This is a documentary-style
film about Wagner’s "festival play"
Parsifal. It contains discussion
around the issues underlying the opera,
a little on the story and some extracts
from a Kirov production led by Placido
Domingo and conducted by Valerie Gergiev.
It was made in 1998 by Tony Palmer who
has a long and distinguished record
of making films related to classical
music topics. He deserves great credit
for possessing the tenacity to make
these minority taste, non-commercial
films. I imagine raising finance must
represent a considerable portion of
the effort that goes into an enterprise
like this.
When I have seen some
of his previous work I have had a feeling
that I have been watching flawed masterpieces
in the genre. For me there is that sense
of great ambition not quite achieved.
Tony Palmer is not short of ambition.
His film on Wagner with Richard Burton
in the role ran to over nine hours in
its full version (we get some mercifully
short clips in Parsifal). Making
a film about Parsifal requires
ambition of a different sort – more
a kind of intellectual courage. Here
is a complex, multi-layered, philosophically/spiritually
profound masterpiece, the meaning of
which people have been struggling with
for over 120 years.
The ambiguities that
Wagner presents us with have inevitably
led to many varying interpretations,
allowing some "experts" to ride their
own obsessional hobby horses in a way
that does not necessarily aid understanding.
A film like this, pitched as it appears
to be at introductory level, needs to
attempt a balanced interpretative view
if it is to be taken seriously. It should
also at least point to some of the metaphysical
depths that Wagner is attempting to
plumb. The film not only does not do
this, but presents an aggressively unbalanced
view that is likely to point novices
in quite the wrong direction.
The first part of the
film focuses entirely on the Christian
myth of the Holy Grail. It is fronted
by Placido Domingo who is reading a
script which I assume to be by Tony
Palmer judging from the piece the director
has written for the booklet. Domingo
tells us that the 700 year old myth
is "one of the most important stories
of the last 2000 years", and to support
this statement we are treated to clips
from movies that have touched on it.
So we get a chance to see some Monty
Python antics, Harrison Ford and so
on.
Tony Palmer is quite
big on the idea of surrounding his topics
with context and powerfully illustrating
this visually. That is a laudable aim
in itself. I remember, for example,
that his film on Shostakovich had, near
the beginning, shots of thumping great
pieces of Soviet industrial machinery
redolent of Stalinesque five year plans.
In his Parsifal,
these Grail film clips just seem to
trivialise. However, to offset this,
an academic theologian, Karen Armstrong,
is wheeled on to tell us more about
the Grail and that it has nothing to
do with Christianity as sourced in the
New Testament.
Up to now, the film
has given a clear impression that Wagner's
Parsifal is a musical story about
the Holy Grail - which it isn't. The
Grail (as container of Christ's blood)
is a symbol which Wagner makes the dramatic
focus of his work. It's a kind of magic
vehicle that allows Wagner to unfold
the drama that in turn provides the
means for airing his deeper preoccupations
with what we might colloquially call
"the meaning of the universe"
and our lot within it.
I believe we are being
led into red herring territory as far
as the core issues are concerned. Worse
immediately follows. Palmer decides
to peddle the retrospective "Wagner
as proto-Nazi" line. First, a link with
the Grail is drawn. "Adolf Hitler
believed that it was only the pure blood
of the Aryan race that could preserve
the sanctity of the Grail. As a result,
7 million Jews and at least 30 million
others were slaughtered". (If only
history consisted of a series of simple
cause-and-effect statements like this
then I might have done better at it
at school.) We then get some dramatic
Nazi propaganda footage of Hitler parading
through Berlin accompanied by guess
what music? Yes: Parsifal. And
then: "The most famous illustration
of this extraordinary story is the opera
which Richard Wagner wrote ..."
There is a strong implication building
here in the way that Domingo’s commentary,
the images and music are entwined that
Wagner was somehow the direct cause
of Hitler, the Third Reich, the Holocaust
and the Second World War. I kid you
not. The ground is now prepared for
the racial purity interpretation presented
later in the film when we will be told,
"What Wagner did was very, very
dangerous ... His work contributed to
a dreadful turn of events".
Meanwhile we are taken
at last to the story. There are some
scrumptious, dramatised shots of the
young Parsifal wandering the woods and
then on to some staged and dramatised
extracts which are the best thing in
the film. The longest are from Act II
involving the flower maidens, and Kundry
sung by the impressively big-voiced
Violetta Urmana. The moment of Kundry's
kissing of Parsifal and his rejection
is shown and Domingo then changes his
role into voice-over commentator to
tell us that with this denial Parsifal,
"sees the Grail that alone will
offer redemption". I don't know
what our novice viewer would make of
that, but this key moment in the opera
offers a cue to some discussion about
the relationship between denial (as
release from "wanting') and the path
from an unstable world of suffering
to a transcendent state of release.
