Tenore eroico -- verdiano, wagneriano -- RADAMES, PARSIFAL

Speranza

By courtesy of J. Giannino

There have been volumes written about opera composer Richard Wagner.

It is said that he is the second most written about individual as recorded in the Library of Congress, the first being Jesus Christ.

People have read many books, articles and internet sites dedicated to the man and have developed a close connection with Wagner and a better understanding of his genius, his music, his motivations and his life.

There's the book,“The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner’s Ring” by Paul Schofield.

One can approach the book with equal parts of curiosity, enthusiasm and skepticism.

People have spent years listening to and attempting to further understand the complex fabric of the Ring.

Here is a piece of work that has been touted as the greatest accomplishment by any artist in any medium.

People continue to research the subject and have come to a place in one's studies of the man and his music where one even enjoy reading works that inspired Wagner during his career.

One is constantly attempting to get ‘inside’ each piece and better understand and appreciate it, based on a more complex, growing and constantly evolving perspective.

Some of these literary excursions have been outside one's traditional reading habits but each has allowed one greater insight into what may lie beneath the sounds and voices we hear in Wagner operas.

Brian MacGee’s “Tristan Chord” was a challenging read, as it required not just an advanced understanding of Wagner’ operas and characters but of the philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, their studies and beliefs, and how they profoundly impacted Wagner and his music – most notably in “Tristan and Isolde.”

People read extensively about Buddhism and Wagner’s interaction with those studies and beliefs, and how they manifested themselves in his operas.

Most obvious was the common theme of redemption and purification of characters.

With this new book and its enticing offering of a fifth cycle opera one passed my curious stage by simply buying the book and reading it.

One's enthusiasm stayed with one for the first few chapters and then skepticism became larger.

The title suggests that this book deals with the linking of “Parsifal” to “The Ring” cycle.

Basically a fifth and final opera to round out the story.

What we received was a purely subjective view of the character and story lines -- never convincing, however, that this was ever a real position for Wagner.

Yes we read many pieces from his and “Cosima’s Diaries” that tell us that Wagner was working on an opera that may have been a linking piece and that “Parsifal” ultimately became that opera.

The trouble was that Schofield spent an exhaustive amount of time explaining connections to Greek Tragedies and too much time reviewing the history of the Grail, who wrote about the Grail; why they wrote about the Grail, and the very exacting relationships between the spear, the grail and the act of redeeming Amfortas.

I found these chapters interesting and agree that there is a strong connection with these works and Wagner’s “Parsifal.”

I was less convinced, however, of just how it all ties into the fold of “The Ring” cycle.

I was not looking for a silver bullet answer but the detail involved and the way Schofield presented it takes the reader away from the issue at hand.

Did Wagner write “Parsifal” as a fifth opera to “The Ring” cycle?

One interesting analogy was that Wotan’s breaking a limp off the World Ash tree represented the separation of the Spear and Grail, that is central in “Parsifal,” and that their rejoining in the conclusion of “Parsifal” presumably brings closure to the action that started before “Das Rheingold” started.

As I mentioned I have a good understanding of what Wagner’s operas consist of and how they manifest themselves, yet I just kept getting sidetracked and lost in this book.

I know something about the subject.

A  recreational reader would be completely frustrated.

Schofield links obvious characters:

Alberich --> Klingsor

Wotan --> Amfortas

Brunnhilde --> Kundry

Siegfried --> Parsifal.

I think there is an argument here and I understand how they have a connection.

To believe, however, that Parsifal is a reincarnation of Siegfried because he was never cleansed and, therefore, never to achieve full Nirvana which he completes as Parsifal (healing Amfortas) is asking a lot.

From my perspective I cannot image Wagner adding an opera to his cycle without including the single element of those operas that have been the topic of study, scrutiny and analysis -- the leitmotifs.

Those leading tag lines of music that basically make up the entire piece.

I recently heard a conductor say that writing “The Ring” score must have been easy as it essentially wrote itself through the evolution of leitmotifs.

The idea is maybe a little brush-stroked, but plausible.

“Parsifal” is also an amazing piece of music and one that still moves me after many a listening.

Without taking anything away from it, though, it just doesn’t follow the same music line as “The Ring.”

After reading the book I listened to “The Ring” cycle followed immediately by “Parsifal” (it took two weeks of commuting in my car to complete).

I love both pieces, but they simply do not link, musically or in story line.

In conclusion, I continue to maintain that these two operas are separate pieces and can’t be linked.

It just isn’t natural.

 I love getting to the end of “Gotterdammerung” and knowing that I have just spent 16 hours listening to complex musical expansions around a mythical story of the Gods.

I equally enjoy taking time to listen to “Parsifal,” which I enjoy each Christmas Holiday, as it seems to work with the themes and spirit of the season.

These are both ground-breaking works.

Unfortunately, Schofield buries us too deeply in second and third tier data and loses me, and maybe you, as a result of it.

I feel that I have an advanced knowledge of Wagner operas, and a pretty good sense of how he has been impacted by religion and philosophy.

 I just felt that this book went so deeply (read obscure) into secondary material that it ultimately lost its point, and me, and in the process failed to convince me that “Parsifal” ease the fifth opera of “The Ring” cycle.

(c) J. G.