Now Elsa's death I see as harking back to the concept so often proved in myth that no matter the gods intention (Lohengrin) and no matter how much they love us (Elsa) it will always end in tragedy for us. More of a tie to classical myth eg. Zeus and the swan.
> 
> For Tannhäuser as they both die at the end I see it completing the traditional christian cycle of sacrifice for forgiveness. In fact made all the better by a blood sacrifice as by this point in the opera only a miracle by god can forgive Tannhäuser. So I see it as a happy ending as they are together in heaven. In fact Tannhäuser annoys me far less than Parsifal.
> 
> ...


Amfortas' suffering is Prometheus-like active suffering. I think in his case he yearned for living, initially, and for death only in his deepest desperation. On the other hand, Kundry's suffering is a more passive kind, although extremely real. I cannot imagine Kundry living on. She was exhausted and tired of her own existence. I'm sure there's some super philosophical explanation as well. Is there a button to activate Woodduck :lol:?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

*Should Kundry die in Parsifal?*

I would prefer she die in _Die Walküre_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

We get into trouble when we fail to understand Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience, trying instead to apply to them the ordinary expectations we apply in dealing with real-life human individuals. This is true of the characters in the _Ring,_ and to a lesser extent those in the early operas - Wagner's psycho-mythical approach needed time to evolve - but it applies most emphatically to _Parsifal._ The plot of _Parsifal_ is pure symbolism, and its characters have no existence as persons. Each of them is an embodiment of certain aspects of the psyche, and their interactions are representations of intrapsychic dynamics at work in the evolution of the human individual, specifically the masculine individual.

Kundy is not a person but a projection of femininity as seen by the masculine psyche embodied in the order of the Grail. She is everything that Woman means to Man when he has denied the feminine in himself and egoized his psyche: mother, seductress, and slave. She is the unliberated woman carried to its agonized extreme, and she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man. Her extinction represents the extinction of those roles.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> We get into trouble when we fail to understand Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience, trying instead to apply to them the ordinary expectations we apply in dealing with real-life human individuals. This is true of the characters in the _Ring,_ and to a lesser extent those in the early operas - Wagner's psycho-mythical approach needed time to evolve - but it applies most emphatically to _Parsifal._ The plot of _Parsifal_ is pure symbolism, and its characters have no existence as persons. Each of them is an embodiment of certain aspects of the psyche, and their interactions are representations of intrapsychic dynamics at work in the evolution of the human individual, specifically the masculine individual.
> 
> Kundy is not a person but a projection of femininity as seen by the masculine psyche embodied in the order of the Grail. She is everything that Woman means to Man when he has denied the feminine in himself and egoized his psyche: mother, seductress, and slave. She is the unliberated woman carried to its agonized extreme, and she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man. Her extinction represents the extinction of those roles.


I've been enlightened once again! So, do I understand it correctly that the characters of _Parsifal_ should be approached as archetypal elements of pscyhe which could be done through interpreting them, for example, using Jungian terminology (for the sake of convenience)? Thus a bit similar to what Donington did with the _Ring_.

Btw, great to see you!


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> We get into trouble when we fail to understand Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience, trying instead to apply to them the ordinary expectations we apply in dealing with real-life human individuals. This is true of the characters in the _Ring,_ and to a lesser extent those in the early operas - Wagner's psycho-mythical approach needed time to evolve - but it applies most emphatically to _Parsifal._ The plot of _Parsifal_ is pure symbolism, and its characters have no existence as persons. Each of them is an embodiment of certain aspects of the psyche, and their interactions are representations of intrapsychic dynamics at work in the evolution of the human individual, specifically the masculine individual.
> 
> Kundy is not a person but a projection of femininity as seen by the masculine psyche embodied in the order of the Grail. She is everything that Woman means to Man when he has denied the feminine in himself and egoized his psyche: mother, seductress, and slave. She is the unliberated woman carried to its agonized extreme, and she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man. Her extinction represents the extinction of those roles.


Wooduck you struck a chord here with me. Kundry is an abstraction as are the roles of Luisa (Guido Anselmi's mother/slave), Saragina (Guido's first seductress), and Claudia (Guido's idealized woman) in Fellini's _8½_, the feminines from a male centered view. Guido is fortunately able to integrate all of them when they march in the spirited but melancholic end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

annaw said:


> I've been enlightened once again! So, do I understand it correctly that the characters of _Parsifal_ should be approached as archetypal elements of pscyhe which could be done through interpreting them, for example, using Jungian terminology (for the sake of convenience)? Thus a bit similar to what Donington did with the _Ring_.
> 
> Btw, great to see you!


