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107-791: Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus . Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1903, when the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York . Wagner described Parsifal not as an opera, but as Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play). At Bayreuth

214-687: A chorus mysticus of all the knights praises the miracle of salvation ( "Höchsten Heiles Wunder!" ) and proclaims the redemption of the Redeemer ( "Erlösung dem Erlöser!" ). Kundry, also at the very last released from her curse and redeemed, slowly sinks lifeless to the ground with her gaze resting on Parsifal, who raises the Grail in blessing over the worshipping knighthood. Bayreuth Festspielhaus The Bayreuth Festspielhaus or Bayreuth Festival Theatre (German: Bayreuther Festspielhaus , pronounced [baɪˈʁɔʏtɐ ˈfɛstʃpiːlˌhaʊs] )

321-402: A prelude . Wagner called Das Rheingold a Vorabend or "Preliminary Evening", and Die Walküre , Siegfried and Götterdämmerung were subtitled First Day, Second Day and Third Day, respectively, of the trilogy proper. The scale and scope of the story is epic. It follows the struggles of gods , heroes , and several mythical creatures over the eponymous magic ring that grants domination over

428-497: A tenor drum , as well as five onstage horns and four onstage steerhorns, one of them to be blown by Hagen. Much of the Ring , especially from Siegfried act 3 onwards, cannot be said to be in traditional, clearly defined keys for long stretches, but rather in 'key regions', each of which flows smoothly into the following. This fluidity avoided the musical equivalent of clearly defined musical paragraphs and assisted Wagner in building

535-467: A "complex, tortured Kundry in Wieland Wagner's revolutionary production of Parsifal during the festival's first postwar season", and would remain the company's exclusive Kundry for the remainder of the decade. Prelude to act 1 Musical introduction to the work with a duration of c. 12–16 minutes. Scene 1 In a forest near the seat of the Grail and its knights, Gurnemanz , an elder knight of

642-471: A certain amount of poetic licence: R[ichard] today recalled the impression which inspired his "Good Friday Music"; he laughs, saying he had thought to himself, "In fact it is all as far-fetched as my love affairs, for it was not a Good Friday at all – just a pleasant mood in Nature which made me think, 'This is how a Good Friday ought to be ' ". The work may indeed have been conceived at Wesendonck's cottage in

749-520: A chorus only relatively briefly, in acts 2 and 3 of Götterdämmerung , and then mostly of men with just a few women. He eventually had a purpose-built theatre constructed, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus , in which to perform this work. The theatre has a special stage that blends the huge orchestra with the singers' voices, allowing them to sing at a natural volume. The result was that the singers did not have to strain themselves vocally during

856-676: A commercial recording on compact disc and on iTunes. In 2003 the first production of the cycle in Russia in modern times was conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Mariinsky Opera , Saint Petersburg, designed by George Tsypin . The production drew parallels with Ossetian mythology. The Royal Danish Opera performed a complete Ring cycle in May 2006 in its new waterfront home, the Copenhagen Opera House . This version of

963-504: A concerted cadenza ; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet...The work which follows, entitled Night Falls on the Gods [Shaw's translation of Götterdämmerung ], is a thorough grand opera. As a significant element in the Ring and his subsequent works, Wagner adopted the use of leitmotifs , which are recurring themes or harmonic progressions. They musically denote an action, object, emotion, character, or other subject mentioned in

1070-745: A court ruling that performances in the United States could not be prevented by Bayreuth, the New York Metropolitan Opera staged the complete opera, using many Bayreuth-trained singers. Cosima barred anyone involved in the New York production from working at Bayreuth in future performances. Unauthorized stage performances were also undertaken in Amsterdam in 1905, 1906 and 1908. There was a performance in Buenos Aires, in

1177-424: A distant past, she saw the Redeemer and mockingly laughed at His pains in malice. As a punishment for this sin she has been cursed and bound by Klingsor and has fallen under his yoke. The curse condemns her to never be able to die and find peace and redemption. She cannot weep, only jeer diabolically. Longing for deliverance, she has been waiting for ages for a man to free her from her curse and yearns to once more meet

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1284-522: A double proscenium , which gives the audience the illusion that the stage is further away than it actually is. The double proscenium and the recessed orchestra pit create – in Wagner's term – a "mystic gulf" between the audience and the stage. This gives a dreamlike character to performances, and provides a physical reinforcement of the mythic content of most of Wagner's operas. The architecture of Festpielhaus accomplished many of Wagner's goals and ideals for

1391-712: A double slide. He also developed the "Wagner bell", enabling the bassoon to reach the low A-natural, whereas normally B-flat is the instrument's lowest note. If such a bell is not to be used, then a contrabassoon should be employed. All four parts have a very similar instrumentation. The core ensemble of instruments are one piccolo , three flutes (third doubling second piccolo ), three oboes , cor anglais (doubling fourth oboe), three soprano clarinets , one bass clarinet , three bassoons ; eight horns (fifth through eighth doubling Wagner tubas ), three trumpets , one bass trumpet, three tenor trombones , one contrabass trombone (doubling bass trombone ), one contrabass tuba ;

