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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
Redemption in Ten Dimensions. Stefan Herheims’s Bayreuth ParsifalDr Jim Leigh Part I of a three part exposition and introduction for audience members of the current Bayreuth productionThe Bayreuth Parsifal performance of 27 August 2009 was the tenth time I had seen a staged performance (not counting the 1982 Syberberg film or the Sydney 1977 concert performance under [Carlo Felice] Cillario). This time I saw the production from the centre of Row 1 in the stalls. These were the best seats I have ever had at Bayreuth. The current Bayreuth production was first seen in 2008 (Director-Stefan Herheim, Conductor-Daniele Gatti, Stage Design- Heike Scheele, Technical Direction-Kark-Heinz Matitschka, plus a very long list of other technical acknowledgements). This was the most complex opera production I have ever seen, even more complex than the Schlingensief production, with which it shares some features. Indeed, the production is so complex that books have been written about it, to explain and analyse it. One of the best is that of Susanne Vill Professor of Theatre Science at the University of Bayreuth. This was published in the middle of the Festival in 2009 and relies heavily on interviews and correspondence with Herheim and the dramaturg Alexander Meier-Dorzenbach. Much of this review will be based is based on Vill’s detailed analysis, but before going further into this, some background material may be helpful. Wagner’s road to ParsifalThe main message of Parsifal is the rejection, in favour of fellow feeling with man and nature and of our tendency to think in terms of power and self-assertiveness. Wagner saw Parsifal as the cosmic culmination of the Ring, a recycling of nature- death and a better rebirth. He arrived at Parsifal after a long genesis, dating from his earliest familiarity with the Wolfram epic in the early 1840s in Paris, via the unwritten music dramas Jesus of Nazareth (1849) and Die Sieger (1856). The former espoused the concept that Jesus had overturned the law of history that violence could only be defeated by further violence, the latter the Schopenhauerian concept of redemption through denial of the will, specifically the will of sexual love. Schopenhauerian denial of the will for power alone (and its replacement by erotic love) is not enough to redeem the world. Denial of the erotic principle itself is also demanded. Parsifal can thus be seen as the summation of all of Wagner’s lifework. This is clear from a reading of the second volume of Cosima Wagner’s diaries, which is saturated with discussions on Wagner’s creation of Parsifal. The final writing and composition of Parsifal took place in Wahnfried, Wagner’s house in Bayreuth where he lived and worked from 1874 until his death in 1883 and which was the first house he had ever owned after years of wandering and renting. This is not an ordinary opera and not even an ordinary music drama. It was designated a Buhnenweihfestspiel, that is, a stage dedication festival play. It was written precisely with the Bayreuth Festival Theatre in mind, after the first successful performance of the Ring there in 1876. It was a summation of all Wagner’s thinking and from 1882 –1914, with one or two exceptions, could only be seen at Bayreuth, in a production barely changed from the original. Until the 1930s and Cosima’s death, the production barely changed. Productions elsewhere in the world followed the Bayreuth model. Even the1971 Parsifal at Covent Garden (the first I saw) was absolutely traditional, with the famous rolling scenery. This was actually a great production, with Jon Vickers, Donald McIntyre, Norman Bailey and Kiri Te Kanawa making her debut as a lead Flowermaiden; conductor Reginald Goodall). Attending Parsifal was more like attending a religious ceremony and even today it is customary not to clap at the end of Act 1. In his late philosophical work Religion and Art (1880), and subsequent addenda to it, Wagner reveals a lot of his thinking that informed Parsifal. I believe some background knowledge of this work, as well as a familiarity with the Herheim and Schlingensief productions is necessary to interpret this production. In a famous formulation, Wagner claimed that when religion became artificial it was the role of art to preserve its essence by apprehending its mystical symbols which religion believed literally true and to present their inner meaning