[Zhdanov]

Wagner did not believe in God but he was fascinated by religious symbols as he is shown in his work. He of course wanted to replace religion with art and mainly his own art with himself as an object of adoration. As a monstrous egoist he had endless powers of self-adoration and sought those who would reflect his own self-obsession - himself and his art.

and that's why his works are so good and he is the face of opera world.

 

[Rogerx]

What are some good places to start for reading what Wagner thought about religion?

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Richard_Wagner

 

[DavidA]

and that's why his works are so good and he is the face of opera world.

If you happen to like Teutonic self obsessed opera

 

[annaw]

What are some good places to start for reading what Wagner thought about religion?

There's a webpage https://monsalvat.no/ which is an absolute goldmine and a good place to start. It's a bit of a labyrinth but that only makes it more interesting to discover.

There are also the essays which surely can give you a lot of ideas about Wagner, his art, and religious ideas but they are so complex that I haven't yet read any of them fully and I'm not entirely sure whether they're the best place start.

I'm not overly well acquainted with all the books written about Wagner. Those certainly contain a lot of information about Wagner's religious ideas as well but maybe someone else can recommend those. In general, I think if you just read stuff about Wagner, more specific knowledge will just start to accumulate.

 

[Zhdanov]

If you happen to like Teutonic self obsessed opera

for instance, how are Parsifal or Tristan und Isolde 'teutonic' or self-obsessed?

 

[adriesba]

There's a webpage https://monsalvat.no/ which is an absolute goldmine and a good place to start. It's a bit of a labyrinth but that only makes it more interesting to discover.

There are also the essays which surely can give you a lot of ideas about Wagner, his art, and religious ideas but they are so complex that I haven't yet read any of them fully and I'm not entirely sure whether they're the best place start.

I'm not overly well acquainted with all the books written about Wagner. Those certainly contain a lot of information about Wagner's religious ideas as well but maybe someone else can recommend those. In general, I think if you just read stuff about Wagner, more specific knowledge will just start to accumulate.

Thanks! There is a lot to take in there! This article is interesting: https://monsalvat.no/parsifal.htm#X8

 

[DavidA]

for instance, how are Parsifal or Tristan und Isolde 'teutonic' or self-obsessed?

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image

 

[Zhdanov]

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image

where precisely? certainly not in Parsifal, then where else?

 

[DavidA]

where precisely? certainly not in Parsifal, then where else?

If you can't see the obvious no point in arguing

 

[annaw]

If you can't see the obvious no point in arguing

I agree with Zhdanov. I cannot grasp the concept of Aryan Jesus in Wagner's operas either...

Btw, I cannot see how something being Teutonic is bad in itself but, again, I agree with Zhdanov - neither Tristan nor Parsifal are particularly Teutonic content-wise. Tristan's legend isn't German and Parcival is a character from Arthurian legends as I just learnt from Wikipedia .

 

[JAS]

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image

To be entirely fair, pretty much every Christian culture has remade Christ in their own image. There is actually a fascinating documentary on The Face of Jesus in Art that not only shows this tendency, but the evolution of imagery, with special attention paid to depictions of the cross and the crucifixion. Other documentaries have explored the probability of what Jesus looked like, and it is not the ubiquitous dark blond haired blue-eyed image by Warner Sallman about 1940. The extreme example might be Albrecht Durer's self-portrait in the image of Christ. (That, at least, would have been available to Wagner.)

 

[millionrainbows]

Wagner did not believe in God but he was fascinated by religious symbols as he is shown in his work. He of course wanted to replace religion with art and mainly his own art with himself as an object of adoration. As a monstrous egoist he had endless powers of self-adoration and sought those who would reflect his own self-obsession - himself and his art. It has of course become somewhat of a religion for some of his admirers and they faithfully make their way to Bayreuth to pay homage at the shrine. I can remember chuckling at the program where Stephen Fry went to Bayreuth - The guy was treating the theatre as some sort of shrine and lowering his voice as he went in in reverence. I kept wanting to say 'No Stephen! It's a theatre! It's a theatre which makes lots of noise with lots of noisy instruments!' But that is how the Wagnerian faithful view it

Wagner was just a pragmatist in that he saw religion as only the tool of Man's spiritual essence; the conveyer.

The opera comes along, and turns out to be more powerful at conveying this, so he used it...and even improved it.

