# Kundry as a Muslim woman?



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

A photograph has surfaced of the rehearsal for Parsifal at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires that shows Kundry appearing in act 1 wearing a Muslim-like veil. The director is Marcelo Lombardero, I wonder exactly what statement he is trying to make and what the rationale is. What do you make of it? Do you think that it is a legitimate approach to the opera?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Kundry wearing a veil does not necessarily mean the character is going to be presented as a Muslim. She appears in Act 1 having just returned from the Arabian peninsula with medicine for Amfortas. It is reasonable to presume she was required to wear it while there and/or on her journey back, which may have also been through Muslim-controlled lands if she traveled back via North Africa, and even Spain.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Kundry says she has brought balsam from Arabia to ease Amfortas' pain.

"Aha! She must really be Arab."

In act 2, Klingsor, invoking her mythic roots, says "You were Herodias" (among other names).

"Aha! She must really be Jewish."

In act 3 she washes Parsifal's feet and dries them with her hair.

"Aha! She must really be Mary Magdalen, and... OMG, that means Parsifal must really be _Jesus!_"

Welcome back to the world of regietheater.

The last person we consult about what Wagner's operas mean is Wagner.

_[Woodduck emits a deep groan, collapses into his La-z-boy recliner, lets out a piteous sigh, closes his eyes, and imagines that he has died and that Wagner is welcoming him into Opera Heaven and saying "It will be all right from now on."]_


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Kundry says she has brought balsam from Arabia to ease Amfortas' pain.
> 
> "Aha! She must really be Arab."
> 
> ...


Remember the old Playboy cartoon that showed Wagner sitting on the floor of a jail cell covering his ears in pain while a grinning Mephistopholes puts an album on the record player while saying, "The latest rock album, Herr Wagner!"


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> _[Woodduck emits a deep groan, collapses into his La-z-boy recliner, lets out a piteous sigh, closes his eyes, and imagines that he has died and that Wagner is welcoming him into Opera Heaven and saying "It will be all right from now on."]_


Amfortas' pain is as nothing compared to that of the true Wagnerian when faced with more regietheater.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Kundry wearing a veil does not necessarily mean the character is going to be presented as a Muslim. She appears in Act 1 having just returned from the Arabian peninsula with medicine for Amfortas. It is reasonable to presume she was required to wear it while there and/or on her journey back, which may have also been through Muslim-controlled lands if she traveled back via North Africa, and even Spain.


This strikes me as a perfectly reasonable, text-based explanation.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

On a serious note, the Arabian connection in _Parsifal_ tends to be overlooked nowadays (along with a lot of other things). The opera takes place in a mythical Moorish Spain, so that Kundry's excursion to "Arabia" doesn't make her quite the world traveler one might suppose. Wagner was inspired in his concept of the temple of the Grail by the cathedral of Siena, a church of rich Byzantine design after which the original stage set was patterned. Kundry's dress for act 2 was conceived as "a light, fantastic, veil-like robe of Arabian style." The music does not attempt any conspicuous "Orientalism" of the sort we find in Verdi's _Aida_ or Saint-Saens' _Samson et Dalila_, but there are subtle tinges of Arabian modalism in the motif of Kundry's enchantment and some sensuous, quasi-Arabian melismas in the waltz of the flower maidens.

In the 19th century, the Middle East was a land of mystery and romance, its art and culture were felt as quite exotic and magical, and Arabian motifs were popular among visual artists, writers, and composers (think Sheherezade, The Arabian Nights, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)). This element would presumably have been more bewitching to audiences then than it would be now, but it would be interesting to see a modern production of _Parsifal_ that acknowledged its presence in Wagner's original conception.

Dressing Kundry in a burka was not a part of that conception, however! We're talking mythology here, not travel in the real world. The idea that this mysterious figure would have donned traditional Arabic garb for a jaunt to the Middle East and would have worn her lovely blue robes on horseback back to the mythical land of the Grail ("How d'ya like my outfit, Amfortas baby? It's all the rage in Bagdad! Oh, and here's your Bengay!") is absurd. Kundry, in act one, is described by the esquires as appearing offstage on a "staggering" mare (the rhythm of galloping is in the orchestra) and as being dressed in "wild garb, her skirts tucked up by a snakeskin girdle with long hanging cords; her black hair is loose and dishevelled, her complexion deep ruddy-brown, her eyes dark and piercing, sometimes flashing widly, more often lifeless and staring." I guess we've all had tiring vacations, but it's pretty clear that Wagner is telling us something more complex about this enigmatic, possessed character who wanders over the earth in search of salvation.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Kundry says she has brought balsam from Arabia to ease Amfortas' pain.
> 
> "Aha! She must really be Arab."
> 
> ...


I think it makes sense that this structure was part of Wagner's design, at least the faint suggestions. Which is to say "Parsifal == Jesus" is going too far, but there is an association there. Religion and religious orders are a big part of the opera, far beyond these minor points.

I think it could be reasonable to bring this out/refer to it with costuming choices for Kundry. It does not have to mean she is of those religions; related to what I noted above it has not been unreasonable for a non-Muslim to wear a veil in a Muslim-ruled land.

It's also worth noting that the conversation about Kundry seems to only consider the Herodias connection, taking that as literal truth meaning she's Jewish.

Though of course we have no idea what is actually going on in this production. Does anyone have familiarity with other productions by Lombardero?



