[These synopses, like my others, are very, very brief. The reason is that I find the normal programme note much too long, and needlessly detailed and complicated. What I want is more of an overview. If I’ve read an overview – a sort of synopsis of a synopsis – I find that, particularly with the help of surtitles, there is then absolutely no need for a blow-by-blow description of the plot.]
Tannhäuser
The opera is about the conflict between the erotic and the spiritual.
The minstrel Tannhäuser has been enjoying the pleasures of erotic love with Venus in her magical retreat, the Venusberg, but has had enough and wants to escape. He calls on the Virgin Mary and the Venusberg vanishes. (The music associated with the Venusberg is often thought to be the most erotically charged music ever written.)
Tannhäuser has been in love with Elisabeth, the beautiful niece of the local landgrave, who promises her hand, with her full agreement (Tannhäuser having form in this area), to the winner of a singing contest in the Wartburg castle (which still exists in Thuringia, central Germany). But Tannhäuser sings ecstatically of sexual love, causing him to be attacked by the assembled company. He is saved by Elisabeth and agrees to go to Rome to get the Pope’s absolution. But this turns out, according to the Pope, to be “no more possible than his staff sprouting leaves”.
Elisabeth is broken hearted and dies. Tannhäuser collapses and dies at her funeral, at the same time as pilgrims returning from Rome announce that the Pope’s staff has indeed sprouted leaves. Forgiveness in death.
Parsifal
The opera is about the troubles of the knights of the Holy Grail, caused by their ruler Amfortas having lost, and been wounded by, the Holy Spear; and how they are saved by Parsifal.
It was Klingsor who had stolen the Holy Spear and wounded Amfortras with it. Klingsor has set up a castle with a magic garden full of alluring “flower maidens” to trap the knights, with the intention of getting the Holy Grail. (The Holy Grail is the chalice from the Last Supper, which also caught the blood flowing from Christ’s wound at the crucifixion. The Holy Spear caused the wound.)
Amfortras’s wound can only be healed, according to a prophecy, by “a pure fool, enlightened by compassion”.
Klingsor is helped by an enigmatic woman, Kundry, who is under his spell – reluctantly, it turns out.
Parsifal is initially also enigmatic: he appears as an archer who shoots a swan and doesn’t know who he is. Klingsor knows that Parsifal can save the knights of the Holy Grail and tries to get Kundry to seduce him. She tells him who he is, but he resists her efforts. Klingsor hurls the Holy Spear at him, but he miraculously catches it in mid-air. Klingsor’s realm disintegrates.
Eventually Parsifal finds his way to the Holy Grail. Kundry has repented and is baptized by Parsifal. Parsifal touches Amfortras with the Holy Spear. He is healed and the Knights and the Holy Grail are saved. Happy ending.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Wagner’s only comedy – with no magic or supernatural events, and no gods.
The story revolves around the historical figure of Hans Sachs, a cobbler in 16th century Nuremberg, and the guild of mastersingers. The underlying theme is the tension between the old and the new or, in terms of art and music, between traditional rules and free expression.
Despite the length of the opera (over four hours), the basic story is simple.
A young knight Walther is in love with Eva, a goldsmith’s daughter. Walther enters for the singing contest to be held by the guild, despite not being familiar with all the complicated rules. The pedantic town clerk Beckmesser is horrified. Eva’s father has promised her to whoever wins the contest.
Hans Sachs recognizes the quality of the poem Walther sings and tutors him in the rules. Beckmesser manages to get hold of a copy of the poem, but is hopeless when he tries to sing it. When Walther sings it, people are entranced. Walther initially refuses the prize, but Sachs persuades him to do so. Walther’s song, Sachs maintains, represents groundbreaking art but within a great cultural tradition.
Lohengrin
A romantic opera about troubles in 10th century Brabant (now Belgium), involving a “knight in shining armour” arriving in a boat led by a swan; the knight turns out to be Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail, son of Parsifal. The opera was vastly admired by Ludwig II of Bavaria, who named his most exotic castle Neuschwanstein after the “Swan Knight”.
The troubles in Brabant were caused by Count Telramund, abetted by his evil wife Ortrud, accusing Elsa of murdering her young brother Gottfried, in order to become Duchess of Brabant. The King, Henry the Fowler, decides that the dispute must be settled by single combat. Elsa prays to God for a champion. He arrives in the shape of the Swan Knight, as yet anonymous.
The Knight defeats Telramund, but (perhaps unwisely) spares his life. The Knight proposes marriage to Elsa, but on condition that she vows never to ask his name or where he comes from.
Telramund and Ortrud conspire against Elsa, specifically to get her to break her vow. It is when she and the Knight enter the bridal chamber (to the famous Bridal Chorus – “Here Comes the Bride”) that she finally succumbs and asks the forbidden question. The Knight has to reveal his identity as Lohengrin, a Knight of the Holy Grail; as he is required to remain anonymous, he has to leave.
The swan turns into the young Gottfried. He becomes Duke of Brabant. Lohengrin kills Telramund. Ortrud also perishes. Elsa is devastated with grief and dies. Lohengrin is led back to the castle of the Holy Grail by a dove (replacing the mutated swan).
Tristan und Isolde
A tragic love story where the major themes are betrayal, the welcoming power of darkness and a yearning for death, set in medieval Cornwall and Brittany and inspired by the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
Tristan, a Cornish knight, is bringing the Irish princess Isolde to his uncle, King Marke, to whom Isolde is unwillingly to marry. Tristan had already come across Isolde in Ireland when she saved his life even though he had killed her then fiancé. She, furious at his betrayal and dreading her future marriage, contrives to arrange a drink of atonement, which she and he both think is poisoned. In fact, Isolde’s companion has put in a love potion rather than poison. They fall deeply in love.
When they reach Cornwall, at night and in the absence of the King, the lovers declare their passion, realizing that it is only at night – and then in death – that they can be truly united.
When daylight arrives, the King finds them in each other’s arms. In the ensuing fight, Tristan is wounded.
Tristan is taken to Brittany, where Isolde is expected to arrive. When she does, Tristan tears off his bandages and dies in her arms. Isolde also collapses and dies to the strains of the famous liebestod. True love is only possible in death.
The Ring Cycle
The four operas that comprise the Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen) deal with the struggles of gods, giants, villains and heroes to get hold of the magic ring that gives power and dominion over the world. The detail is impossible to summarize even in the limited way attempted for the other operas.
The background is that the ring was forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold stolen from the Rhine maidens who were keeping it for the chief god Wotan. Wotan steals the ring but is forced to hand it over to the two giants, Fafner and Fasolt, as payment for building Valhalla, the home of the gods.
This background is dealt with in the first of the four operas, Das Rheingold, which Wagner regarded as a prelude. The others, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, deal with the complex plans and dramas, largely inspired by Wotan, to get the ring back. Eventually, his mortal grandson Siegfried (the son of an incestuous relationship between Wotan’s children Siegmund and Sieglinde) achieves this but is killed and the ring is back in hostile hands. It is finally recovered by Wotan’s daughter and Siegfried’s lover, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde. She leaps onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre, with the ring. She has told the Rhine maidens where to find the ring, which they duly get back. Valhalla is destroyed.
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