Abstract

»Throughout the course of this thesis, I examine the evidence of racial, religious and gender discrimination in Richard Wagner’s final music drama, Parsifal (1882). The question is how and with what effects these forms of discrimination are constructed. In other words, does the work promote or simply “just” dramatize discrimination, and what are the consequences of these actions? Furthermore, how should opera directors today tackle these evident forms of discrimination? In short, how can Parsifal still be acceptable and even relevant to produce today?

I examine Parsifal broadly and interdisciplinarily as both a historical document – i.e. Richard Wagner’s original music score, libretto, stage notes and photographs from 1882 – and as a contemporary, live performance – i.e. the British director Keith Warner’s staging of Parsifal at the Royal Danish Opera from 2012. This, I believe, is essential in order to explore the work’s constructions of gender, racial and religious stereotyping and discrimination in its semiotic and performative interplaying dimensions – a methodological approach inspired by German theatre theorist Erika Fisher-Lichte.

From a semiotic perspective, inspired by theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman, Simone de Beauvoir, Edward W. Said, Catherine Clément, Susan McClary and Herbert Lindenberger, I examine how the work reproduces and subverts stereotypes of the binary opposition between the norm and the Other in both the musical score, libretto and visual elements. From a performative approach, inspired by theorists such as Judith Butler, Erika Fisher-Lichte and Carolyn Abbate, I examine how these stereotypes are performed and subverted in the work as a staged (i.e. live visual, sounding and sensory) performance and experience.

I show how Parsifal can indeed be read as a critique of racial, religious and gender discrimination - and go further to suggest that the work  endorses an inclusion of the Other, symbolically represented in the characters Klingsor, Kundry and through the means of musical chromaticism. We move from Act 1 in which the Other is excluded, to Act 2 in which we are in the realm of the Other and finally to Act 3 in which the Other is included in the realm and characters.

It is in this fact that I view Parsifal as a highly relevant work to produce today. Furthermore, this places Parsifal as a work embodying strong socio-political potentials. Directors today should then not shy away from staging Klingsor and Kundry as the Other, that being any supressed group of identity to fully embrace this subversive potential.«

Marie-Louise Zervides
Københavns Universitet, juli 2016