Woodduck said:


> _[Woodduck emits a deep groan, collapses into his La-z-boy recliner, lets out a piteous sigh, closes his eyes, and imagines that he has died and that Wagner is welcoming him into Opera Heaven and saying "It will be all right from now on."]_


In my production of this scene I think I shall replace the recliner with either a old claw bathtub or merely the ground, possibly covered in gravel. For the latter "clos[ing] his eyes" would be transformed into putting on large sunglasses. I'm not sure how I shall represent Opera Heaven; I think it depends if I can get more glitter or animal carcasses.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Triplets said:


> Remember the old Playboy cartoon that showed Wagner sitting on the floor of a jail cell covering his ears in pain while a grinning Mephistopholes puts an album on the record player while saying, "The latest rock album, Herr Wagner!"


to think, some people pay for it, pack stadiums, buy records etc.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

She is not the only woman in opera that have been turned muslim also Aida have been made into a muslim woman in Munich:


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Forgive my ignorance, but is there any particular reason why she shouldn't be a Muslim? There aren't many other options for "heathen" in medieval Spain, are there?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Kundry says she has brought balsam from Arabia to ease Amfortas' pain.
> 
> "Aha! She must really be Arab."
> 
> ...


This post is pure gold!


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Nereffid said:


> Forgive my ignorance, but is there any particular reason why she shouldn't be a Muslim? There aren't many other options for "heathen" in medieval Spain, are there?


More importantly a veil and other head coverings are far older than islam. Particularly in hot dusty environments which are harmful to hair and skin and particularly amongst women whose veiling and seclusion are a big part of cultures, not just arab.

Of course this is almost certainly done to yank the chain of tru wagnerites™ which is no bad thing either.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

quack said:


> More importantly a veil and other head coverings are far older than islam. Particularly in hot dusty environments which are harmful to hair and skin and particularly amongst women whose veiling and seclusion are a big part of cultures, not just arab.


Well yes, I did also wonder how easy it is to accurately identify someone's religion based solely on what they're wearing on their head.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Parsifal takes place in northern Spain , I believe in an area which was not really under Moorish domination at the time , close to the border of what would now be France in what is now Catalonia .


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Folks...(ahem)...Kundry is not a real person. Wagner invented her, and he gives us many indications of her nature and reasons for her existence in this fantastic story which he created. Trying to root that story and its characters in literal reality and debate what people of some historical time and place would have worn, what town they were from, or what their religious affiliation might have been, does not help us understand this story or this character, which as given are already complex and suggestive enough to have kept people arguing since 1882.

Over the course of his career as a musical dramatist, Wagner showed a fine instinct for stripping his material, drawn from traditional myth and legend, down to essentials, retaining only characters, actions and objects that conveyed the inner - the emotional, psychological, spiritual - meaning of his stories. If you've ever read the Tristan and Parsifal stories in their medieval literary versions, you know how rambling and full of characters and events they are, and how magical occurences and literal reality are scrambled together. Wagner, in order to find what he felt were the deepest meanings embedded in these lengthy tales and present them in a form suitable for musical expression, took a sharp scalpel to the old texts and pared them down to a few essential characters and incidents, each of which was filled with meaning and shaped for maximum impact. That dramatic method was never more cannily employed than in _Parsifal,_ in which every character, event, object, and setting Wagner asks for is essential and weighted with symbolic meaning. To take anything in such a carefully conceived allegory literally, or try to add back in literal references from outside its symbolic world, is to oppose Wagner's fundamental artistic method and to risk at least irrelevance and at most absurdity.

I suppose debating the fashion choices of reincarnated medieval Muslim femme fatales with multiple personality disorder is a fun topic for a party where everyone is getting a little mellow. Actually, I wish the conversation at parties were that interesting. I might start going to parties.


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## anmhe (Feb 10, 2015)

I'm OK with it. Kundry has been reincarnated so many times, why shouldn't she be an Arab in one of her many lives? I also like the idea of her garb being necessary because of her recent Arabian journey.

But let's not fall into the trap of putting a work of fantasy into actual history, or we'll be arguing over Vandals, Moors, religion and all sorts of things that can never end in anything but this thread getting locked.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I find Kundry blinking well baffling. Is she good? Evil? A witch? Cursed? Schizophrenic (which is where I'm leaning)?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

gardibolt said:


> I find Kundry blinking well baffling. Is she good? Evil? A witch? Cursed? Schizophrenic (which is where I'm leaning)?


How about all of the above, and more? :lol:

I think Leonie Rysanek said that Kundry is Everywoman. It does seem to me that Kundry represents all the things that men view women as, and turn women into, when they view women only in terms of their own needs, desires, and fears. Kundry is not a woman, but a fantasy of woman as projected by man: a conflicted amalgam of mother, lover, nurturer, and slave. Her torment is a portrait of the psychological consequences of men's dominance and abuse of women, and I think it's an unsparing portrait amazing for its time.

_Parsifal_ is a work written from a male point of view, and Titurel's anti-female world is the key to the basic crisis which must be resolved. In this respect, Parsifal's job is to replace that view with one that accepts the feminine on its own terms: to rescue masculinity (the Spear) from the false role given it by Amfortas' overweening ego and bring it back into true intimacy with femininity (the Grail), and thus to allow the distorted fantasy of woman (Kundry) to die.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> How about all of the above, and more? :lol:
> 
> I think Leonie Rysanek said that Kundry is Everywoman. It does seem to me that Kundry represents all the things that men view women as, and turn women into, when they view women only in terms of their own needs, desires, and fears. Kundry is not a woman, but a fantasy of woman as projected by man: a conflicted amalgam of mother, lover, nurturer, and slave. Her torment is a portrait of the psychological consequences of men's dominance and abuse of women, and I think it's an unsparing portrait amazing for its time.
> 
> _Parsifal_ is a work written from a male point of view, and Titurel's anti-female world is the key to the basic crisis which must be resolved. In this respect, Parsifal's job is to replace that view with one that accepts the feminine on its own terms: to rescue masculinity (the Spear) from the false role given it by Amfortas' overweening ego and bring it back into true intimacy with femininity (the Grail), and thus to allow the distorted fantasy of woman (Kundry) to die.


