Wagner: Parsifal [Bayreuth 1962] (1964)

Nietzsche may have been the first, but he was by no means the last to note that Parsifal was blasphemous. Wagner's final opera, his self-described "sacred festival stage play," Parsifal is a work steeped in the Christian mythology of the cross and the blood, but its message of compassion through suffering and transcendence through renunciation is more Buddhist than Christian. But while Parsifal's subversions may be blasphemous for atheist German philosophers and dogmatic Christians, for devout Wagnerians, Parsifal is heaven ... Read More

Nietzsche may have been the first, but he was by no means the last to note that Parsifal was blasphemous. Wagner's final opera, his self-described "sacred festival stage play," Parsifal is a work steeped in the Christian mythology of the cross and the blood, but its message of compassion through suffering and transcendence through renunciation is more Buddhist than Christian. But while Parsifal's subversions may be blasphemous for atheist German philosophers and dogmatic Christians, for devout Wagnerians, Parsifal is heaven on earth. Among them, Hans Knappertsbusch was the last of the great pre-war Wagner conductors, and his postwar Bayreuth performances of the canonical operas have always been regarded as among the finest of their era. But even among his epic Rings and masterful Meistersingers, Knapperstbusch's Parsifals were held to embody the highest expression of the works' aspirations, and this one from the 1962 Bayreuth Festival was, for devout Wagnerians, the ultimate quintessence of his... Read Less

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2001, Philips UPC: 028946475621 CD See All