Note to self: Six hours of turgid mysticism about two hours too many
IOW we went to see the movie theater version of the Met's Parsifal last night. I hadn't realized it would be quite that long - I mean, it's Wagner, of course it's long, but this was a production with massive complicated sets (towering cliffs, a lake full of blood, very impressive) that took a good half hour or more to change. And they didn't cut a single minute of intermission, even though this was on tape delay. So anyway, the sets were amazing, the music was gorgeous, the story bored the socks off of me.
Which is kind of a pity, because I've always had a fascination with the Fisher King legend, ever since I first came across it in Tim Powers' Drawing of the Dark. The versions I prefer are the older, less Christianized ones, Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the even older legends and myths they were likely drawing on. I think Joseph Campbell has the tendency of a hammer-owner to see everything as a nail, but it really isn't hard to see the bones of a much older sacrificial king/fertility myth in the oldest known Grail legends. It's notable that in the older versions, there are several female characters playing important roles: Percival's cousin, his wife, and the Grail Maiden. But by the time Wagner gets done with it, all but one of them has been written out, and even Kundry is turned into a quasi-villain and then literally deprived of her voice in the third act. There's a real cognitive dissonance between the text and the symbolism at times - acts I & II are full of "Ew, desire is sinful and women are evil temptresses!" and purity equating to virginity/celibacy, and yet the climactic scene of act III is a guy sticking a long pointy thing dribbling bodily fluids into an equally moist cup held by a woman. Who makes an orgasm face and immediately dies. :P Methinks someone had Issues.
I'd really like to see something that epic done with the older version...
Rants Talk to me
Which is kind of a pity, because I've always had a fascination with the Fisher King legend, ever since I first came across it in Tim Powers' Drawing of the Dark. The versions I prefer are the older, less Christianized ones, Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the even older legends and myths they were likely drawing on. I think Joseph Campbell has the tendency of a hammer-owner to see everything as a nail, but it really isn't hard to see the bones of a much older sacrificial king/fertility myth in the oldest known Grail legends. It's notable that in the older versions, there are several female characters playing important roles: Percival's cousin, his wife, and the Grail Maiden. But by the time Wagner gets done with it, all but one of them has been written out, and even Kundry is turned into a quasi-villain and then literally deprived of her voice in the third act. There's a real cognitive dissonance between the text and the symbolism at times - acts I & II are full of "Ew, desire is sinful and women are evil temptresses!" and purity equating to virginity/celibacy, and yet the climactic scene of act III is a guy sticking a long pointy thing dribbling bodily fluids into an equally moist cup held by a woman. Who makes an orgasm face and immediately dies. :P Methinks someone had Issues.
I'd really like to see something that epic done with the older version...
Rants Talk to me