# Is Wagner a guy thing?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

As I think about it, it seems like of the people and friends I know, the guys seem to like Wagner much more than the girls/women.

By no means do I mean all men like Wagner, just many more men than women.

Thoughts?

please be nice and keep it to the music, please.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Yes, Wagner is a 'guy thing'. Your women are humoring you, while sniggering to their women friends behind your back.

[This fact didn't really sink in until I had been on the chemical castration drugs for awhile. Testosterone causes delusions.]


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Ukko said:


> Yes, Wagner is a 'guy thing'. Your women are humoring you, while sniggering to their women friends behind your back.
> 
> [This fact didn't really sink in until I had been on the chemical castration drugs for awhile. Testosterone causes delusions.]


Nice to see you back Ukko


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Interesting thought. Of course his greatest fan (Cosima) was a woman and women are in charge at Bayreuth at the moment. I know my wife cannot stand Wagner partly because she is Jewish and partly because she doesn't care for that sort of music. Hence Wagner listening in our house is a solitary experience!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I know my Mom would occasionally put on a Puccini opera or Traviata, but never Wagner.
Maybe because she was Italian though.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

For a lot of men who do attend opera, it may be about this very powerful trigger, tapping into and rooted in their infancy and early childhood.

Women singing 'to them'


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

When I play Wagner for the woman I live with I mostly hear TURN IT OFF!!!
And I only want to share some nice music.


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Is Tristan und Isolde a guy thing?

Yeeeah!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

My wife likes his overtures and preludes but not his operas. My daughter thinks Wagner is unimaginably wonderful. I think Wagner is great but not quite to the level of Mozart. My son dislikes classical music.

The statistics are a bit low, but the women in my family clearly like Wagner more than the men. Case closed?


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## kirsten (Oct 16, 2014)

I like Wagner...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Don't know. Wagner seems to have fascinated a number of women, which for a munchkin who liked to stand on his head and climb trees was some kind of achievement, but hard to say whether it was the music that did it. I haven't known any female Wagnerites personally. However, when I was a teenager listening to recordings of _Tristan_ and the _Ring_ and working my way laboriously through the piano scores, playing those excruciating chromatic progressions over and over, my father would say things like "How can you stand that morbid stuff? It all sounds like funeral music! Can't you play something cheerful?" and "Turn that screaming woman [Birgit Nilsson, I believe] down!" Meanwhile my mother would tell me quietly that the awakening of Brunnhilde thrilled her and made her want to cry.

I draw no conclusions from this. But I'm a guy, Wagner is still my thing, and my mother gets it. Thanks, Mom.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

My wife likes his overtures and preludes but not his operas. My daughter thinks Wagner is unimaginably wonderful. I think Wagner is great but not quite to the level of Mozart. My son dislikes classical music.

Have you properly written him out of the will?


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Wagner's operas aren't thrilling tales of Machiavellian scheming with sexy characters. They're about guy stuff like heroes, legends, love sickness, and such abstract or alien stuff. The music is also stranger and often melancholy or morbid, not cool and passionate.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

Based on the thousands of performances I have been to in 50 years of opera going, there have been almost as many women in the audiences as men. I can't imagine they would just go to get out of the house.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Pip said:


> Based on the thousands of performances I have been to in 50 years of opera going, there have been almost as many women in the audiences as men. I can't imagine they would just go to get out of the house.


Concert halls and opera houses are very small. If only masculine women attended Wagner concerts, the concerts would still be half full of women and you'd still get the impression that Wagner appeals equally to a feminine perspective as to a masculine one. It's a flawed way of tackling the issue.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

I think you're confusing it with Lord of the Rings.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I've read some strange stuff on this forum, but this one almost takes the cake.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

Chordalrock said:


> Concert halls and opera houses are very small. If only masculine women attended Wagner concerts, the concerts would still be half full of women and you'd still get the impression that Wagner appeals equally to a feminine perspective as to a masculine one. It's a flawed way of tackling the issue.


I think 50 years of opera going is anything but a flawed way of tackling the issue.
I have seen almost as much Verdi and Puccini during that time and I did not notice any great difference in the proportions of men to women.
I made no mention of masculine women in my post, so I don't really understand the point you are trying to make.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I suggest each member hear attends the Met broadcast of Mastersingers in December and looks at the men / women ratios in the cinema. They also show you the Met audience so you'll get a pretty good idea.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Pip said:


> Based on the thousands of performances I have been to in 50 years of opera going, there have been almost as many women in the audiences as men. I can't imagine they would just go to get out of the house.


Based on all the performances of opera I've been to (I'm afraid I'm probably talking single figures, and no Wagner) the audience seemed to be composed of mostly middle aged and elderly hetero couples, with a smattering of younger people of both genders. In the case of the couples, it's not easy to tell whether it's the husband who really wanted to go and dragged his wife along, or vice versa. Or maybe they only go out when it's something they both want to see- who knows? With rock concerts you can generally tell who's really into it and who's just there because their mate had a spare ticket, but at the ROH everyone's rooted to their seat and sewn into a metaphorical straitjacket of politeness, so it's hard to gauge the level of enthusiasm and break it down by gender, age, etc.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

In the Wagnerian Society group in Madrid, the split is around 70% males, 30% females. But the president of the group is a female...


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Pip said:


> I think 50 years of opera going is anything but a flawed way of tackling the issue.
> I have seen almost as much Verdi and Puccini during that time and I did not notice any great difference in the proportions of men to women.
> I made no mention of masculine women in my post, so I don't really understand the point you are trying to make.


The point I was trying to make is that 'women' is an insufficiently broad category, since there are both very masculine and very feminine women (and those in between).

Saying that a composer appeals more to men equals saying that it appeals to a masculine taste or perspective, which can be found among masculine women as well as men. So to do real analysis you have to look at how Wagner appeals to feminine women. Since you don't personally know the women who attend concerts, you don't know whether they're masculine or feminine or a mixture. Since concerts are so small scale, they could easily all be masculine and thus invalidate your implied point that Wagner appeals equally to masculine and feminine types.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

When I was a boy I was introduced to Wagner's music by my grandma. 

My grandpa loved Puccini.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I am a woman, and I love Wagner. But then I also love Lord of the Rings, and prefer comfortable clothes over chic but uncomfortable ones, and sometimes wish I could be a truck driver (perfect for an introvert who loves to travel), and have had guys compliment me on good understanding of their psyche...

But then, I don't see how Tristan und Isolde is a guy thing.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> But then, I don't see how Tristan und Isolde is a guy thing.


Wagner composed it while a love sick puppy, and probably fantasised about impressing his love with it. Only a man would do something pathetic like that. The feminine is instinctively repelled by such opposite of badass behaviour.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> Wagner composed it while a love sick puppy, and probably fantasised about impressing his love with it. Only a man would do something pathetic like that. The feminine is instinctively repelled by such opposite of badass behaviour.


Oh yes! Like! Like! Like! But then many of the romantics were pretty pathetic like this. Ever read the words of some of Schubert's songs?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Love as portrayed in modern culture is pretty much reduced to a quick non-obligatory sex act, that is why the whole idea of love poetry is lost on some people.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Ever read the words of some of Schubert's songs?


Yep, but then I'm a hopeless romantic. I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by being one, but I guess I can't help being what I am. Erstarrung is a huge favorite of mine, specifically the two lines that end this:

I look for traces of her footsteps
I look for them in vain
Where leaning on my arm
She crossed the bright green field

Notice it doesn't talk about hoes choking on muh d*ck, just a bit of understated intimacy and a lovely milieu for it in the context of loss. I'm doomed.


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## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

saw Coppelia (matinee) & Tosca (for the 4th time!) today. I met a couple from San Francisco, who live in Budapest. they are both Wagner fans. the guy's favourite opera is Die Walküre, the woman's favourite is Tristan.

they usually go to Berlin. the guy's favourite soprano is Waltraud Meier.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If we're talking about Wagner's music, I think it's doubtful that it appeals less to women than to men. The dramatic and psychological themes of his operas, though, may be a different matter. The struggles of Wagner's protagonists to overcome adversity, heal their damaged lives, and find redemption and peace is portrayed mainly from a male standpoint, and most of his female characters represent woman as viewed by man. This is true even where women have prominent roles in the action: Isolde, for example, may take all the initiative in the first act of her opera, but the great emotional crisis of the work happens in the soul of Tristan in act three: realizing that the whole trajectory of his life has brought on the tragedy which will soon reach its denouement, he curses love and himself, falls unconscious, and awakens to a vision of Isolde floating across the sea to bring him peace at last. The most active female character in Wagner is Brunnhilde, whose spirit and choices motivate much of the action in the Ring. Yet she is ultimately a pawn in the larger drama set in motion by Wotan, who sentences her to the love of a man who, himself betrayed in the disordered world created by Wotan's betrayal of love in pursuit of power, betrays her in turn. In the end she can only enact the final consequence of Wotan's disastrous plan, bringing to Wotan the peace of extinction, setting the world free from the oppression of the gods' reign, and opening a path for human love.

Wagner was, for much of his artistic career, preoccupied with the idea of love - specifically woman's love - as redemptive - specifically, redemptive of man. The Dutchmen could only be saved by a woman faithful unto death; Tannhauser sought fulfillment in the sensual love of Venus but found salvation in the faithful Elisabeth; Lohengrin descended from Montsalvat in search of the human love of a woman who would believe in him utterly. But we see this Romantic notion breaking down over the course of Wagner's work: the pursuit of redemption through romantic love in _Tristan und Isolde_ is recognized as an illusion which can only culminate in total loss of the self - in death. By the time he comes to write _Parsifal_, the illusion of sexual love as salvation is fully understood and is portrayed as the very state of depravity which must be overcome. And here the sole female character in the opera appears not as Man's salvation, but as his destruction. (That the Grail itself is the principal feminine archetype in this story is a subject too complex to go into here; but I will say that in this form of a life-giving vessel the Feminine is no longer identified with the sexual but with the spiritual. Another time, perhaps!)

Kundry is Wagner's most complex portrayal of woman as viewed by man. In a way she is all of Wagner's women rolled into one, or rather what remain's of them when the Feminine as Redeemer is removed and embodied in the pure, all-nourishing Grail. It would be interesting to hear what both women and men think of this complex, tormented character - and for that matter of the way Wagner portrays women in general. My feeling is that, in its intense preoccupation with Woman and what she means to the life of Man, Wagner's work is indeed a "guy thing."


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## Rackon (Apr 9, 2013)

I'm much too tired to tackle Kundry tonight, especially on the smart phone. 

But...

I am a woman and I've loved Wagner operas since I was a teen. I know many female Wagner fans, of all ages. 

I think the ratio of female Wagner fans to male ones will grow as long as Jonas Kaufmann is singing Wagner roles. ;-)


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## Divasin (Aug 8, 2014)

I was in total agreement with (Woodduck's) careful analysis until you reached your conclusion....

" My feeling is that, in its intense preoccupation with Woman and what she means to the life of Man, Wagner's work is indeed a "guy thing."

Is this not true of many, many male composers such as Bizet (Carmen), Berg (Lulu), Korngold (Die Tote Stadt), Massenet, Puccini (Manon), Donizetti's (L'Elisir d'amore,Lucia) etc.etc also explored the theme of "Woman" and her significance in a male world?

So I must disagree that Wagner is a "guy thing." 

We are capable of empathising with another point of view...and that applies to men as well...so I'm told.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I used to like Wagner. I don't any more. My male hormones still seem to be very very very well intact.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

The only composers I've ever thought of in terms of "feminine" and "masculine" are Puccini and Verdi. I'm female and very much a "rhythm" sort of person, which I believe is a major deciding factor in my slight, general preference for Verdi over Puccini. As for Wagner, it's never occurred to me before that his music could be a "guy thing." Perhaps it's more true of some of his works than others? I know I love DIE WALKEURE, but maybe something like SIEGFRIED or DAS RHEINGOLD (neither of which I've ever heard before) appeal more to guys?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> The only composers I've ever thought of in terms of "feminine" and "masculine" are Puccini and Verdi. I'm female and very much a "rhythm" sort of person, which I believe is a major deciding factor in my slight, general preference for Verdi over Puccini. As for Wagner, it's never occurred to me before that his music could be a "guy thing." Perhaps it's more true of some of his works than others? I know I love DIE WALKEURE, but maybe something like SIEGFRIED or DAS RHEINGOLD (neither of which I've ever heard before) appeal more to guys?


I thought Siegfried was for women since there is very little female presence in that opera and don´t women like dragon slayers
who don´t know fear?


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> If we're talking about Wagner's music, I think it's doubtful that it appeals less to women than to men. [...]


I read these thoughts with the greatest interest, and many resonated with me. What I'd like to add is only peripheral to the subject.

I feel that Wagner's operas very vividly, sometimes even tumultuously, reflect the "life themes" which drove Wagner so passionately (and in some form, I believe everybody's got these: those vexed life issues that we keep coming back to, and it seems like in circles - but if we're lucky, from increasingly higher points-of-view, in a helix rather). And yet, I feel the operas are also gaming boards where he could go further than he would in real life. "Think, emotionally live, this through to the end - what would happen?" And then he froze the result of that demanding thought-emotion experiment into the most astounding music/drama, which, in the artistic process (that invariably includes tedious technicalities), is a way of capturing, studying, _killing_ the sentiment - a form of dealing with the issues out in an artistic wild while his physical self had to remain cushioned in an excess of silk and velvet.

I don't see Wagner's operas, with all their human validity, intended as "statements" on men or women, or life - not as something to draw instructions from in real life. _Thought_ definitely, and also insight.



> And here the sole female character [Kundry] in the opera appears not as Man's salvation, but as his destruction.


No awakening of Parsifal without Kundry's seduction, without him giving in to her _to a degree but no further_, which is his strength. Without giving in to the kiss (and the memory of the mother comes in here in a most enigmatic way), Parsifal would not recognize the world, not assume his role in it. Kundry, _die Heilige_ (saint) _und Hure_ (censored here but guessable) _does_ bring salvation - it seems like the ultimate male projection of female-ness.

As a male, I couldn't blame women be offended by that portrayal. And yet, of the women I've met who had any access to Wagner at all, many seemed intrigued by that complex character.

A "male" creation probably, but not inaccessible to women.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Divasin said:


> I was in total agreement (Woodduck's) your careful analysis until you reached your conclusion....
> 
> " My feeling is that, in its intense preoccupation with Woman and what she means to the life of Man, Wagner's work is indeed a "guy thing."
> 
> ...


Sorry, Divasin, to give the wrong impression there. I really wasn't implying that women couldn't appreciate Wagner. I do absolutely agree that most operas, written by men as they are, view women from a male perspective, and I think you make an excellent point that Wagner is not peculiar in doing so. Wagner's portrayal of Woman as Man's salvation/damnation - the Holy Virgin versus the ***** of Babylon (I didn't put those five asterisks there!) - is a deep and perennial strain in Western culture. I think what's striking in Wagner is the intensity, the larger-than-life quality of these characterizations. Think of Isolde and Kundry; these women for Wagner were creatures of mythical power. Tristan the great hero is utterly possessed and destroyed by the Irish princess, recognizes that this is the fate for which he was born, and tears open his own self-inflicted wound in order to die with her; Amfortas, taking his masculine power too much for granted, falls to the temptations of the Feminine and is reduced to pure pain and guilt, brings down to perdition the whole order of the Grail, causes the death of Titurel, and can only be saved by one capable of resisting the devouring embrace of - Woman. We are clearly not in the same world as Puccini's little suffering heroines! And even Carmen, opera's classic femme fatale, is not a destroyer of heroes; Don Jose is just a nice small-town mama's boy.

