Richard Wagner
Operas Die Feen (1833) Das Liebesverbot (1836) Rienzi (1840) Der fliegende Holländer (1843) Tannhäuser (1845) Lohengrin (1848) Tristan und Isolde (1859) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1867) Der Ring des Nibelungen: Das Rheingold (1869) Die Walküre (1870) Siegfried (1871) Götterdämmerung (1874) Parsifal (1882) Uncompleted operas Die Laune des Verliebten (1830) Männerlist grösser als Frauenlist (1838)
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Parsifal (WWV 111) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.

Wagner first conceived the work in April 1857 but it was not finished until twenty-five years later. It was to be Wagner's last completed opera and in composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1903, when the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Wagner preferred to describe Parsifal not as an opera, but as "ein Bühnenweihfestspiel" - "A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage". At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that there is no applause after the first act of the opera.

Wagner's spelling of Parsifal instead of the Parzival he had used up to 1877 is informed by an erroneous etymology of the name Percival deriving it from a supposedly Arabic origin, Fal Parsi meaning "pure fool".^[1]

Composition[link]

Wagner first read Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem Parzival while taking the waters at Marienbad in 1845.^[2] After encountering Arthur Schopenhauer's writings in 1854,^[3] Wagner became interested in oriental philosophies, especially Buddhism. He was particularly inspired by reading Eugène Burnouf's Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme indien in 1855/56. Out of this interest came Die Sieger (The Victors, 1856) a sketch Wagner wrote for an opera based on a story from the life of Buddha.^[4] The themes which were later explored in Parsifal of self-renouncing, reincarnation, compassion and even exclusive social groups (castes in Die Sieger, the Knights of the Grail in Parsifal) were first introduced in Die Sieger.^[5]

According to his own account, recorded in his autobiography Mein Leben, Wagner conceived Parsifal on Good Friday morning, April 1857, in the Asyl (German: "Asylum"), the small cottage on Otto Wesendonck's estate in the Zürich suburb of Enge, which Wesendonck - a wealthy silk merchant and generous patron of the arts - had placed at Wagner’s disposal, through the good offices of his wife Mathilde Wesendonck.^[6] The composer and his wife Minna had moved into the cottage on 28 April:

"... on Good Friday I awoke to find the sun shining brightly for the first time in this house: the little garden was radiant with green, the birds sang, and at last I could sit on the roof and enjoy the long-yearned-for peace with its message of promise. Full of this sentiment, I suddenly remembered that the day was Good Friday, and I called to mind the significance this omen had already once assumed for me when I was reading Wolfram's Parzival. Since the sojourn in Marienbad [in the summer of 1845], where I had conceived Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had never occupied myself again with that poem; now its noble possibilities struck me with overwhelming force, and out of my thoughts about Good Friday I rapidly conceived a whole drama, of which I made a rough sketch with a few dashes of the pen, dividing the whole into three acts."^[7]

However, as he later admitted to his second wife Cosima Wagner, this account had been coloured by a certain amount of poetic licence:

22 April 1879: "R[ichard] today recalled the impression which inspired his “Good Friday Music”; he laughs, saying he had thought to himself, “In fact it is all as far-fetched as my love affairs, for it was not a Good Friday at all - just a pleasant mood in Nature which made me think, ‘This is how a Good Friday ought to be’”.^[8]

The work may indeed have been conceived at Wesendonck's cottage in the last week of April 1857, but Good Friday that year fell on 10 April, when the Wagners were still living at Zeltweg 13 in Zürich.^[9] If the prose sketch which Wagner mentions in Mein Leben was accurately dated (and most of Wagner’s surviving papers are dated), it could settle the issue once and for all, but unfortunately it has not survived.

Wagner did not resume work on Parsifal for eight years, during which time he completed Tristan und Isolde and began Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Then, between 27 and 30 August 1865, he took up Parsifal again and made a prose draft of the work; this contains a fairly brief outline of the plot and a considerable amount of detailed commentary on the characters and themes of the drama.^[10] But once again the work was dropped and set aside for another eleven and a half years. During this time most of Wagner’s creative energy was devoted to the Ring cycle, which was finally completed in 1874 and given its first full performance at Bayreuth in August 1876. Only when this gargantuan task had been accomplished did Wagner find the time to concentrate on Parsifal. By 23 February 1877 he had completed a second and more extensive prose draft of the work, and by 19 April of the same year he had transformed this into a verse libretto (or “poem”, as Wagner liked to call his libretti).^[11]

In September 1877 he began the music by making two complete drafts of the score from beginning to end. The first of these (known in German as the Gesamtentwurf and in English as either the Preliminary Draft or the First Complete Draft) was made in pencil on three staves, one for the voices and two for the instruments. The second complete draft (Orchesterskizze, Orchestral Draft, Short Score or Particell) was made in ink and on at least three, but sometimes as many as five, staves. This draft was much more detailed than the first and contained a considerable degree of instrumental elaboration.^[12]

The second draft was begun on 25 September 1877, just a few days after the first: at this point in his career Wagner liked to work on both drafts simultaneously, switching back and forth between the two so as not to allow too much time to elapse between his initial setting of the text and the final elaboration of the music. The Gesamtentwurf of Act III was completed on 16 April 1879 and the Orchesterskizze on the 26th of the same month.^[13]

The full score (Partiturerstschrift) was the final stage in the compositional process. It was made in ink and consisted of a fair copy of the entire opera, with all the voices and instruments properly notated according to standard practice. Wagner composed Parsifal one act at a time, completing the Gesamtentwurf and Orchesterskizze of each act before beginning the Gesamtentwurf of the next act; but because the Orchesterskizze already embodied all the compositional details of the full score, the actual drafting of the Partiturerstschrift was regarded by Wagner as little more than a routine task which could be done whenever he found the time. The Prelude of Act I was scored in August 1878. The rest of the opera was scored between August 1879 and 13 January 1882.^[14]

[edit] Parsifal in performance

Poster for the premiere production of Parsifal - 1882

The premiere[link]

On 12 November 1880 Wagner conducted a private performance of the Prelude for his patron Ludwig II of Bavaria at the Court Theatre in Munich.^[15] The premiere of the entire work was given in the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth on 26 July 1882 under the baton of the German-born Jewish conductor Hermann Levi. Stage designs were by Max Brückner and Paul von Joukowsky who took their lead from Wagner himself. The Grail hall was based on the interior of Siena Cathedral which Wagner had visited in 1880, while Klingsor's magic garden was modelled on those at the Palazzo Rufolo in Ravello.^[16] In July and August 1882 sixteen performances of the work were given in Bayreuth conducted by Levi and Franz Fischer. The production boasted an orchestra of 107, a chorus of 135 and 23 soloists (with the main parts being double cast).^[17] At the last of these performances, Wagner took the baton from Levi and conducted the final scene of Act 3 from the orchestral interlude to the end.^[18]

At the first performances of Parsifal problems with the moving scenery during the transition from Scene one to Scene two in Act 1 meant that Wagner's existing orchestral interlude finished before Parsifal and Gurnemanz arrived at the Hall of the Grail. Engelbert Humperdinck, who was assisting the production, provided a few extra bars of music to cover this gap.^[19] In subsequent years this problem was solved and Humperdinck's additions were not used.

The ban on Parsifal outside Bayreuth[link]

For the first twenty years of its existence, the only staged performances of Parsifal (apart from eight private performances for Ludwig II at Munich in 1884 and 1885) took place in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the venue for which Wagner conceived the work. Wagner had two reasons for wanting to keep Parsifal exclusively for the Bayreuth stage. Firstly, he wanted to prevent it from degenerating into 'mere amusement' for an opera-going public. Only at Bayreuth could his last work be presented in the way envisaged by him - a tradition maintained by his wife, Cosima, long after his death. Secondly, he thought that the opera would provide an income for his family after his death if Bayreuth had the monopoly on its performance.

The Bayreuth authorities allowed unstaged performances to take place in various countries after Wagner's death (e.g. London in 1884, New York City in 1886, and Amsterdam in 1894) but they maintained an embargo on stage performances outside Bayreuth. On 24 December 1903, after receiving a court ruling that performances in the USA could not be prevented by Bayreuth, the New York Metropolitan Opera staged the complete opera, using many Bayreuth-trained singers, much to the chagrin of Wagner's family. However, Cosima refused to allow anyone involved in the New York production to work at Bayreuth in future performances. Unauthorized stage performances were also undertaken in Amsterdam in 1905, 1906 and 1908.

