Tag: Music Drama
Wagner’s Parsifal – A Musical Analysis
https://youtu.be/DJwf8xsg_zg In this video, I’m looking at the prelude to the third act of Parsifal, the last music drama by Richard Wagner, and one of my favourite pieces of music. I won’t go into too much depth of analysis, but I do want to note a few things that may help us to appreciate the [...]
Syberberg’s Parsifal: Wagner and Esotericism
Following on from my article on Barfield’s use of the Eternal Feminine, I want to examine Hans-Jürgen Syberbeg’s adaption of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. This film is a masterful achievement on several fronts. Syberberg manages to draw out many elements implicit in the story, as well as reading into it some esoteric themes of his [...]
The Lord of the Ring? Tolkien and Wagner
J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, responding to comparisons between The Lord of the Rings and Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle, that: ‘Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased.’ Clearly the comparison irked him, the inventor of a truly unique work of creative genius, but his response seems overly dismissive and simplistic at best. This essay [...]