Whatever all this may mean, I'm glad to hear that women can empathize with men and even enjoy Wagner's take on them. Can men empathize equally with women? Whooo-eee! I'm glad this isn't a pass-fail exam.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ebab said:


> I read these thoughts with the greatest interest, and many resonated with me. What I'd like to add is only peripheral to the subject.
> 
> I feel that Wagner's operas very vividly, sometimes even tumultuously, reflect the "life themes" which drove Wagner so passionately (and in some form, I believe everybody's got these: those vexed life issues that we keep coming back to, and it seems like in circles - but if we're lucky, from increasingly higher points-of-view, in a helix rather). And yet, I feel the operas are also gaming boards where he could go further than he would in real life. "Think, emotionally live, this through to the end - what would happen?" And then he froze the result of that demanding thought-emotion experiment into the most astounding music/drama, which, in the artistic process (that invariably includes tedious technicalities), is a way of capturing, studying, _killing_ the sentiment - a form of dealing with the issues out in an artistic wild while his physical self had to remain cushioned in an excess of silk and velvet.
> 
> ...


Beautifully stated, Ebab. I am moved by your insights. Thank you.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Thank you Woodduck; I feel ashamed, and your posting preceding mine may already have anticipated some of my thoughts.

I'm really happy whenever I feel somebody shares not necessarily my opinions but my _sensibilities_ regarding those wicked Wagner operas.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Ebab said:


> No awakening of Parsifal without Kundry's seduction, without him giving in to her _to a degree but no further_, which is his strength. Without giving in to the kiss (and the memory of the mother comes in here in a most enigmatic way), Parsifal would not recognize the world, not assume his role in it. Kundry, _die Heilige_ (saint) _und Hure_ (censored here but guessable) _does_ bring salvation - it seems like the ultimate male projection of female-ness.
> 
> As a male, I couldn't blame women be offended by that portrayal. And yet, of the women I've met who had any access to Wagner at all, many seemed intrigued by that complex character.
> 
> A "male" creation probably, but not inaccessible to women.


Personally, I am not offended by Kundry, but I don't think she is _die Heilige_ in any way (Elisabeth from Tannhäuser fits that role much better). I think there is a similar male-female dynamic here as in the Ring: the sexes completing one another, one being imperfect and lacking maturity without the other. In the Ring, Siegfried may be a dragon-slaying hero, but he reaches the full extent of his masculinity only with the awakening of Brünnhilde. And she, in turn, acquires something she could never have without loving a mortal man.

Here it is just the opposite, Kundry is the imperfect one, powerless to free herself from living a lie without someone who would withstand her. And the memory of the mother she brings up is just part of that lie. What she is trying to tell Parsifal is: "Those innocent hugs and kisses your mum gave you are just the same as the intense, purely sexual passion you are going to experience with me". She wants him to think she has the same kind of love for him as the mother he loves and misses, but it is part of the deception, and if Parsifal believed it, it would only have ended in his enslavement in Klingsor's castle. When that trick fails, she tries everything else, down to pleading him for mercy.

Now, Parsifal is the one who breaks her vicious circle of deceit and regret, but he also gains something from her: the experience and the ablity to sympathize with someone who had gone through the same temptation before, namely Amfortas. They would both have been incomplete without that encounter.

And I agree with Woodduck: I love these deliberations and the insights from both of you.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Personally, I am not offended by Kundry, but I don't think she is _die Heilige_ in any way (Elisabeth from Tannhäuser fits that role much better).


I'm afraid I disagree. Gurnemanz tells the boys that Kundry - while he recognizes her as "verwünscht" (cursed), that she may have to work on some guilt - has time and again taken on the most daunting and dangerous tasks for the brotherhood without ever asking for thanks or receiving other support, or having approached any member of the brotherhood in any improper way. I regard this as the _Heilige _aspect, and I feel that the opera establishes this side of her quite as well as the "other".

Von weiter her als du denken kannst/Hilft der Balsam nicht/Arabia birgt
dann nichts mehr zu seinem Heil/Fragt nicht weiter!/Ich bin müde. ​
These lines sound very dedicated, sad, and exhausted. They fit my definition of a saint.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I wonder though, if she remembered, while she was on these tasks, about those other brothers, trapped in Klingsor's castle and either too ashamed to return or too addicted to the pleasurs the flower girls provided for their lovers. Do you remember the warriors Parsifal had to face when he first got over the wall of the castle? They used to be members of the brotherhood who Kundry had approached before and about who Gurnemanz says:

_...dort will des Grales Ritter er [Klingsor] erwarten
zu böser Lust und Höllengrauen:
wen er verlockt, hat er erworben;
schon viele hat er uns verdorben. _

...there he awaits the knights of the Grail
to lure them to sinful joys and hell's damnation:
he gains control of those he entices;
he has already ruined many of us.

Gurnemanz simply had no idea it was Kundry who had been doing all the enticing as a tool of Klingsor.


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## Divasin (Aug 8, 2014)

I hadn't assumed that you were,"implying that women couldn't appreciate Wagner."
I was questioning your conclusion that Wagner is a "guy thing."

I do think you appear to be implying that Wagner deals with 'BIG" themes whereas "Puccini's little suffering heroines" and " Carmen, opera's classic femme fatale" are in the domestic realm and therefore more palatable to the female audience.

"I'm glad to hear that women can empathize with men and even enjoy Wagner's take on them." 
has a rather patronizing tone don't you think?


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I wonder though, if she remembered, while she was on these tasks, about those other brothers, trapped in Klingsor's castle and either too ashamed to return or too addicted to the pleasurs the flower girls provided for their lovers.


My idea is that Kundry predominantly was tormented by guilt all the time, even if she did good for the brotherhood. Klingsor's magic may have been able to suppress concrete memories regarding her acting on "his" side but not her overall emotion. And Kundry forever continued to suffer for her basic sin, having laughed at the tormented creature Jesus.

We have really chilling documents of Mother Theresa's emotions of self-doubt and -hatred. Not a saint either? But who is a saint then?



> Gurnemanz simply had no idea it was Kundry who had been doing all the enticing as a tool of Klingsor.


I think he had a pretty good idea that she was a conflicted identity. He just told his boys his observation that on his watch and for the brotherhood, she hadn't done anything but good.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Divasin said:


> I hadn't assumed that you were,"implying that women couldn't appreciate Wagner."
> I was questioning your conclusion that Wagner is a "guy thing."
> 
> I do think you appear to be implying that Wagner deals with 'BIG" themes whereas "Puccini's little suffering heroines" and " Carmen, opera's classic femme fatale" are in the domestic realm and therefore more palatable to the female audience.
> ...


I'm not sure if you were taking issue with the idea of Carmen as being in the "domestic realm" or not: it isn't really, unless you define "domestic" a lot more broadly than it is usually defined. She lures Jose into deserting the army and pursuing a life of crime: they have a domestic setup of sorts for a while but it's obviously in contrast to the sort of domesticity which Jose wants and expects. Wagner in Tannhäuser sets up a similar opposition between a life of lawlessness and hedonism with Venus and one of duty with Elisabeth (I've only listened to it once so obviously I've barely scratched the surface of what's actually going on in the opera.)

As a woman, I didn't personally detect a patronising tone in "I'm glad to hear that women can empathize with men and even enjoy Wagner's take on them." After all, Wagner's work- words and music- is inevitably written from a male POV, so some degree of empathy with that is probably indispensable to any engagement with it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Figleaf said:


> I'm not sure if you were taking issue with the idea of Carmen as being in the "domestic realm" or not: it isn't really, unless you define "domestic" a lot more broadly than it is usually defined. She lures Jose into deserting the army and pursuing a life of crime: they have a domestic setup of sorts for a while but it's obviously in contrast to the sort of domesticity which Jose wants and expects. Wagner in Tannhäuser sets up a similar opposition between a life of lawlessness and hedonism with Venus and one of duty with Elisabeth (I've only listened to it once so obviously I've barely scratched the surface of what's actually going on in the opera.)
> 
> As a woman, I didn't personally detect a patronising tone in "I'm glad to hear that women can empathize with men and even enjoy Wagner's take on them." After all, Wagner's work- words and music- is inevitably written from a male POV, so some degree of empathy with that is probably indispensable to any engagement with it.


Frankly I find more drama in Carmen than in the whole of Wagner's output!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Divasin said:


> I hadn't assumed that you were,"implying that women couldn't appreciate Wagner."
> I was questioning your conclusion that Wagner is a "guy thing."
> 
> I do think you appear to be implying that Wagner deals with 'BIG" themes whereas "Puccini's little suffering heroines" and " Carmen, opera's classic femme fatale" are in the domestic realm and therefore more palatable to the female audience.
> ...


No patronizing intended. I was only responding to your statement: "We are capable of empathising with another point of view...and that applies to men as well...so I'm told." Did I misunderstand it?

Let me put it this way: Wagner's women are, compared to other operatic females - even Carmen - extreme concentrations of the two archetypal images that men project on women: the saint and the seductress, capable of saving him or damning him. I do not think - correct me if I'm wrong - that this view of women was invented by women! To what extent women can identify with it or grant validity to it, I, as a man, can't say. My guess it that it's very much a male point of view, and as Wagner rings changes on it with every opera and marshalls every musical and dramatic resource he can think of to overwhelm us with it, his operas seem to me very male - "guy things," so to speak.

I simply wonder how women feel about this aspect of his work. And no, I'm not assuming that all women will react to it in the same way, or that being female they must prefer "domestic" operas about seamstresses and cigarette girls. Wagner does indeed deal with big themes, but the women I've known are big enough to handle them - and me, if I get out of line.

Hope I'm not doing that now! :angel:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ebab said:


> I'm afraid I disagree. Gurnemanz tells the boys that Kundry - while he recognizes her as "verwünscht" (cursed), that she may have to work on some guilt - has time and again taken on the most daunting and dangerous tasks for the brotherhood without ever asking for thanks or receiving other support, or having approached any member of the brotherhood in any improper way. I regard this as the _Heilige _aspect, and I feel that the opera establishes this side of her quite as well as the "other".
> 
> Von weiter her als du denken kannst/Hilft der Balsam nicht/Arabia birgt
> dann nichts mehr zu seinem Heil/Fragt nicht weiter!/Ich bin müde. ​
> These lines sound very dedicated, sad, and exhausted. They fit my definition of a saint.


To understand what Kundry represents in the story of Parsifal, look at two things: first, she completely lacks individual identity; she is not to any degree an autonomous being who can act of her own free choice in her own interest; and second, she ultimately finds "salvation" only by dying.

To the first of these: Neither of her roles, neither the seducer of the knights of the Grail nor their servant and messenger, brings any fulfillment or happiness to her. She is driven to enact both of these roles, and can derive joy from neither. The knights thank her for her services, but she only says "I never do good" and "I am tired." She does not serve out of love; she is incapable of love. Far from being saintly, she serves simply because, when not forced to serve Klingsor's evil designs, she has no other function but "dienen, dienen" - service, and service, note, to men. She contains in one tormented being the two polar caricatures that men have made of women: the harlot and the hausfrau, the sex slave and the kitchen slave. In Klingsor's garden, the knights use her to gratify their lust; in the precincts of Montsalvat, they use her to wait on them and pat her indifferently on the head. Whatever aspects of womanhood she embodies, it is a fractured, distorted womanhood, completely lacking in the nourishing, spiritual power of the "eternal feminine," and this is the source of her unbearable torment, in the throes of which she cannot weep, only laugh, and from which she cannot even seek the release of death. Yes, she plays a necessary role in Parsifal's enlightenment, but it is a negative role only; his salvation arises from no virtue in her, but from his perception of its lack. There is nothing holy about her.

To the second point: Kundry cannot die until the Grail, left covered by Amfortas in his guilt, is raised aloft by Parsifal and reunited with the spear which he has returned to its rightful place alongside the sacred chalice. The question of why Kundry _must_ die at this moment, rather than live on, redeemed like Amfortas, is answered when we recall that she has never possessed an individual identity to be redeemed, but exists only as a distorted male projection of femaleness. Her death might appear to leave the world of the opera devoid of femininity altogether, and indeed Wagner has been criticized for this. But that analysis neglects the central symbols of the story, in a profound sense its true protagonists: the Grail and the Spear. As archetypes, the dual talismans are unmistakably female and male in form and function: the vessel, deep and round, container of the sacred blood which gives life and nourishment and rebirth to the spirit; the lance, sharply pointed, made for action and penetration, the image of ambition and will. These are ancient symbols, and their function in Wagner's drama expresses fully and consistently their archetypal meanings. What I am saying is that the "Eternal Feminine" in _Parsifal_ is embodied, not in Kundry, but in the Grail itself. And when the Spear and Grail are brought back together, the masculine and the femine reunited and reconciled in an enactment of spiritual healing, the Eternal Feminine can once more "lead us on," and the fractured and depraved femininity represented by Kundry simply no longer exists.

I realize that this analysis is very condensed and leaves much to be explained. But after thinking about this strange and amazing work for many years, I'm convinced that it is essentially right. _Parsifal_ is an extremely concentrated drama; Wagner pares down the elements to their barest minimum, and every personage, action, and object he presents is pregnant with meaning. For me it is the ultimate statement and vindication of his vision and methods, and contains as well some of the most piercing and sublime music he or anyone else ever composed. I will always regard it with wonder and awe.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

IMO Wagner addresses himself to _Übermenschen_, with the purpose of elevating his public to the level of gods & goddesses. So when you don't mind to become godly yourself, Wagner is very likely your horse. Wagner's preference for mythical, pre-christian themes is neither voluntary nor innocent, but has the inbred drive of transforming* you*  the public) from being merely human to becoming more than human. Verdi used the story of Nabucco to elevate his Italian public (living scattered in a shamble of many kingdoms & a Papal state) towards the vision of an united Italian people in an united state. Wagner devoted himself to a much higher goal, higher than what still can be circumscribed as: 'political'. His _Gesamtkunstwerk_ includes the public, to merge with turmoil on the stage into something unseen & unheard: enter the gods. Now to the question, is Wagner a guy thing? Wagner is more than a guy thing.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Ebab*, I think this is where the male and female views of Kundry differ. For a man she is a mysterious, fascinating saint-and-seductress-in-one. For a woman this is the kind of woman you keep as far as possible from your husband, son, brother or any man you care about because in real life she will rob them of their peace, joy, marriage, money, positive view of women in general and then waltz laughing to the next victim, leaving the man an emotional wreck. Kundry even tried seducing Klingsor, which he successfully resisted, not because of strength of will, but because of physical disability. In her state before meeting Parsifal she is most like a poisonous snake that can be charmed and forced to obey, but will bite anyone and everyone, even the charmer any time she feels free to do so.

