Wesendonck affair
Charles Zigmund
MAD4OPERA
=================
Yes and I purchased a copy of the video on E-Bay.
I think the REAL answer to that question went to the grave with:
Mathilde
Richard
Cosima (who burned a lot of documents she never wanted to see the light of day)
Tauser
was never sure....but had ample grounds to suspect.
Tauser
@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude
His name was Otto
--
Herman van der Woude
mailto : hvdwoude @ zonnet.nl
(spaces added to avoid SPAM/spaties toegevoegd om SPAM te vermijden)
Wotan99
>
Scholars are not sure-but we do know she performed the "Wesendonck" lieder for
the Meister in the nude.
Mike Scott Rohan
from wot...@aol.com (Wotan99) contains these words:
Entertaining idea -- unfortunately she wasn't a singer. Although I'm
sure "the Meister" would have forgiven her, in the circumstances.
Also he wasn't pleased to find out, in later years, that she dyed her
hair. Under these circumstances he'd have found out a lot sooner. :-)
(In fact it's probably very significant that he *didn't* already know....}
Cheers,
Mike
MAD4OPERA
hair. Under these circumstances he'd have found out a lot sooner. :-)
(In fact it's probably very significant that he *didn't* already know....}
Cheers,
Mike
=================
Yes, there's that and the tattoo of Beethoven.
Alas, we'll never really know.
Dogbert Dilbert
She *dyed* her pubes? That's pretty kinky for a Victorian!
Maybe Wagner *did* know something of this: you always thought all that
stuff about "day" and "night" in Tristan was a deep philosophical
meditation on the meaning of existence - perhaps it was a coded
reference to hair colour?
Dogbertd
(tongue firmly in cheek)
Mike Scott Rohan
from Dogbert Dilbert <dogb...@usa.net> contains these words:
{snip}
> She *dyed* her pubes? That's pretty kinky for a Victorian!
Er, no. The opposite, you might say. To clarify:
When Wagner had his big thing. physical or otherwise, with the
young(ish) Mathilde -- during which time Cosima, newly married to von
Bulow, also met her -- she was a distinctive darkish blonde. When Cosima
met her again in 1870, she was amused to see Mathilde was now a
brunette. Wagner, annoyed with Mathilde at the time, didn't meet her
again till a year later, when she was 43, and was somewhat disconcerted
to find her hair had turned black. It seems brunette was the natural
shade.
Now if he'd ever got especially far with her, let alone had a long
relationship -- and it could have lasted for years -- he'd surely have
sonner or later discovered the discrepancy, as you might put it, between
north and south, and would not have been so surprised later on. Of
course, she could have dyed her pubes, as you so delicately put it, but
I'm reliably informed this is rather an awkward exercise even today, and
with Victorian bleaches would probably have been not so much kinky as
downright dangerous; they were still putting white lead and arsenic in
their cosmetics, for heavens' sake, so they probably used the equivalent
of Domestos (Drano, for Americans). Enough to make your eyes water just
thinking about it. So, since he didn't know, it seems that things
between them may well have been a bit more innocent than's generally
assumed. Anyhow, that's my theory -- copyright!
> Maybe Wagner *did* know something of this: you always thought all that
> stuff about "day" and "night" in Tristan was a deep philosophical
> meditation on the meaning of existence - perhaps it was a coded
> reference to hair colour?
Well, tongue in cheek, maybe -- although one could say something about
that, in context -- but who knows? I do remember using exactly that
comparison myself, on one interesting occasion -- and Wagner, let's face
it, was capable of sublimating just about anything, the old bugger. And
not only he. A lot of references in Byron, for example, become rather
startling clear if you translate them into Latin; that line about the
sword outwearing its sheath, for example...
Perhaps we should polish all this up and publish it. In The Journal of
Irreproducible Results, maybe...
Cheers,
Mike
REP
news:200310091...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> The message <nt72ov4elbeon1puu...@4ax.com>
> from Dogbert Dilbert <dogb...@usa.net> contains these words:
>
> Now if he'd ever got especially far with her, let alone had a long
> relationship -- and it could have lasted for years -- he'd surely have
> sonner or later discovered the discrepancy, as you might put it, between
> north and south, and would not have been so surprised later on.
There's no such thing as blonde pubic hair as far as I know...just like
blonde people can only have brown eyebrows. In any case, even if there is
such a thing, the combination of blonde/brunette is completely
feasible...I'm sure you've seen people with blonde hair and a brown beard
(the beard is always the same color as the pubic hair, just as the lips are
generally the same coloration as the genitalia), so there wouldn't
necessarily be any 'discrepenacy' to discover.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
>
> --
> mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
>
REP, a little weirded out by this conversation
Richard Loeb
WRONG!!!!! Richard
"REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote in message
news:%%rhb.1408$Sk1...@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
Charles Zigmund
"REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> wrote in message news:<%%rhb.1408$Sk1...@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>...