in idealised form. When pure Christianity had become the religion of the rich and more used as a tool of political and military power and property, it was the duty of art to redeem it through music, the only art which corresponds to the true Christianity that is concerned with compassion and recognition of the frailty of the world. Wagner saw the need for the removal of racial inequality by partaking of Holy Communion, drinking the blood of Jesus and the need for regeneration following the degeneration of humanity as a result of world historical processes, mainly capitalism. In an addendum to Religion and Art, written two days before his death in 1883, Wagner had written of female emancipation, saying that it would only occur after ecstatic spasms by women in society, predicting the suffragettes. ‘Erlosung den Erloser’The famous key phrase in Parsifal ‘Erlosung den Erloser’ (‘redemption to the redeemer’) has been subject to many interpretations. Taken as being in the present tense (ie someone or something which itself is a redeemer has himself or itself been redeemed), the following have been proposed:
Taken in the future tense (ie someone who has redeemed something will be redeemed in future or will do further acts of redemption) the following have also been proposed:
Herheim takes the concept of redemption even further, moving from redemption of the individual to the redemption of the entire German nation from its past and I think is trying to say that we, the Bayreuth audience, can redeem German history, by coming to terms with it and by so doing are redeemed from having been a party to it. Yet another interpretation will emerge later in this review. Like Syberberg, Schlingensief and Eichinger, Herheim superimposes several different levels of meaning at the individual and social or national level. These concepts are only indirectly related to Wagner’s Parsifal. Where Herheim greatly improves on these models is in his logic and consistency, and his much closer adherence to the score and text in his stage ‘happenings’. He even provides linkages to guide the audience between the different levels. The main features of the production are
Herheim, in an analogy to a melody being transferred between different orchestral instruments in a complex score, constantly transfers the emphasis of the production between 10 dimensions. [For ease of reference the list of the Top 10 Grail Symbols has been moved here from the Appendix at the end of Dr Leigh’s review.] [The film director Bernd Eichinger (‘Downfall’, ‘Elementarleichen’, ‘Fantastic Four’ and recently ‘The Baader Meinhof Complex’) directed the 2006 Deutsche Staatsoper Parsifal that Dr Liegh reviewed in September 2006 Newsletter No.106 – or at the website www.wagner-nsw.org.au/reviews/index.html - that ‘overlaid world history with psychological development’.] 10 Dimensions
The Top 10 Grail symbols
What Happens and What It All MeansPrelude The prelude to Parsifal, usually preceding the rising of the curtain, is accompanied in this production by much action on stage. The set is the downstairs main living room of Wahnfried. Today his is the library where concerts and lectures are given: I had heard the Sven Friedrich talk on Parsifal there only four hours before the performance I experienced and seeing this room again represented on the stage created a strange feeling of intimacy for the listener/spectator in the Festspielhaus. Wagner‘s grave in the Wahnfried garden is in the centre in front of the Bayreuth stage (it is the prompter’s box). I could almost have rested my feet on it, as it came across the orchestra pit cover. This cleverly suggests Wagner himself is running the whole production from the grave. It was also Cosima’s grave after she died in 1930. On the wall on the left (from audience perspective), over a fireplace, is the painting by Kaulbach, Deutschland 1914, depicting Germania the ancient female warrior. On her shield is the German Reich eagle. Under the painting is an elegant mantelpiece clock. The German Reich eagle is also hanging above the stage. A set of winged doors is on the right. The use of Wahnfried itself alludes to the fact the Parsifal was largely created here, and the first rehearsals were held here The painting of Germania alludes to the warlike atmosphere in Germany in 1914. The contrast between the warlike painting and the elegant clock suggests an attempted sublimation of warlike feelings into a search for artistic beauty. Wagner after his