Now, since every once in a while a the meaning of this or that German word comes up in our discussions, I have a question for you. In the final stage remarks to "Parsifal" Wagner writes: "_Kundry sinkt, mit dem Blicke zu ihm auf, langsam vor Parsifal entseelt zu Boden_" (Kundry slowly sinks lifeless to the ground in front of Parsifal, her eyes uplifted to him). What exactly does "entseelt" mean? Does she die or only faint or what?


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

Entseelt means that she has lost her soul. So to sink to the ground lifeless is about as close as it goes.
The soul leaves the body at death.
It is amazing how many directors have completely overlooked/ignored this stage direction, I can't remember how often I have seen Kundry standing at the end looking doe eyed at Parsifal as if they will somehow continue on together....


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Thank you! I thought so too.



Pip said:


> It is amazing how many directors have completely overlooked/ignored this stage direction, I can't remember how often I have seen Kundry standing at the end looking doe eyed at Parsifal as if they will somehow continue on together....


Too many Hollywood happy ends. As someone said in another thread, Wagner should not be Regietheater, but he should not be Hollywood either.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Thank you! I thought so too.
> 
> Too many Hollywood happy ends. As someone said in another thread, Wagner should not be Regietheater, but he should not be Hollywood either.


I always wondered about that too.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

My mom loved Wagner, but aside from Tristan und Isolde, the only things I remember her playing were the early operas like Dutchman and Lohengrin.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

i'll bet a lot of guys here have a Ring cycle. I wonder how many women do?


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> To understand what Kundry represents in the story of Parsifal, look at two things: first, she completely lacks individual identity; she is not to any degree an autonomous being who can act of her own free choice in her own interest; and second, she ultimately finds "salvation" only by dying. [...]


 Thank you very much for taking the time laying out these thoughts; you've clearly put a lot of mental and emotional energy, and years of experience, into coming to these reflections - against popular belief, I think it's energy well spent, and I benefit from it; much appreciated!

On the subject of Kundry: I just don't see her role as so passive. I see all the aspects that have crippled her emotionally, but this was once just a woman - who made a terrible mistake. She realizes that, and her only wish is to make it right, return into a state of grace. Only she doesn't have a clue how. Her instincts lead her into the wildest directions.

The years, decades, centuries pass - somehow she is allowed to live on trying to fulfill her goal but the years harden her; she's entirely on autopilot, held together by wounds and scars. But she remains determined. Somewhere there's just a spark of hope left, and she won't give up.

"Objectively", her actions are completely contradictory, and therefore can't make any sense, or can they? On one side, she tries to do good, help the brotherhood. On the other side, she uses her abilities to lead men into their doom. (And yes of course, neither direction brings her fulfillment - at best a momentary ease of the pain.)

The _irony_ of the story, and this aspect never fails to astound me, is that her apparently aimless efforts, after years and years and years of discouragement, rejection, aggression, hate and self-punishment - eventually prove to be the perfectly right thing to do. Her dark side - trying to corrupt Parsifal like so many before (although she feels that there may be a special strength in this boy) - unintendedly opens Parsifal's eyes for the world, brings him to the path to find his role. And her altruistic side, her work for the brotherhood, allows her to benefit from Parsifal returning to the brotherhood, him bringing salvation and renewal to the community.

There's a lock in the story, and in the most unexpected and unlikely way, Kundry turns out to be the key. She is the catalyst to this chemical reaction. Without her, zilch.

And yes of course, after she's _finally_ experienced her redemption, the woman is _so READY to die_. She's almost been a walking dead for too many years, so after finally having achieved her goal, she _NEEDS TO MOVE ON_, be it heaven or nothingness. I find it _so horrible_ when directors make her live on, really cruel, and _so_ beneath the point. (It's another thing to move her death to a later point, when she's within the community of the brotherhood. In Wagner's time, a woman in the sanctuary may have been unthinkable but, acknowledging her importance for the brotherhood, it feels natural to me. To a modern audience, a later point in time dramatically can be more satisfying.)


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Itullian said:


> i'll bet a lot of guys here have a Ring cycle. I wonder how many women do?


I have two:















And Brünnhilde is my favorite one of Wagner's female characters, as close to a female ideal as it gets. She is wise, strong, courageous, compassionate towards both men and women, loyal, she loves and hates with all her heart, but she never plays any double games and is never two-faced.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Sloe said:


> I thought Siegfried was for women since there is very little female presence in that opera and don´t women like dragon slayers
> who don´t know fear?


Yeah, we really love thick dolts who think nothing of dragging unwilling and terrified women to be "married" to their new best friend.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Itullian said:


> i'll bet a lot of guys here have a Ring cycle. I wonder how many women do?


I have 10....................


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

mamascarlatti said:


> Yeah, we really love thick dolts who think nothing of dragging unwilling and terrified women to be "married" to their new best friend.


But that is in Götterdämmerung.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Ebab*, I think this is where the male and female views of Kundry differ. For a man she is a mysterious, fascinating saint-and-seductress-in-one. For a woman this is the kind of woman you keep as far as possible from your husband, son, brother or any man you care about because in real life she will rob them of their peace, joy, marriage, money, positive view of women in general and then waltz laughing to the next victim, leaving the man an emotional wreck. Kundry even tried seducing Klingsor, which he successfully resisted, not because of strength of will, but because of physical disability. In her state before meeting Parsifal she is most like a poisonous snake that can be charmed and forced to obey, but will bite anyone and everyone, even the charmer any time she feels free to do so.


Point very well taken. I guess the males would rather think that they'd be the chosen ones benefiting from Kundry's efforts, and/or withstand the corruption, not that they'd be among the vast majority going under. The females probably would have a more realistic view. ;-) Still, I think it's necessary to regard Kundry's backstory and to put her role into a larger scheme of things - not in order to whitewash her but to acknowledge the particular role that this flawed woman has in a wider story.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Now, since every once in a while a the meaning of this or that German word comes up in our discussions, I have a question for you. In the final stage remarks to "Parsifal" Wagner writes: "_Kundry sinkt, mit dem Blicke zu ihm auf, langsam vor Parsifal entseelt zu Boden_" (Kundry slowly sinks lifeless to the ground in front of Parsifal, her eyes uplifted to him). What exactly does "entseelt" mean? Does she die or only faint or what?


 As Pip has already and rightly pointed out, "entseelt" suggests death, like "dis-souled".

But even as a German native speaker (and I know your German is near-to-perfect), I, too, stumble over the word in this context. It seems like a euphemism, not acknowledging the drama of the moment. I think it's the proximity to "beseelt" (inspired/soulful) and its rather euphoric/esoteric connotations which leads me onto the wrong track.

But the historic examples of the Grimms' dictionary tell me that "entseelen" means business, not seldom even in a violent sense. So no doubt, Wagner means: Kundry sinks down dead, seriously.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

mamascarlatti said:


> I have 10.


Must admit, your Rings are bigger than mine.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Ebab said:


> ...and I know your German is near-to-perfect...


Trust me, it is nowhere near perfect, but thank you. I appreciate this _a lot _.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ebab said:


> Thank you very much for taking the time laying out these thoughts; you've clearly put a lot of mental and emotional energy, and years of experience, into coming to these reflections - against popular belief, I think it's energy well spent, and I benefit from it; much appreciated!
> 
> On the subject of Kundry: I just don't see her role as so passive. I see all the aspects that have crippled her emotionally, but this was once just a woman - who made a terrible mistake. She realizes that, and her only wish is to make it right, return into a state of grace. Only she doesn't have a clue how. Her instincts lead her into the wildest directions.
> 
> ...


Thanks for those remarks. The different ways of looking at just this one character certainly testifies to the power of Wagner's imagination and the breadth of meaning his symbolism can support. I think you've drawn a superb portrait of Kundry, assuming a view of her as a person in her own right, and I would not dispute one detail of it. My difference with you, as I'm seeing it at the moment, is in my conception of the "personhood" of Wagner's characters, particularly in this opera.

Wagner always takes great pains to give his mythical characters individuality - personality, of a sort, even when their behavior is highly simplified and dominated by certain extreme states of mind and emotion. The characters in _Parsifal_ (like those in the _Ring_, although there the schema is far more complex) are very much differentiated by their individual "function" in the plot, and concomitantly in their emotional makeup and its musical expression. Each character in the opera seems to embody a certain aspect of human experience and to express it with the greatest concentration and intensity. This is a characteristic method of allegory, and probably derives naturally from the mythical nature of Wagner's material. But I believe Wagner's method is even more interesting - and radical - than that. I see each character in _Parsifal_ as actually representing a distinct function of human consciousness, a distinct way of perceiving the events of the story, which is radically incomplete without the perspectives of the other characters. What this means is that no character is actually, in any full sense, a person, but only a part of a person, each character needing the others to supplement and complete him. And only when we view all the characters in the work together, each experiencing the whole unfolding of the story in a different manner and from a different point of view, all of them interacting and modifying each others perceptions and participating in each other's growth and progress, can we grasp in the sum of their partial perceptions the full meaning of their shared outcome.

What I'm saying here is that I view the entire mythical, magical, symbolic drama of _Parsifal_ as an allegorical account of the development of a single, overarching human consciousness, and each character in it as a symbolic representation of some aspect or function of that consciousness. In this view, none of the characters can be taken as actual persons capable of being analyzed and understood as individuals. Each of them, in his or her thoughts, feelings, and behavior, is dependent on and determined by the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of the others, in a kind of synergy which propels them all forward, all doing what the mind and spirit embodied in all of them together compel them to do as the larger soul in which they participate moves from immaturity and illusion to maturity and enlightenment. That "larger soul" is not to be found in any individual character in the story; though the work is called _Parsifal_, it is not fundamentally the story of the maturing of a foolish boy who goes about shooting birds, but about the evolving enlightenment of a consciousness constituted equally by every character in the story, an enlightenment which it is simply that boy's function in the overall scheme to embody and, at certain crucial moments - Kundry's kiss and the healing of Amfortas - to enact.

It has been remarked about _Parsifal_, and about Wagner's works in general, that his characters seem to lack the power, as individuals, to direct their lives or determine their fates - that they are pushed by forces beyond their control, whether by their passions or by their circumstances. _Parsifal_ in particular has been singled out as containing no substantial persons, no autonomous individuals who really _do_ anything (Debussy cited Klingsor as the only exception to this and called him "the only moral character" in the work). I think there is an accurate observation behind this characterization of Wagner's dramatic method - but also a fundamental misunderstanding of it. Wagner's dramas are not, at root, stories about people. Progressively, throughout his career, he was, more and more consciously and deliberately, developing a revolutionary art of musical drama as "psychodrama" - the depiction in symbolic terms of the internal processes and growth of human consciousness, which gradually overtook and finally, in _Parsifal_, completely supplanted the drama of outward action. In the _Ring_, there are enough vivid characters and lively situations, which keep our attention on events and on the problems of this character or that, that we can enjoy the work simply as a story even if we are not disposed to try to penetrate its deeper meanings. But _Parsifal_ has always been enigmatic: a weird, static, dreamlike work, depicting a world remote from our experience of everyday life, filled with strange objects, inexplicable emotions, and long discussions, in which little seems to happen and everything seems terribly meaningful yet esoteric. I dare say that no work of art has inspired so many bizarre and contradictory theories of what it all means. But I think that an understanding of Wagner's fundamental dramatic premises - about which he had quite a bit to say himself, if we care to consult his writings and letters - does much to clarify what it was he was seeking to do in this last, and for me most amazing, of his operas.

I realize I've strayed rather far from the subject of this thread. What I was setting out to do here was merely to set my characterization of Kundry's nature into the larger perspective of Wagner's dramatic method, as I understand it. I suspect I may have waded deeper into the subject than I'd planned, but I hope it all makes some sense to you! In any case it's a great pleasure to talk with someone who shares my interest in the subject.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> It has been remarked about _Parsifal_, and about Wagner's works in general, that his characters seem to lack the power, as individuals, to determine their fates - that they are pushed by forces beyond their control


Sounds like human life. History in particular seems like puppets enacting rather meaningless dramas and never accomplishing anything of lasting value or anything much except an elucidation of some sort of psychological or metaphysical truth.

I'm not sure how pertinent Wagner's own intentions are when analysing his works. Often a work of art accomplishes more than its author has set out to accomplish in terms of meaning. This in mind, Parsifal could be seen as a divinely orchestrated drama with real humans trapped in the plot and having to enact it, compelled by fate, much like what has been said about the meaning of Donnie Darko, and what seems to be at the center of The Lord of the Rings and indeed the Bible.

I've read about some esoteric points of view - such as much of the book "The Secret History of the World" - and they never make much sense, nor impress me much, compared with a more literal reading.

We don't find what it means to be human by seeking enlightenment in books (or anywhere). In these books though, we do find much that seems relevant as long as they are read mostly literally.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Sloe said:


> But that is in Götterdämmerung.


I know it's coming. And he's equally unattractive in Siegfried. Killing a dragon does not make anyone a hero in my book.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mamascarlatti said:


> I know it's coming. And he's equally unattractive in Siegfried. Killing a dragon does not make anyone a hero in my book.


It is quite obvious that you have never pricked your finger and fallen asleep for a hundred years and been shut up in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing serpent.

Just keep in mind that I happen to be the possessor of a fine sword and the heart of a lion.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> It is quite obvious that you have never pricked your finger and fallen asleep for a hundred years and been shut up in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing serpent.
> 
> Just keep in mind that I happen to be the possessor of a fine sword and the heart of a lion.












What chance would a dragon have against an uncured ham?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> What chance would a dragon have against an uncured ham?


 Uncured and delicious.

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Uncured and delicious.
> 
> One, two! One, two! And through and through
> The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
> ...


_Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe._

-- or at least I_ think_ that's what Siegfried's verse sounded like after he was_ flambéd_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> _Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
> Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
> All mimsy were ye borogoves;
> And ye mome raths outgrabe._
> ...


And aren't we fortunate that you were there to take it all down.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> And aren't we fortunate that you were there to take it all down.


I'm just rouge-ing you, Sweetie. Dragon's can't really talk.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner always takes great pains to give his mythical characters individuality - personality, of a sort, even when their behavior is highly simplified and dominated by certain extreme states of mind and emotion. [...]


 Thank you for sharing your astute observations, and for your very true and very beautiful posting. I think I understand better now what you're saying on Wagner's characters each embodying a principle, fulfill a function in the plot, rather than all being fully round personalities by themselves. To a degree, I guess this holds true for every drama, but I believe you're right, it applies to Wagner's drama even more. The emotional experience emerges from the interaction of the characters and their contributions to the overall plot, rather than being the experiences of individual characters. Although I do believe we have those as well, like Isolde's initial apparent dead-end situation, Tristan reliving the entire arch of his life as aiming towards his true home, death; or Brünnhilde experiencing what must feel like a horrid and senseless betrayal - generally it's rather the women who tend to be the more complete characters of their own, and are burdened with the full weight of an existential experience as a central plot point.

But ultimately, I think you're absolutely right; the existential and emotional impact of Wagner's drama is charged from the ideas of the plot as a whole, rather than individual characters. 



