Wagner’s Parsifal by Roger Scruton review – in defence of the insufferable
about 5 years in The guardian
Nietzsche famously called Wagner’s last opera poisonous, but does its theme of redemption offer an antidote to our ills?
In his 1998 book On Hunting, Roger Scruton defended the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. In his last, now posthumously published book, the philosopher who died in January stands up for the unbearable responsible for the insufferable. The unbearable? The megalomaniac, narcissistic, antisemitic monster Richard Wagner. And the insufferable? The life-hating curse on the senses that was his last opera.
So at least argued Nietzsche, who damned Wagner’s Parsifal with the histrionics only a former devotee can muster. “Parsifal,” he snarled in the essay “Nietzsche Contra Wagner”, “is a work of perfidy, of vindictiveness, of a secret attempt to poison the presuppositions of life – a bad work.” Continue reading...
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