Wagner Without Fear: Learning to Love--and Even Enjoy--Opera's Most Demanding Genius - Brossura

Berger, William

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0375700544 ISBN 13: 9780375700545

Casa editrice: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1998

Riassunto

Do you cringe when your opera-loving friends start raving about the latest production of Tristan? Do you feel faint just thinking about the six-hour performance of Parsifal you were given tickets to? Does your mate accuse you of having a Tannhäuser complex? If you're baffled by the behavior of Wagner worshipers, if you've longed to fathom the mysteries of Wagner's ever-increasing popularity, or if you just want to better understand and enjoy the performances you're attending, you'll find this delightful book indispensable.

William Berger is the most helpful guide one could hope to find for navigating the strange and beautiful world of the most controversial artist who ever lived. He tells you all you need to know to become a true Wagnerite--from story lines to historical background; from when to visit the rest room to how to sound smart during intermission; from the Jewish legend that possibly inspired Lohengrin to the tragic death of the first Tristan. Funny, informative, and always a pleasure to read, Wagner Without Fear proves that the art of Wagner can be accessible to everyone.

Includes:
- The strange life of Richard Wagner--German patriot (and exile), friend (and enemy) of Liszt and Nietzsche
- Essential opera lore and "lobby talk"
- A scene-by-scene analysis of each opera
- What to listen for to get the most from the music
- Recommended recordings, films, and sound tracks

Su questo libro

L'autore:

William Berger was born in California and studied Romance languages and music at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  He worked for five years at the San Francisco Opera Company, where he acquired for the comapny's recorded music collection and translated for visiting performers.  He has taught language at Baruch College in New York City.  He contributed to James Skofield's libretto for The Dracula Diaries, an opera with music by Robert Moran, and has just completed the libretto for The Wolf of Gubbio, with the composer Patrick Barnes.  Mr Berger currently lives in New York and is at work on a performance piece, Karajan's Wake

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

PARSIFAL

Premiere: Bayreuth, 1882.

THE NAME AND HOW TO PRONOUNCE IT

Parsifal is named for its lead character, and it's pretty much pronounced as it's written. If
you want to show off your German, hit the r with a slight glottal fricative. British people, perhaps to
emphasize their distinctness from Continentals, tend to mispronounce it "Parsi-full."

WHAT IS PARSIFAL?

Parsifal is Wagner's final masterpiece, a depiction of a corrupted society renewed by an innocent
young man who becomes wise through compassion. The story of the individual, that is, the "coming of age"
of the hero, is as old as storytelling itself. The interesting thing about this example of the genre is the
community where the hero becomes himself, for Parsifal stumbles (literally) upon the knights of
the Holy Grail. These worthy men live in a castle in northern Spain, sustained by and devoted to the Grail
itself.

The legends of the Holy Grail are complicated, numerous, and extremely far-reaching, embedded in the
Euro-American consciousness by such diverse sources as the troubadours, Sir Walter Scott, and even
Monty Python and Indiana Jones. The definition of the Grail changes in each of these manifestations. For the
purposes of Parsifal, the Grail is the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, and that was used to
catch his blood when he was pierced on the cross by the Spear. The Grail and the Spear were both
transferred by angels to Monsalvat in northern Spain where, in the Middle Ages, the Christian and Muslim
worlds were slugging it out for the domination of Europe. A king, named Titurel, was chosen by God to head
a brotherhood of knights, and a castle was built that none can find but those called by the Grail. At the
castle, the knights are sustained spiritually and physically by the Grail, which is uncovered by the king in a
ritual very closely resembling Holy Communion. Thus renewed, the knights embark on adventures for the
greater glory of their faith, carrying the Holy Spear with them to battle the heathen and other enemies.

If all this strikes you as a bit much for the opera house, you are not alone. Many people object to the
Christian particularism of the work (Nietzsche, for one, threw a world-class fit), while others find the
liturgical language and enactments truly blasphemous. Wagner himself could not bear to call it a music
drama, much less an opera, and called it, instead, a Bühnenweihfestspiel, or "stage-consecrating
festival play." From the start, it was intended to be performed only at Bayreuth. Parsifal has
always had a certain aura surrounding it, a sort of uniqueness perpetuated by fans and detractors alike.

Yet for all its rituals and otherworldliness, Parsifal has a powerful story to tell. All is not well in
the kingdom of the Grail. The Holy Spear has been lost to an evil magician, the king lies incapacitated with a
wound that won't heal, and the land itself is enveloped in gloom. Wagner used a dark palette in his scoring to
depict this, which is part of the reason many people find this work heavy and dull.

Such people are not merely being obtuse. In a word, Parsifal is slow. There is very little external
action. The score even includes directions for periods of complete silence. Parsifal is not for the
impatient, nor for those who need to be hit over the head with loud sound bites every few minutes to stay
awake. In a way, the experience of Parsifal is akin to that of a no-hitter in baseball. It is the very
pinnacle for the devoted fan, who writhes in ecstasies of tension and delayed gratification, while the casual
spectator languishes in boredom waiting in vain for "action" (hit tunes or home runs).