If that was indeed Wagner's intent, then it would be amazing even for this time, even given all the changes that have happened in the intervening decades.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> If that was indeed Wagner's intent, then it would be amazing even for this time, even given all the changes that have happened in the intervening decades.


What amazes me - about this opera and Wagner's works in general - is the power of Wagner's subconscious to hit upon insights which were not, or were barely, a part of the public dialogue in his day. I don't believe that he ever formulated, or at least wrote about, his treatment of Kundry in just the way I have, but his artistic instincts were very sure and enabled him to cut to the heart of characters and situations, and to perceive meanings beneath the surface of the mythical fantasies which are his stories.

I think it was the question of why Kundry dies in the end that made me speculate on what it was about her that required the death of the only female character in the opera. _Parsifal_ seems, superficially, to be a strange mix of sex and religion, and on that level has been taken to be misogynist and even homoerotic. But on a symbolic, mythical and archetypal level it deals with broad conceptions of masculine and feminine as elements of the human personality, viewed from the perspective of the male, who must outgrow his perception of woman as mother (Kundry posing as mother to seduce the man into remaining immature), accept the feminine in himself (Titurel cannot do this, which explains why Kundry can tempt and destroy his knights), and so bring the masculine and feminine (Spear and Grail) together in harmony. On this symbolic level the work is very precisely constructed, so much so that once you "get" it it no longer seems obscure, but simply amazing.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I hadn't thought of the spear and the grail as purely Freudian constructs, but there they are in all their pre-Freudian glory. Nice insight, Mr Duck.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

gardibolt said:


> I hadn't thought of the spear and the grail as purely Freudian constructs, but there they are in all their pre-Freudian glory. Nice insight, Mr Duck.


The opera is stunningly pre-Freudian. The Oedipal situation in act 2 ought to give men the creeps, and the music of Kundry's sweetly cunning seduction (your mother's kiss!) is a most unsettling blend of the warmly maternal and the darkly insinuating. I remember how disturbing I found this strange music when I was first getting to know the opera in my late teen years, right around the age of Parsifal himself. I felt somehow unclean and endangered, even with no real understanding of the issues!

Wagner said that his works could only be understood through their music, and the music (along with the libretto) here makes clear that the sin which Parsifal must avoid is not sex but psychological regression: yielding to the temptation of infantile irresponsibility and mindless bliss. Amfortas, true son of Titurel, who could not deal with the feminine in himself (Wagner's implied reinterpretation of the vow of chastity), failed the test, and so his use of his male energy (the Spear) to defeat the lure of woman turned back on him as a wound from the very Spear he thought he could use as a weapon - a wound which could only be healed by one who could resist the lure of the Devouring Mother and claim true manhood. Parsifal succeeds where Titurel's son and knights have failed, resists the temptress, and thus acquires the power of responsible masculinity, symbolized by the reclaimed Spear which he knows he must not use for aggressive purposes and keeps always by his side.

The Spear, as Parsifal tells us in the final scene, glows with "holy blood, yearning for that kindred fount which flows and wells within the Grail." The Grail is the Mother Goddess, the matrix and fountain of life, and the holy blood within it is the wine of life. But when that fluid flows from the Spear it can also be identified with semen, and the yearning of the Spear for the Grail is the desire of the Holy Bridegroom for his spouse, the anticipation of the Sacred Marriage of Male and Female, the unification of the fractured soul. When the Grail and Spear find fulfillment in each other, neither Titurel's anti-feminine cult of chastity nor its tortured caricature of femininity, Kundry, has reality any longer, and this is symbolized by their deaths.

All of this symbolic suggestiveness goes beyond Freud, reaching forward to Jung's mythological studies and theories of archetypes, and to the probings into mythology of the 20th century. That Wagner was conceiving of this in the mid-19th century, pulling it out of his creative unconscious when nothing like it had been thought or done, and then setting it to some of the most innovative and sublime music ever conceived, is really just incomprehensible to me.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

> The Spear, as Parsifal tells us in the final scene, glows with "holy blood, yearning for that kindred fount which flows and wells within the Grail." The Grail is the Mother Goddess, the matrix and fountain of life, and the holy blood within it is the wine of life. But when that fluid flows from the Spear it can also be identified with semen, and the yearning of the Spear for the Grail is the desire of the Holy Bridegroom for his spouse, the anticipation of the Sacred Marriage of Male and Female, the unification of the fractured soul. When the Grail and Spear find fulfillment in each other, neither Titurel's anti-feminine cult of chastity nor its tortured caricature of femininity, Kundry, has reality any longer, and this is symbolized by their deaths.


The new MET Parsifal production graphically supports these symbolic observations by Duck, this scence where Parsifal pushes the spear into the grail makes sense in the symbolic male/female context Duck lays out................Kundry (female) holding the grail

Wait why does the holy temple of Montsalvat look like a lunar landscape? (don't ask, heh heh)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> The new MET Parsifal production graphically supports these symbolic observations by Duck, this scence where Parsifal pushes the spear into the grail makes sense in the symbolic male/female context Duck lays out................Kundry (female) holding the grail


That's Kundry holding the Grail, isn't it? She doesn't die in this version, if I'm not mistaken. I see other women present too. I wonder who they are, and I seem to recall that there are women about in the first act as well. I would hope that if they're present they are at least shown as distinctly subordinate to the men. Otherwise the point that Titurel's order (or cult) is anti-feminine isn't made, and Kundry loses her power as forbidden fruit. Personally, I think Wagner knew what he was doing in making Kundry the only woman in the cast. Maybe someone here knows this production well and can explain the rationale for the change.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

^^^^ In further support of the male/female symbolism there are two separate groups of all men and all women spaced apart, but as the grail ceremony above is performed they intermingle and become a single mixed congregation......