Bayreuth's monopoly on Parsifal ended on 1 January 1914 and some theatres began their performances at midnight on 31 December 1913.^[20] The first authorized performance was staged at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona: it began at 22.30, an hour and a half before midnight on 31 December 1913, taking advantage of the one hour time difference which existed at that time between Barcelona and Bayreuth. Such was the demand for Parsifal that it was presented in more than 50 European opera houses between 1 January and 1 August 1914.^[21]

Applause during Parsifal[link]

At Bayreuth performances audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. This tradition is the result of a misunderstanding arising from Wagner's desire at the premiere to maintain the serious mood of the opera. After much applause following the first and second acts, Wagner spoke to the audience and said that the cast would take no curtain calls until the end of the performance. This confused the audience, who remained silent at the end of the opera until Wagner addressed them again, saying that he did not mean that they could not applaud. After the performance Wagner complained "Now I don't know. Did the audience like it or not?"^[22] At following performances some believed that Wagner had wanted no applause until the very end, and there was silence after the first two acts. Eventually it became a Bayreuth tradition that no applause would be heard after the first act, but this was certainly not Wagner's idea. In fact during the first Bayreuth performances Wagner himself cried "Bravo!" as the Flower-maidens made their exit in the Second Act, only to be hissed by other members of the audience.^[22] At some theatres other than Bayreuth, applause and curtain-calls is normal practice after every act; other major theatres, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, follow the Bayreuth custom.

Post-war performances[link]

Parsifal is one of the Wagner operas regularly presented at the Bayreuth Festival to this day. Among the more significant post-war productions was that directed in 1951 by Wieland Wagner, the composer's grandson. At the first Bayreuth Festival after World War II he presented a radical move away from literal representation of the Hall of the Grail or the Flower-Maiden's bower. Instead, lighting effects and the bare minimum of scenery were used to complement Wagner's music. This production was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Swiss stage designer, Adolphe Appia. The reaction to this production was extreme: Ernest Newman, Wagner's biographer described it as "not only the best Parsifal I have ever seen and heard, but one of the three or four most moving spiritual experiences of my life".^[23] Others were appalled that Wagner's stage directions were being flouted. The conductor of the 1951 production, Hans Knappertsbusch, on being asked how he could conduct such a disgraceful travesty, declared that right up until the dress rehearsal he imagined that the stage decorations were still to come.^[24] Knappertsbusch was particularly upset by the omission of the dove which appears over Parsifal's head at the end of the opera, which he claimed inspired him to give better performances. To placate his conductor Wieland arranged to reinstate the dove, which descended on a string. What Knappertsbusch did not realise was that Wieland had made the length of the string sufficient so that the conductor could see the dove, but the audience could not.^[25] Wieland continued to modify and refine his Bayreuth production of Parsifal until his death in 1966.

Roles[link]

Synopsis[link]

Place: the castle of Monsalvat in the mountains in the north of Spain, and Klingsor's magic palace in the south of Spain.

Act 1[link]

Scene 1

Amalie Materna, Emil Scaria and Hermann Winkelmann in the 1882 premiere production of Parsifal

In a forest near the castle of Monsalvat, home of the Grail and its Knights, Gurnemanz, eldest Knight of the Grail, wakes his young squires and leads them in prayer. He sees Amfortas, King of the Grail Knights, and his entourage approaching. Amfortas has been injured by his own holy spear, and the wound will not heal.

Gurnemanz asks its lead knight for news of the king’s health. The knight says the king has suffered during the night and is going early for a bath in the holy lake. The squires ask Gurnemanz to explain how the king’s injury can be healed, but he evades their question and a wild woman—Kundry—bursts in. She gives Gurnemanz a vial of balsam, brought from Arabia, to ease the King’s pain and then collapses, exhausted.

Amfortas arrives, borne on a stretcher by Knights of the Grail. He calls out for Gawain, whose attempt at relieving the king's pain had failed. He is told that this knight has left again, seeking a better remedy. Raising himself somewhat, the king says going off without leave ("Ohn' Urlaub?") is the sort of impulsiveness which led himself into Klingsor’s realm, and to his downfall. He accepts the potion from Gurnemanz and tries to thank Kundry, but she answers hastily that thanks will not help and urges him onward, to his bath.

The procession leaves. The squires eye Kundry with mistrust and question her. After a brief retort, she falls silent. Gurnemanz tells them Kundry has often helped the Grail Knights but that she comes and goes unpredictably. When he asks directly why she does not stay to help, she answers, "I never help!" ("Ich helfe nie!"). The squires think she is a witch and sneer that if she does so much, why will she not find the Holy Spear for them? Gurnemanz reveals that this deed is destined for someone else. He says Amfortas was given guardianship of the Spear, but lost it as he was seduced by an irresistibly attractive woman in Klingsor’s domain. Klingsor grabbed the Spear and stabbed Amfortas: this wound causes Amfortas both suffering and shame, and will never heal on its own.

Squires returning from the king’s bath tell Gurnemanz that the balsam has eased the King’s suffering. Gurnemanz's own squires ask how it is that he knew Klingsor. He solemnly tells them how both the Holy Spear, which pierced the side of the Redeemer on the Cross, and the Holy Grail, which caught the flowing blood, had come to Monsalvat to be guarded by the Knights of the Grail under the rule of Titurel– Amfortas’ father. Klingsor had yearned to join the knights but, unable to keep impure thoughts from his mind, resorted to self-castration, causing him to be expelled from the order. Klingsor then set himself up in opposition to the realm of the Grail, learning dark arts, claiming the valley domain below and filling it with beautiful flower-maidens to seduce and enthrall wayward Grail Knights. It was here that Amfortas lost the Holy Spear, kept by Klingsor as he schemes to get the Grail, too. Gurnemanz tells how Amfortas later had a holy vision which told him to wait for a “pure fool, enlightened by compassion” (“Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor”) who would finally heal the wound.

At just this moment, cries are heard from the Knights (" Weh! Weh!"): a flying swan has been shot, and a young man is brought forth, a bow in his hand and a quiver of matching arrows. Gurnemanz speaks sternly to the lad saying this is a holy place. He asks him outright if he shot the swan, and the lad boasts that if it flies, he can hit it ("Im Fluge treff' ich was fliegt!") Gurnemanz asks what harm the swan had done, and shows the youth its lifeless body. Now remorseful, the young man breaks his bow, casting it aside. Gurnemanz asks him why he is here, who is his father, how he found this place and, lastly, his name. To each question the lad replies, "I don't know." The elder Knight sends his squires away to help the king and now asks the boy to tell what he does know. The young man says he has a mother, Herzeleide, and that he made the bow himself. Kundry has been listening and now she tells them that this boy’s father was Gamuret, a knight killed in battle, and also how the lad’s mother had forbidden her son to use a sword, fearing that he would meet the same fate as his father. Now the youth recalls that upon seeing knights pass through his forest, he left his home and mother to follow them. Kundry laughs and tells the young man that, as she rode by, she saw Herzeleide die of grief. Hearing this, the lad first jumps at Kundry but then collapses in grief. Kundry herself is now weary for sleep, but cries out that she must not sleep and wishes that she would never again waken. She disappears into the undergrowth.

Gurnemanz knows that the Grail leads only the pious to Monsalvat and invites the boy to observe the Grail ritual. The youth does not know what the Grail is, but he remarks that as they walk, he seems scarcely to move, yet seems to travel far. Gurnemanz says that in this realm, time becomes space (" Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit"). An orchestral interlude leads into Scene Two.

Scene 2

They arrive at the Hall of the Grail, where the Knights are assembling to receive Holy Communion ("Zum letzten Liebesmahle"). The voice of Titurel is heard, telling his son, Amfortas, to uncover the Grail. Amfortas is wracked with shame and suffering (" Wehvolles Erbe, dem ich verfallen"). He is the guardian of these holy relics yet has succumbed to temptation and lost the Spear: he declares himself unworthy of his office. He cries out for forgiveness (“Erbarmen!”) but hears only the promise of future redemption by the pure fool.

On hearing Amfortas' cry, the youth appears to suffer with him, clutching at his heart. The knights and Titurel urge Amfortas to reveal the Grail ("Enthüllet den Gral"), which he finally does. The dark Hall is now bathed in the light of the Grail as the Knights eat. Gurnemanz motions to the youth to participate, but he seems entranced and does not heed. Amfortas does not commune and, as the ceremony ends, collapses in pain and is carried away. Slowly the Hall empties leaving only the young man and Gurnemanz, who asks him if he has understood what he has seen. When the lad cannot answer, Gurnemanz dismisses him as just a fool and sends him out with a warning to hunt geese, if he must, but to leave the swans alone. A voice from high above repeats the promise, “The pure fool, enlightened by compassion."