For all its static nature and its otherworldliness, there is little that is obscure in the score, and it can be
appreciated by any open-minded operagoer with the ability to sit still for a few hours. There is no need to
sweat out details of the score beforehand. As Cosima put it well in her Diaries, "It is all so direct!"

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Parsifal (tenor) A "guileless fool," which is the literary way to say a young man who has
done nothing and knows less. Parsifal has lived on his own since running away from home as a young
child. He does not even know his own name. In many ways, he is similar to the all-free and unsocialized
Siegfried, although, being somewhat more surreal and somehow less human, he is considerably less
obnoxious. Parsifal actually does very little throughout this work in the usual sense of heroic
action, beyond the admittedly impressive feat of catching a spear in midair. His growth is largely internal.

Kundry (soprano or mezzo-soprano) The "wandering Jew" of medieval legend. Kundry is
generally cited as Wagner's most enigmatic, and most interesting, female character. As a young woman,
she laughed at Christ suffering on the cross, and was condemned to wander the earth until saved, seeking
but never finding rest or death. In Acts I and III, she is a wild unruly penitent performing service to the
knights of the Grail, while in Act II she is a beautiful seductress and slave to the evil magician Klingsor.
Divas, therefore, love to take on the role of Kundry, since they get to assume three of the best poses in the
soprano arsenal: madness, seduction, and piety. She has a foot, so to speak, in each world, and is really the
most human character, philosophically speaking, in this drama.

Titurel (bass) The original king of the knights, he is burdened by his years and has made his
son Amfortas king. Titurel is kept alive only by the annual uncovering of the Grail (a sort of celestial life
support), a duty he is too weak to perform himself. He has a grand total of ten lines to sing in
Parsifal, and they are sung offstage. In fact, his only stage appearance is as a corpse. The role,
however, is important in terms of the story, and his brief vocal appearances must be impressive.

Amfortas (bass-baritone) Titurel's son, the current king of the knights, languishing because
of his sin. He was seduced by Kundry several years before, and, while he lay with her, Klingsor stole the
Holy Spear and stabbed Amfortas in the side. The wound bleeds yet. The loss of the Spear and the "wound
that won't heal," beyond psychological implications, are the signs of decay in the knights' community and
the kingdom of the Grail.

Gurnemanz (bass) The "nice guy" of the story, Gurnemanz is the first to see the possibility
of a savior in Parsifal. He is something of the mentor figure familiar from coming-of-age literature.
This role is demanding in terms of the sheer amount of music to be sung, for Gurnemanz does all the
explaining (and there is plenty to be done) in this tale.

Klingsor (bass) The bad guy. Klingsor had once aspired to be a knight of the Grail himself.
Titurel refused him, and Klingsor, in desperation to prove his aptness for service to the Grail, castrated
himself. This act guaranteed his exclusion from the brotherhood, but also (somehow) gave him power in the
arts of black magic. He lives in a magic castle with a garden he has conjured out of the desert on the
southern slope of the same mountain range as the Grail Castle at Monsalvat (in other words, he faces
Moorish Spain, while the knights face Christendom).

Flower Maidens (sopranos and mezzos) These are Klingsor's most effective weapons, lovely
maidens (although the term "maiden" is probably not to be taken literally) who seduce chaste men.
Members of the audience usually assume these ladies to be supplied by the chorus, but in fact the six Flower
Maidens are soloists with separate billing in the program. Their music is semi-individuated, not unlike some
of the music of the townspeople of Nuremberg in Meistersinger, and it is not unusual to find star singers in
these roles.
THE OPERA

Prelude

Comment: Wagner described the meaning of the Prelude as "faith--suffering--hope?" The first part
portrays faith in simple majestic themes, including a "borrowed" one. Many listeners will recognize the
famous "Dresden Amen" from church services, where it remains standard to this day. Wagner must have
heard it thousands of times when he was Kapellmeister at Dresden. It was also used by Mendelssohn in his
Reformation Symphony. The suffering theme is an expansion of one of the central measures of the faith motif, which is an excellent
theological observation (i.e., spiritual suffering is central to faith), made by means of music and therefore
appealing more to the subconscious than to the intellect. For "hope?" we are given a brief moment of the
strings playing softly in marvelously unresolved ambiguity. The Prelude is often heard on the radio and in
the concert hall, where it is moving, yet annoyingly incomplete. All of the themes heard here are fully
explored and resolved in the reset of the score. It is, in effect, an "executive summary" for the entire
subsequent drama.

Act I

Setting: A shady forest in the domain of the Castle of Monsalvat, in northern Spain, in the Middle Ages.

Gurnemanz, an elderly but vigorous knight of the Grail, and two young squires are awakened by trombones
from the offstage castle. They pray silently. Gurnemanz tells the squires to prepare for the king's bath in
the nearby lake. Two knights enter. Gurnemanz asks if the latest potion found by the knights has eased the
king's pain. A knight responds that the pain has returned, and is worse. Gurnemanz says mysteriously that
only one man can help the king, but when they ask him the name of the man, he gruffly orders them off to
prepare the bath.