Also when separate women group first appear they have veiled faces and as Amfortas wound is healed by holy spear they raise their veil to reveal faces, the enlightenment of Amfortas

Shortly after the spear enters the grail Kundry gazes up in raptous glory to the heavens as the sky blazes in colors she falls back in the arms of Gurnemanz and dies in peaceful bliss........


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

gardibolt said:


> I find Kundry blinking well baffling. Is she good? Evil? A witch? Cursed? Schizophrenic (which is where I'm leaning)?


Menopausal perhaps?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> ^^^^ In further support of the male/female symbolism there are two separate groups of all men and all women spaced apart, but as the grail ceremony above is performed they intermingle and become a single mixed congregation......
> 
> Also when separate women group first appear they have veiled faces and as Amfortas wound is healed by holy spear they raise their veil to reveal faces, the enlightenment of Amfortas
> 
> Shortly after the spear enters the grail Kundry gazes up in raptous glory to the heavens as the sky blazes in colors she falls back in the arms of Gurnemanz and dies in peaceful bliss........


It sounds as if the director accepts Wagner's basic premise - that the order of the Grail is oppressive to women and the feminine - but just expresses it differently, perhaps considering this more sympathetic for people nowadays, more familiar from everyday life (the veiling of women reminiscent of repressive cultures), and a more direct statement not so dependent on mythic symbols with which people may be unfamiliar. Having women around may, however, obscure the vow of chastity, a symbol which is given its sharpest impact by Klingsor's self-castration. Klingsor represents Titurel's hyper-masculine ego-power in raw form, exactly as Alberich represents Wotan's (a fascinating parallel), and is, in Jungian terms, Titurel's "shadow," who must be cast out for embodying a truth Titurel obscures to himself behind pride in his holiness.

In some productions Kundry lives on at the end. I suppose that could be justified as making the opera look superficially less misogynist, but like the presence of women in the Grail's domain it removes some of the mythic quality from the tale. Of course many things are done to this work now that reinterpret it even more radically.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

> Having women around may, however, obscure the vow of chastity, a symbol which is given its sharpest impact by Klingsor's self-castration. Klingsor represents Titurel's hyper-masculine ego-power in raw form, exactly as Alberich represents Wotan's (a fascinating parallel), and is, in Jungian terms, Titurel's "shadow," who must be cast out for embodying a truth Titurel obscures to himself behind pride in his holiness.


I should mention the group of women only appear at final grail ceremony, they do show only men at Montsalvat in other scences, so the chasity aspect is intact until the enlightenment of final ceremony


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Once the curtain came up at the start of the opera the women were around but not part of the grail society or in any contact with the knights. One reason I like this is that Kundry being the only woman in the lead cast never stuck out to me as remarkable, though now that I think about it all of Wagner's other mature operas have a second woman in the cast even if they are a minor character (and the Ring operas have more).










The stage represents/is Amfortas, in a very Fisher King move. The trench in the picture above is/represents the wound, and at the end of Act 1 Parsifal peers down in. Act 2 - with the famous pool of blood - takes place inside the wound, at least metaphorically as beyond the blood the stage is not made up to look like the inside of a person in any photo-realistic way.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

^^^^ Good point MM, that rift/trench is very prominent especially with fewer people on stage......I like the concept that it represents the wound of Amfortas (and his isolation and shame)

The changing sky colors and cloud movements used effectively to convey moods and emotional impact of stage scences


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Once the curtain came up at the start of the opera the women were around but not part of the grail society or in any contact with the knights. One reason I like this is that Kundry being the only woman in the lead cast never stuck out to me as remarkable, though now that I think about it all of Wagner's other mature operas have a second woman in the cast even if they are a minor character (and the Ring operas have more).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I wonder if the symbolism in this production can be made sense of without program notes. The dry, cracked earth does convey a sense of the bleakness of the Grail knights' outlook, and relates Wagner's version of the story to the Fisher King myth (although Wagner himself seemed not to care to bring that up). But how do we know what that trench means? It appears to separate the men from the women in this scene, but how do we know that it relates to Amfortas' wound, or that it means anything beyond an element of set design to make the landscape less monotonous? I do also wonder why the land should appear so bleak at the very beginning of the opera, when the spirit of the Order has so much farther to sink before the end.

Maybe the director himself felt insecure about the symbolism of the trench, since he tried to find another way of representing Amfortas' wound in act 2. But how do we know that the pool of blood that everyone's wading through represents the wound? When I see a bunch of scantily clad women, and then a seduction by a woman posing as a mother figure, taking place in a pool of blood, I tend to think it intends some female symbolism: menstrual blood, or the blood inside the womb. Wagner's libretto mentions blood fairly frequently, with different identifications: the sacred blood of Christ shed in pity for mankind, the life-giving blood which glows in the Grail, the lifeblood draining from Amfortas' wound. It would seem odd to flood Klingsor's garden of deception with blood - the one place where the knights of the Grail are lulled into forgetting these important concepts - unless it was meant to represent the womb of the Devouring Mother. When I first saw a clip from this scene, that's exactly how it impressed me, and based on that impression I thought it was serious, and unintentionally humorous, overkill. But I think it's overkill no matter how we interpret it. Doesn't Parsifal staggering across the stage, holding his side in agony, and screaming "Amfortas! Die Wunde!" to some of the most excruciating music ever written, get the point across? Can we really not trust the composer, the conductor, and the singers? Surely a spot of red light on things would serve as visual reinforcement without throwing raspberry Jello in our faces?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> The opera is stunningly pre-Freudian. The Oedipal situation in act 2 ought to give men the creeps, and the music of Kundry's sweetly cunning seduction (your mother's kiss!) is a most unsettling blend of the warmly maternal and the darkly insinuating. I remember how disturbing I found this strange music when I was first getting to know the opera in my late teen years, right around the age of Parsifal himself. I felt somehow unclean and endangered, even with no real understanding of the issues!
> 
> Wagner said that his works could only be understood through their music, and the music (along with the libretto) here makes clear that the sin which Parsifal must avoid is not sex but psychological regression: yielding to the temptation of infantile irresponsibility and mindless bliss. Amfortas, true son of Titurel, who could not deal with the feminine in himself (Wagner's implied reinterpretation of the vow of chastity), failed the test, and so his use of his male energy (the Spear) to defeat the lure of woman turned back on him as a wound from the very Spear he thought he could use as a weapon - a wound which could only be healed by one who could resist the lure of the Devouring Mother and claim true manhood. Parsifal succeeds where Titurel's son and knights have failed, resists the temptress, and thus acquires the power of responsible masculinity, symbolized by the reclaimed Spear which he knows he must not use for aggressive purposes and keeps always by his side.
> 
> ...