Act 2[link]

Scene 1

The second act opens at Klingsor’s magic castle. Klingsor conjures up Kundry, waking her from her sleep. He calls her by many names: First Sorceress, Hell's Rose, Herodias, Gundryggia and, lastly, Kundry. She is now transformed into an incredibly alluring woman, as when she seduced Amfortas. She mocks Klingsor's mutilated condition by sarcastically inquiring if he is chaste ("Ha ha! Bist du keusch?"), but she cannot resist his power. Klingsor observes that Parsifal is approaching, and summons his enchanted knights to fight the boy. Klingsor watches as Parsifal overcomes the knights, and they flee. Klingsor wishes destruction on the whole race of knights.

Klingsor sees this young man stray into his Flower-maiden garden and calls to Kundry to seek the boy out and seduce him, but when he turns, he sees that Kundry has already set out on her mission.

Parsifal postcard around 1900 - unknown artist

Scene 2

The triumphant youth finds himself in a wondrous garden, surrounded by beautiful and seductive Flower-maidens. They call to him and entwine themselves about him while chiding him for wounding their lovers ("Komm, komm, holder Knabe!"). They soon fight and bicker amongst themselves to win his singular devotion, to the point that he is about flee, but then a voice calls out, "Parsifal!" He now recalls this name is what his mother used when appearing in his dreams. The Flower-maidens back away from him and call him a fool as they leave Parsifal and Kundry alone.

He wonders if this Garden is a dream and asks how it is that Kundry knows his name. Kundry tells him she learned it from his mother ("Ich sah das Kind an seiner Mutter Brust."), who had loved him and tried to shield him from his father’s fate; the mother he had abandoned and who had finally died of grief. She reveals many parts of Parsifal's history to him and he is stricken with remorse, blaming himself for his mother’s death. He thinks himself very stupid to have forgotten her. Kundry says this realization is a first sign of understanding and that, with a kiss, she can help him understand his mother’s love. As they kiss Parsifal suddenly recoils in pain and cries out Amfortas' name: he feels the wounded king's pain burning in his own side, and now understands Amfortas’ passion during the Grail Ceremony ("Amfortas! Die Wunde! Die Wunde!") Filled with this compassion, Parsifal rejects Kundry's advances.

Furious that her ploy has failed, Kundry tells Parsifal that if he can feel compassion for Amfortas, then he should be able to feel compassion for her as well. She has been cursed for centuries, unable to rest, because she saw the Savior on the cross and laughed at His pains. Now she can never weep, only laugh, and she is enslaved to Klingsor as well. Parsifal rejects her again but then asks her to lead him to Amfortas. She begs him to stay with her for just one hour, and then she will lead him to Amfortas. When he still refuses, she curses him to wander without ever finding the Kingdom of the Grail, and finally she calls on her master to help her.

Klingsor appears and throws the Spear at Parsifal but it stops in midair, above his head. Parsifal takes it and makes the sign of the Cross. The castle crumbles and as he leaves the scene, he tells Kundry that she knows where she can find him again.

Act 3[link]

Scene 1 The Third act opens as it did in the First, in the domain of the Grail, but many years later. Gurnemanz is now aged and bent. He hears moaning near his hermit's hut and discovers Kundry unconscious in the brush, as he had many years before ("Sie! Wieder da!"). He revives her using water from the Holy Spring, but she will only speak the word “serve” (“Dienen”). Gurnemanz wonders if there is any significance to her reappearance on this special day. Looking into the forest, he sees a figure approaching, armed and girt in full armour. The stranger wears a helmet and the hermit cannot see who it is. Gurnemanz queries him, but gets no response. Finally, the apparition removes its helmet and Gurnemanz recognizes the lad who shot the swan, and then joyfully recognizes that the Holy Spear is now returned.

Parsifal tells of his desire to return to Amfortas ("Zu ihm, des tiefe Klagen.") He relates his long journey hence, wandering for years, unable to find a path back to the Grail: he had often been forced to fight, but never wielded the Spear in battle. Gurnemanz tells him that the curse preventing Parsifal from finding his right path has now been lifted, but that in his absence Amfortas has never revealed the Grail, and that Titurel has died. Parsifal is overcome with remorse, blaming himself for this state of affairs. Gurnemanz tells him that today is the day of Titurel’s funeral rites, and that Parsifal has a great duty to perform. Kundry washes Parsifal’s feet and Gurnemanz anoints him with water from the Holy Spring, recognizing him as the pure fool, now enlightened by compassion, and as the new King of the Knights of the Grail.

End of Act III in the original 1882 production, design by Paul von Joukowsky

Parsifal looks about and comments on the beauty of the meadow. Gurnemanz explains that today is Good Friday, when all the world is renewed. Parsifal now baptizes the weeping Kundry. Tolling bells are heard afar off; Gurnemanz says Midday: the hour has come. My lord, permit your servant to guide you! and all three set off for the castle of the Grail. A dark orchestral interlude (Mittag) leads into the solemn gathering of the knights in Scene Two.

Scene 2

Within the castle of the Grail, Amfortas is brought before the Grail shrine itself, and Titurel’s coffin. He cries out to his dead father to offer him rest from his sufferings, and wishes to join him in death ("Mein vater! Hochgesegneter der Helden!") The Knights of Grail passionately urge Amfortas to uncover the Grail to them again but Amfortas, in a frenzy, says he will never again show the Grail, commanding the Knights, instead, to kill him and end his suffering and the shame he has brought on the Knighthood. At this moment, Parsifal steps forth and says that only one weapon can heal the wound ("Nur eine Waffe taugt"): with the Spear he touches Amfortas’ side, and both heals and absolves him. He commands the revealing of the Grail. As all present kneel, Kundry, released from her curse, sinks lifeless to the ground as a white dove descends to hover over the head of Parsifal.

Reactions to Parsifal[link]

Since Parsifal could initially only be seen at the Bayreuth Festival, the first presentation in 1882 was attended by many notable figures. Reaction was varied. Some thought that Parsifal marked a weakening of Wagner's abilities. The critic Eduard Hanslick gave his opinion that "The Third act may be counted the most unified and the most atmospheric. It is not the richest musically," going on to note: " And Wagner's creative powers? For a man of his age and his method they are astounding ... [but] It would be foolishness to declare that Wagner's fantasy, and specifically his musical invention, has retained the freshness and facility of yore. One cannot help but discern sterility and prosaism, together with increasing longwindedness."^[26]

The conductor Felix Weingartner found that "The flower-maidens' costumes showed extraordinary lack of taste, but the singing was incomparable.... When the curtain had been rung down on the final scene and we were walking down the hill, I seemed to hear the words of Goethe "and you can say you were present." The Parsifal performances of 1882 were artistic events of supreme interest and it is my pride and joy that I participated in them."^[27]

Hugo Wolf was a student at the time of the 1882 Festival yet still managed to find money for a ticket to see Parsifal twice. He emerged overwhelmed: "Colossal - Wagner's most inspired, sublimest creation." He reiterated this view in a postcard from Bayreuth in 1883: "Parsifal is without doubt by far the most beautiful and sublime work in the whole field of Art."^[28] Gustav Mahler was also present in 1883 and he wrote to a friend; "I can hardly describe my present state to you. When I came out of the Festspielhaus, completely spellbound, I understood that the greatest and most painful revelation had just been made to me, and that I would carry it unspoiled for the rest of my life."^[29] Max Reger simply noted that "When I first heard Parsifal at Bayreuth I was fifteen. I cried for two weeks and then became a musician." Alban Berg described Parsifal in 1909 as "magnificent, overwhelming,"^[30] and Jean Sibelius, visiting the Festival in 1894 said "Nothing in the world has made so overwhelming an impression on me. All my innermost heart-strings throbbed... I cannot begin to tell you how Parsifal has transported me. Everything I do seems so cold and feeble by its side.That is really something."^[31] Claude Debussy thought the characters and plot ludicrous, but nevertheless in 1903 wrote that musically it was "Incomparable and bewildering, splendid and strong. Parsifal is one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music".^[32] Nevertheless, he was later to write to Ernest Chausson that he had deleted a scene he had just written for his own opera Pelléas et Melisande because he had discovered in the music for it 'the ghost of old Klingsor, alias R. Wagner'.^[33]