Steppenwolf
Tristan und Isolde (along with Schopenhauerian metaphysics, of
course)? In that case, I find it hard to imagine the love was
consumated, at least before the completion of the work. So speculation
about pube-colour is all academic. The music of Tristan speaks of
FRUSTRATION ... to me it seems the product of a tortured soul, in
unrequited love. I believe that only someone who has felt the intense
agony and pangs of unfulfilled, impossible love can really understand
the music of Tristan to its very core, feel it and experience it. How
painful! How terribly remindful! And yet how utterly sublime!:)
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
> "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:200310091...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> > The message <nt72ov4elbeon1puu...@4ax.com>
> > from Dogbert Dilbert <dogb...@usa.net> contains these words:
> >
> [...]
> > Now if he'd ever got especially far with her, let alone had a long
> > relationship -- and it could have lasted for years -- he'd surely have
> > sonner or later discovered the discrepancy, as you might put it, between
> > north and south, and would not have been so surprised later on.
> [...]
> There's no such thing as blonde pubic hair as far as I know...just like
> blonde people can only have brown eyebrows.
I perceive, said Sherlock Holmes, you have not spent a great deal of
time in Scandinavia.
In any case, even if there is
> such a thing, the combination of blonde/brunette is completely
> feasible...
Hmm. Only up to a point, I think; it would still make the hair dye more
obvious, especially with the rather primitive Victorian shades.
I'm sure you've seen people with blonde hair and a brown beard
> (the beard is always the same color as the pubic hair, just as the lips are
> generally the same coloration as the genitalia), so there wouldn't
> necessarily be any 'discrepenacy' to discover.
Well, pace the Miller's Tale, beards don't exactly come into question
here; but I see what you mean. Still, I think it can still stand as a
factor to be considered.
Charles Zigmund
True. But the affair could have been consummated after the opera was
completed.
We have to assume, I think, that the affair between Tristan and Isolde
WAS consummated. At least I would hope they did not die COMPLETELY in
vain.
And please, out of respect for Wagner, no speculation about their
pubic colors.
Cruz Tijerina
> about pube-colour is all academic.
Is it just me or does this speculation seem anything but academic?
Richard Loeb
Wagner needs some silliness, don't you think???? Richard
"Charles Zigmund" <cha...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:4684c499.03101...@posting.google.com...
REP
news:7d6cnfdHPJ6...@comcast.com...
> "There's no such thing as blonde pubic hair as far as I know"
>
> WRONG!!!!! Richard
Prove it! Oh wait, no, please don't. I'll take your word for it.
REP
REP
> The message <%%rhb.1408$Sk1...@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>
> from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
>
> > "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in
message
> > news:200310091...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
> > > The message <nt72ov4elbeon1puu...@4ax.com>
> > > from Dogbert Dilbert <dogb...@usa.net> contains these words:
> > >
> > [...]
> > > Now if he'd ever got especially far with her, let alone had a long
> > > relationship -- and it could have lasted for years -- he'd surely have
> > > sonner or later discovered the discrepancy, as you might put it,
between
> > > north and south, and would not have been so surprised later on.
> > [...]
>
> > There's no such thing as blonde pubic hair as far as I know...just like
> > blonde people can only have brown eyebrows.
>
> I perceive, said Sherlock Holmes, you have not spent a great deal of
> time in Scandinavia.
Touché. No I've never been.
>
> In any case, even if there is
> > such a thing, the combination of blonde/brunette is completely
> > feasible...
>
> Hmm. Only up to a point, I think; it would still make the hair dye more
> obvious, especially with the rather primitive Victorian shades.
>
Wouldn't he have had to have a lot of experience with people's crotches to
really have any of this register in his mind as signifigant?; How many times
do you think the idea of the relationship between the colorations of pubic-
and head- hairs entered the Master's thoughts? And would he really have even
got that good of a look at her crotch in the first place, unless they
engaged in cunnilingus?
Must vomit now.
REP
Nick
Niklas
"Charles Zigmund" <cha...@verizon.net> skrev i meddelandet
news:4684c499.03101...@posting.google.com...
MAD4OPERA
consummated. At least I would hope they did not die COMPLETELY in vain.
And please, out of respect for Wagner, no speculation about their pubic colors.
====================
Is that what Wagner would have wanted?
A.C. Douglas
>[snipped - original post is below]
> We have to assume, I think, that the affair between Tristan and Isolde
> WAS consummated. At least I would hope they did not die COMPLETELY in
> vain.
---------------------------------------------------------
At the risk of pointing out the well-known, "they" didn't die, in vain or
otherwise. Only Tristan did (the big dummy!).
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"Charles Zigmund" <cha...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:4684c499.03101...@posting.google.com...
> bodhi_dh...@hotmail.com (Steppenwolf) wrote in message
A.C. Douglas
>[snipped - original post is below]
> Was not the Master's love and lust for Wesendonck the inspiration for
> Tristan und Isolde....