revolutionary violent activities in 1848 sought sublimation in his new music dramatic creations In the centre of the room is a double bed in which lies Herzeleide, Parsifal’s mother, in the form of Germania. This bed is to become a central feature of the whole production. It is in bed that we give birth, make love, sleep, dream, get sick and die. The bed is also here a symbol of embrace, motherhood, womanliness, sacred love, conception and regeneration through sleep and is thus a Grail symbol (one of many as we will see) Herzeleide is dying. A doctor, a priest and Gurnemanz (in the form of a butler) stand beside the bed. The priest is offering communion. A child, Parsifal, is on the right playing on a rocking horse. This symbolises his childhood fascination with knights. A servant, Kundry, takes Parsifal to Herzeleide who embraces him. She dies. He then runs out the door to Wagner’s grave and starts to build a little wall with building blocks on it. This is projected to the back wall of the set. This symbolises Cosima’s restriction of Parsifal productions to Bayreuth up to 1914. While Parsifal is building this wall, the whole room expands in size and darkens. This is the first of the many magical scenic transformations (which require massively complex stage machinery.). These scene transformations are used to shift between the conceptual domains of good and evil, dream and reality, life and death and Grail and Klingsor. A fantasy scene now begins. Herzeleide comes to life again. She is seen dragging the Parsifal child into bed with her and making love to him. She has a red rose in her hand. The red rose is also back- projected. This scene has obvious Freudian significance in relation to Parsifal’s later rejection of Kundry, but in addition it implies vampirish allusions to the blood brotherhood of the Grail knights. The red rose represents passion. There are allusions to the Love-Death of Tristan and Isolde and the connection Wagner made in his creative process between the sufferings of Amfortas and Tristan. In an early draft of Tristan, Parsifal was to have met the dying Tristan in act 3. The building of the wall also alludes to Wagner’s own childhood loss of his father and sublimation into the world of theatre and the pseudo-family of theatre folk. It may also be a reference to Ludwig’s escape from the real world in castle building. Whew! That’s just the prelude. I had hardly heard it because I had to take in all of the above. Act 1 This takes place in the garden of Wahnfried. Five blonde boys in sailor suits are sitting on the ground. They are knights and esquires. This is a picture of happy family life at Wahnfried, firstly with Richard and Cosima and Eva, Isolde and Siegfried plus Daniela and Blandine (Cosima’s daughters by von Bulow), then later Winifred and Siegfried’s four children, and finally Wolfgang and Wieland’s’ broods. Gurnemanz comes in through the winged doors. He is wearing big dark wings. The wings, which other characters will also wear, have many-sided significance. They can be seen as angel’s wings: guardian angel, fallen angel or surrounding angel. They represent the fantasy life of humans, as in the dream of being able to fly. The Wright brothers’ first attempts to fly occurred at around this time. Birds in Wagner’s Parsifal form a contrasting pair, the eagle and the swan. The eagle symbolizes strength and bravery of both men and gods. It is a Christian symbol for God’s concern for Christ, for renewal of youthful power and for spiritual power. For ancient Germany it was Wotan’s escort and an oracle. In 800AD, the eagle was adopted as the German emblem, as it was again in 1919 by the Weimar Republic and in 1951 by the German Federal Republic. In the text of Parsifal, when the swan is shot, Gurnemanz asks Parsifal where he got his bow and Parsifal tells him he made it himself to shoot wild eagles. The swan is a symbol of beauty, peace, purity, true love, and the female side of men (the Jungian anima). As the only bird with a penis it has a special significance in relation to man. In the production, the eagle and swan symbols are often interchanged. The characters with dark wings are all prepared for death. Kundry, who also wears dark wings and later dark (male) evening dress, is associated with the ‘Blue Angel’ as played by Marlene Dietrich. She was the first German to act in anti-Nazi films in Hollywood and sing for US troops. The contrast between Dietrich in seducing US soldiers for good purposes and Kundry