Some took a more acerbic view of the experience. Mark Twain visited the Festival in 1891: "I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of Parsifal anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or melody... Singing! It does seem the wrong name to apply to it... In Parsifal there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires to die."^[34]

Performance standards may have contributed to such reactions; George Bernard Shaw commented in 1894 that "The opening performance of Parsifal this season was, from the purely musical point of view, as far as the principal singers were concerned, simply an abomination. The bass howled, the tenor bawled, the baritone sang flat and the soprano, when she condescended to sing at all and did not merely shout her words, screamed..."^[35]

In later years Parsifal attracted different admirers. Joseph Goebbels, the Reichsminister for Propaganda, was a strong advocate of the work. After hearing it for the first time in 1928, he described it as "my greatest experience at the opera [...] by the end, I was completely overwhelmed."^[36]

Criticism and influence[link]

As Wagner's last opera, Parsifal has been both influential and controversial. The use of Christian symbols in Parsifal (the Grail, the Spear, references to the Redeemer) together with its restriction to Bayreuth for almost 30 years sometimes led to performances being regarded almost as a religious rite. It should be noted, however, that Wagner never actually refers to Jesus Christ by name in the opera, preferring instead to refer to "The Redeemer". In his essay "Religion and Art" Wagner himself described the use of Christian imagery thus:

"When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain."^[37]

The critic Eduard Hanslick objected to the religious air surrounding Parsifal even at the premiere: "The question of whether Parsifal should really be withheld from all theatres and limited to... Bayreuth was naturally on all tongues... I must state here that the church scenes in Parsifal did not make the offensive impression on me that others and I had been led to expect from reading the libretto. They are religious situations - but for all their earnest dignity they are not in the style of the church, but completely in the style of the opera. Parsifal is an opera, call it a 'stage festival' or 'consecrational stage festival' if you will." ^[38]

Nietzsche[link]

Friedrich Nietzsche, who was originally one of Wagner's champions, chose to use Parsifal as the grounds for his breach with Wagner;^[39] an extended critique of Parsifal opens the third essay ("What Is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?") of On the Genealogy of Morality. In "Nietzsche contra Wagner" he wrote:

"Parsifal is a work of perfidy, of vindictiveness, of a secret attempt to poison the presuppositions of life - a bad work. The preaching of chastity remains an incitement to anti-nature: I despise everyone who does not experience Parsifal as an attempted assassination of basic ethics."^[40]

Despite this attack on the subject matter, he also admitted that the music was sublime: "Moreover, apart from all irrelevant questions (as to what the use of this music can or ought to be) and on purely aesthetic grounds; has Wagner ever done anything better?" (Letter to Peter Gast, 1887).^[41]

Racism debate[link]

Some writers see in the opera the promotion of racism or anti-semitism.^[42]

Parsifal on a Third Reich stamp - 1933

One line of argument suggests that Parsifal was written in support of the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau who advocated Aryanism. Parsifal is proposed as the "pure-blooded" (i.e. Aryan) hero who overcomes Klingsor, who is perceived as a Jewish stereotype, particularly since he opposes the quasi-Christian Knights of the Grail. Such claims remain heavily debated,^[43][44][45] since there is nothing explicit in the libretto to support them. Wagner never mentions such ideas in his many writings, and Cosima Wagner's diaries, which relate in great detail Wagner's thoughts over the last 14 years of his life (including the period covering the composition and first performance of Parsifal) never mention any such intention.^[46] Wagner first met Gobineau very briefly in 1876, but he only read Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races^[47] in 1880. However, Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877, and the original drafts of the story date back to 1857. Despite this chronological evidence, Gobineau is frequently cited as a major inspiration for Parsifal.^[48][49]

The related question of whether the opera contains a specifically anti-Semitic message is also debated.^[50] Some of Wagner's contemporaries and commentators (e.g. Hans von Wolzogen and Ernest Newman) who analysed Parsifal at length, make no mention of any anti-Semitic interpretations.^[51] However the critics Paul Lindau and Max Nordbeck, present at Parsifal 's premiere, noted in their reviews how the work accorded with Wagner's anti-Jewish sentiments.^[52] More recent commentators continue to highlight the perceived anti-Semitic nature of the opera,^[53] and find correspondences with anti-Semitic passages found in Wagner's writings and articles of the period.

The conductor of the premiere was Hermann Levi, the court conductor at the Munich Opera. Since King Ludwig was sponsoring the production, much of the orchestra was drawn from the ranks of the Munich Opera, including the conductor. Wagner objected to Parsifal being conducted by a Jew (Levi's father was in fact a rabbi). Wagner first suggested that Levi should convert to Christianity, which Levi declined to do.^[54] Wagner then wrote to King Ludwig that he had decided to accept Levi despite the fact that (he alleged) he had received complaints that "of all pieces, this most Christian of works" should be conducted by a Jew. When the King expressed his satisfaction at this, replying that "human beings are basically all brothers", Wagner wrote to the King that he "regard[ed] the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble about it".^[55]

It has been claimed that Parsifal was denounced as being "ideologically unacceptable" in the Third Reich, ^[56] and that the Nazis placed a de facto ban on Parsifal.^[57][58] In fact there were 23 performances at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin between 1939 and 1942.^[59] However Parsifal was not performed at the Bayreuth Festival during the Second World War.^[60]

[edit] Schopenhauer and Parsifal

Wagner had been greatly impressed with his reading of Arthur Schopenhauer in 1854, and this deeply affected his thoughts and practice on music and art. Some writers (e.g. Bryan Magee) see Parsifal as Wagner's last great espousal of Schopenhauerian philosophy.^[61] Parsifal can heal Amfortas and redeem Kundry because he shows compassion, which Schopenhauer saw as the highest form of human morality. Moreover, he displays compassion in the face of sexual temptation (Act 2 scene 3). Schopenhaurian philosophy also suggests that the only escape from the ever-present temptations of human life is through negation of the Will, and overcoming sexual temptation is in particular a strong form of negation of the Will. When viewed in this light, Parsifal, with its emphasis on "Mitleid" (compassion) is a natural follow-on to Tristan und Isolde, where Schopenhauer's influence is perhaps more obvious, with its focus on "Sehnen" (yearning). Indeed, Wagner originally considered including Parsifal as a character in Act 3 of Tristan, but later rejected the idea.^[62]

[edit] Music of Parsifal

[edit] Leitmotifs in Parsifal

A leitmotif is a recurring musical theme associated within a particular piece of music with a particular person, place or idea. Wagner is the composer most often associated with leitmotifs, and Parsifal makes liberal use of them.^[63] Wagner did not specifically identify or name leitmotifs in the score of Parsifal (any more than he did in any other of his scores),^[64] although his wife Cosima mentions statements he made about some of them in her diary. However, Wagner's followers (notably Hans von Wolzogen whose guide to Parsifal was published in 1882) named, wrote about and made references to these motifs, and they were highlighted in piano arrangements of the score.^[65][66] (Wagner's own reaction to such naming of motifs in the score was one of disgust: 'In the end people believe that such nonsense happens by my suggestion.') ^[67]

The opening prelude introduces two important leitmotifs, generally referred to as the Communion theme and the theme of the Grail. These two, and Parsifal's own motif, are repeatedly referenced during the course of the opera. Other characters, especially Klingsor, Amfortas, and "The Voice", which sings the so-called Tormotif (Fool's motive), have their own particular leitmotifs. Wagner uses the Dresden amen to represent the Grail, this motif being a sequence of notes he would have known since his childhood in Dresden.

[edit] Chromaticism in Parsifal

Many music theorists have used Parsifal to explore difficulties in analyzing the chromaticism of late 19th century music. Theorists such as David Lewin and Richard Cohn have explored the importance of certain pitches and harmonic progressions both in structuring and symbolizing the work.^[68][69] The unusual harmonic progressions in the leitmotifs which structure the piece, as well as the heavy chromaticism of Act II, make it a difficult work to parse musically.

Notable excerpts[link]

As is common in mature Wagner operas, Parsifal was composed such that each act was a continuous flow of music; hence there are no free-standing arias in the work. However a number of orchestral excerpts from the opera were arranged by Wagner himself and remain in the concert repertory. The Prelude to Act 1 is frequently performed either alone or in conjunction with an arrangement of the "Good Friday" music which accompanies the second half of Act 3 scene 1. Kundry's long solo in Act 2 ("Ich sah das Kind") is occasionally performed in concert, as is Amfortas' Lament from Act 1 ("Wehvolles Erbe").