Bravo, monsieur, bravo! I've Jung's commentary on the book of Job rumbling through my head as I read these thoughts of yours.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I wonder if the symbolism in this production can be made sense of without program notes. The dry, cracked earth does convey a sense of the bleakness of the Grail knights' outlook, and relates Wagner's version of the story to the Fisher King myth (although Wagner himself seemed not to care to bring that up). But how do we know what that trench means? It appears to separate the men from the women in this scene, but how do we know that it relates to Amfortas' wound, or that it means anything beyond an element of set design to make the landscape less monotonous? I do also wonder why the land should appear so bleak at the very beginning of the opera, when the spirit of the Order has so much farther to sink before the end.


I at this time have cannot say for certain that I understand everything Girard was after in this production, but that doesn't stop it from being effective. I would say the same thing for _Parsifal_ as an opera; I would not be interested in Wagner if I needed everything to be entirely clear at first encounter, or without having encountered it, for that matter.

The trench runs blood, constantly, and it begins to split apart as Parsifal peers into the trench. I'm not sure if he starts to climb inside or not. But again, it works on several levels, and could be seen as absurd if taken too far.









Also I think Wagner version of the story is inextricably tied to the Fisher King myth by his use of the Parsifal story. If anything I'd say Wagner concentrates more on the Fisher King motifs than Wolfram von Eschenbach did. Wagner certainly had different concerns than his medieval sources but he included the Wounded King, the Fisher King, the lance, the grail; these are the heart of the Fisher King myth.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I at this time have cannot say for certain that I understand everything Girard was after in this production, but that doesn't stop it from being effective. I would say the same thing for _Parsifal_ as an opera; I would not be interested in Wagner if I needed everything to be entirely clear at first encounter, or without having encountered it, for that matter.
> 
> The trench runs blood, constantly, and it begins to split apart as Parsifal peers into the trench. I'm not sure if he starts to climb inside or not. But again, it works on several levels, and could be seen as absurd if taken too far.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that elaboration. So there's even more red glop on the stage than I realized! I have to think that Girard's use of blood symbolism is a misrepresentation of its meaning in the opera: Wagner's references to blood in his libretto refer to its mythic redemptive and life-giving properties, as embodied in the Eucharistic ritual of the Grail, while Girard's gore-soaked symbolism appears to identify it, not with any life-force, but with the painful consequences and even the seductiveness of evil-doing. Maybe that's a conception he thinks we sophisticated modern skeptics will understand better.

Well, I gather many people have found the overall production moving on its own terms, even if those terms aren't always Wagner's. I'll look forward to seeing it.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I finally was able to watch video of this production from Teatro Colón.

Unsurprisingly, this bit of controversy (thanks NL) amounted to nothing. In the production Kundry wore a hood over her head, but the same is true of all of the knights and squires. She did not have a veil over her face during the opera. That was either something just for that photograph, or something that was planned by dropped before the premiere.

Lombardero's staging was quite interesting, with some approaches similar to Uwe Eric Laufenberg's Bayreuth production that opened 8 months later. (I want to say that the Tcherniakov production seen at Deutsche Oper Berlin (and on DVD) is in a similar manner as well, but I have not seen enough of it).

The land of the knights is a contemporary and war-ravaged. The grail ceremony is striking; there is no cup and instead Amfortas is strung up arms outstretched as a brilliant warm light shines from above. In the third act we have Titurel's decayed corpse (it is dark so it doesn't overwhelm), and when Parsifal arrives with the spear he drives it through the ribs. Parsifal eventually goes onto the scaffolding where Amfortas was suspended as the grail but the light comes and he is not himself suspended; that tortured ritual is complete.

Klingsor's world is clean and technological; he wears a slick suit and his flower maidens appear almost as automatons. And while Kundry comes on and seduces Parsifal, after they kiss she steps back and watches as he reacts, as if studying him or hoping for a way out.

The sound was not ideal, but alas. Christopher Ventris was compelling as Parsifal; his tone reminded me of Klaus Florian Vogt, especially as he took on the position of redeemer. Ryan McKinney was Amfortas, as he was at Bayreuth last year. He came off forceful and dark; this was not a powerless king. Gurnemanz was Stephen Milling; he carried the role and there were occasionally rich details, but he wasn't consistently compelling.

Alejo Pérez conducted and the orchestra sounded good, but I'm not sure everything quite came together.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I got curious about yet another "modernized" Parsifal and watched the Teatro Colon production on YouTube. It's in segments, it's poorly shot, and bits are cut out between segments (including, incredibly, Kundry's kiss!), but I could get a fair idea of it. I found it cold and grim, prosaically and even amateurishly directed and acted, without psychologcal insight or spiritual richness, just adequate musically, and thoroughly unmoving.