> It has been remarked about _Parsifal_, and about Wagner's works in general, that his characters seem to lack the power, as individuals, to direct their lives or determine their fates - that they are pushed by forces beyond their control, whether by their passions or by their circumstances.


May be true for some, even major, characters, but not really for, say, Isolde, Brünnhilde, also Wotan. They have very specific dreams, make very specific choices, which really come from within themselves. (Kundry may not have many options left, but she keeps pushing on - suffering at her level is also a very constant, active, and personal choice - just compare to Amfortas.) They may fail, but they direct their lives, determine their own fates, as ever humanly possible.

... - There were many more insightful observations and thoughts in your posting that gave me much pleasure and are great food for thought, that I just don't have any meaningful response to at this time, but they are much appreciated. Honestly, thanks!


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Rackon said:


> I'm much too tired to tackle Kundry tonight, especially on the smart phone.
> 
> But...
> 
> ...


I'm trying to use J.K. to get my sister into classical/opera (great) music. :devil: Sadly though, it didn't work with Franz Liszt. She found his music boring!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

marinasabina said:


> I'm trying to use J.K. to get my sister into classical/opera (great) music. :devil: Sadly though, it didn't work with Franz Liszt. She found his music boring!


My extended family enjoy getting Brahms and Liszt on a regular basis! 

Nothing new about getting sexy tenors to reel in female listeners. In the years following Wagner's death, the pro Wagner movement (agitating not just for his work to be performed in the US and UK, but for it to be performed in the original language) seems to have gained the most ground after it managed to recruit Jean de Reszke, premier tenor sex symbol of the late 1880s and 90s. There is a book about singers' influence on the musical world of the fin de siecle coming out next year- Opera Acts by the musicologist Karen Henson. It has sections on J de Reszke (I believe this will focus on his Wagnerian career), Victor Maurel, Sybil Sanderson and Celestine Galli-Marié. She is a very readable writer who knows her stuff: it should be worth a look.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Ebab said:


> They may fail, but they direct their lives, determine their own fates, as ever humanly possible.


When something is prophesied and it happens, there's no human freedom to be found there. Where there's precognition, the fates rule. Such predetermination doesn't logically allow for "determining own fates".


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

marinasabina said:


> I'm trying to use J.K. to get my sister into classical/opera (great) music. :devil: Sadly though, it didn't work with Franz Liszt. She found his music boring!


What's J.K.? A brand of cattle prod?


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

hpowders said:


> What's J.K.? A brand of cattle prod?


Something like that. Personally I prefer the 1890s version, JdR- I'd rather be poked by a Pole than a cattle prod.

:lol:


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> My extended family enjoy getting Brahms and Liszt on a regular basis!
> 
> Nothing new about getting sexy tenors to reel in female listeners. In the years following Wagner's death, the pro Wagner movement (agitating not just for his work to be performed in the US and UK, but for it to be performed in the original language) seems to have gained the most ground after it managed to recruit Jean de Reszke, premier tenor sex symbol of the late 1880s and 90s. There is a book about singers' influence on the musical world of the fin de siecle coming out next year- Opera Acts by the musicologist Karen Henson. It has sections on J de Reszke (I believe this will focus on his Wagnerian career), Victor Maurel, Sybil Sanderson and Celestine Galli-Marié. She is a very readable writer who knows her stuff: it should be worth a look.


You and I know that, but how many people outside of TC culture know it? I'd like to read that book.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

marinasabina said:


> I'm trying to use J.K. to get my sister into classical/opera (great) music. :devil: Sadly though, it didn't work with Franz Liszt. She found his music boring!


Just give her a load of this:






Is it classical? Does it matter? Franz Liszt, _mangiare il tuo cuore!_


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

hpowders said:


> What's J.K.? A brand of cattle prod?


There's a brand of cattle prod? How many brands of cattle prod does the world need?

Am I missing something?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

marinasabina said:


> There's a brand of cattle prod? How many brands of cattle prod does the world need?
> 
> Am I missing something?


You need a gentle convincer or a professional persuader?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

marinasabina said:


> There's a brand of cattle prod? How many brands of cattle prod does the world need?


Evidently quite a few.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...eld-keywords=cattle+prod&sprefix=catt,aps,255


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Figleaf said:


> My extended family enjoy getting Brahms and Liszt on a regular basis!
> 
> Nothing new about getting sexy tenors to reel in female listeners. In the years following Wagner's death, the pro Wagner movement (agitating not just for his work to be performed in the US and UK, but for it to be performed in the original language) seems to have gained the most ground after it managed to recruit *Jean de Reszke*, premier tenor sex symbol of the late 1880s and 90s. There is a book about singers' influence on the musical world of the fin de siecle coming out next year- Opera Acts by the musicologist Karen Henson. It has sections on J de Reszke (I believe this will focus on his Wagnerian career), Victor Maurel, Sybil Sanderson and Celestine Galli-Marié. She is a very readable writer who knows her stuff: it should be worth a look.


Oh dear. If he is a sex symbol I dread to think what the other tenors looked like.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

marinasabina said:


> There's a brand of cattle prod? How many brands of cattle prod does the world need?
> 
> Am I missing something?


I've herd enough of this. Cud you just stop it? What's the beef with it? You can never steer wrong if you buy the Grade-A Prime ones made in Istanbull.

Sorry, too much calf-eine.


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

hpowders said:


> You need a gentle convincer or a professional persuader?


That's not a bad idea. :devil:

"I'll rid you of that fake bourgeois lip-service to opera!"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I've herd enough of this. Cud you just stop it? What's the beef with it? You can never steer wrong if you buy the Grade-A Prime ones made in Istanbull.
> 
> Sorry, too much calf-eine.


Well, you certainly milked that one.

May I remind you that this is a moosic forum?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Well, you certainly milked that one.
> 
> May I remind you that this is a moosic forum?


Am I to be cowed by such udderance?

You are veally good at not mincing words, being a natural-barn comedian and all.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Veally? Really?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Veally? Really?


An honest misteak. Or have you herd enough?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Yes, I have. More than enough of such frivolity. And seeing how this is a Wagner for guys thread, I'm thinking it could be interesting to any of you extra manly members who might enjoy mixing opera singing with cattle ranching that the next time you lead a dragon to the slaughterhouse, a few drops of the beast's blood placed on your tongue will enable you to hear the Stockyard Murmurs and understand the mooing of the Pasture Cow, who will direct you to the biggest danged barbecue in Texas, where you'll find lying on a lawn chair surrounded by flaming hibachis a busty beauty who _ain't no man_ (that's fer damned sure!), who'll haul herself up and holler "Hi there, sonny!" and introduce you to her horse, which the two of you will climb up on and ride to a motel and have the best gotterdammerung time you ever had in your whole extra manly life.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, I have. More than enough of such frivolity. And seeing hows this is a Wagner for guys thread, I'm thinking it could be interesting to any of you extra manly members who might enjoy mixing opera singing with animal husbandry that the next time you lead a dragon to the slaughterhouse, a few drops of the beast's blood placed on your tongue will enable you to hear the Barnyard Murmurs and understand the song of the Pasture Cow, who will direct you to the biggest danged barbecue in Texas, where you'll find lying on a lawn chair surrounded by flaming hibachis a busty beauty who _ain't no man_ (that's fer damned sure!), who'll haul herself up and holler "Hi there, sonny!" and introduce you to her horse, which the two of you will climb up on and ride to a motel and have the best gotterdammerung time you ever had in your whole extra manly life.


_Udder-dammerung_ it is, Darlin'._ ;D_


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, I have. More than enough of such frivolity. And seeing how this is a Wagner for guys thread, I'm thinking it could be interesting to any of you extra manly members who might enjoy mixing opera singing with cattle ranching that the next time you lead a dragon to the slaughterhouse, a few drops of the beast's blood placed on your tongue will enable you to hear the Stockyard Murmurs and understand the mooing of the Pasture Cow, who will direct you to the biggest danged barbecue in Texas, where you'll find lying on a lawn chair surrounded by flaming hibachis a busty beauty who _ain't no man_ (that's fer damned sure!), who'll haul herself up and holler "Hi there, sonny!" and introduce you to her horse, which the two of you will climb up on and ride to a motel and have the best gotterdammerung time you ever had in your whole extra manly life.


I don't know how serious Itullian meant the thread to be, but it looks like most of the comments have well established that Wagner's music is not a guy thing. It seems akin to claiming that Mozart's music is also a guy thing, because men prefer cerebral music (whatever _that_ is) and women prefer emotional music (whatever _that_ is). I'm sure that is not what Itullian thinks, but there are probably a few male Wagner fans who think it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

marinasabina said:


> I don't know how serious Itullian meant the thread to be, but it looks like most of the comments have well established that Wagner's music is not a guy thing. It seems akin to claiming that Mozart's music is also a guy thing, because men prefer cerebral music (whatever _that_ is) and women prefer emotional music (whatever _that_ is). I'm sure that is not what Itullian thinks, but there are probably a few male Wagner fans who think it.


Actually, Mozart is a girlie thing. Twinkle, twinkle...


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Ebab said:


> My idea is that Kundry predominantly was tormented by guilt all the time, even if she did good for the brotherhood. Klingsor's magic may have been able to suppress concrete memories regarding her acting on "his" side but not her overall emotion. And Kundry forever continued to suffer for her basic sin, having laughed at the tormented creature Jesus.
> 
> We have really chilling documents of Mother Theresa's emotions of self-doubt and -hatred. Not a saint either? But who is a saint then?


Gurnemanz seems quite saintly to me, and maybe a little naive, always seeing the good side in others, including Kundry.

And Klingsor's magic seems to have the power of changing Kundry's appearance too, so that when she gives Amfortas the balsam she had brought, he does not recognize her. I wonder if Wagner simply did not think about it when composing the opera.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Gurnemanz seems quite saintly to me, and maybe a little naive, always seeing the good side in others, including Kundry.
> 
> And Klingsor's magic seems to have the power of changing Kundry's appearance too, so that when she gives Amfortas the balsam she had brought, he does not recognize her. I wonder if Wagner simply did not think about it when composing the opera.


Kundry appears the way men need her to appear. She is the changeable reflection of male desires and weaknesses. That is her agony. Wagner directs that as the wild, bedraggled messenger she wear a snakeskin belt. A serpent shedding its skin is a symbol of metamorphosis, transformation. A snake is also a triple symbol of healing (as on the physician's caduceus), sexuality (a phallic symbol), and deadly danger.

I don't think the men have the slightest suspicion of the multiple roles that Kundry plays, simply because, unconscious as they are of their fundamental discomfort with sexuality and femaleness (an underlying theme of this opera), they have created these different female images themselves to fulfill their own perverted needs. Kundry is the creation of men, and under the power of men, who fear Woman - and that includes the "saintly" Titurel and his gang as well as Klingsor.

Consider the possibilty that Klingsor was rejected by the order of the Grail because his self-castration made uncomfortably explicit the sexual repression of Titurel and company. Titurel and Klingsor are brothers as Wotan and Alberich are brothers, and like that pair have both erred in renouncing love for power, one in the name of "purity" (which he misunderstands as chastity) and the other needing no such rationalization. The conventional view that Titurel = saint and Klingsor = devil breaks down when their underlying psychology is understood.

Titurel/Klingsor, like Licht-Alberich/Schwarz-Alberich, is the two-headed being who brings the realm to ruin, and Kundry is the horrible reflection of their mistakes and perversions. Together they embody the broken world which Parsifal, the Innocent Fool, the inner soul of humanity, must come to understand and act to heal.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Gurnemanz seems quite saintly to me, and maybe a little naive, always seeing the good side in others, including Kundry.





Woodduck said:


> Kundry appears the way men need her to appear. She is the changeable reflection of male desires and weaknesses. That is her agony. [...]I don't think the men have the slightest suspicion of the multiple roles that Kundry plays [...]


My instinct is - and I haven't got a single concrete quote to back it up - is that Gurnemanz, essentially (not in the details) _does_ have an idea of who (all) Kundry is, which roles she plays. Against rationality, he maintains positivity, a hope that the brotherhood can be saved. And I think he has an vague inkling that it might involve Kundry and that strange boy Parsifal whom he gives an initial chance to, but then dismisses. The boy is not showing his potential immediately; he needs to experience _something_ still before he becomes a candidate - something in the outside world. Whether Gurnemanz foresees that this could involve an incarnation of Kundry, I really couldn't tell, but in the end, he doesn't seem too surprised.

As for Gurnemanz being a saint; I guess he is in some way, but he seems like a steadfast person not easily tempted, at least at the point in his life when we get to know him. It's not fair, but typically, the nice regular guys don't get any credit. 

Gurnemanz remains positive, benevolent, yes -- but "naive", I don't really think so. I think he is wiser (has more astute instincts) than you'd think.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gurnemanz is unique among the characters in _Parsifal_ in that he is not the personification of any particular emotion, passion, need, or mission. He is an observer, a commentator, a critic, a quiet voice of reason. He does possess insight, but it is limited by the assumptions and protocols of his position as an elder knight of the Grail, the assumptions and protocols laid down by the order's founder, Titurel. Gurnemanz is utterly loyal to everything Titurel has instituted, upholds the existing order, and sees no reason to question it. The growing crisis which threatens his world, with his leader suffering increasingly unbearable pain and guilt, Klingsor at large, and the mysterious Kundry appearing and disappearing, troubles him, but like every true believer he sees it as an alien "other," an evil force originating outside his sacred precincts, and can only hope that the world outside will somehow produce a hero to deliver his unhappy realm from "the enemy."

Gurnemanz's view of a pure inside realm under attack from outside, waiting only to be restored to its former perfection, is easy to accept as the true state of affairs. But Wagner is too subtle and insightful for such a superficial fairy-tale view; the moral ambiguities of the _Ring_ should tell us that - and _Parsifal_ is if anything subtler in its psychology. I believe that the corruption of the Order of the Grail originates from within, at its very root, and that the mission of Parsifal, in his role of the uncorrupted impulse of the human soul toward wholeness, is not to restore the rules and rituals of the Order but to overthrow them. When he says, at the end of the opera, "No more let the Grail be confined," I believe he means it: he is not taking over the function of Amfortas and conducting a ritual; he is releasing the Fountain of Life, now united with its companion the Spear in sacred marriage, from any form of confinement, bondage, manipulation, and control.

The Grail and Spear came to Titurel as gifts of life, not as tokens of sainthood or priesthood. He bestowed those roles upon himself and founded, in essence, a church: an exclusive society with rules for "acceptable" conduct, one of which was sexual abstinence for everyone but himself (a typical royal prerogative). This was rationalized as a protector of "purity," but in deep psychological terms it was a denial of nature and wholeness, represented in the sacred union of female and male which the Grail and Spear symbolically embody. It was a betrayal of the very things Titurel was supposed to guard and honor, and it created the psychic fracture, the rift in the soul out of which arose "the enemies," Klingsor and Kundry. And the Grail itself? It was confined to a reliquary and brought forth under carefully controlled conditions by order of the high priest - a perfect symbol of the attempt to control and command the vital force of life itself.