1498-516: A horseshoe shaped auditorium, the Festspielhaus's seats are arranged in a single steeply-shaped wedge, with galleries or boxes along the back wall only. This is also known as continental seating . Many contemporary movie theaters have adopted this style of seating, which gives every seat an equal and uninterrupted view of the stage. The capacity of the Festspielhaus is 1,925 and it has a volume of 10,000 cubic metres. The Festspielhaus features

1605-404: A lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel). ... At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening . The object of this production I shall consider thoroughly attained, if I and my artistic comrades, the actual performers, shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to

1712-552: A location in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth . In 1872, he moved to Bayreuth and the foundation stone was laid. Wagner would spend the next two years attempting to raise capital for the construction, with scant success; King Ludwig finally rescued the project in 1874 by donating the needed funds. The Bayreuth Festspielhaus opened in 1876 with the first complete performance of the Ring , which took place from 13 to 17 August. In 1882, London impresario Alfred Schulz-Curtius organized

1819-598: A means of artistic expression. He expressed this clearly in his essay " A Communication to My Friends " (1851), in which he condemned the majority of modern artists, in painting and in music, as "feminine ... the world of art close fenced from Life, in which Art plays with herself.' Where however the impressions of Life produce an overwhelming 'poetic force', we find the 'masculine, the generative path of Art'. Wagner unfortunately found that his audiences were not willing to follow where he led them: The public, by their enthusiastic reception of Rienzi and their cooler welcome of

1926-504: A percussion section with 4 timpani (requiring two players), triangle , cymbals , tam-tam ; six harps and a string section consisting of 16 first and 16 second violins , 12 violas , 12 cellos and 8 double basses . Das Rheingold , one offstage harp and 18 offstage anvils . Die Walküre requires one snare drum , one D clarinet (played by the third clarinettist) and an on-stage steerhorn . Siegfried requires one onstage cor anglais and one onstage horn. Götterdämmerung requires

2033-662: A private performance of the prelude for his patron Ludwig II of Bavaria at the Court Theatre in Munich. The premiere of the entire work was given in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 26 July 1882 conducted by the Jewish-German conductor Hermann Levi . Stage designs were by Max Brückner and Paul von Joukowsky , who took their lead from Wagner himself. The Grail hall was based on the interior of Siena Cathedral which Wagner had visited in 1880, while Klingsor's magic garden

2140-613: A prose draft of the work; this contains a fairly brief outline of the plot and a considerable amount of detailed commentary on the characters and themes of the drama. But once again the work was dropped and set aside for another eleven and a half years. During this time most of Wagner's creative energy was devoted to the Ring cycle , which was finally completed in 1874 and given its first full performance at Bayreuth in August 1876. Only when this gargantuan task had been accomplished did Wagner find

2247-675: A series of articles in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik , inviting composers to write a 'national opera' based on the Nibelungenlied , a 12th-century High German poem which, since its rediscovery in 1755, had been hailed by the German Romantics as the "German national epic ". Siegfrieds Tod dealt with the death of Siegfried, the central heroic figure of the Nibelungenlied. The idea had occurred to others –

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2354-653: A sketch Wagner wrote for an opera based on a story from the life of Buddha . The themes of self-renunciation, rebirth, compassion, and even exclusive social groups ( castes in Die Sieger , the knights of the Grail in Parsifal) which were later explored in Parsifal were first introduced in Die Sieger . According to his autobiography Mein Leben , Wagner conceived Parsifal on Good Friday morning, April 1857, in

2461-590: A tradition has arisen that audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation . Wagner read von Eschenbach's poem Parzival while taking the waters at Marienbad in 1845. After encountering Arthur Schopenhauer 's writings in 1854, Wagner became interested in Indian philosophies, especially Buddhism . Out of this interest came Die Sieger ( The Victors , 1856),

2568-416: A viewer could watch any of them without having watched the previous parts and still understand the plot. However, Wagner intended them to be performed in series. The first performance as a cycle opened the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, beginning with Das Rheingold on 13 August and ending with Götterdämmerung on 17 August. Opera stage director Anthony Freud stated that Der Ring des Nibelungen "marks

2675-403: A wondrous garden, surrounded by beautiful and seductive flowermaidens. They call to him and entwine themselves about him while chiding him for wounding their lovers ( "Komm, komm, holder Knabe!" ), yet the boy in his childlike innocent naïveté doesn't comprehend their temptations and shows only little interest in them. The flowermaidens soon fight and bicker among themselves to win his devotion, to

2782-402: Is a major undertaking for any opera company: staging four interlinked operas requires a huge commitment both artistically and financially; hence, in most opera houses, production of a new Ring cycle will happen over a number of years, with one or two operas in the cycle being added each year. The Bayreuth Festival , where the complete cycle is performed most years, is unusual in that a new cycle

2889-469: Is almost always created within a single year. Early productions of the Ring cycle stayed close to Wagner's original Bayreuth staging. Trends set at Bayreuth have continued to be influential. Following the closure of the Festspielhaus during the Second World War , the 1950s saw productions by Wagner's grandsons Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner (known as the 'New Bayreuth' style), which emphasised