Lombardero's main idea, as I see it, seems to be that in this gray world, ruined by war, humans have nothing to hold onto but empty religious tradition, and when their hoped for savior finally arrives he takes even that away from them. There is no holy grail, and even the sacred spear (the origin of which we can only speculate on in this demythologized version) seems good for nothing except to impale the already dead and decomposing Titurel, which I take to be Lombardino's heavy-handed way of telling us that, yes, Titurel's holy faith is indeed very dead. The assembled knights, who for some reason are not outraged by the desecration of their founder's corpse, do have their attention drawn to some sort of light at the end: amusingly, they all tap each other on the shoulder and one by one turn to where the light originates at the back of the auditorium, and then they just turn back around and shuffle slowly offstage as Parsifal stands alone in the light like Howard Roark atop his skyscraper. "Redemption to the redeemer"? Who knows? Like so many modern productions of Wagner, this one pays minimal attention to his text.

I can recommend this only to _Parsifal_ completists like my hapless self. It may leave you, as it did me, meditating on how much greater Wagner is than those who think they can outsmart him.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

"Wer ist der Gral?" 

I guess in this production that question was more insightful that it is normally considered. At first glance this seems out of place, but Parsifal certainly doesn't understand; he is sincerely asking. He isn't an idiot; he is ignorant. It makes sense that he is able to stumble upon truths that those from within the system do not comprehend.

Gurnemanz laughs; the question seems silly to him but that's the point. Wise though he is he does not understand, which is why he cannot change the situation. After the Gurnemanz dismisses Parsifal: "Du bist doch eben nur ein Tor!"

Though with the grail ceremony as seen in this production it should be clear for everyone. Who is the Grail? The Grail is Amfortas. The Grail is Titurel. The Grail is us. And eventually Parsifal understands; the spear joins up with the old grail, and Parsifal himself stands in as the grail in the final ceremony, taking Amfortas's place (without the hooks, though).

I often find staging the subtext to be interesting, and I certainly found this version compelling. But such an approach doesn't always work with the drama though Parsifal's drama is interior, psychological, so literal stage action seems beside the point.

Here I guess it forces the question, why couldn't Gurnemanz and the knights help effect change? Why were they so blind, so ineffectual? Or, perhaps, it makes clear to us that only maintenance comes from within a system; significant change comes from outside (at least outside approaches/ways of thinking).

I found a lot to like in the production, though it didn't quite catch fire for me either. I think in person, or with better picture and sound (I saw it complete, though probably from the same source as what is on YouTube) and/or perhaps a better orchestra it would be thoroughly satisfying.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Parsifal is a blasphemous variation on Christianity. An "innocent fool" becoming "The Savior"? Gimme a break!!

To me THAT is much more of a problem than Kundry being portrayed as a Muslim woman.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

From reviews (awkward Google translations tidied up a bit) of Lombardero's Parsifal:

_"The regie team locates the Grail society in a completely destroyed village called Epecuen in the province of Buenos Aires, which was completely destroyed by a large lagoon as a result of heavy rainfall. You can see an eschatological atmosphere with elements of destruction, which give the impression of a great disaster. The Grail Knights guarded their retreat with machine guns and showed themselves extremely militant in the choruses. Lombardero avoids every religious element of the work; one sees only a small altar in a typical Argentine barbecue grille...with its bull-headed skeletons and pseudo-sacred syncretistic associations... One could take this picture as a metaphor for all the crimes committed in the name of religion in history." 
_
_"He deliberately resolved to remove from the work all references to religiosity, guilt, sin, mysticism, purification, conversion, salvation, purity as an important gift, or sex as sin, and to tell it as a path from the possession of light by a small group to the democratization of that energy."_

_"Here, of course, there is no Grail. Instead, Amfortas... is bleeding in the position of the Crucified, an expression of inhuman suffering. Titurel...is shown as a general [in uniform] projected on a screen."_

Lombardero himself says (again in awkward translation):

_"There are things that no longer have meaning, such as the value of macula [sin?], desire, abstinence as a value in itself that man, in this part of the world, has more or less solved. Slavoj Zizek and also Alain Badiou suggest that it is difficult to think of opera after psychoanalysis. That is my task, to resignify."_

And:_ "I tried to get the religious symbols out of it. There are things I cannot do because the work has, among other things, problems regarding misogyny: Wagner, towards the third act, destines women to silence and servitude. Kundry is a wandering Jewess, and Wagner causes Parsifal to tell Kundry that his first act will be to bless and tell her to believe in the redeemer. And I cannot tell it that way, because it is where the Wagnerian misunderstanding is embodied in greater depth: if there is an anti-Semitic work is Parsifal."_

And: _"The struggle is this dark world that fulfills a rite in spite of itself, a decadent world against another that has the handling of energy, information and media. Parsifal will solve the struggle between virtuality and reality and try to democratize that Grail, open it forever, a kind of positive Siegfried."_

And: _"Sorry, but I think the word "respect" should not be part of the artistic lexicon. One respects the flag or the mother, but art asks for readings. We have to put on a show that is not a sacred festival in a space that has nothing to do with that."_

From another interview with Lombardero:

Q .: It is said that Wagner carries out a "theater of ideas"

ML: _When we talk about this work we always talk about how to transform this sacred festival for the consecration of the stage into an opera... The difference between Bayreuth and this theater (Teatro Colon) is clear: Wagner creates a theater where the viewer is doomed to watch the show and do nothing else, and the show is in the black box and we are all the same in front of him, because the room has that Democratic form. In Colón, the greatest spectacle is in the room, not on the stage, so you have to transform this sacred festival into an opera, which has the conditions of a spectacle, has to amuse, generate things that a sacred festival does not. And here is the great challenge of doing this work today, and how to sustain for more than four hours the attention and tension of the viewer.
_
Q. How do you put it?