But that force cannot be commanded, only suppressed and diverted, to emerge in distorted forms. Titurel's suppression of the Feminine - the Grail - was the birth of the tortured woman Kundry, who became the uncontrolled and devouring Feminine he feared. And Klingsor, his supposed opposite, was in reality his unconfessed inner self, the seeker after power whose self-castration was only the ultimate manifestation of the rationalized "purity" Titurel imposed on his own chosen minions. Inevitably Klingsor commanded the deadly serpent-woman, Kundry, to strike at those who presumed to command the Grail itself. And, inevitably, Amfortas' presumptuous attempt to command the Masculine power of the Spear against Klingsor turned that power back on Klingsor's alter ego, Titurel, and on Titurel's annointed, himself.

_Parsifal_ is, par excellence, the Wagner opera in which things are not what they seem. Wagner does not deal, and particularly not in this final statement of his, in simplistic oppositions of heroes and villains, much less conventional pieties. Taking this work at face value renders it baffling if not absurd, as many of its detractors think it is. But Wagner's piercing, disturbing, and sublime score demands that we look more deeply into its exquisitely crafted structure and imagery in pursuit of meanings that might justify such unprecedented music. I've been trying to offer for others' consideration some of what my delvings and contemplations have yielded. There is much more to tell, and I'm sure that I myself have more to learn.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Gurnemanz is unique among the characters in _Parsifal_ in that he [...]


Er, wow. This is one bold posting, with a wealth of thought and insight and challenges; and very eloquently and comprehensibly expressed. Beautiful, really - thank you once again for taking the time.

Clearly, you know your stuff, and you've meditated upon these issues much longer and deeper and successfully than I have. Beginning with your profound characterization of Gurnemanz and his role: I think you've convinced me already - his insight is probably more limited than I was ready to give him credit for. He's a good, dedicated guy with a natural connection for the inner workings of the Order, but his hopes seem limited to _restoration_. The brotherhood needs more than that, and joyously, Parsifal ultimately turns out to be able to bring them what's missing.

This is what I've half-consciously felt from very early on: The brotherhood sets out to bring practical help to the world. They meet in their castle, and, as communities tend to do, they participate in a ritual. The ritual is meant to inspire them, to renew a sense of community, clarity, focus, hope, strength, to carry with them on their perilous missions. (Personally, I no longer feel religious, but I've grown up experiencing Christian rituals as something positive, if filled with a genuine, personal and ever-renewing spirit.) Now, this particular brotherhood owned and used two exceptionally inspiring artifacts in their ritual - but things went wrong. Instead of inspiring the brotherhood, this pair of artifacts turned out to become the object of over-protectiveness, greed, fights, hurt - a _fetish_ actually, and it severely _damages_ the ability of the community to fulfill their quest. Really a perversion of the idea.

But now, you've added a lot of layers to this half-conscious thought of mine. Titurel "creating" Klingsor and Kundry, as a result of the "perverse" (in the above sense) use of the artifacts - this is bold. It would be very foolish of me to say at this point already that I "agree", but the thought deeply resonates with me. I feel very inspired re-reading, re-hearing the work with that idea in mind, and I have a feeling that I won't be sorry.

Your posting, in its condensed entirety, is very inspiring, to say the least. Is there any literature (books or other sources) that you could say inspired you; that you could recommend? Or have you already laid out your thoughts yourself in a larger scale? I feel very stupid but surprisingly not frustrated. I feel (and your postings seem to confirm the sentiment) that I'm still at the very beginning of a journey, but that the journey will be worth the while.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Woodduck*, this was a brilliant post. However, I do have a couple of minor objections:

1. Kundry is much, much older than Titurel and Klingsor, she was already there when Christ was crucified. Klingsor must have found this tormented soul and found a way to use her powers to his own purposes, but each one of them has a separate destiny.

2. Titurel is as much responsible for the emergence of Klingsor as the Rhinemaidens are responsible for the emergence of the evil Alberich by not giving in to his rapacious lust, that is, not at all. Titurel did what he saw as the right thing to do. Klingsor was the one who tried to enter the brotherhood, but lacked the necessary self-mastery. He could mutilate his body but still could not control his passions, and in Act II he confesses that they still continued to torment him. Titurel evidently recognized Klingsor's weakness and denied him entry, but Klingsor could not simply walk away and live his own life either. He became a creature filled with envy and hatred, seeking to destroy those that were better than himself. I think it is a telling detail that after the fall of Klingsor's castle Kundry still receives forgiveness and peace, but Klingsor appears no more.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Ebab said:


> (Personally, I no longer feel religious, but I've grown up experiencing Christian rituals as something positive, if filled with a genuine, personal and ever-renewing spirit.)


Same here. And one of my favorite scenes in Parsifal is the ceremony in the knights' castle in Act I. The music is so solemn, exalted and yet heart-warming at the same time. And very _manly_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ebab said:


> Er, wow. This is one bold posting, with a wealth of thought and insight and challenges; and very eloquently and comprehensibly expressed. Beautiful, really - thank you once again for taking the time.
> 
> Clearly, you know your stuff, and you've meditated upon these issues much longer and deeper and successfully than I have. Beginning with your profound characterization of Gurnemanz and his role: I think you've convinced me already - his insight is probably more limited than I was ready to give him credit for. He's a good, dedicated guy with a natural connection for the inner workings of the Order, but his hopes seem limited to _restoration_. The brotherhood needs more than that, and joyously, Parsifal ultimately turns out to be able to bring them what's missing.
> 
> ...


Ebab, I'm really moved by your intuitive response to my thoughts on _Parsifal_. I have indeed lived with this work for many years (nearly 50 by now) and the effort to get past the many interpretations and misunderstandings it has inspired to a grasp of its central meaning has been a marvelous journey of mind and spirit.

I want to begin here by saying something about Wagner's dramatic method, and that is that the first place to look in trying to understand what he is is getting at is his music. If we don't listen carefully to what his music is telling us, he can be baffling indeed. His use of mythical and legendary material presents us with all manner of peculiar characters, strange and miraculous events, and odd objects with magical uses. On top of that, his characters behave in extraordinary ways and have conversations filled with obscure references and hints of meanings which are not always clear to each other or to us. The operas suggest and inspire multiple interpretations, some of which overtly contradict one another. But Wagner quite explicitly intended that his music should express the deepest meaning of what happens in his stories, even when that meaning is unknown to any of the characters participating in the action. And I feel that no composer has been able to make music speak in more specific ways of the subtle and often hidden aspects of the human psyche. Wagner's music is a stream of consciousness, and more: a stream of subconsciousness which reveals the secrets of his characters and, to a remarkable and sometimes uncomfortable degree, ours as well.

I say all that because, when I was first getting to know _Parsifal_, I found that my response to the music was to be deeply impressed and enchanted, but also quite disturbed. I felt exalted by the music of the temple scene, but uncomfortable too, in ways I couldn't for some time come to grips with. I felt that, for all the dignity, beauty and solemn ecstasy of it, there was something not right, something corrupt and rather frightening in its dark magic, with the sepulchral voice of Titurel so coldly demanding that his son Amfortas continue with a ritual that tortured him in order to keep the old man in a state of half-life. As I listened to the strange interval (the tritone) which Titurel sings in the phrase "bist du am Amt?", I felt a sort of cold chill, telling me that something was profoundly horrible with what was transpiring in that dark, secret place. There were many other places in the opera where I felt this sort of undercurrent of spiritual corruption, and of course there are many passages in which the music simply bursts forth with agonizing pain and lamentation attesting to the sickness of soul which is destroying the insular and self-righteous world of Titurel and his knights. To summarize: it was the music of the opera that, from the first, made it impossible for me, even as a teenager, to take the story at face value - as a simple pious tale of righteous purity versus sinful sex and a hero pure enough to choose the former over the latter.

I can't say that these instinctive reactions to _Parsifal_s emotional world resulted in any real understanding of it until some year later. I was conducting a "Wagner seminar" among some friends, in which we would read the librettos of the operas and then listen to recordings. I felt I needed to do some reading on the works (though I'd already done a fair amount) in order to make an intelligent and helpful presentation to people, some of whom were hearing Wagner for the first time. I stumbled upon a book called "The Ring and its Symbols" by Robert Donington, which looks at Wagner's mythology in _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ from the standpoint of Jungian psychology. Well, that book practically made my head explode! I would have to say that it gave me a key which opened doors in my understanding of one opera after another from _Dutchman_ to _Parsifal_, and that since then many things about Wagner have fallen into place for me. I strongly recommend the book to you; though it doesn't say too much about _Parsifal_ in particular, its basic conception of Wagner's method of telling a story by way of characters who, in essence, function as mutually determinative facets of a single evolving consciousness, opens up the path I've been traveling in my own quest for the secret of the Grail. I'll warn you though: it may keep you up nights turning pages!

I have indeed evolved a much more thorough analysis of _Parsifal_ which I'll gladly share as time passes. But right now I must get about some mundane business and so will sign off.

Read Donington. :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Woodduck*, this was a brilliant post. However, I do have a couple of minor objections:
> 
> 1. Kundry is much, much older than Titurel and Klingsor, she was already there when Christ was crucified. Klingsor must have found this tormented soul and found a way to use her powers to his own purposes, but each one of them has a separate destiny.
> 
> 2. Titurel is as much responsible for the emergence of Klingsor as the Rhinemaidens are responsible for the emergence of the evil Alberich by not giving in to his rapacious lust, that is, not at all. Titurel did what he saw as the right thing to do. Klingsor was the one who tried to enter the brotherhood, but lacked the necessary self-mastery. He could mutilate his body but still could not control his passions, and in Act II he confesses that they still continued to torment him. Titurel evidently recognized Klingsor's weakness and denied him entry, but Klingsor could not simply walk away and live his own life either. He became a creature filled with envy and hatred, seeking to destroy those that were better than himself. I think it is a telling detail that after the fall of Klingsor's castle Kundry still receives forgiveness and peace, but Klingsor appears no more.


Thanks for your thoughts, Siegendes. I want to discuss them with you, but will have to get back to you later, having just spent a goodly amount of time with Ebab. But I would like to leave you with one complex and paradoxical thought, and that is this: Mythical time is not chronological, and in the depths of consciousness causality moves in all directions at once.

How was that for cryptic? Gotta run! :lol:


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> But I would like to leave you with one complex and paradoxical thought, and that is this: Mythical time is not chronological, and in the depths of consciousness causality moves in all directions at once.
> 
> How was that for cryptic? Gotta run! :lol:


I was reminded of the preface by my beloved Thomas Mann to his "Joseph" set of novels (Joseph being the biblical son of Jaakob, the novels being a re-telling of the old stories ... not controversial, but probably more evocative and surprising and ironically funny than you'd expect.). The preface makes an irresistible cause that objective timelines or strict chains of causality don't really apply to mythical memories, that those often go in circles, and still make a convincing kind of sense ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Woodduck*, this was a brilliant post. However, I do have a couple of minor objections:
> 
> 1. Kundry is much, much older than Titurel and Klingsor, she was already there when Christ was crucified. Klingsor must have found this tormented soul and found a way to use her powers to his own purposes, but each one of them has a separate destiny.
> 
> 2. Titurel is as much responsible for the emergence of Klingsor as the Rhinemaidens are responsible for the emergence of the evil Alberich by not giving in to his rapacious lust, that is, not at all. Titurel did what he saw as the right thing to do. Klingsor was the one who tried to enter the brotherhood, but lacked the necessary self-mastery. He could mutilate his body but still could not control his passions, and in Act II he confesses that they still continued to torment him. Titurel evidently recognized Klingsor's weakness and denied him entry, but Klingsor could not simply walk away and live his own life either. He became a creature filled with envy and hatred, seeking to destroy those that were better than himself. I think it is a telling detail that after the fall of Klingsor's castle Kundry still receives forgiveness and peace, but Klingsor appears no more.


Siegendes, you bring up so much to talk about here, I'll have to work hard at not getting carried away (and for that matter not getting hopelssly confused)!

Kundry is an enigma and I don't know if I'll ever feel that I understand her completely. I've talked about her in terms of how she functions in relation to the other characters, and how she reflects their fears, needs, and prejudices. But at root, I think what she is is Mother Nature after the Fall: she is what is left of the Eternal Feminine when the free flow of Nature's maternal grace has been disrupted and diverted by the male ego's drive for power and control.

At the heart of _Parsifal_'s symbolism and story is the representation of Nature, or the Life Force, or whatever you want to call it, by an image of the female, the Grail (which in its origins is a pre-Christian talisman only latterly identified with the chalice of the Last Supper). The Grail is the Primal Woman, which in sacred marriage with the Spear (the male principle, the phallus) is the womb and fountainhead from which flows life itself. The Grail, and her companion the Spear, are the main "characters" in the story of _Parsifal_, and all the personages of the plot are the vehicles through which the story of the rupture of that sacred marriage, and its restoration, play out.

That sounds abstract and impersonal, not like material for a drama at all. But that's because Wagner's symbolism is built up in layers. The Grail and Spear, female and male, represent nourishing nature and active life; but the bridge to humanity consists in the fact that these female and male qualities or essences represent in turn aspects of _human_ nature; and it's the ways in which the human being deals with them in the act of living that generates a story - in the case of _Parsifal_, a story of the perversion and enfeeblement of nature and life, and of the perilous progress of the fractured soul through ignorance, wilfullness, and corruption into consciousness, compassion, and freedom.

Back to Kundry. In Wagner's peculiar type of drama, which portrays psychological processes by means of quasi-mythological symbols, all the characters, objects and settings in the story are embodiments of various aspects and functions of the human personality. Sure, the story of _Parsifal_ can be viewed literally as a story of individuals with individual lives and histories, but this approach will only get us so far in understanding what it all means. Kundry, for example, may be viewed as a particular woman living a particular life and only interacting with other characters at certain junctures. But she may be seen, more revealingly, as an embodiment of Woman as a psychological archetype, a complex of traits which belong to humanity as such, and her identity and actions in the story may be seen as arising in mutual causation with all the story's other characters and events. Viewed this way, Kundry, as a symbol of Woman, will share an identity as Woman with all other female elements in the story: with Parsifal's mother, Herzeleide, and with the Grail itself. These will have dramatic life as separate characters, but they will only be fully understood as different manifestations of femaleness as such. On a literal level, Kundry tries to seduce Parsifal by invoking a memory of the mother he left behind. But we will only understand what Parsifal is going through, the nature of the spiritual regression and death he and the realm of the Grail are facing, if we understand that the kiss of Kundry is not fundamentally about sex as such but is, from the standpoint of Parsifal, the actual kiss of Herzeleide sucking him back into childish passivity, of which Kundry's seduction is a symbol. In other words, on the deepest psychological level, Kundry and Herzeleide are one and the same: the devouring mother, the woman whom the boy must absolutely leave behind - ignoring her pleas and tears, rejecting the guilt she would impose, rejecting love as possession - in order to become a man.