in seducing Grail knights for bad purposes is established. A further dimension of the angel wings is the idea of ‘the angel of history’. This angel restores the memory of the past to the present. However, the force of progress blasts his wings and forces him into the future, requiring a revision of the past. The wearing of wings by characters signifies that history is not unalterable and that there are ways that Germany can come to terms with its past. Children with little bows are seen kneeling on the grave and the child Parsifal, in sailor suit, is now seen in the bed. The German eagle above the stage has changed into a swan. The sailor suits illustrate the dress of the time, but also allude to the sailors on the battleship Potemkin, associated with the outbreak of the Russian revolution in 1917. The appearance of the swan alludes to the change in emphasis in the Grail knights from warlike behaviour to spirituality and also to the future Lohengrin as son of Parsifal. A doctor and priest, both with dark wings, enter in preparation for the arrival of Amfortas. Gurnemanz bows towards Parsifal. Women enter. Normally no women, apart from Kundry, enter the Grail realm. However, the appearance of women here symbolizes the overtaking of Grail legends by later Celtic rites involving women as mother gods and fertility symbols. It also alludes to Wagner accepting women into his household as intellectual equals at a time when this was not common, illustrating his early support for female emancipation (eg Mathilde Wesendonck, Malwida von Meysenbug, Judith Gautier, and of course Cosima). Kundry comes in wearing large dark wings and goes to Parsifal, protecting him with her wings. More men and women enter in the costumes of the late 19th century. They also have dark wings. They bring Amfortas, wearing a bloodstained white smock, and cover him with the royal cloak of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The smock shows Amfortas as a perverted Christ. A connection is made of the suffering, sexually ambiguous Ludwig, with the genitally wounded Amfortas. Ludwig’s role as Wagner’s patron at the time is emphasized. A bathtub is bought out of the fireplace on the left. The bathtub, where Amfortas will soothe his wound, is a domestic symbol of a lake of spiritual rebirth, a uterus, or a holy lake. It also alludes to the little lake in the Bayreuth, 1999, Keith Warner Lohengrin production where Gottfried reappears. It relates to Wagner’s own predilection for taking the waters at numerous spas. Wagner first read the Wolfram Parsifal legends in depth at the spa in Marienbad. The bathtub is also a Grail symbol. Amfortas then sits on the wall around the fountain behind the bed. In the centre of the fountain there is an altar, piled with cannon balls. This is a reference to the practice of religious knightly orders (eg Crusaders, Knights Templar) to justify the rightness of their military activities on the basis of their faith. It has modern resonances in ‘Indiana Jones’ and the ‘Da Vinci Code’. Pure fools justify themselves in wars for economic gain or religious conversion. Amfortas goes to the grave and sings for the first time the words ‘Durch Mitleid wissend…der reine Tor’ (‘the pure fool, made wise through pity’). Gurnemanz gives him the balsam. Kundry gets into the bed. As Amfortas sits on the bed, Kundry covers him with her wings. The 1st and 2nd knights, in student fraternity costume, draw their swords against Amfortas. Kundry protects Amfortas by attempting to seduce the knights, lifting her skirt and exposing her breasts. The knights then attack her This scene is a reminiscence of Kundry’s original seduction of Amfortas when she served Klingsor and of her guilt in this. It is also a flash-forward to the cowardly behaviour of Parsifal’s companions in the Magic Garden of Act 2. Kundry uses woman’s weapons to combat the knights’ aggression. Kundry is torn between her two roles although she always has knowledge of them, in spite of the death-like trances she goes into. The child Parsifal washes himself in the bathtub. Kundry goes to the grave and makes ecstatic, wild hand gestures to the grave. This is a reference to Wagner’s late writings on female emancipation (see above) where ecstatic behavior of woman must precede emancipation. As Gurnemanz sings of Titurel, the child Parsifal in the bathtub disappears and is suddenly replaced by an old man (Titurel). This symbolizes the life sustaining power of the Grail and has allusions