2996-479: Is an opera house north of Bayreuth , Germany, built by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner and dedicated solely to the performance of his stage works. It is the venue for the annual Bayreuth Festival , for which it was specifically conceived and built. Its official name is Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus . It is the home of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra . Wagner adapted

3103-547: Is eventually betrayed and slain as a result of the intrigues of Alberich's son Hagen, who wants the ring for himself. Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde – Siegfried's lover and Wotan's daughter who lost her immortality for defying her father in an attempt to save Siegfried's father Sigmund – returns the ring to the Rhine maidens as she commits suicide on Siegfried's funeral pyre. Hagen is drowned as he attempts to recover

3210-433: Is forced to hand it over to the giants Fafner and Fasolt in payment for building the home of the gods, Valhalla , or they will take Freia, who provides the gods with the golden apples that keep them young. Wotan's schemes to regain the ring, spanning generations, drive much of the action in the story. His grandson, the mortal Siegfried, wins the ring by slaying Fafner (who slew Fasolt for the ring) – as Wotan intended – but

3317-464: Is its unusual orchestra pit . It is recessed under the stage and covered by a hood, so that the orchestra is completely invisible to the audience. This feature was a central preoccupation for Wagner, since it made the audience concentrate on the drama onstage, rather than the distracting motion of the conductor and musicians. The design also corrected the balance of volume between singers and orchestra, creating ideal acoustics for Wagner's operas, which are

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3424-511: Is now aged and bent, living alone as a hermit. It is Good Friday. He hears moaning near his hut and finds Kundry lying unconscious in the brush, similarly as he had many years before ("Sie! Wieder da!"). He revives her using water from the Holy Spring, but she will only speak the word "serve" ("Dienen"). Looking into the forest, Gurnemanz sees a figure approaching, armed and in full armour. The stranger removes his helmet and Gurnemanz recognizes

3531-414: Is often referred to as the Ring cycle , Wagner's Ring , or simply The Ring . Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the Ring cycle are, in sequence: Individual works of the sequence are often performed separately, and indeed the operas contain dialogues that mention events in the previous operas, so that

3638-404: Is unusual in three ways: The Festspielhaus remains the venue of the annual Bayreuth Festival, during which Wagner's later operas, such as the Ring cycle and Parsifal , are given on a repertory basis. In early 2012, Katharina Wagner mentioned the need for repairs to the building, with mention specifically of roof leaks and crumbling of the red brick facade. In 2014, funding for restoration

3745-523: The Asyl (German: "Asylum"), the small cottage on Otto Wesendonck's estate in the Zürich suburb of Enge, which Wesendonck – a wealthy silk merchant and generous patron of the arts – had placed at Wagner's disposal, through the good offices of his wife Mathilde Wesendonck . The composer and his wife Minna had moved into the cottage on 28 April: ... on Good Friday I awoke to find the sun shining brightly for

3852-521: The Gesamtentwurf and in English as either the preliminary draft or the first complete draft ) was made in pencil on three staves , one for the voices and two for the instruments. The second complete draft ( Orchesterskizze , orchestral draft , short score or particell ) was made in ink and on at least three, but sometimes as many as five, staves. This draft was much more detailed than

3959-695: The Flying Dutchman , had plainly shown me what I must set before them if I sought to please. I completely undeceived their expectations; they left the theatre, after the first performance of Tannhäuser , [1845] in a confused and discontented mood. – The feeling of utter loneliness in which I now found myself, quite unmanned me... My Tannhäuser had appealed to a handful of intimate friends alone. Finally Wagner announces: I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by

4066-651: The Gesamtentwurf of the next act; but because the Orchesterskizze already embodied all the compositional details of the full score, the actual drafting of the Partiturerstschrift was regarded by Wagner as little more than a routine task which could be done whenever he found the time. The prelude of act 1 was scored in August 1878. The rest of the opera was scored between August 1879 and 13 January 1882. On 12 November 1880, Wagner conducted

4173-496: The National Theatre in Munich , before the rest of the Ring . Thus, Das Rheingold premiered on 22 September 1869 and Die Walküre on 26 June 1870. Wagner subsequently delayed announcing his completion of Siegfried to prevent this work also being premiered against his wishes. Wagner had long desired to have a special festival opera house, designed by himself, for the performance of the Ring . In 1871, he decided on

4280-463: The Ring tells the story from the viewpoint of Brünnhilde and has a distinct feminist angle. For example, in a key scene in Die Walküre , it is Sieglinde and not Siegmund who manages to pull the sword Nothung out of a tree. At the end of the cycle, Brünnhilde does not die, but instead gives birth to Siegfried's child. San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera began a co-production of

4387-405: The Ring were originally conceived by Wagner to be free of the traditional operatic concepts of aria and operatic chorus . The Wagner scholar Curt von Westernhagen identified three important problems discussed in "Opera and Drama" which were particularly relevant to the Ring cycle: the problem of unifying verse stress with melody; the disjunctions caused by formal arias in dramatic structure and