If we view the characters of the story through this lens, wherein they are seen not as individuals acting upon each other but as functional aspects of an "oversoul," the human psyche whose story is being told by means of personified symbols, it will be seen that the history or chronology of the various personages takes on a different aspect, in a real sense rendering literal chronology irrelevant. If we view Kundry as an individual and think of her as having been alive in the time of Christ, then we must ask how old she is at the moment, and whether she is reincarnated, and how many times she has lived, and so forth. It seems absurd to try to write her "biography" - to view such fantastic, mythical material through a literal lens. Kundry's laughter at Christ on the cross undoubtedly has a dramatic function; that she is undergoing punishment for her impious act seems to offer some explanation for her present misery. But it does little to explain the monstrous _quality_ of that misery, or the mystery and power of this woman who seems always to have existed, who travels everywhere, and who knows everything except how to liberate herself. It simply fails to get at the essence of what she _is_. When we watch her and listen to her music - always the music! - we feel ourselves in the presence of forces much deeper, more dangerous, and more tragic than some random person doing penance for her sins.

I believe that Wagner wanted us to see Womanhood itself in bondage, forced there by the ignorance, arrogance, and weakness of the male ego. But that, mythically speaking, is a parallel image to the imprisonment, ritual rape, and regressive sucking at the teat of Mother Grail by the brethren who are stuck in the state of dependence which renders them simultaneously passive and violent in relation to the Womanhood whose resultant agony Kundry personifies. It will be for Parsifal to see through the seduction of mother-longing, move beyond the need for power and control by keeping the Spear unwielded at his side, and reunite in harmonious marriage the Masculine and Feminine, the Spear and the Grail, the efficacious power and overflowing grace of the healed and redeemed Soul.

Kundry, in the end, dies. Death, in myth, is transformation. The pain of the Woman is gone. The Eternal Feminine, all grace freely given and now gratefully and unconditionally received, resides fully in the Grail at last, where in truth it has always been.

I can only hope I made some perceivable sense in all that. I'll get to Titurel/Klingsor some other time. I'll only say now that that, Jungian-psychologically/mythically regarded, the latter is but the repressed "shadow" of the former.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Have you ever tried a Christian, rather than Jungian analysis of Parsifal? A Christian isn't a troubled teenager who struggles with his own daddy issues and hopes to solve them by reading fiction or listening to opera. In the Christian world, evil is external, real, and powerful - Satan and all of his demons are at work in the world and they possess powers humans can't comprehend. 

In addition to this, people of good will and evil will compete for positions of power in the Church and outside it. Real power struggles. Super important. In the real world. Outcome not affected in the least by your personal sexual life.

The world is a battlefield and to reduce it to an internal battle is to miss the point. You won't be enslaved or used as sadistic entertainment in the Colosseum because you once put your ***** in the wrong place, or didn't put it in the right place often enough. It will be because your kind of people lost a real battle or real war or real power struggle with real people (narcissists, psychopaths, evil).

You'd be surprised how many people there are who care only about themselves. They're the kind of people who cause women and children to be bombed in wars in order to benefit themselves and their kind. People who are evil. Real people, real evil. 

A work of art that doesn't identify the threat they pose is trivial and misses the point. Wagner identifies this type of person with Klingsor - a narcissist who is preoccupied with personal vanity, power, and lacks empathy. 

You could argue Klingsor is a caricature, except such people actually exist, and they're numerous, and have often had much power. 

You could argue Klingsor is just an aspect of every human, except there are people who have empathy and a clear moral sense from early childhood as the result of the natural development of their genotype.

Jungian and Freudian readings are, pardon my French, for rather sheltered people. It's not what goes on inside you that matters if you are anything like a healthy normal morally sane person. It's that real world outside that matters.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> Have you ever tried a Christian, rather than Jungian analysis of Parsifal? *A Christian isn't a troubled teenager who struggles with his own daddy issues and hopes to solve them by reading fiction or listening to opera.* In the Christian world, evil is external, real, and powerful - Satan and all of his demons are at work in the world and they possess powers humans can't comprehend.
> 
> In addition to this, people of good will and evil will compete for positions of power in the Church and outside it. Real power struggles. Super important. In the real world. Outcome not affected in the least by *your personal sexual life*.
> 
> ...


_Parsifal_ is a very complex, subtle, symbolically loaded work. There are many ways of looking at it. Some interpretations are more cogent than others. Cogency is something I always look for when I ask what a work means. This work makes much use of Christian symbolism, but does so in peculiar ways. I wonder what particular "Christian" view of it you have in mind (Christians don't all believe the same things, as you must know). It sounds as if your principal concern is with moral values, but you don't mention the issue that gets by far the most attention in _Parsifal_, which is sex. What would you consider the Christian view of Wagner's treatment of that? Are you aware of his treatment of sex and its position in human life as exhibited in his other works, and of the ways in which _Parsifal_ extends those earlier treatments and/or differs with them? What would the Christian perspective be on the society of Grail knights, which excludes women and enjoins abstinence? How would a Christian understand Kundry, who appears to be many hundreds, if not thousands of years old, knows everything, travels all over the world, and pretends to be men's mothers in order to make them break their vows of chastity? What wouild be the Christian view of Parsifal, who is an "innocent fool," apparently uncorrupted by Original Sin and so capable of resisting the temptations that bring down men supposedly adhering to "holy" vows? What would a Christian make of Titurel, who is supposedly morally pure yet forces his suffering son to endure ever greater pain to keep his half-dead old man breathing in his crypt? What is the Christian meaning of life in a crypt? And what is the Christian interpretation of the magical garden of Klingsor, where flowers seem to become women and seduce men?

Many more such questions could be asked. They have always been asked about the uses and significance of Christianity in this opera, which draws its material from a wide variety of traditions including Christian, Buddhist, and ancient Celtic, as well as Medieval sources and the version of Wolfram von Eschenbach, in which many distinctly non-Christian elements remain. The Christian elements in the work have certainly been explored. For myself, I find them present and meaningful - nothing in my analysis of the opera excludes the moral values you seem concerned with - but inadequate to account for the symbolic richness of Wagner's mythical world. And I do in fact find that world quite intensely preoccupied with internal states of mind and spirit, and not at all with worldly issues. If you can point out some of the "external battles" you see in it, I'd be interested in knowing about them. Perhaps you have in mind the periodic raids on Klingsor's garden, where the "pure" brethren end up as sex-besotted slaves sent out to attack the pure fool when he stumbles in?

I'm somewhat curious as to who you are thinking of when you refer to those sheltered Freudian and Jungian interpreters of Wagner who are nothing like healthy normal morally sane people. And who are those troubled teenagers who try to solve their daddy issues by listening to opera?

I don't believe I've met any people like those. Have you?


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I will have to read through the libretto and see what I would think of it from the Christian perspective (the proper Christian perspective is that there is only one Christian perspective and the others are heretical).

In the meanwhile, I think I'd personally be more interested in what the opera has done for you than what you think it means. Has it changed your life in any way? Or is it just superb intellectual-musical entertainment for you?

I think typically when a person is more interested in self-improvement than world-improvement, they must be somehow sheltered. But that's just me. Don't let me spoil the fun.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> I think typically when a person is more interested in self-improvement than world-improvement, they must be somehow sheltered. But that's just me. Don't let me spoil the fun.


I used to think that too, until I realised that 'world improvement' is a futile quest for most ordinary individuals. 'Self improvement' may not sound like a comparably worthy pursuit, but it's all most of us really have.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> I will have to read through the libretto and see what I would think of it from the Christian perspective (*the proper Christian perspective is that there is only one Christian perspective and the others are heretical*).
> 
> In the meanwhile, I think* I'd personally be more interested in what the opera has done for you than what you think it means*. Has it changed your life in any way? Or *is it just superb intellectual-musical entertainment for you?*
> 
> I think typically *when a person is more interested in self-improvement than world-improvement, they must be somehow sheltered*. But that's just me.* Don't let me spoil the fun*.


I leave theological turf wars to those who think life depends on winning them. When people start talking about one true perspective and heresy I take my leave.

Understanding what things mean is, in my experience, always life-changing, and the necessary precondition of all change. That is precisely what Parsifal discovers in the garden.

Certainly _Parsifal_, the score of which sits on my piano, has changed my life, just as everything I have ever come to love and understand has changed it in ways which, after most of a lifetime, cannot even be calculated or enumerated. "Superb intellectual-musical entertainment," without which I would be a different person entirely, has virtually defined my life.

But perhaps that is mere self-improvement and proves only that I am "sheltered" and not "normal," "healthy," or "morally sane" enough to run for president, invent a cure for ebola, or dress up as Santa Claus and ring a bell for the Salvation Army.

Please be assured that the "fun" will go on regardless of any judgment you can pronounce upon it.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I leave theological turf wars to those who think life depends on winning them. When people start talking about one true perspective and heresy I take my leave.
> 
> Understanding what things mean is, in my experience, always life-changing, and the necessary precondition of all change. That is precisely what Parsifal discovers in the garden.
> 
> ...


"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."

- Friedrich Nietzsche


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Woodduck*, please, would you stop talking like a man-hating feminazi, carrying on about "the ignorance, arrogance, and weakness of the male ego" and men's "perverted needs"? Even I am about to take offence at this 

There is nothing ignorant or arrogant about healthy male desires. Nothing wrong again, with those who choose to subject these desires to their own willpower and instead of following them to pursue some other goal. Everything wrong, however, with the one who lacking the mastery over his own self, turned in hatred and envy against those who were better than him.

I can kind of see where Chordalrock is coming from, that the antagonists in Parsifal are not really projections of one another, that they are separate entities involved in a real-world, life-and-death struggle (and Amfortas did attempt to raid Klingsor's castle!). The weak, ignoble, envious, hateful waging war against the strong, noble, compassionate, beautiful, just the same way as rejected Alberich had waged war on those who dared to live in joy and love.

I agreee with your words about the spear and the Grail being symbols of sexuality, especially the Grail as a symbol of femininity, but it is femininity as-it-should-be: nourishing, empowering, enlightening, lifting up the male souls. Kundry's sexuality is exactly the opposite: dangerous, enslaving, destroying, ashamed even of herself. That moment where she invokes Herzeleide's motherly love as somehow equal to the passion she is about to give Parsifal, implying an incestuous connection, is the epitome of perverse. Wagner worshiped love and womanhood throughout his entire artistic life, but it seems, by the end of it he came to the thought that love and womanhood is not all there is and that they can be a source of danger as well as joy.

As for why Titurel forced his son to uncover the Grail even though it increased his torture - well, Amfortas is the king, and kings back in those days (at least the literary ones) had duties to their people that they had to fulfill whether they liked it or not. Uncovering the Grail was not for Titurel only, it was a source of nourishment and strength for the whole brotherhood. Parsifal becomes king in the end of the opera and performs that duty himself.

There is a lot to think about in your post, so pardon me if it seems like I have not provided an answer to all that you have to say.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule."
> 
> - Friedrich Nietzsche


Well as his own sanity has been called into question, he no doubt had the right to comment!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Woodduck*, please, would you stop talking like a man-hating feminazi, carrying on about "the ignorance, arrogance, and weakness of the male ego" and men's "perverted needs"? Even I am about to take offence at this
> 
> There is nothing ignorant or arrogant about healthy male desires. Nothing wrong again, with those who choose to subject these desires to their own willpower and instead of following them to pursue some other goal. Everything wrong, however, with the one who lacking the mastery over his own self, turned in hatred and envy against those who were better than him.
> 
> ...


Siegendes, pardon me if I'm laughing a bit at your feminazi reference. Don't worry, I'm not putting men down as a species, even if a lot of them (us) do behave like dumb brutes. (We do, you know!) :lol:

Wagner was a man, and a highly sexed man at that. It's a central subject in his works, and as his perspectives on its place in a man's life changed, so did his treatment of it in his operas. What almost everyone notices about _Parsifal_ is that it looks like an opera with a religious theme but is for some reason preoccupied with sex. Some people find this objectionable; others find it fascinating. One thing I've tried to do is look at Wagner's sexual symbolism and see whether it's just high-class prurience hypocritically cloaked in religious mumbo-jumbo which will make the opera forever incomprehensible or whether there's some deeper meaning conveyed by its omnipresence and various uses in the story. Obviously I think the latter is true. But I may not have succeeded in making clear what I think that deeper meaning is. I make no excuses, but the subject _is_ difficult and challenges me to the max.

Here is how I view the sexual symbology of _Parsifal_, as succinctly as I can put it: sex in _Parsifal_ does not mean just sex, and the work's central theme of enlightenment and spiritual growth is not fundamentally a matter of sex at all. The central symbols of the work, the Grail and Spear, are "sexual" symbols, but they are symbols of ancient lineage, representing in form and function "feminine" and "masculine" powers in the human psyche and human life; call them "nurturing love" and "willful ambition," perhaps. What Titurel decides should be done with sexual desire in his religious order symbolizes how the masculine powers in the psyche deal with the primal, mysterious, fearful powers of the "eternal feminine," as manifested both in women (beginning with the mother) and in himself. And what he decides should be done with the Grail - his notion that anything needs in fact to be "done" with it at all - symbolizes the ego-control ("masculine" control) that the male exerts in the effort to deal with the feminine, which he regards with a mixture of awe, fear, and desire. That the Grail should be turned into an object of use (a sort of divine call girl), to be put away when not "in use," symbolizes an ego-created imbalance in the psyche, a usurpation and a defense against the power of the feminine by the masculine. That the Spear, which belongs forever in the company of its "spouse" the Grail, should be ripped away by Amfortas and used in combat (a sin which Parsifal knows not to repeat), shows how far out of control the "masculine" ego can veer once the "feminine" has been constrained and its power diminished (if one wants to talk about a real-world" issue - i.e. war - there it is). So also with the rise of Klingsor's power, which is made possible only by the mistakes of Titurel and his offspring and executor Amfortas: Klingsor is the naked, shameless reductio ad absurdum, the dark side, of Titurel; he embodies the utter enslavement of the feminine by a masculine ego which fears the feminine so profoundly that it must resort to self-castration. But self-castration is only the reductio ad absurdum of Titurel's own anti-feminine campaign, and when Titurel casts out Klingsor he is only repressing the uncomfortable awareness that castration and celibacy are expressions of the same fear of the feminine - and that Klingsor's act will ensure an absolute power that his knights' ineffective vows cannot. Klingsor's bold act achieves its aim: his purity makes him more powerful than Titurel, who is weakened by the conflict between lofty intentions and wrong action; the knights of the Grail cannot stand against one who accepts explicitly and uncompromisingly their own unacknowledged premises. And Klingsor's ultimate act of control of the feminine is his use of Kundry, who at his command becomes the diabolical parallel of the Grail as used by Titurel: the feminine, enslaved and forbidden her natural energy, turned devil and destroyer. But see the irony here: the attempt by the masculine (will) to control the feminine (love) must ultimately backfire: nature bites back, the male weakens himself by presumptuous overreaching and is devoured by the (female) power he fears. What should have been the harmonious, mutually nourishing alliance between Grail and Spear, love and will, has been violated; and so Grail and Spear, which should have ruled productively together in the psyche, by their misuse and perversion have now been transmuted into the destructive alliance of their moral opposites, Kundry and Klingsor.