to the ending of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where the recycling of life occurs. It also alludes to Kundry’s reincarnations. As Gurnemanz sings of the lost spear, Kundry shrinks from the look of Titurel as she recognizes her duty to him and exits. Titurel points past Gurnemanz to the picture of Germania, alluding to his (Titurel’s) magical powers and presaging the imminent magical appearance of his opposite, Klingsor, here in Act 1 (not where he usually appears). The picture now is reflected in a mirror while a bridge appears on which Klingsor enters as a transvestite wearing male evening coat and shirt, black frilly female undies, fishnet tights and a red cape (think Dr Frank’n’furter, ‘Rocky Horror Show’). He is carrying a spear, ready to throw. Gurnemanz’ narration of Amfortas’ original loss of the spear is acted out. Amfortas enters through the winged doors dressed as Germania, carrying the holy spear and wearing the German Kaiser’s crown and Ludwig’s cloak. Kundry appears in the bed and drags Amfortas into it and they embrace, sinking down into the bed. Klingsor takes the holy spear and disappears. Gurnemanz takes the Ludwig cloak from the bed. The men, women and children now gather again around the bed. In the bed is now the child Parsifal. With his words ‘How is the King going?’ Gurnemanz puts the Ludwig cloak around the child. He is to be the future Grail King. The ‘other’ Parsifal steps out of the bathtub and goes to the grave. This sequence reflects both Gottfried in Lohengrin, with Lohengrin as future king of the Brabantians plus the establishment of Parsifal as a uniquely Bayreuth opera and the beginning of the Bayreuth mythos. It also illustrates the first use in this production of multiple depictions of the same character, a device used extensively by Syberberg in his 1982 Parsifal film. At this point it is worth noting that all these magical transformations were very smooth and silent, even from row 1, and totally convinced the eye. As Gurnemanz sings of Titurel’s creation of a shrine to protect the Grail and Spear in Montsalvat, a Christmas tree appears in the Wahnfried window and snow falls inside Wahnfried. Gurnemanz stands behind the child Parsifal at the grave and a row of women carrying red lights form around them. Light shines on the theatre audience. We are the Bayreuth faithful. This scene equates the establishment of Montsalvat with the birth of Christ and the birth of the art religion of Parsifal at Bayreuth. The Christmas tree in the room is an allusion the Christmas celebrations at Wahnfried in Wagner’s time when the Parsifal prelude was played by Wagner to Cosima. It represents 6 or 7 dimensions of interpretation at once. As Gurnemanz goes on to tell of Klingsor and his Magic Garden, the fountain starts to throw water and flowers appear in the window of Wahnfried. When he sings of the spear being now in Klingsor’s hands, Gurnemanz pulls the Ludwig cloak from Parsifal, revealing him in a white sailor suit. Amfortas now appears on the fountain and another Parsifal, a youth of nineteen or so, appears on the Wahnfried balcony. The child Parsifal shoots at Amfortas. As the swan falls into the bed Amfortas disappears. The child Parsifal is now in the bed with a mortal wound. The youth Parsifal comes down to collect his booty. The esquires threaten the child Parsifal with their bows, while the youth Parsifal also raises his bow. This action is a good example of Herheim’s vision of all the male characters representing a part of each other, as in Jungian psychology. Parsifal’s shot at Amfortas is an attempt to eliminate guilt. The two different Parsifals allude to Parsifal’s personality development. The artificial action of the child Parsifal shooting at Amfortas uses two different characters to draw together the guilt of both. As Gurnemanz sings of the swan, the women around the fountain make flying movements. A doctor brings the now dead child Parsifal to the youth Parsifal. This is interpreted as a reference to Lohengrin’s failure to enter the world of men, the end of Romantic opera for Wagner and the beginning of his new music drama, and the end of Parsifal’s childhood. The death of the swan in the bed refers to Parsifal’s original psychosexual relation to his mother. Ludwig II of Bavaria (the swan king) had great belief in and (? sexual love ) for Wagner as a composer but gradually became disillusioned with him when he (Wagner) became progressively involved with Cosima von