Heh heh. Not just similar to Donington's approach, but inspired by it. He mentions _Parsifal_ in his _Ring_ study, and I took the mention as a challenge in coming to an understanding of the opera, which is Wagner's most extreme and consistent essay in esoteric symbolism. It accepts a psychoanalytic, and particularly a Jungian psycho-mythical, perspective so readily that once I set to work on it I was amazed at how easily it all fell into place. I also continue to be amazed that Wagner came up with this stuff in the 19th century.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

VitellioScarpia said:


> Wooduck you struck a chord here with me. Kundry is an abstraction as are the roles of Luisa (Guido Anselmi's mother/slave), Saragina (Guido's first seductress), and Claudia (Guido's idealized woman) in Fellini's _8½_, the feminines from a male centered view. Guido is fortunately able to integrate all of them when they march in the spirited but melancholic end.


I haven't seen 8 1/2, but now I want to.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Heh heh. Not just similar to Donington's approach, but inspired by it. He mentions _Parsifal_ in his _Ring_ study, and I took the mention as a challenge in coming to an understanding of the opera, which is Wagner's most extreme and consistent essay in esoteric symbolism. It accepts a psychoanalytic, and particularly a Jungian psycho-mythical, perspective so readily that once I set to work on it I was amazed at how easily it all fell into place. I also continue to be amazed that Wagner came up with this stuff in the 19th century.


I was amazed by Donington's _Ring_ analysis, which I still have to finish, the same way - it explains it so nicely. I think the beauty is that Jung actually was well acquainted with Wagner and mentions _Parsifal_ even in his own works. Thus it's not surprising it manages to explain Wagner so effectively. I'm very tempted to undertake the same challenge now! I don't want to know how long time it will take for me to understand anything at all though...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

annaw said:


> I was amazed by Donington's _Ring_ analysis, which I still have to finish, the same way - it explains it so nicely. I think the beauty is that Jung actually was well acquainted with Wagner and mentions _Parsifal_ even in his own works. Thus it's not surprising it manages to explain Wagner so effectively. I'm very tempted to undertake the same challenge now! *I don't want to know how long time it will take for me to understand anything at all though...*


Well, how much time do you have? If you can escape pandemics and the inundation of the continent from melting ice (I'll be gone by then, but I fear for people your age), I'd guess plenty.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Generally, I think she should, as it's a release from her curse. The one production I saw where she didn't die and it worked was semi-staged, and the finale was blocked with characters standing around Parsifal in a perfect symmetry. If Kundry had collapsed, she would have broken the image. They did release a real live dove, though!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sieglinde said:


> Generally, I think she should, as it's a release from her curse. The one production I saw where she didn't die and it worked was semi-staged, and the finale was blocked with characters standing around Parsifal in a perfect symmetry. If Kundry had collapsed, she would have broken the image. *They did release a real live dove, though!*


Knappertsbusch would have loved that.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Well, how much time do you have? If you can escape pandemics and the inundation of the continent from melting ice (I'll be gone by then, but I fear for people your age), I'd guess plenty.


It _is_ a fair point. Whilst I have a suspicion that even a whole lifetime wouldn't be enough to understand Wagner's work, I suppose I would certainly understand _something_ by the end of it.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> We get into trouble when we fail to understand Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience, trying instead to apply to them the ordinary expectations we apply in dealing with real-life human individuals. This is true of the characters in the _Ring,_ and to a lesser extent those in the early operas - Wagner's psycho-mythical approach needed time to evolve - but it applies most emphatically to _Parsifal._ The plot of _Parsifal_ is pure symbolism, and its characters have no existence as persons. Each of them is an embodiment of certain aspects of the psyche, and their interactions are representations of intrapsychic dynamics at work in the evolution of the human individual, specifically the masculine individual.
> 
> Kundy is not a person but a projection of femininity as seen by the masculine psyche embodied in the order of the Grail. She is everything that Woman means to Man when he has denied the feminine in himself and egoized his psyche: mother, seductress, and slave. She is the unliberated woman carried to its agonized extreme, and she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man. Her extinction represents the extinction of those roles.


This is all very astute and well expressed. But even if we view "Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience," I'm not sure that in itself requires Kundry's death. Even if "she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man," surely that consciousness--if it is indeed evolving--has some role for Woman besides just "mother, seductress, and slave." In that respect, and I can imagine a production where it's Kundry's *survival* that "represents the extinction of those roles."


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

amfortas said:


> This is all very astute and well expressed. But even if we view "Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience," I'm not sure that in itself requires Kundry's death. Even if "she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man," surely that consciousness--if it is indeed evolving--has some role for Woman besides just "mother, seductress, and slave." In that respect, and I can imagine a production where it's Kundry's *survival* that "represents the extinction of those roles."