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4494-861: The Eddur, the Völsunga saga and Thidrekssaga . The final Götterdämmerung draws from the 12th-century German poem, the Nibelungenlied , which appears to have been the original inspiration for the Ring . The Ring has been the subject of myriad interpretations. For example, George Bernard Shaw , in The Perfect Wagnerite , argues for a view of The Ring as an essentially socialist critique of industrial society and its abuses. Robert Donington in Wagner's Ring And Its Symbols interprets it in terms of Jungian psychology , as an account of

4601-465: The Grail ("Enthüllet den Gral!"), and he finally does. The dark hall is illuminated by its radiant light and the round table of the knights is miraculously filled with wine and bread. Slowly all the knights and squires disappear, leaving Gurnemanz and the youth alone. Gurnemanz asks the youth if he has understood what he has seen. As the boy is unable to answer the question, Gurnemanz dismisses him as just an ordinary fool after all and angrily exiles him from

4708-531: The Grail, wakes his young squires and leads them in morning prayer ("He! Ho! Waldhüter ihr"). Their king, Amfortas, has been stabbed by the Holy Spear , once bequeathed to him into his guardianship, and the wound will not heal. Kundry arrives in a frenzy, with soothing balsam from Arabia. The squires eye Kundry with mistrust and question her. They believe Kundry to be an evil pagan witch. Gurnemanz restrains them and defends her. He relates history of Amfortas and

4815-474: The Grail, which renews the knights' immortality. Orchestral interlude – Verwandlungsmusik ( Transformation music ) Scene 2 The voice of the retired king Titurel resounds from a vaulted crypt in the background, demanding that his son Amfortas uncover the Grail and serve his kingly office ("Mein Sohn Amfortas, bist du am Amt?"). Only through the immortality-conferring power of the sacred chalice and

4922-818: The Kingdom of the Grail again, and finally calls on her master Klingsor to help her. Klingsor appears on the castle rampart and hurls the Holy Spear at Parsifal to destroy him. He seizes the spear in his hand and makes with it the sign of the Cross, banishing Klingsor's dark sorcery. The whole castle with Klingsor himself suddenly sinks as if by terrible earthquake and the enchanted garden withers. As Parsifal leaves, he tells Kundry that she knows where she can find him. Prelude to act 3 – Parsifals Irrfahrt ( Parsifal's Wandering ) Musical introduction of c. 4–6 minutes. Scene 1 The scene takes place many years later. Gurnemanz

5029-554: The Metropolitan Opera in New York asked the audience not to applaud after act 1. Parsifal is one of the Wagner operas regularly presented at the Bayreuth Festival to this day. Among the more significant post-war productions was that directed in 1951 by Wieland Wagner , the composer's grandson. At the first Bayreuth Festival after World War II he presented a radical move away from literal representation of

5136-529: The Nibelung ), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend , namely Norse legendary sagas and the Nibelungenlied . The composer termed the cycle a " Bühnenfestspiel " (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"). It

5243-442: The Nibelung ), from 13 to 17 August 1876. Only the entry façade exhibits the typical late-19th-century ornamentation, while the remainder of the exterior is modest and shows mostly undecorated bricks. The interior is mainly wood and has a reverberation time of 1.55 seconds. The Festspielhaus is one of the largest free-standing timber structures ever erected. Unlike the traditional opera house design with several tiers of seating in

5350-550: The Saviour's blood contained therein may Titurel himself, now aged and very feeble, live on. Amfortas is overcome with shame and suffering ("Wehvolles Erbe, dem ich verfallen"). He, the chosen guardian of the holiest of relics, has succumbed to sin and lost the Holy Spear, suffering an ever-bleeding wound in the process; uncovering the Grail causes him great pain. The young man appears to suffer with him, clutching convulsively at his heart. The knights and Titurel urge Amfortas to reveal

5457-442: The Saviour's forgiving gaze, but her search for her redeemer in the end only ever turns into a desire to find her salvation in earthly desire with those who fall for her charms. All her penitent endeavours eventually transform into a renewed life of sin and a continued unredeemed existence in bondage to Klingsor. When Parsifal still resists her, Kundry curses him through the power of her own accursed being to wander without ever finding

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5564-722: The Teatro Coliseo, on June 20, 1913, under Gino Marinuzzi . Bayreuth lifted its monopoly on Parsifal on 1 January 1914 in the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in Bologna with Giuseppe Borgatti . Some opera houses began their performances at midnight between 31 December 1913 and 1 January. The first authorized performance was staged at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona: it began at 10:30pm Barcelona time, which

5671-891: The action in a world of nineteenth-century theatricality; it was initially controversial in 1985, it sold out its final performances in 1995. Conductors included Armin Jordan ( Die Walküre in 1985), Manuel Rosenthal (1986) and Hermann Michael (1987, 1991 and 1995). Ring 3 , 2000–2013: the production, which became known as the "Green" Ring , was in part inspired by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest . Directed by Stephen Wadsworth, set designer Thomas Lynch, costume designer Martin Pakledinaz , lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski ; Armin Jordan conducted in 2000, Franz Vote in 2001 and Robert Spano in 2005 and 2009. The 2013 performances, conducted by Asher Fisch , were released as