Bulow while the first prose draft of Parsifal was being written in 1865. The dead swan in the bed symbolises the loss of Ludwig's confidence in Wagner because of Wagner's sexual relation to Cosima. When Gurnemanz asks Parsifal whether he understands the sight of the dead swan, a film projection of a waterfall is seen inside Wahnfried. Water is the source of life and a symbol of the unconscious. It relates here to Parsifal’s developing sense of guilt. The priests come in with Ludwig’s cloak. The youth Parsifal goes behind the child Parsifal who is now carried off in procession. The youth Parsifal gets on the bed. As he recalls his mother Herzeleide, Kundry, as a serving girl, brings food and a glass of milk to him, just as she did to the child Parsifal in the prelude. She gets into bed with Parsifal and they fall into a death-like embrace. This provides a link between the mother love of Parsifal in the prelude and the later seduction by Kundry in Act 2. It relates to the social history of the time when upper class young men often got their first sexual experience with servant girls. The death-like embrace relates to Herzeleide’s death, the anxiety of love, the love- death of Tristan and la petite mort of orgasm. When Parsifal sings of his shame he gives Kundry the milk. She drinks, thanks him and sinks back in the bed finding the red rose that Herzeleide had in the prelude. Kundry gets up and exits robot-like through the winged doors with the rose in her hand while Parsifal lies on the pillow. This symbolizes the automaton-like switch in Kundry’s allegiance between the Grail brotherhood and Klingsor. As Gurnemanz sings of the difficulty in finding the way to Montsalvat he leads the youth Parsifal to the grave. Projections of Gurnemanz and Parsifal at the grave are seen projected in the Wahnfried room. Amfortas leaves the room wearing the Ludwig cloak. The whole set now transforms from the exterior garden to an interior room. In the window is a picture of the child Parsifal, dead. Images of the youth Parsifal playing with the little bricks on the grave are superimposed on it. This action symbolizes Parsifal’s turnaround from the past and the necessity of obtaining a new awareness in the future. As Gurnemanz sings ‘zum Raum wird hier die Zeit’ (‘here time and space become one’), the set transforms again and the cupola of the Grail temple, as in the original Bayreuth 1882 production, descends over the room. In the bed, a woman, Herzeleide, is giving birth. All the men and women surround the bed. Kundry is the midwife. This birth scene is projected on the wall and the birth is timed to the transformation music. As Kundry delivers the bloody newborn, Herzeleide reaches her arms out for her baby. However, it is Gurnemanz who takes the baby from Kundry. This birth scene, with all society looking on, is a reference to the functionalisation of women in a religious society at the time—to produce males as future soldiers for the state and to the later role of women in Nazi society to produce a child for Hitler. This is further explored in Act 2. It is also obviously the beginning of Parsifal’s psychic rebirth in becoming wise and, with the descent of the cupola, also represents the birth of Christ. As Gurnemanz sings ‘you are a pure fool’ to Parsifal, Gurnemanz lifts the baby high and takes it to the grave. Amfortas is now in the bed. The doctor and priests lay out white towels on the altar/tabernacle while the Grail community protects the altar with their wings. Gurnemanz raises the baby’s arm. This is a reference to Siegfried in Gotterdammerung, raising his arm after death to show supernatural power. Amfortas, with his bloody wound visible, cries out. The altar begins to shine. The towels are lifted and three communion vessels are seen. The Grail community is dressed in late 19th Century uniforms, some in tropical wear. This, as in Schlingensief, is meant to suggest the era of African Colonial expansion and the later use by the Nazis of African specimens as a basis for their Aryan anthropometry policies. As Titurel sings ‘my son Amfortas, do your duty,’ Parsifal, still at the grave, lifts up his head. Amfortas now stands on the ramp leading to the grave and Parsifal goes to the bed and replaces him in the bed. The ambivalence between the grave and bed as Grail symbols alludes to the contrast between sacred love and sexual love, so typical of the period and very dear to Wagner in his early operas. Amfortas goes to Parsifal, lifts up