I'm not able to answer for Woodduck but Jung himself gave an explanation for Kundry's death as well in his book _Psychological types_: "The death of Kundry may be freely interpreted as the release of the libido from the nature-clinging, undomesticated form which falls from her as a lifeless mould, while energy bursts forth as newly streaming life in the glowing of the Grail."

As Woodduck noted, the suffering is a result of the conflict between the opposites - in this case, between the Holy Grail and the power of Klingsor. Klingsor has the possession of Kundry, the life-force and psychic energy. According to Jung, Parsifal is able to deliver it from its undomesticated and restless state because he is free from the opposites - he doesn't yield to Kundry's seductions and he isn't connected to the Grail as is Amfortas. This allows him to work as the reconciler of the opposites - "the light, celestial, feminine, of the Grail, and the dark, earthly, masculine, of the spear" (the release from suffering is brought to Amfortas when he's united with the spear). He is the deliverer of healing and the renewed life-force. Jung seemed to view the story of _Parsifal_ partly as the domestication of such psychic force which Kundry at least in part seems to portray through symbolising sexuality which is the most dangerous expression of psychic force or Jungian libido. As this undomesticated psychic force is transferred into the life-giving force of the Grail, Kundry as the vessel of the restless force ceases to exist. As this was only half of Kundry's role, I'm sure there's more to it! And maybe I'm myself entirely misinterpreting, so, feel free to correct me.

The second way is that Kundry represents the Mother image - unconditional love and security. But this is an illusion that has to be rejected for the sake of development - this is what both Alberich and Parsifal managed to do. Alberich rejects the wish for the seductive love of Rhinemaidens and Parsifal rejects that of Kundry. If this is what Kundry symbolises, it's sensible that she dies, as dies the illusion and Mother-longing. WD explained it imo more profoundly earlier though.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

amfortas said:


> even if we view "Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience," I'm not sure that in itself requires Kundry's death.


the Kundry character represents a double agent who caters to both worlds of Good and Evil.

once the world of Evil is destroyed, she has no option but apply her activities to Good world alone.

in this case, she is better off dead, in order to avoid risks of bringing evil actions into the world of good.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> This is all very astute and well expressed. But even if we view "Wagner's mythical characters as embodiments of certain elements of psychological experience," I'm not sure that in itself requires Kundry's death. Even if "she has no existence as a person apart from the roles she plays in the evolving consciousness of Man," surely that consciousness--if it is indeed evolving--has some role for Woman besides just "mother, seductress, and slave." In that respect, and I can imagine a production where it's Kundry's *survival* that "represents the extinction of those roles."


Various productions of _Parsifal_ have tampered with the ending in various ways, some in order to allow Kundry to live. I understand the feminist impulse behind this, but it presents a couple of problems. If Kundry survives, the meaning of her survival, as exemplified by any role she might be assumed to play in the world presented in the story, has to be purely speculative, since the action is over once the plot's problems have been solved: the return of the Spear to the company of the Grail, and the healing of Amfortas (to which I would add the death of Titurel, absolutely necessary to the emergence of a new order). It wouldn't be like Wagner to leave the fate of a major character hanging; to represent, in a mythical-symbolic way, the meaning of her new life, he would have to have her do something significant. But what could that be? I suppose one of the knights could invest her with an official Grail robe or stole or something, making her the first female member of the order. That might be a pleasing conclusion from a feminist perspective, but it would be a rather cheap, "tacked on" statement, since Kundry has not up to then exhibited any traits which would make such an expression of a "normal" personality or life story credible. Kundry longs for salvation, not for a vocation, and up to that point salvation had been defined, quasi-Buddhistically, as release from reincarnation - the "wheel of birth and death" - or in Schopenhauerian terms, from the striving of the Will. In that sense Kundry dies not merely for herself, but for the entire "oversoul" whose evolution the plot describes. The three characters who die - Kundry, Titurel and Klingsor (who is Titurel's dark side or "shadow") - are precisely the three who must die, as they represent the elements of psychic life which Parsifal has to overcome and leave behind.

Kundry's death doesn't eliminate Woman from the story. The feminine is represented by the Grail, as the masculine by the Spear, and at the deepest psycho-mythical level they are the central characters and the ones whose reunion and ultimate freedom from abuse and bondage - "No more let the Grail be confined" - constitute the goal of the quest.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

^ Great post! Woodduck, you should become a stage director. Then not a single Kundry is going to stay alive but possibly even more than the production, I want to see you try to explain the characters to the singers :lol:.


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