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So what is the
message of Parsifal ?
The Meaning of the Drama
t was recently pointed out to me that nowhere among the thousands of words
present on this web site was there any clear statement about the message of
Parsifal or what Wagner meant by his last major work. This page is an attempt to
fill that gap.
fter
being puzzled by Parsifal for twenty years after first seeing a performance, in
1996 I began to study the work in depth. This investigation was prompted by the
experience of attending a performance of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival of
that year. After four years of studying what had been written about the work, not least
by Wagner himself, and what Wagner had been reading in the years preceding his first
sketch for Parsifal I arrived at some conclusions. These included a
reconstruction of that first sketch and an understanding of what Wagner was trying to
convey to his audience through poetry, music and dramatic action. The three most
important messages that I have found in the work are summarised below. Each of them
derives from the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, to whose
works (and in particular his essay, On the Basis of Morality) the reader is
directed for further insight.
he
primary purpose of the drama is to convey to the audience the importance of
compassion -- which is the only valid basis for morality, according to
Schopenhauer. This teaching was accepted by his disciple
Richard Wagner. It is through compassion for the suffering of other beings that the fool
acquires wisdom and becomes a sage. It is through the perfection of wisdom that he is able to bring salvation.
here is
a Schopenhauerean metaphor in the work that is so explicit that anyone who has read Schopenhauer will have no difficulty in detecting it. Her name
is Kundry. She represents, on one level, the human
predicament in relation to what Buddhists call samsara: the cycle of
birth, suffering, death and rebirth. In the first act she is wild and restless, striving
for (but unable to find) a balm that will cure suffering; as Kundry confesses, she can help nobody -- not even herself. By the
third act, however, Kundry is calm, peaceful, quiet; she
has almost escaped from her cyclic existence by the denial of the will. Here is the
metaphysical message of Parsifal: stop striving, deny the will, accept that
suffering is an inevitable part of life and that desires can never be fully
satisfied.
ertain
passages in Wagner's text clearly were intended to communicate Schopenhauer's summary of his ethics. This is the ethical message of
the work: injure no one; on the contrary, help others as much as possible
. This
formula becomes, in Parsifal, the teaching of the Grail.
You should know that all things in the world are impermanent -- meeting inevitably means parting. Do not be troubled, for this is the nature of life. Diligently practising right effort, you must seek deliverance immediately. In the light of wisdom, destroy the darkness of ignorance. Nothing is secure. Everything in life is precarious. Always wholeheartedly seek the path of deliverance.
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