his gown, and places Parsifal’s hand on the wound. He then drags him back to the grave. Amfortas’ great cries of ‘Erbarmen’ are uttered with Amfortas directly superimposed on Parsifal. This whole sequence of direct physical juxtaposition of characters, to show the acquisition of feelings of pity and sympathy for one another, is in direct contrast to Wagner’s Parsifal where Parsifal just sits on the side and watches the Grail ceremony and in contrast also to Wolfram’s original Fisher King who just quietly waits for events to happen. It is a confrontational technique of Herheim that is seen again in Act 2 when Parsifal himself is seen to have a wound as he recalls Amfortas during Kundry’s seduction. Parsifal goes back and stands behind the bed. The Grail community disappears and only Parsifal is left. Amfortas uncovers the Grail (which he takes from the grave). It emits a rose light. He goes to the bed, which now contains Herzeleide. She drinks from the Grail. Parsifal goes to the bed and embraces Herzeleide passionately. They have the red rose. A red light shines on the lovers, but the Grail shines white. As the pair in bed disappears, Amfortas places the now rose-coloured Grail on the altar and staggers toward the bed. His wound bleeds. The actual Grail in this production emits three colours, red for passionate love, royalty, fire, war, danger and power; rose for tender, brotherly love and white for purity, peace, innocence and goodness. This is a further development on Wolfgang Wagner’s two-coloured Grail in his last Bayreuth traditional production, which I saw in 1998 (twice) and in 2000. The changing colours of the Grail mirror Wagner’s leitmotif technique in the music, acting as visual leitmotifs. We now see film of World War 1 projected on the window. There are marching soldiers, soldiers in trenches, Big Bertha cannons, Zeppelins, a Fokker triplane and extracts from Eisenstein’s 1925 film ‘Battleship Potemkin’. Troops also enter on the stage, in naval uniforms. The intertext here is the anxiety of the Grail knights for their renewal through the food of the Grail compared with that of the Russian sailors on the Potemkin starting the revolution through their strike over their mouldy meat rations. Amfortas kneels at the altar. The Grail glows rose. Further images of World War 1 are projected and the troops on stage take their ‘bread’ from the altar and embrace each other. They then file out. This is an allusion to the idea of the ‘goodness’ of war. Tolkien used it in his ‘Lord of the Rings’. War can create brotherly love and friendship between men. The Grail temple cupola vanishes and the room is transformed back to the Wahnfried living room. Amfortas puts the Grail back in the grave. He disappears into the bed. The Reich eagle emblem descends. In the bed now lies the child Parsifal with the Ludwig cloak. Gurnemanz has lost his wings. The child Parsifal gets out of bed and taking his bow and arrows, exits through the winged doors. As the pure fool motif sounds in the orchestra, Gurnemanz gets into the bed and covers himself with the cloak. This whole Grail scene has all been a dream of Gurnemanz. The audience was stunned and did not know whether to remain silent, as is customary, or to give some acknowledgement of the incredible theatric happening that it had just been part of. There was in fact some modest applause but there were no curtain calls. The above analysis is perhaps over-detailed, but I believe necessary to give an idea of just how ambitious this production really is. It won 2009 production of the year in Opernwelt. The mechanics of it are enormously complex but, unlike the Schlingensief production, it does hang together and is closely tied to the music. The first Act is the most complex and it certainly puts a new light on Gurnemanz’ sometimes tedious narrations. However, taking it all in still distracts one significantly from appreciating Wagner’s Buhnenweihfestspiel. To give concrete visualizations of things which can be imagined from the poem or the music is a bit of a dumbing down, in much the same way that TV news cannot say ‘the car went to Lindfield over the Bridge’ without showing pictures of a car, Lindfield Station and the Bridge’. It demeans our imaginative sensibilities. Part Two will be in the next issue. If you would like to read the whole essay, it will be available on the Society’s website. Back to Society Home PageThis Page was last updated: 26-Mar-2010->-> © Wagner Society in NSW Inc 2010 |