5778-421: The basis of an organising principle in music. In summer 1848 Wagner wrote The Nibelung Myth as Sketch for a Drama , combining the medieval sources previously mentioned into a single narrative, very similar to the plot of the eventual Ring cycle, but nevertheless with substantial differences. Later that year he began writing a libretto entitled Siegfrieds Tod ("Siegfried's Death"). He was possibly stimulated by

5885-433: The composition draft of Das Rheingold . Unlike the verses, which were written as it were in reverse order, the music would be composed in the same order as the narrative. Composition proceeded until 1857, when the final score up to the end of act 2 of Siegfried was completed. Wagner then laid the work aside for twelve years, during which he wrote Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . By 1869, Wagner

5992-450: The correspondence of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn in 1840/41 reveals that they were both outlining scenarios on the subject: Fanny wrote 'The hunt with Siegfried's death provides a splendid finale to the second act'. By 1850, Wagner had completed a musical sketch (which he abandoned) for Siegfrieds Tod . He now felt that he needed a preliminary opera, Der junge Siegfried ("The Young Siegfried", later renamed to "Siegfried"), to explain

6099-582: The cycle takes place over four nights at the opera, with a total playing time of about 15 hours, depending on the conductor's pacing. The first and shortest work, Das Rheingold , has no interval and is one continuous piece of music typically lasting around two and a half hours, while the final and longest, Götterdämmerung , takes up to five hours, excluding intervals. The cycle is modelled after ancient Greek dramas that were presented as three tragedies and one satyr play . The Ring proper begins with Die Walküre and ends with Götterdämmerung , with Rheingold as

6206-430: The deceased Titurel in a coffin and the Grail in its shrine, as well as Amfortas on his litter, to the Grail hall ( "Geleiten wir im bergenden Schrein" ). The knights desperately urge Amfortas to keep his promise and at least once more, for the very last time uncover the Grail again, but Amfortas, in a frenzy, says he will never again show the Grail, as doing so would just prolong his unbearable torment. Instead, he commands

6313-571: The design of the Festspielhaus from an unrealised project by Gottfried Semper for an opera house in Munich , without the architect's permission, and supervised its construction. Ludwig II of Bavaria provided the primary funding for the construction. The foundation stone was laid on 22 May 1872, Wagner's 59th birthday. The building was first opened for the premiere of the complete four-opera cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of

6420-515: The development of unconscious archetypes in the mind, leading towards individuation . In his earlier operas (up to and including Lohengrin ) Wagner's style had been based, rather than on the Italian style of opera, on the German style as developed by Carl Maria von Weber , with elements of the grand opera style of Giacomo Meyerbeer . However he came to be dissatisfied with such a format as

6527-539: The donation and aid (900 thaler ) to Wagner for that matter by the Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire . Even after Ludwig began funding the project, Wagner had to continue putting on concerts to keep the building project financially afloat. The tours were very taxing on Wagner's health and would eventually be a key element to his death later on in 1883. A significant feature of the Festspielhaus

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6634-463: The entire world. The drama and intrigue continue through three generations of protagonists, until the final cataclysm at the end of Götterdämmerung . The music of the cycle is thick and richly textured, and grows in complexity as the cycle proceeds. Wagner wrote for an orchestra of gargantuan proportions, including a greatly enlarged brass section with new instruments such as the Wagner tuba , bass trumpet and contrabass trombone . Remarkably, he uses

6741-587: The events in Siegfrieds Tod and his verse draft of this was completed in May 1851. By October, he had made the momentous decision to embark on a cycle of four operas, to be played over four nights: Das Rheingold , Die Walküre , Der Junge Siegfried and Siegfrieds Tod ; the text for all four parts was completed in December 1852 and privately published in February 1853. In November 1853, Wagner began

6848-466: The famous illustrations by Arthur Rackham . It was performed twice each summer, once in German, once in Andrew Porter's English adaptation. Henry Holt conducted all performances. Ring 2 , 1985–1995: Directed by Francois Rochaix, with sets and costumes designed by Robert Israel, lighting by Joan Sullivan and supertitles (the first ever created for the Ring ) by Sonya Friedman . The production set

6955-434: The first and contained a considerable degree of instrumental elaboration. The second draft was begun on 25 September 1877, just a few days after the first; at this point in his career Wagner liked to work on both drafts simultaneously, switching back and forth between the two so as not to allow too much time to elapse between his initial setting of the text and the final elaboration of the music. The Gesamtentwurf of act 3

7062-482: The first and second acts, Wagner spoke to the audience and said that the cast would take no curtain calls until the end of the performance. This confused the audience, who remained silent at the end of the opera until Wagner addressed them again, saying that he did not mean that they could not applaud. After the performance Wagner complained, "Now I don't know. Did the audience like it or not?" At subsequent performances some believed that Wagner had wanted no applause until

