Parsifal and the grail as bloodline

[Sean]

Well I thought I could try this here, slightly revised- it didn't do so well on the Diner: mods by all means delete the other thread (on the second page now). What do you make of Wagner's weirdest libretto?

Before writing Parsifal Wagner visited Rennes-le-Chateau in France, the place where the 19th century priest Sauniere may have found something of great significance to the Vatican; the grail is a concept largely unrecognised by Christian churches but Wagner helped establish popular interest through featuring it in Lohengrin and Parsifal. Moreover he may have been aware of theories of the grail as Christ's lineage in speaking of the need for social and religious regeneration through the agency of Christ's pure blood, and some of his thoughts on racial purity may refer to the bloodline, as perhaps do his characters who have great significance but are unsure who they are. Parsifal is set in Montsalvat in northern Spain near France.

Kundry parallels Mary Magdalene: one of the most complex figures in all opera, an ancient seductress figure who was present at the crucifixion and the only woman in the realm of the Templar like knights, who practice arcane rituals and safeguard the grail as the cup from the Last Supper. Parsifal parallels a bloodline figure to restore the order's true religion to the world and Kundry's kiss with him over eight sensuous bars blends motherly, ie Magdalene as the church's mother and bloodline from that time, with sexual, ie as Jesus's wife.

Wagner and Schopenhauer held that the ancient sources of oriental religions also gave rise to Christianity, and Parsifal is a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity: Enlightenment through carnal knowledge then provides spiritual enlightenment, on both personal and religious levels, all as in the fusing of sacred and sexual in Hindu and early pagan and Gnostic Christian understandings. Also Kundry's laughing at Christ on the cross may refer to the fundamental Dionysian and pleasure taken in the torture and destruction of another, or that it might have been a charade where Christ wasn't killed.

Klingsor like Alberich renounces love but becomes an evil not enlightened figure: his castle and keeping of the spear that pierced Christ's side to determine if he was dead may represent the established Church and its anti-bloodline secret. He castrated himself in a failed attempt to join the order of knights, such self-denial being a flawed path to spiritual renunciation or detachment from the senses, this paralleling the church's flawed spirituality and use of sexual denial and misogyny to detract attention from the idea of a married Christ and enforce its patriarchal power. Klingsor tries to destroy the order as the Church would destroy the bloodline's protectors or Templars/ Priory of Sion.

As Klingsor represents the mistake of self-denial, Amfortas represents the mistake of affected desire or being lost in the senses. Klingsor recognizes Parsifal as the new redeemer and tries to ruin him, like Amfortas, with Kundry and the flower maidens but Parsifal gains understanding on the sensory as well as religious ideological levels for a true spiritual perspective, having detachment from and transcending both. When Parsifal makes the sign of the cross Klingsor or the Church disappears, the true values restored.

Amfortas is cured at the end by Parsifal's spear taken from Klingsor after Kundry's kiss- through Parsifal's understanding of the need for both spiritual and sensory or absolute and relative life together. The spear in its healing rather than original harming role also rights the idea of Christ as dead when he didn't die, or at least his offspring and their contining royal claims: the correction of Amfortas's suffering is the correction of the problems in the religious situation.

Rather than affected detachment or affected attachment, Parsifal finds redemption for all, including himself and Christ or the redeemer redeemed, through unaffected action. Full engagement in life, sacred and secular, paradoxically issues from detachment- he understands lust in fullness after Kundry's kiss but then acts under truth and what needs to be done, not lost affectation: his innocence transforms from that of carnal callowness or uncertainty to an unclouded clearsighted mind. His lack of awareness of his role before sexual experience perhaps also refers to the hidden existence of descendents of Christ produced via sex.

Also he rejects Kundry when she appeals to pity for her because in operating from the Dionysian base he knows empathy and such attachment is misguided: Kundry then washes Parsifal's feet as Magdalene washed Jesus's, subdued by him rather than vice versa; she falls dying at the end, when her role as a secret and the slander of her as a prostitute is superseded by the new order.

