American Christians for and against Parsifal: Debating the Holy Grail Opera in New York

Frederick Hale

doi:10.4102/ids.v51i1.2267

Abstract

The appropriateness of Christian themes in the performing arts has often been debated. Defenders have argued that various media, including drama, can serve as instruments of spiritual edification, while critics have contended that such efforts often eventuate in sacrilege and a vulgarising exploitation of the sacred for commercial and entertainment purposes. A heated debate took place in 1903 when Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, which since its première at Bayreuth in 1882 had been hailed as a magnificent representation of redemption and other themes central to Christianity, was staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York – its first performance as an opera outside its original venue. Numerous clergymen and lay people in several denominations sought to have the production banned and cautioned fellow Christians against seeing it. Others, generally of a theologically more liberal bent, defended the work. The heated public controversy is placed into historical context and compared with the history of Parsifal in the United Kingdom, where it was widely appreciated without noteworthy opposition.

Highlights

Well over a century of international research on the notoriously controversial opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883) and his works has shed an enormous amount of light on his part in the stormy history of 19th-century music
Despite the mountain of research conducted in dozens of countries and languages, many corners of the general subject remain only dimly illuminated. Among these is the protracted controversy surrounding the watershed staging of his final opera, Parsifal, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1903
As will be argued in the present article, this controversial undertaking belongs to church history, broadly defined, and the debates surrounding it reveal something of the tenor of American Christianity in an era of rapid theological, cultural and social change

Summary

Introduction

Well over a century of international research on the notoriously controversial opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883) and his works has shed an enormous amount of light on his part in the stormy history of 19th-century music. It should be emphasised that despite the prominent spiritual themes in Parsifal, it was not inevitable that its staging should provoke a storm of protest from religious quarters in a society with strong Christian traditions which had been divided by decades of theological controversy.

Results

Conclusion