7169-807: The first staging in the United Kingdom of the Ring cycle, conducted by Anton Seidl and directed by Angelo Neumann . The first production of the Ring in Italy was in Venice (the place where Wagner died), just two months after his 1883 death, at La Fenice . The first Australian Ring (and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg ) was presented in an English-language production by the British travelling Quinlan Opera Company, in conjunction with J. C. Williamson's , in Melbourne and Sydney in 1913. The Ring

7276-478: The first time in this house: the little garden was radiant with green, the birds sang, and at last I could sit on the roof and enjoy the long-yearned-for peace with its message of promise. Full of this sentiment, I suddenly remembered that the day was Good Friday, and I called to mind the significance this omen had already once assumed for me when I was reading Wolfram's Parzival . Since the sojourn in Marienbad [in

7383-472: The hall of the Grail or the flowermaiden's bower. Instead, lighting effects and the bare minimum of scenery were used to complement Wagner's music. This production was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Swiss stage designer Adolphe Appia . The reaction to this production was extreme: Ernest Newman , Richard Wagner's biographer described it as "not only the best Parsifal I have ever seen and heard, but one of

7490-479: The high-water mark of our art form, the most massive challenge any opera company can undertake." Wagner's title is most literally rendered in English as The Ring of the Nibelung . The Nibelung of the title is the dwarf Alberich, and the ring in question is the one he fashions from the Rhinegold. The title therefore denotes "Alberich's Ring". The cycle is a work of extraordinary scale. A full performance of

7597-582: The human aspects of the drama in a more abstract setting. Perhaps the most famous modern production was the centennial production of 1976, the Jahrhundertring , directed by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Pierre Boulez . Set in the Industrial Revolution , it replaced the depths of the Rhine with a hydroelectric power dam and featured grimy sets populated by men and gods in 19th and 20th century business suits. This drew heavily on

7704-491: The knights to kill him and end with his suffering also the shame he has brought on the brotherhood. At this moment, Parsifal appears and declares only one weapon can help here: only the same spear that inflicted the wound can now close it ( "Nur eine Waffe taugt" ). He touches Amfortas' side with the Holy Spear and both heals the wound and absolves him from sin. The spear, now reunited with the Holy Grail, starts to bleed with

7811-408: The lad who shot the swan; to his amazement the knight also bears the Holy Spear. Kundry washes Parsifal's feet and Gurnemanz anoints him with water from the Holy Spring, recognizing him as the pure fool, now enlightened by compassion and freed from guilt through purifying suffering, and proclaims him the foretold new king of the knights of the Grail. Parsifal looks about and comments on the beauty of

7918-525: The lad, saying that this land is a holy place, not to be defiled by murder. Remorsefully the young man breaks his bow in agitation and casts it aside. Kundry tells him that she has seen that his mother has died. Parsifal, who cannot remember much of his past, is crestfallen. Gurnemanz wonders if Parsifal might be the predicted "pure fool"; he invites Parsifal to witness the Ceremony of the Uncovering of

8025-695: The last week of April 1857, but Good Friday that year fell on 10 April, when the Wagners were still living at Zeltweg 13 in Zürich . If the prose sketch which Wagner mentions in Mein Leben was accurately dated (and most of Wagner's surviving papers are dated), it could settle the issue once and for all, but unfortunately it has not survived. Wagner did not resume work on Parsifal for eight years, during which time he completed Tristan und Isolde and began Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . Then, between 27 and 30 August 1865, he took up Parsifal again and made

8132-510: The long performances. Wälsungs Neidings Gibichungs Rhinemaidens Giants Nibelungs The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine . With the assistance of the god Loge, Wotan – the chief of the gods – steals the ring from Alberich, but

8239-476: The meadow. Gurnemanz explains that today is Good Friday , when all the world is purified and renewed. A dark orchestral interlude leads into the solemn gathering of the knights. Orchestral interlude – Verwandlungsmusik ( Transformation music ) – Titurels Totenfeier ( Titurel's Funeral March ) Scene 2 Within the Castle of the Grail, Titurel's funeral is to take place. Mourning processions of knights bring

8346-451: The more optimistic originally planned ending. Wagner also decided to show onstage the events of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre , which had hitherto only been presented as back-narration in the other two parts. These changes resulted in some discrepancies in the cycle, but these do not diminish the value of the work. On King Ludwig's insistence, and over Wagner's objections, "special previews" of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were given at

8453-503: The mother he had abandoned and who had finally died of grief. She reveals many parts of Parsifal's history to him and he is stricken with remorse, blaming himself for his mother's death. Kundry tells him that this realization is a first sign of understanding and that, with a kiss, she can help him understand the love that had once united his parents, wanting thus to awake in Parsifal the first pangs of desire. However, as she kisses Parsifal,

8560-518: The omission of the dove that appears over Parsifal's head at the end of the opera, which he claimed inspired him to give better performances. To placate his conductor Wieland arranged to reinstate the dove, which descended on a string. What Knappertsbusch did not realise was that Wieland had made the length of the string long enough for the conductor to see the dove, but not for the audience. Wieland continued to modify and refine his Bayreuth production of Parsifal until his death in 1966. Martha Mödl created