The knights and squires see Kundry racing madly on a horse toward them. She rushes in, dressed wildly,
hair everywhere, eyes alternately flashing and staring lifelessly. She hands Gurnemanz a potion for the
king, saying merely, "If this doesn't help, there's not a potion left in Arabia to help him. Ask no more! I am
weary!" She throws herself on the ground. Amfortas is brought on, in pain. He forbids the knights to seek
out more potions for him, since the only help he can expect will come from an "innocent fool," as he was
once told. Gurnemanz persuades him to try one last remedy, the potion that Kundry has brought from
Arabia. When Amfortas thanks her, she snaps back, "Don't thank me! It won't help! Go to your bath!"

Amfortas is carried to the lake. The knights and squires harass Kundry, still lying on the ground, but
Gurnemanz rebukes them. She may be strange, but she has never harmed the knights. In fact, she has given
much service to the brotherhood. Who knows what sin she may be expiating in service to the knights?
Prompted by more questions from the squires, Gurnemanz tells them what he knows. Klingsor, rejected for
knighthood by Titurel, had built a magic castle and garden to corrupt the knights, and their king Amfortas
had been ensnared by a seductress. Never guessing that the wild Kundry lying on the ground could have been
the same woman in a different state of being, he asks her why she didn't help the knights on that fateful
day. "I never help!" she growls back at him.

Gurnemanz then repeats the details of the story to the squires: how Titurel had received the Grail and the
Spear from angels, how he built the Castle of Monsalvat and formed the brotherhood of knights, how
Klingsor's garden had seduced many other knights to their damnation even before Amfortas, and how
Titurel had grown old and relinquished the crown to his son, whose fate the squires already know. The
squires remark that the one who retrieves the Spear will win lasting honor, but Gurnemanz explains that
Amfortas, praying in atonement after the incident, was told in a revelation that he must wait for "an
innocent fool, enlightened through compassion" to retrieve the Spear and heal the wound. The squires
repeat "an innocent fool . . . ," as if in prayer. There is silence.

Comment: The whole first part of Act I is slow, stately, expository, and a bit glum. The curtain rises on
three sleeping bodies, which sets the tone. Even the passing back and forth of Amfortas is pained. Kundry's
entrance provides a little flurry of musical activity, but it quickly fades as she falls asleep on stage.
Gurnemanz's long (fifteen minutes) narrative gives us important information for what follows, and includes
many seeds of subsequent themes that, if followed closely, will reveal subtle beauties. The problem is that
it's rather dull. Newman assures us that this narrative is superior to others in opera: "It is not a hoary
operatic device dragged in willy-nilly, as in Il Trovatore, to tell the audience what it needs to know under
the pretext of one character telling another on stage." Actually, it is exactly that, all "psychological
justifications" notwithstanding. George Martin is much more direct. "This is the spot to snooze,"
recommends his Opera Companion. While there may be wisdom in both these opposing points of view, they
both miss the point. Wagner, who was a genius of the theater above everything else, knew he had to lower
the audience's collective blood pressure, so to speak, to put us in a receptive frame of mind for what was
to follow. He did this by giving the know-it-alls some arcane leitmotivic titillations for their amusements,
and putting the remainder of the audience fast asleep.

A commotion is heard among the knights--a swan has been wounded in flight by an arrow! The swan flies
overhead, and dies onstage. A boy is dragged in carrying a bow. "Did you do this?" asks Gurnemanz.
"Yes!" replies the boy, proud of his shooting skill. The knights and squires call for punishment. Gurnemanz
explains that wildlife and humans live together in this holy forest. The swan was seeking its mate to circle
over the lake and consecrate the king's bath, and now look at him! The boy breaks his bow in shame. How
could he commit such a crime? "I didn't know," replies the boy. Where are you from? asks Gurnemanz.
Who is your father? Who sent you here? The boy replies that he doesn't know to each question. What is your
name? "I once had many, but I don't know them anymore." Gurnemanz mutters that this is the dumbest
person he's ever met, besides Kundry.

Gurnemanz dismisses the knights and squires, and asks the boy if he knows anything at all. He knows his
mother's name, Herzeleide ("Heart's Sorrow"). Since you look noble, why didn't your mother teach you
about better arms than bow and arrow? Kundry answers that his father had been slain in battle before he
was born, and Herzeleide had reared the boy in seclusion to spare him a similar fate. This triggers some
memory from the boy, who remembers leaving his hermitlike home to follow some knights he saw one day.
He never could find them, however, and he had to forge his own way in the world with only his handmade
bow and arrows. Gurnemanz says that the boy's deserted mother must grieve, but Kundry answers that she
grieves no more. Herzeleide has died of her broken heart--she saw it herself as she rode by. The boy grabs
Kundry by the throat at the news, and Gurnemanz rebukes him for his violence. The boy passes out, and
Kundry fetches spring water. Gurnemanz commends this act of goodness, but Kundry charac...

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0375700544
• ISBN 13: 9780375700545
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 464