ML: _It is the most complicated work that I've had to put on the stage. I do not know if I would have chosen to do it. My first impulse was to say no, but there is something that is stronger: one is also a musician, and this music is incredible. And it gives us the opportunity to tell some things. Today it does not make sense to tell the story as it is given [by Wagner], it is incomprehensible to speak in these terms of guilt, the sinful stain, sex as sin and purity as something important: I do not believe in that, in my agnostic conviction... But besides, even if I were a believer, it would also be dangerous to come from that place, proposing a conversion on the stage. That is why we have chosen to resignify these issues, give them another value and a consonance with what happens to us and which the public recognizes.
_
Q. In what way?

ML: _We worked thinking where the Tetralogy [the Ring] ended, and we stopped at the place where we would have stayed if we had concluded with the end of "Twilight of the Gods". Wagner argues, in contrast to the profane festival of the Tetralogy, this sacred festival as a continuation. The Tetralogy ended with an immolation of truth, in which Brunnhilde was destroyed. To counter that end, in which the purifying fire is necessary for that corrupt society of the gods to fall and a new idea to appear, we opposed to it this positive end that has "Parsifal", a hero who does not come to destroy anything but to democratize and open, countering the Grail Brotherhood's idea of having it locked up for itself and its own enjoyment, which is the cause of its own decay. For us, the bad guy is not Klingsor, but the one who orders [the Grail society] to fulfill the mission, Titurel, who says that it must be done even if it causes pain, as Zizek says there is no way to be an atheist if it is not through Catholicism. Although there are symbols that clearly have to do with this, we try to avoid a representation of some kind of Catholicism or Christianity, but, just as Wagner syncretizes all these questions, to pose the same.
_
Q. What is the chosen aesthetic?

ML: _Medieval, but in a very special way. I thought about what had caused the Middle Ages, and especially this first half where the genesis of the work is, those dark years where nothing is known of what happened, the first years of the fall of the Empire. What was the Empire? At some point, a network of viaducts, roads, transport of merchandise, culture. When the barbarians wander the roads, that network collapses from within. Today we are clear that the hypothesis of conflagration will not be, as we thought years ago, a nuclear apocalypse: it will be otherwise. I thought what would happen if the empire falls and those networks are broken, and there is no more flow of information, technology. We would be closed, our medievo is this: a medium invented, hypothetical, soon after. And it is pre-capitalist and devoid of energy. For us the Grail is the light, the source of energy. And in contrast to that, the fantastic and wonderful world that proposes Klingsor, this kind of Las Vegas invented by Wagner in the 19th century, a garden full of pleasures and beautiful women in the middle of the desert. Our garden is technological: Klingsor has managed to dominate technology and media, and what Parsifal comes to resolve is this contradiction between reality and virtuality._


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

hpowders said:


> Parsifal is a blasphemous variation on Christianity. An "innocent fool" becoming "The Savior"? Gimme a break!!
> 
> To me THAT is much more of a problem than Kundry being portrayed as a Muslim woman.


We've been over this before.

Wagner's opera is based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's _Parzival_, in turn based on Chrétien de Troyes's _Perceval_. Scholars often discuss the central character in these literary works as a type of Holy Fool, an archetypal figure hearkening back to the ascetic "foolishness for Christ" tradition of Western and Eastern Christianity, which drew on St. Paul's epistles.

No doubt Wagner adapted Parsifal's foolishness for his own purposes, none of them strictly orthodox. But the germ of the idea can be traced back to longstanding Christian themes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

_Parsifal_ offers not a variant of Christianity but a radical criticism of it (and of its parent Judaism). The point of "der reine Tor" is that the thing that "saves" us is the uncorrupted "fool" within, our "inner Parsifal," who sees through the temptations of dependency, self-indulgence, and unthinking dogma to find maturity - kingship of the Grail - in compassionate self-mastery. In the context of religious thought, Parsifal exemplifies the Buddhist bodhisattva more than the Christian saint, for whom salvation comes through an external agent. The saint is represented by Titurel, who lives by, and enforces, strict codes of conduct which the Knights of the Grail can't live up to. They can't help but yield when tempted by forbidden fruit, and can only await a prophesied redeemer, whereas Parsifal, uncorrupted by artificial dogmas and authoritarian law that defies nature, resists temptation naturally.

The last words of the opera, sung by the choirs as Parsifal holds aloft the Grail and sings "No more shall it be locked away," are "Redemption to the Redeemer," the meaning of which has been debated. But in view of Wagner's statements about the corruption of spiritual values by institutional, patriarchal, supernatural religion, and the potential of art to reveal and renew those values - stripped of their dogmatic accretions - for a post-religious modern age, his intended meaning seems pretty clear.

I suppose that to an orthodox Christian, Wagner's use of the trappings of Christianity to subvert Christianity's own claims fits the definition of blasphemy. But then the various "true religions" have been accusing each other of that for millennia.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> _Parsifal_ offers not a variant of Christianity but a radical criticism of it.


An interesting, well-argued point. Still, I think seeing _Parsifal_ as a critique of Christianity depends, not just on one's interpretation of _Parsifal_, but on one's view of Christianity.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> An interesting, well-argued point. Still, I think seeing _Parsifal_ as a critique of Christianity depends, not just on one's interpretation of _Parsifal_, but on one's view of Christianity.


True enough. Christians of one sort or another are perpetually critiquing Christians of other sorts, so if _Parsifal_ is Christian it might be expected to uphold the tradition. It certainly has no place for theism, however, making no reference to God or to Jesus as an incarnation or avatar of God, and mentioning the "Redeemer" or "Savior" in only the vaguest of terms, without theological implications. Wagner in late years called himself "Christian," but, influenced by the writings of Feuerbach and other secular philosophers of religion, saw Christ and his death humanistically, as a symbolic expression of the supreme virtue of compassion, as opposed to the orthodox view of them as an incarnated deity's self-sacrifice offered as a substitution for the punishment of a fatally sinful humanity.