This is firmly in Schopenhauer territory.
Schopenhauer’s philosophy had more impact
on Wagner’s outlook and development
than anything else in his adult life
- confessedly so. He was steeped in
it and it is at the core of his later
work. That does not mean he swallowed
it all. I would argue that he had to
write Parsifal in order to achieve
a more palatable result than the one
he had arrived at in Tristan
which was rigorously, pessimistically
in the Schopenhauer mould. In a sense,
in Parsifal the transcendental
redemptive process (for want of a better
phrase) can take place this side of
the grave which it could never do in
Tristan. Many have argued that
in Parsifal Wagner uses the imagery
of the Grail and Christ's blood within
it as a symbol of incarnation. Thus,
in a ceremonial, ritualistic setting
the audience are invited to share a
glimpse of the beyond - or Buddhism’s
Nirvana, or Schopenhauer's noumenal
state. As I recall, there is not a single
mention of Schopenhauer.
The film ends with
the final unveiling of the Grail, superbly
lit and shot with cuts to Gergiev looking
sweatily and suitably Messianic in his
commitment to this wondrous score. It
is powerful stuff and reminds us not
so much what Parsifal is about
but what it is - an extraordinary musical
work of art. But of the music there
is no real discussion.
So at the conclusion
of the film, has the novice had a chance
to find out something about what Parsifal
might be about? Well, Domingo's commentary
has bandied around the words, "truth",
"beauty", "love", "compassion"
and "redemption" and there is no doubt
that these abstractions and the relationship
between them were major preoccupations
of Wagner through his life and were
at the heart of all his dramas. But
they do represent something of a semantic
nightmare and without trying to define
them in Wagnerian terms they are not
going to help very much.
Instead of having an
interpretative shot at these core issues,
two thirds of the way through the film,
Tony Palmer brings on his only Wagner
"expert". This is the American Robert
Gutman, a writer who started to come
to prominence in Wagner study circles
back in the sixties, notorious for his
obsession with Wagner’s anti-Semitism
and theories on racial purity. There
is no doubt that Gutman knows a lot
about Wagner and that Wagner was anti-Semitic.
In an oblique way the composer may have
been using his last work to indulge
some of his prejudices on racial purity
(not to mention other secondary themes
such as misogyny, vegetarianism and
homosexuality). But so obsessed is Gutman
with his theme that he has led himself
into a position where he is convinced
that the whole raison d'être of
Parsifal is a plea for Aryan
purity. Gutman has been largely discredited
by Wagner scholars as being hopelessly
cavalier with his sources in order to
prove his point. Yet Tony Palmer presents
him as his star witness.
"The subject matter
of Parsifal is racial purity",
Gutman tells us, and that, "the
whole purpose of Parsifal was
to explain Wagner’s concept of how the
Aryan race might be restored. Hitler
saw this very, very clearly."
I have read Gutman
but never seen him interviewed before
so it did occur to me, as I watched,
that Palmer might have brought him on
in this visual medium to allow him to
condemn himself through his body language.
Gutman presents his case to us with
all the glee of the zealot, knuckles
intertwined and cracking, accompanied
by a perpetual grin and burst of maniacal
laughter. But no. On checking Palmer’s
booklet essay it is clear the film maker
swallows it himself, (although he does
reassure us that "Wagner did not
invent Hitler.")
As far as I am concerned
this, together with the gratuitous Nazi
footage, invalidates the film as a piece
of work to be taken seriously. If the
theory was presented in the context
of a range of accepted interpretations
- fine. But it isn't.
There may be good reasons
to buy this DVD. The performance extracts
are magnificent and as usual with Tony
Palmer films there are superb visual
effects. Some may find Gutman's contribution
deliciously funny.
On the whole though
I think this a disgraceful piece of
work and I cannot forgive Tony Palmer
for persuading one of the world's great
dramatic singers to head up the irresponsible
enterprise.
For anyone who wants
to have a serious go at tackling Parsifal
and the issues surrounding it, they
could do no worse than consult the splendidly
named website, Monsalvat, devoted
to the work (see http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/inxcommon.htm
). The approach is sensibly balanced,
and there is a wealth of readable material.
And it’s free.
John Leeman
The Kirov Orchestra and Choir/Valery Gergiev 
ARTHAUS
MUSIK 100 610 [90:00] 