Also in this is Wagner as the real redeemer- the new order being art as religion and an aesthetic rather than ideological or intellectual approach to life, encompassing sensory and spiritual: Wagner reflects life in its extremes and its fullness, sexuality being at the heart of his terms of musical expression, yet the works have that core of stillness all art and life requires. There is relative and absolute together in the new art he provides, the aesthetic absolute structured by an evolving intuitive form and not by traditional intellectually perspicuous, arbitrary forms and symmetries, or principles, prescriptions or ideologies. The true religion is more inclusive, intuitive and less dogmatic, revealing itself to be continuous with art and life.

Here's a nice five minute synopsis of Parsifal- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv_Xcgate1M

[marvinbrown]

Well I thought I could try this here, slightly revised- it didn't do so well on the Diner: mods by all means delete the other thread (on the second page now). What do you make of Wagner's weirdest libretto?

  Hi Sean, as far as I am concerned, Parsifal is Wagner's most elusive work and one that makes me uneasy if I dig too deeply into it.  Personally I do not consider it an "opera" or even a music drama....in fact you can call it a religious sermon.  The principal idea as far as I am concerned is that it is a WHITE CHRISTIAN work.  At that time in his life when he was writing Parsifal, Wagner's racist views became quite extreme.  From what I gather Wagner was convinced that Christ was Arian and that the "lower races- nonwhite non Christian- can only be redeemed by the blood of Christ" . You can argue that the piece has Anti-Islamic, Anti-Jewish and anti-feminist sentiments, notice how the evil Klingsor's castle faces Moorish (Islamic) Spain and how the "herbs" that Kundry brings from Islamic Arabia fail to heal Amfortas' wound?  Plus the Jewish Kundry suffers until baptism and dies in order to be fully redeemed, women are "evil" sexual objects corrupting the knights of the Holy Grail and so on.  The strangest critique I have read about Parsifal is that it has homosexual overtones a critique that I believe is out of touch with the true themes (death and redemption) of Parsifal.

  Finally I try not to take this piece too seriously, the music is sublime and I would much rather leave it at that.

   marvin 

[bricon]

Wagner's racist views became quite extreme.  From what I gather Wagner was convinced that Christ was Arian and that the "lower races- nonwhite non Christian- can only be redeemed by the blood of Christ" . You can argue that the piece has Anti-Islamic, Anti-Jewish ............

Yet Wagner chose a Jewish conductor for the premiere ...................

[Sean]

marvin, some good points there. When I saw it in the theatre (a very fine interpretation by WNO/ Jurowitz I think it was) I could also see how Christian it looked. However it does have a lot of odd twists, and I actually went that night with a very committed Christian friend, who knew very little about music, and who was NOT impressed. Each of your points I expect could be explored in much depth but you've certainly got me thinking.

bricon, the grail as bloodline of course fits better with Jewish than Christian thought...

[head-case]

Before writing Parsifal Wagner visited Rennes-le-Chateau in France, the place where the 19th century priest Sauniere may have found something of great significance to the Vatican;

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that someone who subscribed to 9/11 conspiracy theories also subscribes to Vatican conspiracy theories.

[Guido]

What a brilliant and incisive mind you have head-case!

[PSmith08]

I don't quite know what to make of this. This sort of Holy Blood, Holy Grail business is, shall we say, not entirely consonant with Wagner's story, which deals with compassion and redemption. A secret bloodline, which the might and power of the Roman Church has failed to exterminate, despite having had nearly two thousand years to do so, doesn't have much to do with the holy fool learning compassion and redeeming the ossified Grail cult. Parsifal makes sense, but not when one starts introducing non-Wagnerian ideas into it. Now, whether or not the music-drama is very nice is another story.

bricon, the grail as bloodline of course fits better with Jewish than Christian thought...

Perhaps, but not as well as the fact that Herr Levi was King Ludwig's Kapellmeister in Munich and Ludwig was paying for the Parsifal premiere. Wagner also came close to demanding that Levi be baptized, but - once again - Levi's favored status with the Märchenkönig kept him from that fate.

[Sean]

For what it's worth there's a few pages of stuff on the internet on Parsifal-Kundry-Magdalene-grail-priory-templar etc etc. Parsifal is also mentioned in Brown's Da Vinci code ref Magdalene, which probably will be taken as evidence against the theories here...

[head-case]

What a brilliant and incisive mind you have head-case!

No incisiveness involved, it is simply a data point.