Instrumentation[link]

Parsifal is scored for an orchestra consisting of the following:

Parsifal was the only work Wagner ever wrote in which he employed the contrabassoon.^[70]

The bells that draw the knights to the Grail ceremony at Monsalvat in Acts 1 and 3 have often proved problematic to stage. For the earlier performances of Parsifal in Bayreuth, Wagner had the Parsifal bell, a piano frame consisting of four strings, constructed as substitutes of church bells. For the first performances, the bells were combined with tam-tams and gongs. However, the bell was used with the tuba, four tam-tams tuned to the pitch of the four chime notes and another tam-tam on which a roll is executed by using a drumstick. In modern-day performances, the Parsifal bell has been substituted with tubular bells or synthesizers to produce the desired notes.

Recordings[link]

See Parsifal discography

Parsifal was expressly composed for the stage at Bayreuth and many of the most famous recordings of the opera come from live performances on that stage. In the pre-LP era, Karl Muck conducted excerpts from the opera at Bayreuth which are still considered some of the best performances of the opera on disc (they also contain the only sound evidence of the bells constructed for the work's premiere, which were later melted down by the Nazis during World War II). Hans Knappertsbusch was the conductor most closely associated with Parsifal at Bayreuth in the post-war years, and the performances under his baton in 1951 marked the re-opening of the Bayreuth Festival after the Second World War. These historic performances were recorded and are available on the Teldec label in mono sound. Knappertsbusch recorded the opera again for Philips in 1962 in stereo, and this release is often considered to be the classic Parsifal recording.^[71] There are also many "unofficial" live recordings from Bayreuth, capturing virtually every Parsifal cast ever conducted by Knappertsbusch.

Amongst the studio recordings, those conducted by Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan and Daniel Barenboim (the latter two both conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) have been widely praised.^[72] The Karajan recording was voted "Record of the Year" in the 1981 Gramophone Awards. Also highly regarded is a recording of Parsifal under the baton of Rafael Kubelík originally made for Deutsche Grammophon, now reissued on Arts Archives.

In addition to a number of performances available on DVD, Parsifal was also adapted for the screen by film director Hans-Jürgen Syberberg.

Score[link]

The music score for Parsifal is available online at the International Music Score Library Project.^[73]

References[link]

• Beckett, Lucy (1981) Richard Wagner: Parsifal, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-29662-5
• Burbidge, Peter & Sutton, Richard (Eds.) (1979). The Wagner Companion. Faber and Faber Ltd., London. ISBN 0-571-11450-4. 
• Deathridge, John (2008), Wagner Beyond Good and Evil, Berkeley. ISBN 978-0-520-25453-4
• Fauser, Annagret (2008),"Wagnerism", in The Cambridge Companion to Wagner ed. Thomas S. Grey, (pp. 221–234), Cambridge, ISBN 978-0-521-64439-6
• Gregor-Dellin, Martin (1983) Richard Wagner: his life, his work, his Century. William Collins, ISBN 0-00-216669-0
• Hartford, Robert (1980) Bayreuth: The Early Years. Victor Gollancz, ISBN 0-575-02865-3
• Magee, Bryan (1997). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Clarendon Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-823722-7. 
• Magee, Bryan (2002). The Tristan Chord. Owl Books, NY. ISBN 0-8050-7189-X.  (UK Title: Wagner and Philosophy, Publisher Penguin Books Ltd, ISBN 0-14-029519-4)
• Melitz, Leo (2001). The Opera Goer's Complete Guide. Best Books Ltd., London. ISBN 0-7222-6262-0. 
• Newman, Ernest (1976) The Life of Richard Wagner (4 vols)., Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-29149-6
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989). On the Genealogy of Morals. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-72462-1
• Rose, Paul Lawrence. Wagner:Race and Revolution, London, 1996
• Millington, Barry (Ed.) (1992). The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music. Thames and Hudson Ltd., London. ISBN 0-02-871359-1. 
• Schopenhauer, Arthur (1966). The World as Will and Representation. Dover,NY. ISBN 0-486-21762-0. 
• Thorau, Christian, Guides for Wagnerites: Leitmotifs and Wagnerian Listening,: in Thomas S. Grey (ed.), Wagner and His World, (pp. 133–150). Princeton and Oxford (2009) ISBN 978-0-691-14366-8
• Weiner, Marc A. (1997), Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination, Lincoln ISBN 0-8032-9792-0
• Zelinsky, Hartmut, Rettung ins Ungenaue, in Richard Wagner:Parsifal ed. Metzger and Riehn, Munich, 1982.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Monsalvat Derrick Everett's extensive website on all aspects of Parsifal.
• Essay by Rolf May A Theosophical view of Parsifal
• Complete English and German Libretto and Wagner's own stage descriptions
• IMSLP full orchestral and vocal scores of Parsifal
• Complete vocal score of Parsifal
• Wagner Operas. A comprehensive website featuring photographs of productions, recordings, librettos, and sound files.
• Summary of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival
• Parsifal on Stage: a PDF by Katherine R. Syer
• Richard Wagner - Parsifal. A gallery of historic postcards with visual motives from Richard Wagner's operas.
• Reviews of Parsifal on record. by Geoffrey Riggs.
• List of all Parsifal conductors at Bayreuth.

Richard Wagner in 1871

Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( /ˈvɑːɡnər/; German pronunciation: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and polemicist primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as he later called them). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his stage works. Perhaps the two best-known extracts from his works are the Ride of the Valkyries from the opera Die Walküre, and the Wedding March (Bridal Chorus) from the opera Lohengrin.

Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works such as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser which were broadly in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner transformed operatic thought through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"). This would achieve the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts and was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realized this concept most fully in the first half of the monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. However, his thoughts on the relative importance of music and drama were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional operatic forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Wagner pioneered advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, which greatly influenced the development of European classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music. Wagner's influence spread beyond music into philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. He had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which contained many novel design features. It was here that the Ring and Parsifal received their premieres and where his most important stage works continue to be performed today in an annual festival run by his descendants. Wagner's views on conducting were also highly influential. His extensive writings on music, drama and politics have all attracted extensive comment in recent decades, especially where they have antisemitic content.

Wagner achieved all of this despite a life characterized, until his last decades, by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His pugnacious personality and often outspoken views on music, politics and society made him a controversial figure during his life, which he remains to this day. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the twentieth century.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Wagner's birthplace, Brühl (Leipzig)

Richard Wagner was born at No. 3 ('The House of the Red and White Lions'), the Brühl, in the Jewish quarter of Leipzig, the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service,^[1] and his wife Johanna Rosine (née Paetz), the daughter of a baker.^[2] Wagner's father died of typhus six months after Richard's birth, following which Wagner's mother began living with the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer, a friend of Richard's father.^[3] In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married – although no documentation of this is found in the Leipzig church registers.^[4] She and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden. Until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly suspected that Geyer was his natural father.^[5]

Geyer's love of the theatre was shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography, Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel.^[6] The boy Wagner was also hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Weber's Der Freischütz. In late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher.^[7] He could not manage a proper scale but preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Geyer died in 1821, when Richard was eight. Subsequently, Wagner was sent to the Kreuz Grammar School in Dresden, paid for by Geyer's brother.^[8] The young Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright, his first creative effort (listed as 'WWV 1') being a tragedy, Leubald, begun at school in 1826, which was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe. Wagner was determined to set it to music; he persuaded his family to allow him music lessons.^[9]

By 1827, the family had moved back to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken in 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller.^[10] In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th Symphony and then, in March, Beethoven's 9th Symphony performed in the Gewandhaus. Beethoven became his inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th Symphony.^[11] He was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart's Requiem.^[12] From this period date Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures.^[13]

In 1829 he saw the dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient on stage, and she became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In his autobiography, Wagner wrote, "If I look back on my life as a whole, I can find no event that produced so profound an impression upon me." Wagner claimed to have seen Schröder-Devrient in the title role of Fidelio; however, it seems more likely that he saw her performance as Romeo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi.^[14]

Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer (1835), by Alexander von Otterstedt

He enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1831 where he became a member of the Studentenverbindung Corps Saxonia Leipzig. He also took composition lessons with the cantor of Saint Thomas Church, Christian Theodor Weinlig.^[15] Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons, and arranged for Wagner's Piano Sonata in B flat (which was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as the composer's Op. 1. A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major, a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 ^[16] and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833.^[17] He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), which he never completed.^[18]

Early career[link]

In 1833, Wagner's older brother Karl Albert managed to obtain for Richard a position as choir master in Würzburg.^[19] In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies). This opera, which clearly imitated the style of Carl Maria von Weber, would go unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883.^[20]

Meanwhile, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg^[21] during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. This was staged at Magdeburg in 1836, but closed before the second performance, leaving the composer (not for the last time) in serious financial difficulties.^[22] In 1834 Wagner had fallen for the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer. After the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre.^[23] The two married in Königsberg on 24 November 1836.^[24] In June 1837 Wagner moved to Riga (then in the Russian Empire), where he became music director of the local opera.^[25] Minna had recently left Wagner for another man^[26] but Richard took her back;^[27] this was but the first débâcle of a troubled marriage that would end in misery three decades later.

