Thinking with Opera

“What is the tension between this ugly ideology, the beauty of the music, and the agony of the man producing it?”

The final podcast of our trilogy focusing on Wagner's epic last opera is a wide-ranging, unflinching discussion between the journalist, writer and filmmaker Paul Mason and Professor Frank Finlay of the University of Leeds.

Paul traces the composer’s changing philosophical viewpoints, from his early identification with the Young Hegelians and Ludwig Feuerbach, to the later influence of Arthur Schopenhauer and Buddhism on the themes of suffering and enlightenment through compassion in Parsifal, as well as the more baneful influence of the racial theorist Arthur de Gobineau.

Wagner’s antisemitism is discussed in the context of his works and the problems it presents for their audiences. Another tension – between the composer’s anti-modernist, proto-fascist sympathies, and the radicalism in his music – is identified.

Parsifal is put in the context of Wagner’s oeuvre as a whole, in particular the Ringcycle and Die Meistersinger, illuminated throughout by Paul and Frank’s deep but complex engagement with the works.

Excerpts of the cast, Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North in rehearsals for the 2022 concert staging of Parsifal are heard throughout.

Thinking with Opera is produced by the DARE partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds.

In the second of three episodes focusing on Wagner's epic final opera,New Yorker critic and author of Wagnerism and TheRest is Noise Alex Ross and Dr. Áine Sheil of the University of York discuss gender, sexuality and ritual in Parsifal, and in Richard Wagner’s work as a whole.

The multi-faceted character of Kundry – ‘Wandering Jew’, mother, seductress – is unpicked, and ambiguous readings of the brotherhood of the Grail Knights are offered.

Parsifal’s enduring mystery and power is seen through the disparate audiences for its early performances – from American debutantes sent to Bayreuth for their self-improvement, to gay men and women attracted by an atmosphere of acceptance unknown in the wider society of the time.

Finally, there are close readings of the music itself: an echo from Wagner's 1868 opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the ‘androgyny’ of his scoring for orchestra, his experiments with instrumentation and tonality, and the astonishing ‘music of collapse’ in the Grail Procession in Act III.

Excerpts from Parsifal recorded at the dress rehearsal for Opera North's 2022 concert staging are featured throughout.

Introduced and chaired by Professor Frank Finlay of the University of Leeds.

Thinking with Opera is produced by the DARE partnership between Opera North and the University of Leeds.