[PSmith08]

For what it's worth there's a few pages of stuff on the internet on Parsifal-Kundry-Magdalene-grail-priory-templar etc etc. Parsifal is also mentioned in Brown's Da Vinci code ref Magdalene, which probably will be taken as evidence against the theories here...

That's all well and good, I love the Interweb as much as the next person, but the one man in a position to confirm or explode the theories presented above was never quiet. About anything.

Did Herr Wagner have anything to say about Parsifal and Jesus' kid?

[BachQ]

Well I thought I could try this here, slightly revised- it didn't do so well on the Diner:

Imagine that!

[paulb]

Well I thought I could try this here, slightly revised- it didn't do so well on the Diner: mods by all means delete the other thread (on the second page now). What do you make of Wagner's weirdest libretto?

Before writing Parsifal Wagner visited Rennes-le-Chateau in France, the place where the 19th century priest Sauniere may have found something of great significance to the Vatican; the grail is a concept largely unrecognised by Christian churches but Wagner helped establish popular interest through featuring it in Lohengrin and Parsifal. Moreover he may have been aware of theories of the grail as Christ's lineage in speaking of the need for social and religious regeneration through the agency of Christ's pure blood, and some of his thoughts on racial purity may refer to the bloodline, as perhaps do his characters who have great significance but are unsure who they are. Parsifal is set in Montsalvat in northern Spain near France.

Kundry parallels Mary Magdalene: one of the most complex figures in all opera, an ancient seductress figure who was present at the crucifixion and the only woman in the realm of the Templar like knights, who practice arcane rituals and safeguard the grail as the cup from the Last Supper. Parsifal parallels a bloodline figure to restore the order's true religion to the world and Kundry's kiss with him over eight sensuous bars blends motherly, ie Magdalene as the church's mother and bloodline from that time, with sexual, ie as Jesus's wife.

Wagner and Schopenhauer held that the ancient sources of oriental religions also gave rise to Christianity, and Parsifal is a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity: Enlightenment through carnal knowledge then provides spiritual enlightenment, on both personal and religious levels, all as in the fusing of sacred and sexual in Hindu and early pagan and Gnostic Christian understandings. Also Kundry's laughing at Christ on the cross may refer to the fundamental Dionysian and pleasure taken in the torture and destruction of another, or that it might have been a charade where Christ wasn't killed.

Klingsor like Alberich renounces love but becomes an evil not enlightened figure: his castle and keeping of the spear that pierced Christ's side to determine if he was dead may represent the established Church and its anti-bloodline secret. He castrated himself in a failed attempt to join the order of knights, such self-denial being a flawed path to spiritual renunciation or detachment from the senses, this paralleling the church's flawed spirituality and use of sexual denial and misogyny to detract attention from the idea of a married Christ and enforce its patriarchal power. Klingsor tries to destroy the order as the Church would destroy the bloodline's protectors or Templars/ Priory of Sion.

As Klingsor represents the mistake of self-denial, Amfortas represents the mistake of affected desire or being lost in the senses. Klingsor recognizes Parsifal as the new redeemer and tries to ruin him, like Amfortas, with Kundry and the flower maidens but Parsifal gains understanding on the sensory as well as religious ideological levels for a true spiritual perspective, having detachment from and transcending both. When Parsifal makes the sign of the cross Klingsor or the Church disappears, the true values restored.

Amfortas is cured at the end by Parsifal's spear taken from Klingsor after Kundry's kiss- through Parsifal's understanding of the need for both spiritual and sensory or absolute and relative life together. The spear in its healing rather than original harming role also rights the idea of Christ as dead when he didn't die, or at least his offspring and their contining royal claims: the correction of Amfortas's suffering is the correction of the problems in the religious situation.

Rather than affected detachment or affected attachment, Parsifal finds redemption for all, including himself and Christ or the redeemer redeemed, through unaffected action. Full engagement in life, sacred and secular, paradoxically issues from detachment- he understands lust in fullness after Kundry's kiss but then acts under truth and what needs to be done, not lost affectation: his innocence transforms from that of carnal callowness or uncertainty to an unclouded clearsighted mind. His lack of awareness of his role before sexual experience perhaps also refers to the hidden existence of descendents of Christ produced via sex.