By 1839, the couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga to escape from creditors;^[28] debt would plague Wagner for most of his life.^[29] During their flight, they and their Newfoundland dog Robber took a stormy sea passage to London,^[30] from which Wagner drew the inspiration for The Flying Dutchman (with a story based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine).^[31]

The Wagners spent 1839 to 1842 in Paris, where Richard made a scant living writing articles and arranging operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. However, he also completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman during this stay.^[32] His relief on leaving Paris for Dresden was recorded in his "Autobiographic Sketch" of 1842, "For the first time I saw the Rhine  — with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland."^[33]

Dresden[link]

Warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner, issued on 16 May 1849

Wagner had completed writing Rienzi in 1840. Largely through the strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer,^[34] it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre (Hofoper) in the German state of Saxony. In 1842, Wagner moved to Dresden, where Rienzi was staged to considerable acclaim on 20 October.^[35] Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor.^[36] During this period, he staged there The Flying Dutchman (2 January 1843)^[37] and Tannhäuser (19 October 1845),^[38] the first two of his three middle-period operas. Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and the architect Gottfried Semper.^[39]

The Wagners' stay at Dresden was brought to an end by Richard's involvement in leftist politics. A nationalist movement was gaining force in the states of the German Confederation, calling for constitutional freedoms and the unification of Germany as one nation state. Richard Wagner played an enthusiastic role in the socialist wing of this movement, regularly receiving guests who included the radical editor August Röckel, and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. He was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.^[40] Widespread discontent in Dresden came to a head in April 1849, when King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony rejected a new constitution. The May Uprising broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role. The incipient revolution was quickly crushed by an allied force of Saxon and Prussian troops, and warrants were issued for the arrest of the revolutionaries. Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zurich.^[41]

Exile, Schopenhauer and Mathilde Wesendonck[link]

Portrait of Mathilde Wesendonck (1850) by Karl Ferdinand Sohn

Wagner spent the next twelve years in exile. He had completed Lohengrin, the last of his middle-period operas before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt, who proved to be a true friend, eventually conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850.^[42]

Nevertheless, Wagner found himself in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any income to speak of. Before leaving Dresden, he had drafted a scenario that would eventually become the four opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death) in 1848. After arriving in Zurich he expanded the story to include an opera Der junge Siegfried (Young Siegfried) exploring the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre and Das Rheingold and revising the other libretti to agree with his new concept, completing them in 1852.^[43] Meanwhile, his wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi, was falling into a deepening depression and then Wagner himself fell victim to ill-health, according to Ernest Newman "largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing.^[44]

Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zurich was a set of notable essays: "The Art-Work of the Future" (1849), in which he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total work of art", in which the various arts such as music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts, and stagecraft were unified; "Judaism in Music" (1850), a tract directed against Jewish composers; and "Opera and Drama" (1851), which described the aesthetics of drama which he was using to create the Ring operas.

Wagner began composing Das Rheingold in November 1853, following it immediately with Die Walküre in 1854. He then began work on the third opera, now called Siegfried, in 1856 but finished only the first two acts before deciding to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde.^[45]

Wagner had two independent sources of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde. The first came to him in 1854, when his poet friend Georg Herwegh introduced him to the works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Wagner would later call this the most important event of his life.^[46] His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, a deeply pessimistic view of the human condition. He would remain an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life, even after his fortunes improved.^[47]

Photograph of Cosima Wagner, 1877

One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts. He claimed that music is the direct expression of the world's essence, which is blind, impulsive will.^[48] Wagner quickly embraced this claim, which must have resonated strongly despite its contradiction of his previous view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that the music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have since argued that this Schopenhauerian influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose.^[49] Many aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine undoubtedly found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti. For example, the self-renouncing cobbler-poet Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, generally considered Wagner's most sympathetic character, although based loosely on a historical person, is a quintessentially Schopenhauerian creation.^[50]

Wagner's second source of inspiration was the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks in Zurich in 1852. Otto, a fan of Wagner's music, placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal.^[51] During the course of the next five years, the composer was eventually to become infatuated with his patron's wife. Though Mathilde seems to have returned some of his affections, she had no intention of jeopardizing her marriage. Nevertheless, the affair inspired Wagner to put aside his work on the Ring cycle (which would not be resumed for the next twelve years) and began work on Tristan,^[52] based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult. While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder, five songs for voice and piano setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as 'studies for Tristan und Isolde '.^[53]

The uneasy affair collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted a letter from Wagner to Mathilde.^[54] However, Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with (and support by) her husband Otto. After the resulting confrontation, Wagner left Zurich alone, bound for Venice, where he sojourned in the Palazzo Giustinian.^[55] The following year, he once again moved to Paris to oversee production of a new revision of Tannhäuser, staged thanks to the efforts of his patron Princess Pauline von Metternich, whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris. The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were famously a fiasco, brought about not only by the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club, but also by people of influence who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III.^[56] The work was withdrawn after the third performance and Wagner left Paris soon after.^[57]

The political ban which had been placed on Wagner in Germany after he had fled Dresden was lifted in 1861. The composer settled in Biebrich in Prussia,^[58] where he began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the idea for which had come during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks.^[59] Despite the failure of Tannhäuser in Paris, the possibility that Der Ring des Nibelungen would never be finished, and Wagner's unhappy personal life at the time of writing it, this opera is his only mature comedy.

Between 1861 and 1864 Wagner tried to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna.^[60] Despite numerous rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible", which further added to Wagner's financial woes.^[61]

In 1862, Wagner finally parted from Minna,^[62] though he (or at least his creditors) continued to support her financially until her death in 1866. He claimed to be unable to travel to her funeral due to an "inflamed finger".^[63]

Patronage of King Ludwig II[link]

Portrait of Ludwig II of Bavaria about the time when he first met Wagner, by Ferdinand von Piloty, 1865

Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas since childhood, had the composer brought to Munich.^[64] He settled Wagner's considerable debts,^[65] and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and the other operas Wagner planned.^[66] Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben, at the King's request.^[67] To Wagner, it seemed significant that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with his learning the news of the death of his supposed enemy Giacomo Meyerbeer, noting ungratefully that "this operatic master, who had done me so much harm, should not have lived to see this day".^[68]

After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at the National Theatre in Munich on 10 June 1865, the first Wagner premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but had been delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors;^[69] and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, was hoarse and needed time to recover). The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow, whose wife Cosima had given birth in April that year to a daughter, named Isolde, the child not of von Bülow but of Wagner.^[70]

Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult, who had left her husband for Franz Liszt.^[71] Liszt disapproved of his daughter seeing Wagner, though the two men were friends.^[72] The indiscreet affair scandalized Munich, and to make matters worse, Wagner fell into disfavour among members of the court, who were suspicious of his influence on the king. In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich.^[73] He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating in order to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him.^[74]

Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen, beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne.^[75] Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premièred in Munich on 21 June the following year.^[76] In October, Cosima finally convinced Hans von Bülow to grant her a divorce, but this did not materialize until after she had two more children with Wagner; another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger, and a son Siegfried, named for the hero of the Ring. Minna Wagner had died the previous year and so Richard and Cosima were now able to marry. The wedding took place on 25 August 1870.^[77] On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday.^[78] The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life.

Bayreuth[link]

Richard Wagner at Bayreuth. Liszt, who was also his father-in-law, can be seen at the piano.

Wagner, settled into his newfound domesticity, turned his energies toward completing the Ring cycle. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870,^[79] but Wagner wanted the complete cycle to be performed in a new, specially designed opera house.