8667-430: The only operas performed at the Festspielhaus. However, this arrangement has also made it the most challenging to conduct in, even for the world's best conductors. Not only is the crowded pit enveloped in darkness, but the acoustic reverberation makes it difficult to synchronise the orchestra with the singers. Conductors must therefore retrain themselves to ignore cues from singers. The orchestra layout deployed at Bayreuth

8774-528: The orchestral interlude to the end. At the first performances of Parsifal , problems with the moving scenery (the Wandeldekoration ) during the transition from scene 1 to scene 2 in act 1 meant that Wagner's existing orchestral interlude finished before Parsifal and Gurnemanz arrived at the hall of the Grail. Engelbert Humperdinck , who was assisting the production, provided a few extra bars of music to cover this gap. In subsequent years this problem

8881-419: The performances of his operas including an improvement on the sound, feel, and overall look of the production. The Festpielhaus was originally planned to open in 1873, but by that time Wagner had barely raised enough money to put up the walls of his theatre. He began to raise money by traveling and putting on concerts in various cities and countries throughout Europe. There are, however, some documents concerning

8988-544: The point that he is about to flee, but a different voice suddenly calls out "Parsifal!". The youth finally recalls this name is what his mother called him when she appeared in his dreams. The flowermaidens back away from him and call him a fool as they leave him and Kundry alone. Parsifal wonders if the whole Garden is but a dream and asks how it is that Kundry knows his name. Kundry tells him she learned it from his mother ( "Ich sah das Kind an seiner Mutter Brust" ), who had loved him and tried to shield him from his father's fate,

9095-513: The reading of the Ring as a revolutionary drama and critique of the modern world, famously expounded by George Bernard Shaw in The Perfect Wagnerite . Early performances were booed but the audience of 1980 gave it a 45-minute ovation in its final year. Seattle Opera has created three different productions of the tetralogy: Ring 1 , 1975 to 1984: Originally directed by George London , with designs by John Naccarato following

9202-746: The realm with a warning to let the swans in the Grail Kingdom live in peace. Prelude to act 2 – Klingsors Zauberschloss ( Klingsor's Magic Castle ) Musical introduction of c. 2–3 minutes. Scene 1 Klingsor's castle and enchanted garden. Waking her from her sleep, Klingsor conjures up Kundry, now transformed into an incredibly alluring woman. He calls her by many names: First Sorceress ( Urteufelin ), Hell's Rose ( Höllenrose ), Herodias , Gundryggia and, lastly, Kundry. She mocks his self-castrated condition but cannot resist his power. He resolves to send her to seduce Parsifal and ruin him as she ruined Amfortas before. Scene 2 The youth walks into

9309-485: The ring. In the process, the gods and Valhalla are destroyed. Details of the storylines can be found in the articles on each music drama. Wagner created the story of the Ring by fusing elements from many German and Scandinavian myths and folk-tales. The Old Norse Edda supplied much of the material for Das Rheingold , while Die Walküre was largely based on the Völsunga saga . Siegfried contains elements from

9416-409: The same divine blood that is contained within the sacred chalice. Extolling the virtue of compassion and blessing Amfortas' suffering for making a pure fool knowing, Parsifal replaces Amfortas in his kingly office and orders to unveil the Grail, which is never to be hidden again. As the Grail glows ever brighter with light and a white dove descends from the top of the dome and hovers over Parsifal's head,

9523-408: The spear; it was stolen from him by the failed knight Klingsor. Gurnemanz's squires ask how it is that he knew Klingsor. Gurnemanz tells them that Klingsor was once a respected knight, but, unable to cleanse himself of sin, castrated himself in an effort to attain purity, but instead became an evil monstrosity. Parsifal enters, carrying a swan which he has killed. Shocked, Gurnemanz speaks sternly to

9630-479: The summer of 1845], where I had conceived Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin , I had never occupied myself again with that poem; now its noble possibilities struck me with overwhelming force, and out of my thoughts about Good Friday I rapidly conceived a whole drama, of which I made a rough sketch with a few dashes of the pen, dividing the whole into three acts. However, as his second wife Cosima Wagner later reported on 22 April 1879, this account had been colored by

9737-402: The text or presented onstage. Wagner referred to them in "Opera and Drama" as "guides-to-feeling", describing how they could be used to inform the listener of a musical or dramatic subtext to the action onstage in the same way as a Greek chorus did for the theatre of ancient Greece . Wagner made significant innovations in orchestration in this work. He wrote for a very large orchestra, using

9844-413: The three or four most moving spiritual experiences of my life". Others were appalled that Wagner's stage directions were being flouted. The conductor of the 1951 production, Hans Knappertsbusch , on being asked how he could conduct such a disgraceful travesty, declared that right up until the dress rehearsal he imagined that the stage decorations were still to come. Knappertsbusch was particularly upset by

9951-406: The time to concentrate on Parsifal . By 23 February 1877 he had completed a second and more extensive prose draft of the work, and by 19 April of the same year he had transformed this into a verse libretto (or "poem", as Wagner liked to call his libretti ). In September 1877 he began the music by making two complete drafts of the score from beginning to end. The first of these (known in German as