Also he rejects Kundry when she appeals to pity for her because in operating from the Dionysian base he knows empathy and such attachment is misguided: Kundry then washes Parsifal's feet as Magdalene washed Jesus's, subdued by him rather than vice versa; she falls dying at the end, when her role as a secret and the slander of her as a prostitute is superseded by the new order.

Also in this is Wagner as the real redeemer- the new order being art as religion and an aesthetic rather than ideological or intellectual approach to life, encompassing sensory and spiritual: Wagner reflects life in its extremes and its fullness, sexuality being at the heart of his terms of musical expression, yet the works have that core of stillness all art and life requires. There is relative and absolute together in the new art he provides, the aesthetic absolute structured by an evolving intuitive form and not by traditional intellectually perspicuous, arbitrary forms and symmetries, or principles, prescriptions or ideologies. The true religion is more inclusive, intuitive and less dogmatic, revealing itself to be continuous with art and life.

Here's a nice five minute synopsis of Parsifal- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv_Xcgate1M

I do not believe much of your thesis.
Let me get to work on a  book I;'ve had now for some yrs, Emma Jung's The Grail Legend, which CG Jung commisioned Von Franz to complete at his wife's death.
I just read the libretto last week and this story is richly ornamented with christian and pagan ideas , themes which  could fill volumes of studies.

I have many ideas already about Wagner's story, but need further study to make to some conclusive thoughts.

Be back in a  few months.

[Haffner]

Didn't Wagner actually take the baton away fro Herr Levi before the third act of Parsifal?

[Wendell_E]

Didn't Wagner actually take the baton away fro Herr Levi before the third act of Parsifal?

Not the whole act, just the last scene (25 minutes or so), and only in a single performance (there were sixteen performances in that first Bayreuth run of the opera).

[marvinbrown]

Not the whole act, just the last scene (25 minutes or so), and only in a single performance (there were sixteen performances in that first Bayreuth run of the opera).

  Oh what I would have given to see Wagner descend into that orchestra pit and take charge  0:)!

  marvin

[Wendell_E]

  Oh what I would have given to see Wagner descend into that orchestra pit and take charge  0:)!

  marvin

Of course, with the Festspielhaus's covered orchestra pit, the audience wouldn't have actually seen that.  The singers and players would have, though according to Frederic Spotts' Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival, they may not have been thrilled since Wagner conducted "with tempi so slow that singers and musicians were stretched to the utmost".

[marvinbrown]

Of course, with the Festspielhaus's covered orchestra pit, the audience wouldn't have actually seen that.  The singers and players would have, though according to Frederic Spotts' Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival, they may not have been thrilled since Wagner conducted "with tempi so slow that singers and musicians were stretched to the utmost".

 
  Would they dare question the Meistersinger's (ie Wagner's) tempi, I wonder?? 

  marvin

[Haffner]

Wagner conducted "with tempi so slow that singers and musicians were stretched to the utmost".

I'm wondering if perhaps that's the way Parsifal should be conducted...from my experience with that music drama, it seems like the last scene in particular is concerned with savoring more than anything else. The first was perhaps more about telling...like a tale.

[Haffner]

 
  Would they dare question the Meistersinger's (ie Wagner's) tempi, I wonder?? 

  marvin

That music drama will be the next to be explored by me! I've just currently got so much to appreciate in the Ring, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde (still considering the Barenboim dvd for the latter...too "modern?).

[marvinbrown]

That music drama will be the next to be explored by me! I've just currently got so much to appreciate in the Ring, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde (still considering the Barenboim dvd for the latter...too "modern?).

  Andy a word of caution about the Barenboim Tristan dvd (I am assuming you are refering to the one at Bayreuth with Kollo and Meier).  There is a twist in the ending of that production.  I won't say any more for fear of ruining the experience.  That production is quite captivating but personally I felt that the picture quality (the transference from video tape to dvd) could have been much better.  In fact I was initially appalled by the "relatively" poor quality of the picture when compared to other Dvds I have seen but the superb performance of Kollo and beautiful stage designs (especially act 2) more than made up for it.  Is it too modern? perhaps a bit.  My advice is sample before you buy to see if it agrees with you.

  marvin