Opera - Words or Music?

[Ganondorf]

Something like Act 2 of Tristan, I think it's best not to think about what they're singing. You know, there's a danger of starting to wonder what all this stuff about day and night and life and death could possibly actually mean.  IMO it's better for your mental health to avoid all of that.

It's clearly very Novalis-inspired, although one's mileage may vary in how well it is executed.

[prémont]

Something like Act 2 of Tristan, I think it's best not to think about what they're singing. You know, there's a danger of starting to wonder what all this stuff about day and night and life and death could possibly actually mean.  IMO it's better for your mental health to avoid all of that.

Your irony is noted. 

[AnotherSpin]

I've watched with subtitles three different Ring recordings, listened to several others, and love listening to highlights and bloody chunks from Bohm and others. I enjoy it in all forms. And Mahler is no substitute. If I want Wagner, I want Wagner even if I can't sit and watch, it is happening. The only disservice I see would be to ignore him entirely.

I'm not sure how to put it more clearly, and I might say something that not many will agree with. But when it comes to Wagner, I feel that he's at a level where the literal meaning of the text matters less. He has this transcendent ability to affect the listener, one that goes beyond just a logical sequence of meaning. Something like that.

[Ganondorf]

I'm not sure how to put it more clearly, and I might say something that not many will agree with. But when it comes to Wagner, I feel that he's at a level where the literal meaning of the text matters less. He has this transcendent ability to affect the listener, one that goes beyond just a logical sequence of meaning. Something like that.

That effect is certainly a possibility, considering his storytelling and characters can be rather archetypal and thus it can be argued that something unconscious in us resonates with the imagery, tropes etc. regardless of whether there is much reason logically with a literal meaning of the text. For what it's worth, I have read several analyses that have, to me, proved without a shadow of doubt that there is logic in literal meaning also.