To be entirely fair, pretty much every Christian culture has remade Christ in their own image.

That's okay, since religion is only the tool of the authentic primal spirituality which always precedes it. Why not make it into something you can relate to?

 

[millionrainbows]

I've got sad news for you. Wagner will be here exciting people's imaginations when you are no longer even a pile of dust and ashes, so you may as well indulge in your juvenile fantasies and dopey smiles now and get them over with...

Yes, that's effective, but I prefer saying "when you are rotting in your grave."

 

[JAS]

I've got sad news for you. Wagner will be here exciting people's imaginations when you are no longer even a pile of dust and ashes, so you may as well indulge in your juvenile fantasies and dopey smiles now and get them over with. Yes, please do go off and write books (which i suspect no one will read), or compose more of that culture-redeeming music (which I suspect no one will listen to). Just spare this forum more of your pontificating. Too many threads have been hopelessly disfigured by it.

Not if, to use the words of Tom Lehrer, we all go together when we go . . .

For some reason, that reminds me of an old joke that I rather enjoy. A mother and her young son attended a church service in which the minister made a great deal of fuss about how from dust we are made and to dust we shall return, with profound dramatic effect. After they got home, the young boy came running downstairs in a state of considerable anxiety. "What is it?" the mother asked. "Mommy, Mommy, there is someone coming or going under my bed!"

 

[Woodduck]

He of course wanted to replace religion with art and mainly his own art with himself as an object of adoration...

It has of course become somewhat of a religion for some of his admirers and they faithfully make their way to Bayreuth to pay homage at the shrine...

If you happen to like Teutonic self obsessed opera...

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image.

If you can't see the obvious no point in arguing.

What's obvious is that you have a miserably poor grasp of what you're talking about. Tomorrow, when you wake up and come onto the forum, exercise a bit of the humility your vaunted religion presumably urges you to cultivate, and resolve to learn something rather than to troll others here who know this subject better.

 

[millionrainbows]

Originally Posted by DavidA
He of course wanted to replace religion with art and mainly his own art with himself as an object of adoration...

It has of course become somewhat of a religion for some of his admirers and they faithfully make their way to Bayreuth to pay homage at the shrine...

If you happen to like Teutonic self obsessed opera...

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image.

If you can't see the obvious no point in arguing.

Is DavidA saying this is "bad" to replace religion with his own art? I don't see it as bad, since religion is only a tool, anyway.

His post does sound kind of negative, but it really doesn't matter in light of the idea of "religion as only a tool." This idea puts art on an equal footing with religion.

 

[Woodduck]

Wagner was just a pragmatist in that he saw religion as only the tool of Man's spiritual essence; the conveyer.

The opera comes along, and turns out to be more powerful at conveying this, so he used it...and even improved it.

That's okay, since religion is only the tool of the authentic primal spirituality which always precedes it. Why not make it into something you can relate to?

That conveys pretty well Wagner's attitude.

"When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative, and can present those symbols in such a way as to reveal the profound truths they contain." (Richard Wagner, Religion and Art)

 

[Woodduck]

Well he did manage to make a christ in the Aryan image

"What? Christ a tenor? Pfui!" (Richard Wagner, when asked if Parsifal was intended to represent Christ)

Early in his career Wagner did plan an opera to be called Jesus of Nazareth. Presumably Jesus would have been a baritone (not a bass; that voice type would have to be reserved for God).

 

[JAS]

"What? Christ a tenor? Pfui!" (Richard Wagner, when asked if Parsifal was intended to represent Christ)

Early in his career Wagner did plan an opera to be called Jesus of Nazareth. Presumably Jesus would have been a baritone (not a bass; that voice type would have to be reserved for God).

I am not sure that I have seen a lot of discussion about what Jesus might have sounded like, although it is certainly an interesting question. There would not be much upon which to base such a discussion, but that usually doesn't stop people who are so inclined (and just gives them more elbow room).

 

[JAS]

That's okay, since religion is only the tool of the authentic primal spirituality which always precedes it. Why not make it into something you can relate to?

I was merely making an observation, and not really casting any judgement on the phenomenon. Some people, of course, do get very upset by such things, but I mostly think that it is just interesting. Given the Biblical pronouncement against graven images, I don't know that the idea of reinventing a personal idea of what Jesus looked like should be especially frowned upon.