What Klingsor doesn't know, however, is that his own presumptuous overreach will destroy him as well. For he can rule only so long as he deals with an opponent who is a weaker version of himself. Enter the "innocent fool," symbolizing the unspoiled core of the human soul, whose intuitive wisdom, aroused by empathy, renders him immune to the seductions of power and lust and sends him into the wilderness, Spear in hand but never to be used, to seek the path back to Montsalvat. When he reaches it he will reunite the Spear with the Grail, harmonizing will with love and so enabling the spearpoint to heal what it had once wounded. And although the innocent made wise will inherit the mantle of Amfortas, he will uncover the Grail once and for all, releasing its life-giving power to flow freely without manipulation or control, and never confine it again.

I could further detail the functions of male and female archetypes as Wagner symbolizes them throughout the story, but I think I've said enough to make it clear that his sexual symbolism does not refer fundamentally to sexual behavior or morals or gender roles. It does have implications for these things, but to get hung up on them would be to miss how they function as metaphors for more primal (and _not_ gender-specific, I must add) processes in the formation of the human personality. "Parsifal" is the name this work gives to that personality, and the stages through which the various characters in the story pass constitute an allegory of the human personality's growth and development from birth (the giving of the Grail and Spear to Titurel) to maturity (the fulfillment of the sacred marrige of feminine and masculine which the Grail and Spear represent). Wagner relates this allegory with a subtlety, an economy, and a precision of poetic intuition which, as usual with him, surpassed even his conscious intentions. For he, living in the nineteenth century, could not have analyzed this opera, or any other of his works, in quite this way; his conceptual frame of reference, in a time before the birth of psychology as a discipline with a vocabulary of its own, would not have permitted that.

I want to say that the way I approach this opera, and Wagner's works in general, is not the only possible or valid approach. Wagner can be, and routinely is, viewed fruitfully from the perspectives of a number of disciplines and schools of thought. My choice of approach is partly a matter of temperament - I'm an introspective sort - and partly a matter of a desire to find a perspective that makes the most sense of the most aspects of the phenomenon in question. I've found that the paradoxical and frequently bewildering qualities of _Parsifal_ in particular - it's diverse mythical and literary sources, its use of symbols and conceptions drawn from Western and Eastern religion, its potent blend of quasi-religious ritual and sensuality, and not least its mysterious, piercingly expressive, voluptuously beautiful music - seem to me to emerge as most integrated and comprehensible from the standpoint of what I'll call "mytho-psychology." But that standpoint doesn't exclude other standpoints, just as our experience of the inner life doesn't invalidate our perceptions and valuations of the outer world. In fact, the two depend upon one another and can only make sense as a whole. I value and am interested in any thoughtful perspective on this wonderful work of art.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I read through the libretto.



Woodduck said:


> What would the Christian perspective be on the society of Grail knights, which excludes women and enjoins abstinence?


Men wholly dedicated to divine work, much like a monastery?



Woodduck said:


> How would a Christian understand Kundry, who appears to be many hundreds, if not thousands of years old, knows everything, travels all over the world, and pretends to be men's mothers in order to make them break their vows of chastity?


There's an obvious Christian precedent for it: the Wandering Jew, who mocked Jesus while the latter was on his way to crucifixion, was cursed to wander the earth until the Second Coming.

Kundry is a sorcerer. Nowhere in the libretto it is said or implied that she knows everything. She seems to have some amount of clairvoyance, a power usually ascribed to demonic or divine source. In Kundry's case probably demonic.

She is intelligent - old and experienced. She is merely using her intelligence when she comes up with the trick with which she plans to ensnare Parsifal. Perhaps you read too much into it.

Most importantly, I don't think her seductions represent sexual degradation, but rather moral corruption - changing sides, not staying loyal and dutiful but abandoning the mission for personal gain. Parsifal avoids this corruption by having keen empathy. I would say he has this empathy simply due to having lived an isolated life in the woods, so that when he witnesses Amfortas's pain, it's like Siddharta Gautama finally leaving the peace and happiness of his castle and finding old age and misery everywhere - the effect is very strong due to being so unexpected and foreign. Parsifal avoids corruption by understanding through empathy the utmost importance of serving goodness regardless of the odds, in spite of weariness, despair or any lures of personal gain. Selfish gain often means harm and destruction upon others who are basically like you - it's madness. This is what empathy means and it's what Parsifal understands and what allows him to resist temptation.

Naturally, empathy isn't enough. To hope to defeat evil, one must also be very determined. Hence Parsifal was "cursed" to travel endlessly without finding the Grail castle, but once he had shown enough determination and endurance, he found it anyway.

Of course, his victory was prophesied, which means that it was divinely preordained. God waited for one good man to be born, and then worked His magic in His chess game against Satan, guiding Parsifal to Amfortas and then Klingsor's castle. Indeed, the opera is full of coincidences, to the extent that some sort of divine orchestration is needed to explain them.

The spear isn't a phallus symbol. Jesus wasn't stabbed with a phallus, he was stabbed with a Roman spear. That this spear can now be used to heal rather than hurt is a demonstration of divine power. An object that was used to do terrible harm was transformed into an object that can be used for great good.



Woodduck said:


> And what is the Christian interpretation of the magical garden of Klingsor, where flowers seem to become women and seduce men?


Klingsor's realm is Klingsor's realm. Not everything is a symbol.



Woodduck said:


> I leave theological turf wars to those who think life depends on winning them. When people start talking about one true perspective and heresy I take my leave.


So you don't care about truth? And this makes you more enlightened? Funny.



Woodduck said:


> Understanding what things mean is, in my experience, always life-changing, and the necessary precondition of all change. That is precisely what Parsifal discovers in the garden.
> 
> Certainly _Parsifal_, the score of which sits on my piano, has changed my life, just as everything I have ever come to love and understand has changed it in ways which, after most of a lifetime, cannot even be calculated or enumerated. "Superb intellectual-musical entertainment," without which I would be a different person entirely, has virtually defined my life.


That sounds very elusive. You could just have said you're not interested in sharing.



Woodduck said:


> But perhaps that is mere self-improvement and proves only that I am "sheltered" and not "normal," "healthy," or "morally sane" enough to run for president, invent a cure for ebola, or dress up as Santa Claus and ring a bell for the Salvation Army.


If you say so.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> I used to think that too, until I realised that 'world improvement' is a futile quest for most ordinary individuals. 'Self improvement' may not sound like a comparably worthy pursuit, but it's all most of us really have.


How many people would subscribe to this theory while happily paying taxes to evil regimes and going to work so that their corrupt country keeps on functioning? These are all people trapped in Klingsor's realm. At the end of the day, they don't have enough empathy to avoid the lure of personal comfort.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> I read through the libretto.
> 
> Men wholly dedicated to divine work, much like a monastery?
> 
> ...


I agree with some of your analysis and disagree with some of it. I honestly don't see much that gets below the surface of this work. There's no harm in viewing it purely as a moral fable, though it's a peculiar one containing many ambiguities. Such an approach falls far short of how Wagner viewed this opera, and takes little account of the vast fund of ideas he inherited from his mythical and literary sources, or of the way _Parsifal_ fits into the context of Wagner's oeuvre as a whole. Without delving into these matters, we are going to miss whole dimensions of meaning in a work very rich in such dimensions. There is no single interpretation of _Parsifal_ that can encompass all possible or plausible meanings; that's the very nature of myth, which consists primarily of images, not ideologies. Trying to squeeze _Parsifal_ into a Christian frame of reference doesn't come close to making its images - or, I must add, its musical score - comprehensible. The Christian ideas are there, but Wagner was very careful to keep didacticism to a minimum, and where the work does contain explicit philosophical ideas they are as likely to be from Buddhism as from Christianity. The use of Christian images and references needs to be seen in the context of the whole range of Wagner's sources and thinking; his Christianity was itself very far from conventional, and I'm quite sure that, given your statement that there is only one true Christianity and that all others are heresies, you would not approve of Wagner's ideas on the subject.

All that being said, if you want to see _Parsifal_ as a Christian morality play, there's probably enough of that in it to give you some satisfaction. I would never try to talk you out of enjoying this unique and wonderful work in your own way, or imply that you were morally deficient for having a different point of view, which is what your original post to me did. May I quote you?

"Jungian and Freudian readings are, pardon my French, for rather sheltered people. It's not what goes on inside you that matters if you are anything like a healthy normal morally sane person."

I think it's possible to disagree with people without making unsubstantiated psychological and moral judgments. It might even be the Christian thing to do.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Woodduck*, you know about Wagner much more than I do. Are there any indications left (perhaps in his diaries, writings, from people who knew him) as to how exactly he himself interpreted Parsifal, since you have said yourself in the previous post that Wagner could not have understood it the way you do in the times before Freud and Jung?

Also you say about the spear and the Grail being pre-Christian symbols of masculinity and femininity. But there is no way they could be _pre-Christian_, since the whole legend surrounding them is Christian: the spear is the weapon that pierced Christ's side, and the Grail is the cup into which his blood was gathered, that flowed from the wound. This was pretty much the conventional interpretation of these symbols that existed until the rise of modern psychology. Again, Wagner seems to have read more into these symbols, but how much more - can we know for sure?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Woodduck*, you know about Wagner much more than I do. Are there any indications left (perhaps in his diaries, writings, from people who knew him) as to how exactly he himself interpreted Parsifal, since you have said yourself in the previous post that Wagner could not have understood it the way you do in the times before Freud and Jung?
> 
> Also you say about the spear and the Grail being pre-Christian symbols of masculinity and femininity. But there is no way they could be _pre-Christian_, since the whole legend surrounding them is Christian: the spear is the weapon that pierced Christ's side, and the Grail is the cup into which his blood was gathered, that flowed from the wound. This was pretty much the conventional interpretation of these symbols that existed until the rise of modern psychology. Again, Wagner seems to have read more into these symbols, but how much more - can we know for sure?


Let me take your second paragraph first. This will be very sketchy! The Grail as it has come down to us is supposed to be the chalice from which Christ drankat the Last Supper. But that idea of it didn't come along until the later middle ages. The story of Parsifal actually evolved from sources that go much farther back than that - all the way back to very ancient Celtic myths (of course written records only go back so far). In these diverse stories the vessel or other object which became identified with the Christian chalice was often not a chalice at all; in various stories, it might be a plate, a cauldron, or a stone with magical life-giving, strength-giving, or transforming powers. There were also weapons, such as spears or swords, with special powers. Many old pagan myths were gradually "Christianized" when Christianity spread across Europe, and the Parsifal story gathers together elements which are pagan through and through. Wagner probably didn't know much about the Celtic origins of the tale, but even the medieval versions he drew from - primarily the _Parzival_ of Wolfram von Eschenbach - retain many features of the old myths, and in _Parzival_ the Grail is a magical stone having nothing to do with Christianity, even though there are Christian references elsewhere in the story.

Wagner's version of the story is his own very stripped down version and expresses his own concerns, much as the _Ring_ creates an original story out of mythical materials. But if we want to understand what he's done, a study of his sources is invaluable and just plain fascinating! I would recommend Wolfram's _Parzival_, as well as the somewhat earlier French _Perceval_ by Chretien de Troyes. I should also point out that there have been many books written about _Parsifal_ and its sources in recent years, but I have honestly not kept up. You're a lot younger than I am, so you have much more time to look into them!

To your first question: Wagner first conceived _Parsifal_ as early as 1845, and returned to considering it all through his life. It would be fair to say that nearly everything he thought about during his lifetime had some influence on the eventual shape of the work. It's an awfully big subject, and because I haven't done much reading on Wagner in recent years I'm not sure where to direct you. But he did talk quite a bit about _Parsifal_ to Cosima and friends, and there are many references to it in his diary and letters. I know that's not very helpful!

My own musings on the opera do take Wagner's earlier works (and what he said about them) very much into account. He was fond of drawing parallels between characters in different operas, and said, for example, that Amfortas was "my Tristan of the third act at his unthinkable culmination" and that Titurel was "Wotan, half alive, waiting for the end" (or something like that). I find such remarks very tantalizing and suggestive of ways of looking at his works, individually and as a whole. Wagner certainly couldn't have used specifically Freudian or Jungian language to describe _Parsifal_, since those guys and their theories and conceptions weren't around, but certain ideas were definitely "in the air." I think that his lifelong interest in exploring ideas about sexuality and embodying them quite vividly in all his operas (except _Meistersinger_) would have made him quite receptive to psychoanalytic perspectives on his works.

As I've said, I don't offer my interpretations as the only possible ways of looking at Wagner's works. What I find wonderful is how he had the intuition to come up with myths of his own devising (based, of course, on old sources) so rich in symbolism and so powerfully suggestive as to keep us all busy finding meaning in them a century and a half later. They've certainly not grown old for me.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I agree with some of your analysis and disagree with some of it. I honestly don't see much that gets below the surface of this work.


In a work with such a logical, dramatic, colourful, and effective surface, what need is there to "get below the surface"? Any symbology you might attach to the events, objects, and characters would only serve to diminish the effect of the opera as a drama by substituting symbology in the place of the actual details of the drama as the thing of primary importance.

I have read an abridged version of Cosima's diaries, and do not recall Wagner talking about any hidden meanings of his opera. Here are some quotations that I can find now via the index:

"He tells me today he will treat the women in Klingor's castle like saplings - this has been suggested to him by the melody of his chorus, and he says he wants to present them as languishing figures, not as demons." (p. 275)

Music determining dramatic details? Doesn't seem like Wagner is more concerned with symbology than dramatic surface detail.

Wagner refers to Kundry as "the weaver of war" (p. 277) Deep symbology or an idle comment?

At one point he says there's a resemblance between Kundry and Wotan, both seeking salvation but rebelling against it too. (p. 310)

"He remarks to me that Wolzogen goes too far in calling Parsifal a reflection of the Redeemer. 'I didn't give the Redeemer a thought when I wrote it.'" (p. 329)

"Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the work is its divine simplicity, comparable to the Gospels - 'the pure fool' who dominates everything . . . As R. himself said, 'It is all so _direct_!'" (p. 352)

It is all so "direct". Case closed?

"R. told me that Kundry was his most original female character; when he had realised that the servant of the Grail was the same woman who seduced Amfortas, he said, everything fell into place, and after that, however many years might elapse, he knew how it would turn out." (p. 353)

There used to be a female Grail servant other than Kundry. It seems Wagner wanted to add some drama to the drama and combined the characters into one.

"He is pleased with the curious relevance of Parsifal - of his conception of sanctity, which makes seduction, conflicts, etc., impossible." (p. 390)

Seems like Wagner didn't intend sexual repression as a theme. The thing with Klingsor seems to have been an instance of passing characterisation.

Wagner considered Parsifal his Christian opera, and intended to also compose a Buddhist opera (Die Sieger):

"'My difficulty (...) Christianity is all noble simplicity, but in Buddhism there is so much education, and education is very inartistic'." (p. 411)

Another case-closed moment?

"We talk of the fact that in both Parsifal and Sieger, more or less the same theme (the redemption of a woman) is treated." (p. 411)

The woman being redeemed is Kundry, not the Grail.

I need to stop.