Parsifal, the pure fool, wasn't intended as a stand-in for Christ - after all, he invokes the Savior in acts two and three - but is rather portrayed as a man who can attain Christ-like virtue. (When asked about this, Wagner quipped, "What? Christ a tenor?"). That attainment isn't contingent on his accepting any stated theological premises (in Christian terms, "believing"), but on more basic and universal psychological processes involved in growth and maturation: acquiring a personal identity (a name, "Parsifal") and a sense of boundaries (separation from the parent), asserting his independence against attempts to control him through guilt (Herzeleide's death), and assuming moral responsibility (for the healing of Amfortas) instead of yielding to infantilizing self-indulgence (offered in Kundry's extraordinary mix of maternal and sexual allure).

In my view, the basic meaning of _Parsifal_ is found at that level of deep psychology, and its religious dimension looks quite different in that light. But exactly how it does look - whether it relates in a deep way to the pre-Freudian and Jungian psychological insights of the work, or is merely a smokescreen or a magic trick or an act of seduction like Kundry's in Klingsor's garden - is a subject to keep us busy for a long, long time.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Show a DVD of Parsifal to Pope Francis. Don't forget to wait around for his "critique".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Show a DVD of Parsifal to Pope Francis. Don't forget to wait around for his "critique".


Why not save us the bother and tell us what he'd say?


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Pope Francis apparently actually enjoys Wagner and has "a deep appreciation for Parsifal."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/19/pope-francis-jesuit-journal-interview-art


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> *Parsifal offers not a variant of Christianity but a radical criticism of it (and of its parent Judaism). The point of "der reine Tor" is that the thing that "saves" us is the uncorrupted "fool" within, our "inner Parsifal," who sees through the temptations of dependency, self-indulgence, and unthinking dogma to find maturity - kingship of the Grail - in compassionate self-mastery*. In the context of religious thought, Parsifal exemplifies the Buddhist bodhisattva more than the Christian saint, for whom salvation comes through an external agent. The saint is represented by Titurel, who lives by, and enforces, strict codes of conduct which the Knights of the Grail can't live up to. They can't help but yield when tempted by forbidden fruit, and can only await a prophesied redeemer, whereas Parsifal, uncorrupted by artificial dogmas and authoritarian law that defies nature, resists temptation naturally.


Agree with Mr Duck

Wagner seems to be very skeptical of the orthodoxy and dogma that religion imposed at the expense of the true fundamental universal positive values that would actually improve the world we live in.....think of the endless religious wars in Europe, crusades, inquisition on and on which only brought misery and suffering, no wonder one could be skeptical of benefits of religion on society

Parsifal was a quest for the true deeper meaning of religion, the higher virtues of compassion and forgiveness are not obtained from reading a holy book or viewing holy relics, but by experience and enlightenment......when Parsifal returned from his long sojourn of discovery on Good Friday (the day Christ died to forgive the sins of all men) his first act of compassion was to symbolically baptize and forgive Kundry of any past wrong releasing her from the curse, and then go on to the grail knights and enlighten the followers of a more profound and universal positive path to live by.........

This more universal view man's existence and life purpose was previewed in Tristan with the final liebestod, then explored it further with Parsifal


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> Pope Francis apparently actually enjoys Wagner and has "a deep appreciation for Parsifal."
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/19/pope-francis-jesuit-journal-interview-art


Yes, I seem to remember reading something about this. From the article you link to:

'...the pope also admires a thornier composer: Richard Wagner, the megalomaniacal German genius whose views on Christianity were, to put it mildly, idiosyncratic.

'Wagner, for Francis, is a little heavy: "I like to listen to him, but not all the time." His favorite recording of the Ring Cycle is by Wilhelm Furtwängler, a relatively safe choice. Yet Francis also, surprisingly, has a deep appreciation for Parsifal - Wagner's final opera, which stages a Christian rite in quasi-Buddhist terms and which Nietzsche famously called blasphemous.

'Later in the interview, when talking about how the church must abandon mistaken dogmas, Francis comes back to Parsifal and uses the hero's development from ignorance to knowledge as a metaphor for how "the thinking of the church must recover genius." '

Would saying "wow" be assuming too much? Is Francis hearing the voice of Kundry? Is old Klingsor getting his hands too near the Grail? Could a Saint Richard be far off?

Heh heh...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I think much more important is-the spelling of Kundry should be changed to Kundri in keeping with the times.

Thanks,

Judi & Jaymi


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> I think much more important is the spelling of Kundry should be changed to Kundri in keeping with the times.




http://www.recipes.in/s/kundri.html


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Agree with Mr Duck
> 
> Wagner seems to be very skeptical of the orthodoxy and dogma that religion imposed at the expense of the true fundamental universal positive values that would actually improve the world we live in.....think of the endless religious wars in Europe, crusades, inquisition on and on which only brought misery and suffering, no wonder one could be skeptical of benefits of religion on society
> 
> ...


I'm with you until the bit about _Tristan. _I view Tristan and Isolde's quest for union as Wagner's artistic and personal crisis point, when his cherished illusion of sexual love as man's salvation is pushed to its breaking point and its inevitable conclusion: death. Isolde's "Liebestod" is the final, beautiful illusion of a mind no longer in this world: opera's greatest mad scene. After _Tristan_ - in _Meistersinger,_ the _Ring_, and _Parsifal_ - Wagner had to explore other routes to human fulfillment; and Hans Sachs' insistence that Walther find his artistic and personal dstiny without rejecting the time-tested values of society, together with Sachs' own rejection of the role of King Mark, was Wagner signaling, immediately after _Tristan,_ the new direction in his thinking.

Parsifal's radical and empowering choice is to turn away from love's illusions, to recognize in them a regressive yearning for the irresponsible bliss of infancy, and to take the hard road of individuation. That road would bring him to a mature vantage point as far above Titurel's religious legalism and ritual as it was above Tristan and Isolde's antinomian romantic dream.


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