10058-535: The true Emotional (not the Critical) Understanding of spectators who shall have gathered together expressly to learn it. This is his first public announcement of the form of what would become the Ring cycle. In accordance with the ideas expressed in his essays of the period 1849–51 (including the "Communication" but also " Opera and Drama " and " The Artwork of the Future "), the four parts of

10165-515: The very end, and there was silence after the first two acts. Eventually it became a Bayreuth tradition that no applause would be heard after the first act, but this was certainly not Wagner's idea. In fact, during the first Bayreuth performances, Wagner himself cried "Bravo!" as the flowermaidens made their exit in the second act, only to be hissed by other members of the audience. At some theatres other than Bayreuth, applause and curtain calls are normal practice after every act. Program notes until 2013 at

10272-512: The way envisaged by him—a tradition maintained by his wife, Cosima, long after his death. Second, he thought that the opera would provide an income for his family after his death if Bayreuth had the monopoly on its performance. The Bayreuth authorities allowed unstaged performances to take place in various countries after Wagner's death (London in 1884, New York City in 1886, and Amsterdam in 1894) but they maintained an embargo on stage performances outside Bayreuth. On 24 December 1903, after receiving

10379-412: The way in which opera music could be organised on a different basis of organic growth and modulation ; and the function of musical motifs in linking elements of the plot whose connections might otherwise be inexplicit. This became known as the leitmotif technique (see below), although Wagner himself did not use this word. However, Wagner relaxed some aspects of his self-imposed restrictions somewhat as

10486-412: The whole range of instruments used singly or in combination to express the great range of emotion and events of the drama. Wagner even commissioned the production of new instruments, including the Wagner tuba , invented to fill a gap he found between the tone qualities of the horn and the trombone , as well as variations of existing instruments, such as the bass trumpet and a contrabass trombone with

10593-401: The work progressed. As George Bernard Shaw sardonically (and slightly unfairly) noted of the last opera Götterdämmerung : And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories come to an end somewhere... The rest of what you are going to see is opera and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing

10700-489: The work's huge structures. Tonal indeterminacy was heightened by the increased freedom with which he used dissonance and chromaticism . Chromatically altered chords are used very liberally in the Ring and this feature, which is also prominent in Tristan und Isolde , is often cited as a milestone on the way to Arnold Schoenberg 's revolutionary break with the traditional concept of key and his dissolution of consonance as

10807-643: The youth suddenly recoils in pain and cries out Amfortas' name: having just felt for the first time material desire with Kundry's kiss, Parsifal finds himself in the same position in which Amfortas had been seduced and he feels the wounded king's pain and suffering of evil and sin burning in his own soul. Only now does Parsifal understand Amfortas' passion during the Grail Ceremony ( "Amfortas! Die Wunde! Die Wunde!" ). Furious that her ploy has failed, Kundry tells Parsifal that if he can feel compassion for Amfortas, then he should also be able to feel it for her. In

10914-412: Was an hour behind Bayreuth . Such was the demand for Parsifal that it was presented in more than 50 European opera houses between 1 January and 1 August 1914. At Bayreuth performances audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. This tradition is the result of a misunderstanding arising from Wagner's desire at the premiere to maintain the serious mood of the opera. After much applause following

11021-401: Was announced at a level of approximately €30 million, primarily from public funding shared between Germany and the state of Bavaria , with the German national government and the Bavarian state government holding majority shares. Repairs were completed on 26 July 2015 and the building is fully restored. Der Ring des Nibelungen Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of

11128-472: Was completed on 16 April 1879 and the Orchesterskizze on the 26th of the same month. The full score ( Partiturerstschrift ) was the final stage in the compositional process. It was made in ink and consisted of a fair copy of the entire opera, with all the voices and instruments properly notated according to standard practice. Wagner composed Parsifal one act at a time, completing the Gesamtentwurf and Orchesterskizze of each act before beginning

11235-413: Was living at Tribschen on Lake Lucerne , sponsored by King Ludwig II of Bavaria . He returned to Siegfried and, remarkably, was able to pick up where he left off. In October, he completed the final work in the cycle. He chose the title Götterdämmerung instead of Siegfrieds Tod . In the completed work the gods are destroyed in accordance with the new pessimistic thrust of the cycle, not redeemed as in

11342-579: Was modelled on those at the Palazzo Rufolo in Ravello . In July and August 1882 sixteen performances of the work were given in Bayreuth conducted by Levi and Franz Fischer . The production boasted an orchestra of 107, a chorus of 135 and 23 soloists (with the main parts being double cast). At the last of these performances, Wagner took the baton from Levi and conducted the final scene of act 3 from

11449-608: Was solved and Humperdinck's additions were not used. For the first twenty years of its existence, the only staged performances of Parsifal took place in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus , the venue for which Wagner conceived the work (except eight private performances for Ludwig II at Munich in 1884 and 1885). Wagner had two reasons for wanting to keep Parsifal exclusively for the Bayreuth stage. First, he wanted to prevent it from degenerating into 'mere amusement' for an opera-going public. Only at Bayreuth could his last work be presented in

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