Interesting though unrelated:

"R. is pleased by the sublime and mysterious fact that he has not had to rearrange or alter a single word in Parsifal, melody and words fit throughout." (p. 336)

BTW, I'm not a Christian, but I do think a Christian reading of Parsifal is the most appropriate one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> *In a work with such a logical, dramatic, colourful, and effective surface, what need is there to "get below the surface"? Any symbology you might attach to the events, objects, and characters would only serve to diminish the effect of the opera as a drama by substituting symbology in the place of the actual details of the drama as the thing of primary importance.*
> 
> I have read an abridged version of Cosima's diaries, and do not recall Wagner talking about any hidden meanings of his opera. Here are some quotations that I can find now via the index:
> 
> ...


Your very first statement seems a fair summary of your point of view. Meaning is all "on the surface." All is what it appears to be. Don't look for implications. Nothing represents or symbolizes anything. To look below the surface of the thing is to diminish its effect and to make the interpretation of it more important than the thing itself. Am I understanding you correctly?

Needless to say I disagree with this entirely. You find Wagner entirely obvious. I don't.

I bolded a few of your remarks which struck me for one reason or another. I thought it might be worth looking beneath the surface of them. But that probably wouldn't impress you, since you're satisfied with surface appearances. I would only comment that your statement "The thing with Klingsor seems to have been an instance of passing characterization" is a howler. What is a passing characterization? One that has no meaning? Does any characterization have meaning in a work where everything is on the surface?

There are no "passing characterizations" in Wagner. His dramatic conceptions are as tight and purposeful as they could possibly be. The "thing with Klingsor" (I presume you mean his self-castration?) is as meaningful and necessary as any other dramatic choice by the author. But one can't prove that without going beneath the surface.

Neither of the "cases" you cite, by the way, is closed. And why do you speak of "cases"? I certainly don't consider any viewpoint or analysis of _Parsifal_ to be a "case." I'm not out to prove anything. As I've said in several posts, I find Wagner's works open to a variety of interpretive approaches. You want to look at the Christian aspects? Great. Someone else wants to take a feminist perspective? That's great too. Someone else wants to look at Wagner's views on institutional religion? Or his ideas about religion and art? Or the meaning of religious symbols? Fine. You'd rather not think about any of that? OK... But why object to those who like to think about it? A great many people do, you know.

Well, enough. I know you've made up your mind and that I'm talking to the wall here. Please ignore my posts and don't worry about those "sheltered" Jungians you disapprove of who are only interested in the inner lives of human beings and don't care about saving the world.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Woodduck*, thank you for directing me again to Wagner's sources. I know about Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, and I intend to get aquainted with it one of these days.

And I don't think Wagner's works will ever grow old for me either. They are an entire world of their own, and it is a great joy to explore that world.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

So many thoughts, I'm so behind, and I feel so inadequate. Thanks for all respectful postings. This is overwhelming, and I'm a little hazy but I'd like to start contributing somewhere.



Woodduck said:


> The Grail and Spear came to Titurel as gifts of life, not as tokens of sainthood or priesthood. He bestowed those roles upon himself [...] _t was a denial of nature and wholeness, represented in the sacred union of female and male which the Grail and Spear symbolically embody. It was a betrayal of the very things Titurel was supposed to guard and honor, and it created the psychic fracture, the rift in the soul out of which arose "the enemies," Klingsor and Kundry. And the Grail itself? It was confined to a reliquary and brought forth under carefully controlled conditions by order of the high priest - a perfect symbol of the attempt to control and command the vital force of life itself.
> 
> But that force cannot be commanded, only suppressed and diverted, to emerge in distorted forms. Titurel's suppression of the Feminine - the Grail - was the birth of the tortured woman Kundry, who became the uncontrolled and devouring Feminine he feared. And Klingsor, his supposed opposite, was in reality his unconfessed inner self, the seeker after power whose self-castration was only the ultimate manifestation of the rationalized "purity" Titurel imposed on his own chosen minions. Inevitably Klingsor commanded the deadly serpent-woman, Kundry, to strike at those who presumed to command the Grail itself. And, inevitably, Amfortas' presumptuous attempt to command the Masculine power of the Spear against Klingsor turned that power back on Klingsor's alter ego, Titurel, and on Titurel's annointed, himself._


_


Ebab said:



[...]Titurel "creating" Klingsor and Kundry, [...] - this is bold.

Click to expand...




SiegendesLicht said:



Titurel is as much responsible for the emergence of Klingsor as the Rhinemaidens are responsible for the emergence of the evil Alberich by not giving in to his rapacious lust, that is, not at all. Titurel did what he saw as the right thing to do. Klingsor was the one who tried to enter the brotherhood, [...]

Click to expand...




SiegendesLicht said:



I can kind of see where Chordalrock is coming from, that the antagonists in Parsifal are not really projections of one another, that they are separate entities involved in a real-world, life-and-death struggle (and Amfortas did attempt to raid Klingsor's castle!). [...]The weak, ignoble, envious, hateful waging war against the strong, noble, compassionate, beautiful, just the same way as rejected Alberich had waged war on those who dared to live in joy and love.

Click to expand...

SiegendesLicht, I think I understand your objections, and I think I need to elaborate what intrigues me about the idea of a very particular relationship between Titurel on one side, Kundry and Klingsor on the other.

In the reality of the opera, no doubt, all characters truly exist, are not imaginary or simple projections. When they take a weapon and strike, it means business. People fall down wounded or dead. The future of the brotherhood is at stake. Those are vital conflicts and yes, essentially between good and evil. And still, would it interest us so much without the details? I think not.

… I've typed the following down and deleted it a couple of times, but here it comes now: A reference to popular culture, the sci-fi movie adventure "The Empire Strikes Back". The young Luke Skywalker, an ambitious but impatient disciple of the spiritual knighthood of the Jedi, together with his wise teacher Yoda, approach a cave. Yoda informs Luke that the cave is controlled by the evil force, and that Luke must approach it. Luke asks: "What's in there?" Yoda answers: "Only what you take with you." Luke grabs for his weapon; Yoda tells him he wouldn't need it, which Luke ignores. Luke enters the cave and encounters what seems like his arch-enemy, the one responsible for the death of his closest relatives: the masked Darth Vader, who attacks him. After a short fight with their weapons, Luke prevails over his enemy, and decapitates him. The masked head falls down onto the ground, and a small explosion reveals the face: It is Luke's own. Outside the cave, Yoda sits in deep thought and doubt.

Now provided you can even remotely relate to my example, it's even an example for what the opera Parsifal does not use: direct projection. But it is an example how characters create their own enemies, based on their own traumas, fears, weaknesses.

What has this to do with Parsifal? I really wouldn't want try to re-phrase or even quote the elaborate insightful thoughts that Woodduck wrote. There is a certain connection between the Grail and a feminine principle, also between the spear and a masculine principle. If you were to try and suppress either of those principles, you'd create counter-forces somewhere. How would these counter-forces manifest? If I were to imagine Titurel's dreams (or nightmares), would they possibly manifest in the form (or de-form) of Kundry and Klingsor?

Frack, I feel inadequate. I may come back still! You all inspire me!



Chordalrock said:



In a work with such a logical, dramatic, colourful, and effective surface, what need is there to "get below the surface"?

Click to expand...

Thanks, for once, for one easy question! Every work of art is worth getting below the surface! It invites us to, craves for it! That's what we're here for, dissecting, questioning. And if we're lucky, we can even accept adverse opinions, not assume we have the other "figured" from one statement or two._


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Ebab said:


> … I've typed the following down and deleted it a couple of times, but here it comes now: A reference to popular culture, the sci-fi movie adventure "The Empire Strikes Back". The young Luke Skywalker, an ambitious but impatient disciple of the spiritual knighthood of the Jedi, together with his wise teacher Yoda, approach a cave. Yoda informs Luke that the cave is controlled by the evil force, and that Luke must approach it. Luke asks: "What's in there?" Yoda answers: "Only what you take with you." Luke grabs for his weapon; Yoda tells him he wouldn't need it, which Luke ignores. Luke enters the cave and encounters what seems like his arch-enemy, the one responsible for the death of his closest relatives: the masked Darth Vader, who attacks him. After a short fight with their weapons, Luke prevails over his enemy, and decapitates him. The masked head falls down onto the ground, and a small explosion reveals the face: It is Luke's own. Outside the cave, Yoda sits in deep thought and doubt.


I think with that paragraph you've just set the cause of Wagner appreciation back about 100 years. :lol:

I'm just kidding- each to their own- but the evidence for Wagner being a guy thing is piling up!


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> I think with that paragraph you've just set the cause of Wagner appreciation back about 100 years. :lol:
> 
> I'm just kidding- each to their own- but the evidence for Wagner being a guy thing is piling up!


Hahaha. Honestly, thanks! One thing that I've learned here: It's everybody against everybody. If you ever show a soft side, you'll be ripped apart. Like I've said, I was hesitant, but why should I have: Didn't even take half an hour to be sure!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Ebab said:


> Hahaha. Honestly, thanks! One thing that I've learned here: It's everybody against everybody. If you ever show a soft side, you'll be ripped apart. Like I've said, I was hesitant, but why should I have: Didn't even take half an hour to be sure!


Sorry Ebab. I grew up with brothers and it was wall to wall sci fi and guy stuff- aaaargh! Opera was about escape from all that. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or disrespect your 'soft side'.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ebab said:


> I need to elaborate what intrigues me about the idea of a very particular relationship between Titurel on one side, Kundry and Klingsor on the other.
> 
> In the reality of the opera, no doubt, all characters truly exist, are not imaginary or simple projections. When they take a weapon and strike, it means business. People fall down wounded or dead. The future of the brotherhood is at stake. Those are vital conflicts and yes, *essentially between good and evil.* And still, would it interest us so much without the details? I think not.
> 
> ...


This is well-observed.

One of the things we find when we look closely at Wagner's characters and situations, from _The Flying Dutchman_ on throughout his works, is that the opposition of good and evil is rarely presented in unambiguous ways. There _are_ some purely good and purely evil characters, but most of his major characters are neither moral exemplars nor pure villains lacking all justification or dignity. Think of Wotan in relation to Alberich. "Licht-Alberich," the Wanderer calls himself in _Siegfried_, acknowledging the former greed for power and glory that made him near-brother to his nemesis, "Schwarz-Alberich," whose curse on the ring contained, as a response to Wotan's trickery and theft, as much pathos as fury and threat. The two face one another in Fafner's woods with a kind of mutual respect.

In _Parsifal_, Titurel and Amfortas, in contrast to Wotan and Alberich, never face each other at all after the former hurls the latter into outer darkness for his desperate act of self-mutilation. But this demonstration of Titurel's apparent righteousness does not represent, much less demonstrate, a superior power; on the contrary, Titurel's act confers the greater power on _him_. And just as in the _Ring_ the curse of Alberich is not an external cause of Wotan's downfall but is fundamentally a consequence of Wotan's own behavior by which the god assures his own end, so the empowering self-mutilation of Klingsor may be seen, not as an external cause of the collapse of the Grail community, but fundamentally as a consequence of Titurel's assumption of a presumptuous power and a refusal to see that presumption reflected back to him, purified of pretensions to righteousness, in Klingsor's kindred, yet bolder, attempt. "Licht-Klingsor", in his self-assured sanctity, cannot acknowledge "Schwarz-Klingsor."

But it is the unacknowledged in ourselves that wields the greatest power, and our "sanctity" is no defense against it.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

From what I've read here and being that only two ladies said they own Ring cycles, I think Wagner is a guy thing.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*Woodduck*, may I ask what are your favorite scenes/passages in Parsifal and if you have any that particularly stand out to you? I just think that our favorite ones will be very different.


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## JDWotan (Nov 15, 2014)

They all like the Bridal Chorus


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

JDWotan said:


> They all like the Bridal Chorus


I like it when it's in its place in the opera. Apart from that, no. Two things I will never get played at my wedding are the Bridal Chorus and that Mendelsson piece. And it does not even make sense because the chorus is always played when the couple is walking down the aisle to the altar whereas in the opera it is sung when Lohengrin and Elsa are led to their newlyweds' bedroom.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Awwwwww, I love those pieces..


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Awwwwww, I love those pieces..


I like the music before the bridal chorus more.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I like it when it's in its place in the opera. Apart from that, no. Two things I will never get played at my wedding are the Bridal Chorus and that Mendelsson piece. And it does not even make sense because the chorus is always played when the couple is walking down the aisle to the altar whereas in the opera it is sung when Lohengrin and Elsa are led to their newlyweds' bedroom.


I just think it's odd that anyone would want to get married to music from an opera in which the bride freaks out so completely on their first night that the groom takes off in a boat and leaves her lying dead on shore.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I think they're beautiful and fit very well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Woodduck*, may I ask what are your favorite scenes/passages in Parsifal and if you have any that particularly stand out to you? I just think that our favorite ones will be very different.


So many! Eine schwere Frage!

Act 1: The prelude; Amfortas' little aria "Nach wilder Schmerzensnacht"; Gurnemanz's outburst "O wundenwundervoller heiliger Speer!"; his "ihm neigten sich in heilig ernster Nacht"; the "transformation music" from "Vom Bade kehrt der Koenig heim" to the beginning of the temple scene; Amfortas' "Wehvolles Erbe"; the boys' chorus at "Wein und Brod."

Act 2: The orchestral passage in which Kundry rises to Klingsor's invocation; the development of Parsifal's theme as Klingsor describes his arrival; the flower maidens' "waltz"; the entrance of Kundry calling his name and most of the rest of the act.

Act 3: My goodness, every last magical note of it. If there were a world to come, this would be the door to it. But passages that really get to me are Gurnemanz's "O Gnade! Hoechstes Heil" and "O, Herr! War es ein Fluch"; the "Charfreitagszauber"; the agonizing transformation music; and the healing of Amfortas through to the end. I find it hard to return to earth after that!

What parts stand out for you?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

The prelude to Act I. It's a journey to heaven and back in 12 minutes.
Act I: "Titurel, der fromme Held" and from "Vom Bade kehrt der König heim..." onwards, the entire scene in the castle especially Amfortas's pain-filled aria.
Act II: "Amfortas! Die Wunde!", especially the moment when the theme of the Grail returns as Parsifal himself returns in his memories to the scene in the castle and the finale as the castle comes crashing down.
Act III: starting with "Im düsteren Waffenschmucke..." it is all magical. Hell, it is 5.43 in the morning here, and I am still listening.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I just think it's odd that anyone would want to get married to music from an opera in which the bride freaks out so completely on their first night that the groom takes off in a boat and leaves her lying dead on shore.


Me too.
This is one of the cases were music from operas begins to live its own life outside the opera and there is nothing to do than to accept it. I am happy that people can hear Wagner´s music in some way. Most people don´t know the story in Lohengrin and they don´t know the bridal chorus comes from Lohengrin. It is just Wagner´s wedding march and nothing else.


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## Speranza (Nov 22, 2014)

I like Wagner and I am a girl my Dad really dislikes it and my uncle loves it.

I am sure this in no way helps.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

The guys have it..........


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

We just want you to think that you do


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I think that both ladies and men appreciate Wagner... it's only a guy thing if people think that but it's an illusion. Another cultural phenomenon that people tend to be mistaken is whether or not guys like Game of Thrones of LOTR but I see both men and women appreciate both equally as well.

Wagner actually appeals to women due to his rather poetic sensibility... Unlike Puccini who is a misogynist.


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