Gesamtkunstwerk Oper – Kurze philosophische Rezension anlässlich der Aufführung aller Bühnenstücke Richard Wagners durch Ulf Schirmer an der Oper Leipzig

The commentary on the performance of all of Richard Wagner's stage plays at the Leipzig Opera is not a review of academic literature, but it belongs in a philosophical review insofar as Wagner himself considered his plays to be philosophical. It is a reminder of a time when opera in cathedrals of the bourgeoisie was supposed to represent a new kind of religio. It belongs at least to the history of cultural spirit as it leads from ancient tragedy through all Mediterranean liturgies to the art business of the present. Paradigmatic is the conclusion of Parsifal, in which Jesus is identified with the Grail King, Cundrie la sorcière with Mary Magdalene, and a redemption of the Redeemer is conveyed by the initially dumb but then worldly-wise Parsifal. It consists in the absolutely revolutionary insight for any decent religion that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, sinful about sexual love.