In 1871, he decided on the small town of Bayreuth as the location of his new opera house.^[80] The Wagners moved there the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid.^[81] In order to raise funds for the construction, "Wagner Societies" were formed in several cities,^[82] and Wagner himself began touring Germany conducting concerts.^[83] However, sufficient funds were raised only after King Ludwig stepped in with another large grant in 1874.^[84] Later that year, the Wagners moved into their permanent home at Bayreuth, a villa that Richard dubbed Wahnfried ("Peace/freedom from delusion/madness", in German).^[85] The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried, however, meant that Wagner still sought other sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions like the Centennial March for America.^[86]

The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August 1876 with Das Rheingold, now taking its place as the first evening of the premiere of the complete Ring cycle,^[87] and has continued to be the site of the Bayreuth Festival ever since; the Festival has been overseen since 1973 by the Richard-Wagner-Stiftung (Richard Wagner Foundation), the members of which include a number of Wagner's descendants.^[88]

Last years[link]

Grave of Richard and Cosima Wagner in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried, Bayreuth

Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal, his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons.^[89] During this period he also wrote a series of essays, including some reactionary writings on religion and art which recanted his earlier views. Many of these—including "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Hero-dom and Christendom" (1881)^[90]—appeared in the journal Bayreuther Blätter,^[91] founded in 1880 by Wagner and Hans von Wolzogen for Wagnerite visitors to Bayreuth.^[92]

Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which was premiered on 26 May.^[93] Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered through a series of increasingly severe angina attacks.^[94] During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on 29 August, he secretly entered the pit during Act III, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi, and led the performance to its conclusion.^[95]

After the Festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 13 February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi, a 16th century palazzo on the Grand Canal.^[96] Franz Liszt's two pieces for piano solo entitled La lugubre gondola evoke the passing of a black-shrouded funerary gondola bearing Richard Wagner's remains over the Grand Canal.^[97] Wagner was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth.^[98]

Works[link]

Opera[link]

Leitmotif associated with the hero of Wagner's opera Siegfried

Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy.

Unlike other opera composers, who generally left the task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems".^[99] Further, Wagner developed a compositional style in which the orchestra's role is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role, in the later operas, includes the use of leitmotivs, musical themes that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminates the progression of the drama.^[100] Ultimately he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama", (although he did not use or sanction this term himself)^[101] in which all musical poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the Gesamtkunstwerk.^[102]

Wagner's operas are typically characterized as belonging to three chronological periods.

Early stage (to 1842)[link]

Wagner's first attempt at an opera, at the age of 17, was Die Laune des Verliebten.^[18] This was abandoned at an early stage of composition, as was Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), on which Wagner worked in 1832.^[18] Wagner then completed Die Feen (The Fairies, 1833, unperformed in the composer's lifetime)^[20] and Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love, 1836, taken off after its first performance),^[22] before working on the aborted singspiel Männerlist grösser als Frauenlist (Men's cunning greater than women's).^[18] This was followed by Rienzi (1842), Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged.^[103] The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Meyerbeerean Grand Opera—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these immature works to be part of his oeuvre, and none of them have ever been performed at the Wagnerian Bayreuth Festival.^[104] These works have been only rarely revived in the last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert piece.

Middle stage (1843–51)[link]

Wagner's middle stage output begins to show the deepening of his powers as a dramatist and composer. This period began with Der fliegende Holländer (1843) (The Flying Dutchman), followed by Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850). These three operas reinforced the reputation among the public in Germany and beyond that Wagner had begun to establish for himself with Rienzi. However, during his exile following the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden he began to reconsider his entire concept of opera and eventually decided, as explained during a series of essays between 1849 and 1852, that these operas did not represent what he hoped to achieve.^[105] In his essay A Communication to My Friends (1851), intended as a preface to the printed libretti of the Dutchman, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, Wagner (to the confusion of many of his friends, since at that time Lohengrin had not even been staged) effectively disowned these operas and declared his intention to strike out in new directions.

I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas [...] I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by a lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel). [...] At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening. The object of this production I shall consider thoroughly attained, if I and my artistic comrades, the actual performers, shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to the true Emotional (not the Critical) Understanding of spectators who shall have gathered together expressly to learn it. [...]^[106]

Wagner later reconciled himself to the works of this period, though he reworked both Dutchman and Tannhäuser on several occasions.^[107] The three operas are the earliest works included into the Bayreuth canon, the list of mature operas which Cosima put on at the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner's death in accordance with his wishes.^[108] They continue to be regularly performed today and have been frequently recorded. They show increasing mastery in stagecraft, orchestration and atmosphere.^[109]

Late stage (1851–1882)[link]

[edit] Starting the Ring

Brünnhilde the Valkyrie, as illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1910)

Main articles: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the music and Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the poem

Wagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces. Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring cycle, is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology—particularly from the later Norse mythology—notably the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga, and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied.^[110] They were also influenced by Wagner's concepts of ancient Greek drama, in which tetralogies were a component of Athenian festivals, and which he had amply discussed in his essay "Oper und Drama"^[111]

The first two components of the Ring cycle were Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) (completed 1854) and Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) (completed 1856). In Das Rheingold, with its "relentlessly talky "realism" [and] the absence of lyrical "numbers" ",^[112] Wagner came very close to the pure musical ideals of his 1849–51 essays. Die Walküre, with Siegmund's almost full-blown aria (Winterstürme) in the first act, and the quasi-choral appearance of the Valkyries themselves, shows more 'operatic' traits, but has been assessed as "the music drama that most satisfactorily embodies the theoretical principles of "Oper und Drama". A thoroughgoing synthesis of poetry and music is achieved without any notable sacrifice in musical expression".^[113]

[edit] Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger

While still composing the Ring, (leaving the third Ring opera Siegfried uncompleted for the while), Wagner paused between 1857 and 1864 to compose the tragic love story Tristan und Isolde and his only mature comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), two works which are also part of the regular operatic canon.^[114]

Tristan und Isolde uses a story line deriving from the poem Tristan und Isolt by the 13th century poet Gottfried von Strassburg. Wagner noted that "its all-pervading tragedy […] impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details." This impact, together with his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a Tristan und Isolde."^[115] Wagner half-parodied the powerful erotic atmosphere of the opera in a letter to Mathilde Wesendonck:

Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible. This final act!!! – I fear the opera will be banned […] only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad.^[116]

The work was first performed in Munich on 10 June 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow.

Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history. It has been described as "fifty years ahead of its time" because of its chromaticism, long-held discords, unusual orchestral colouring and harmony, and use of polyphony.^[117] Wagner himself felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines.^[117]

Die Meistersinger was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to Tannhäuser.^[118] It was first performed in Munich, again under the baton of Bülow, on 21 June 1868, its accessibility making it an immediate success. It is "a rich, perceptive music drama widely admired for its warm humanity";^[119] but because of its strong German nationalist overtones, it is also held up by some as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.^[120]

[edit] Completing the Ring

When Wagner returned, with the added experience of composing Tristan and Die Meistersinger, to write the music for the last act of Siegfried and for Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), as the final part of the Ring was eventually called, his style had changed once again to one more recognisable as 'operatic' (though thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer, and suffused with leitmotivs) than the aural world of Rheingold and Walküre.^[121] This was in part because the libretti of the four 'Ring' operas had been written in reverse order, so that the book for Götterdämmerung was conceived more 'traditionally' than that of Rheingold;^[122] still, the self-imposed strictures of the Gesamtkunstwerk had become relaxed. As George Bernard Shaw sardonically (and slightly unfairly)^[123] noted,

And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories come to an end somewhere[...] The rest of what you are going to see is opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet[...]The work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The Gods [Shaw's translation of Götterdämmerung], is a thorough grand opera.^[124]

However, the differences are also because of Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he composed Tristan, Meistersinger and also the Paris version of Tannhäuser.^[125] From Act III of Siegfried onwards, the Ring becomes chromatic, and both harmonically more complex and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs.^[126] Having taken 26 years from the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until the completion of Götterdämmerung in 1874, the Ring represents in all about 15 hours of performance, the only undertaking of such size to be regularly represented on the world's stages.^[127]

[edit] Parsifal

Wagner's final opera, Parsifal (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" (festival play for the consecration of the stage), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail. It also however carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer.^[128] Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card".^[129] The composer's treatment of Christianity in the opera, its eroticism, and its supposed relationship to ideas of German nationalism (and of antisemitism) have continued to render it controversial for non-musical reasons.^[130] However, musically it has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style, with "a diaphanous score of unearthly beauty and refinement".^[131]

Non-operatic music[link]

André Gill suggesting that Wagner's music was ear-splitting. Cover of L'Eclipse 18 April 1869

Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include a single symphony (written at the age of 19), a Faust Overture (the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject), and some overtures, choral and piano pieces.^[132] His most commonly performed work not drawn from an opera is the Siegfried Idyll, a piece for chamber orchestra written for the birthday of his second wife, Cosima. The Idyll draws on several motifs from the Ring cycle, though it is not part of the Ring.^[133] Also performed are the Wesendonck Lieder for voice and piano, properly known as Five Songs for a Female Voice, which were composed for Mathilde Wesendonck while Wagner was working on Tristan.^[53] An oddity is the American Centennial March of 1876, commissioned by the city of Philadelphia (on the recommendation of conductor Theodore Thomas, who was subsequently very disappointed with the work when it arrived) for the opening of the Centennial Exposition, for which Wagner was paid $5,000.^[134]

The rarely performed Das Liebesmahl der Apostel (The Love Feast of the Apostles) is a piece for male choruses and orchestra, composed in 1843. Wagner, who had been elected at the beginning of the year to the committee of a cultural association in the city of Dresden, received a commission to evoke the theme of Pentecost. The premiere took place at the Dresdner Frauenkirche on 6 July 1843, and was performed by around a hundred musicians and almost 1,200 singers. The concert was very well received.^[135]

After completing Parsifal, Wagner expressed his intention to turn to the writing of symphonies,^[136] and several sketches dating from the late 1870s and early 1880s have been identified as work toward this end.^[137]

The overtures and orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For most of these, Wagner wrote short passages to conclude the excerpt so that it does not end abruptly. Another familiar extract is the "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin, frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.^[138]

Writings[link]

Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring hundreds of books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence, throughout his life. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses of his own operas. Essays of note include "Art and Revolution" (1849), "Opera and Drama" (1851), an essay on the theory of opera, and "Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("Jewishness in Music", 1850), a polemic directed against Jewish composers in general, and Giacomo Meyerbeer in particular. He also wrote various autobiographical works, including "My Life" (1880). In his later years Wagner became a vociferous opponent of experimentation on animals and in 1879 he published an open letter, "Against Vivisection", in support of the animal rights activist Ernst von Weber.^[139]

There have been several editions of Wagner's writings, including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer (which however omitted the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik")^[140] The English translations of Wagner's prose in 8 volumes by W. Ashton Ellis, (1892–99), are still in print and commonly used, despite their deficiencies.^[141] A complete edition of Wagner's correspondence, (estimated to amount to between 10,000 and 12,000 surviving items), of which the first volume appeared in 1967, is still under way.^[142]

Influence and legacy[link]

Wagner's bust by Arno Breker in "Festspielpark Bayreuth"

Influence on music[link]

Wagner's later musical style, with its unprecedented exploration of emotional expression, introduced new ideas in harmony, melodic process (leitmotiv) and operatic structure. Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system that gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th century. Some music historians date the beginning of modern classical music to the first notes of Tristan, the so-called Tristan chord.^[143][144]

In his lifetime, and for some years after, Wagner inspired fanatical devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were indebted to him especially, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and dozens of others.^[145] Gustav Mahler said, "There was only Beethoven and Richard [Wagner] – and after them, nobody". The twentieth century harmonic revolutions of Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg (tonal and atonal modernism, respectively) have often been traced back to Tristan and Parsifal.^[146] The Italian form of operatic realism known as verismo owed much to Wagnerian reconstruction of musical form.^[147]

Wagner made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay "About Conducting" (1869)^[148] advanced the earlier work of Hector Berlioz and proposed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison. He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Mendelssohn; in his view this also justified practices which would today be frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.^[149] Wilhelm Furtwängler felt that Wagner and von Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).^[150]

Influence on literature, philosophy and the visual arts[link]

Memorial bust of Richard Wagner in Venice

Wagner's influence on literature and philosophy is significant.

[Wagner's] protean abundance meant that he could inspire the use of literary motif in many a novel employing interior monologue; [...] the Symbolists saw him as a mystic hierophant; the Decadents found many a frisson in his work.^[151]

Friedrich Nietzsche was part of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870s, and his first published work The Birth of Tragedy proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian rebirth of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist decadence. Nietzsche broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties and a surrender to the new German Reich. Nietzsche expressed his displeasure with the later Wagner in "The Case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner".^[152]

Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine worshipped Wagner.^[153] Edouard Dujardin, whose influential novel Les lauriers sont coupés is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, La Revue Wagnérienne, to which J. K. Huysmans and Téodor de Wyzewa contributed.^[154]

In the twentieth century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived",^[155] while Thomas Mann^[152] and Marcel Proust^[156] were heavily influenced by him and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is discussed in some of the works of James Joyce.^[157] Wagnerian themes inhabit T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which contains lines from Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung and Verlaine's poem on Parsifal.^[158] Many of Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by Sigmund Freud.^[159] Wagner had publicly analysed the Oedipus myth before Freud was born in terms of its psychological significance, insisting that incestuous desires are natural and normal, and perceptively exhibiting the relationship between sexuality and anxiety. ^[160]. George Groddeck considered the Ring as the first manual of psychoanalysis ^[161] In a long list of other major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, Bryan Magee includes D. H. Lawrence, Aubrey Beardsley, Romain Rolland, Gérard de Nerval, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rainer Maria Rilke and numerous others.^[162]

Opponents and supporters[link]

Not all reaction to Wagner was positive. For a time, German musical life divided into two factions, Wagner's supporters and those of Johannes Brahms; the latter, with the support of the powerful critic Eduard Hanslick (of whom Beckmesser in Meistersinger is in part a caricature) championed traditional forms and led the conservative front against Wagnerian innovations.^[163] They were supported by the conservative leanings of some German music schools, including the Conservatory at Leipzig under Ignaz Moscheles and that at Cologne under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller.^[164] Even those who, like Debussy, opposed him ("that old poisoner") could not deny Wagner's influence. Indeed, Debussy was one of many composers, including Tchaikovsky, who felt the need to break with Wagner precisely because his influence was so unmistakable and overwhelming. 'Golliwogg's Cakewalk' from Debussy's Children's Corner piano suite contains a deliberately tongue-in-cheek quotation from the opening bars of Tristan. Others who resisted Wagner's attraction included Gioachino Rossini ("Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour").^[165] In the 20th century Wagner's music was parodied by, among others Paul Hindemith and Hans Eisler.^[166]

Wagner's followers (known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites)^[167] have formed many Societies dedicated to the life, works, and operas of Wagner. Societies include: The Toronto Wagner Society, the Wagner Society of New York, the Wagner Society of the United Kingdom, The Wagner Society of New Zealand, The Wagner Society of Northern California, etc.

Theatre design and practice[link]

The Bayreuth Festspielhaus, venue for the first complete performances of the Ring and Parsifal.

Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations developed at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus (for the design of which he appropriated some of the ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had solicited for a proposed new opera house at Munich).^[168] These innovations include darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience.^[169]

Influence on film[link]

Wagner's concept of the use of leitmotifs and integrated musical expression has been an influence on many 20th and 21st century film scores. The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that the Wagnerian leitmotif "leads directly to cinema music where the sole function of the leitmotiv is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily".^[170] Some film scores have used Wagnerian themes (e.g. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now which features a version of the Ride of the Valkyrie). Most of Trevor Jones's soundtrack to John Boorman's Arthurian film Excalibur is from Wagner's operas.^[171] The 2011 films A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg) and Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier) both utilise music by Wagner.^[172]

Wagner has also been the subject of many biographical films. (See article List of films about Richard Wagner).

Influence on popular music[link]

The rock composer Jim Steinman created what he called Wagnerian Rock. Heavy metal music is also said by some to show the influence of Wagner (as well as other classical composers). In Germany Rammstein and Joachim Witt who has named three of his albums Bayreuth, claim inspiration from Wagner's music. German electronic composer Klaus Schulze dedicated his 1975 album Timewind to Wagner's death (two 30-min tracks, "Bayreuth Return" and "Wahnfried 1883"). He also used the alias Richard Wahnfried for a part of his discography. Slovenian avant-garde group Laibach created the sonic suite VolksWagner in 2009 in collaboration with the Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra and composer-conductor Izidor Leitinger, using material from Tannhäuser, the Siegfried Idyll and The Ride of the Valkyries. Phil Spector's wall of sound recording technique was, it has been claimed, heavily influenced by Wagner.^[173]

Film and stage portrayals[link]

Several of the film portrayals of Richard Wagner include: Alan Badel in Magic Fire (1955); Lyndon Brook in Song Without End (1960); Trevor Howard in Ludwig (1972); Paul Nicholas in Lisztomania (1975); and Richard Burton in Wagner (1983).