---------------------------------------------------------
Almost certainly not. T'other way round.
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"Steppenwolf" <bodhi_dh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:200d6cc5.03101...@posting.google.com...
Derrick Everett
> "Charles Zigmund" <cha...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>[snipped - original post is below]
>> We have to assume, I think, that the affair between Tristan and Isolde
>> WAS consummated. At least I would hope they did not die COMPLETELY in
>> vain.
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> At the risk of pointing out the well-known, "they" didn't die, in vain
> or otherwise. Only Tristan did (the big dummy!).
As is also the case for some other dramas in the Wagnerian canon, "Tristan
und Isolde" has an ambiguous ending. At least, ambiguous on first
acquaintance. Like the heroines of "Lohengrin" and "Parsifal", its
heroine collapses, apparently lifeless. At the end of the "Ring", by way
of contrast, we know that Brünnhilde is dead and that the Rhine has
reclaimed its gold from her ashes; and in "Holländer" we can assume that
Senta has drowned in her attempt to redeem the Dutchman. In "Lohengrin"
there is no such certainty about the fate of Elsa, who "sinks lifeless" as
the swan knight departs.
In the case of "Parsifal" it is clear to me -- if not to all commentators
-- that Wagner intended Kundry to die and her death to be the consummation
which Kundry has sought, from life to life and from world to world. There
are possible parallels to be drwan between Kundry and Isolde, and between
Kundry and Brünnhilde. At the end of T&I, according to Wagner, Isolde is
"transfigured". The question, "does Isolde die at the end of the opera?"
might be reduced to, "is Isolde's transfiguration a kind of death?", and,
"if it is a kind of death, what kind of a death is it?"
Wagner stated that Kundry had undergone "Isolde's transfiguration" many
times. If Isolde's transfiguration is a kind of death, then this makes
sense, in that Kundry has also undergone a kind of death (her deathlike
sleep) many times. At the end of "Parsifal" she dies knowing that she
will not awake, i.e. that she will not be reborn. The same might be said
of Brünnhilde, if we take into account her words (in the poem but not in
the score) about being "redeemed from rebirth". Wagner (who believed in
reincarnation) implied that Isolde dies and that she will be reborn.
The genesis of "Tristan und Isolde" is rooted in two distinct sources of
inspiration. One of them is Wagner's discovery of the philosophy of
Schopenhauer, whose metaphysics is echoed in several passages of T&I. The
other is the Indian concept (or concepts) of "nirvana". The opening
phrases of Wagner's score were probably inspired by a musical work written
by Hans von Bülow, originally intended as an overture to a play by Karl
Ritter entitled "Nirvana" (his opus 20). Ideas about nirvana, desire and
the suffering which it brings, were "in the air", and they were the
essential ingredients of the mix from which T&I was concocted.
Therefore it is plausible that the "höchste Lust" of the final line of
"Tristan und Isolde" refers to the desire for nirvana, or the desire for
extinction, to which Wagner referred in the letter to Liszt (December
1854) in which he first announced his intention to write a drama on the
subject of Tristan and Isolde:
"I have yet found a sedative which has finally helped me to sleep at
night: total unconsciousness, complete annihilation, the end of all dreams
- the only ultimate redemption!"
In the end, however, Wagner's drama shows the futility of seeking "total
unconsciousness, total annihilation", since the desire for extinction is
still a desire, and (according to Schopenhauer) desire of any kind brings
suffering.
At the end of "Tristan und Isolde", the hero is dead and the heroine sings
that she is "ertrinken - versinken - unbewusst - höchste Lust!" (sinking,
drowning, unconscious, highest desire!). The desire of which she speaks
is the desire for "total unconsciousnes, complete annihilation". According
to Wagner (as noted above) Isolde's fate is not ultimate redemption since
like Kundry she must be reborn many times before she achieves nirvana, the
state (according to Schopenhauer) in which there is neither desire nor
suffering, neither birth nor death. We meet Kundry (in "Parsifal" act 3)
in her final rebirth; but Isolde is not yet in her final rebirth.
Although it is by no means certain that Isolde dies at the end, if she
does so then her death is consistent with the desire for extinction that
has been her "highest desire" since the start of the drama. In the first
act there was a failed suicide pact. Like a discord that has been waiting
for resolution, it pervades the drama until the final bars of the third
act, when the suicide pact is fulfilled.
"Wie verkärt sinkt sie sanft in Brangänes Armen auf Tristans Leiche. -
Grosse Rührung und Entrücktheit unter den Umstehenden. Marke segnet die
Leichen. Der Vorhang fällt langsam."
(Thus transfigured she sinks, held gently in Brangäne's arms, upon
Tristan's body. Profound emotion and grief of the bystanders. Mark
blesses the bodies. Slow curtain. -- Final stage direction of "Tristan
und Isolde", GSD VII, page 81)
--
Derrick Everett (deverett at c2i.net)
==== Writing from 59°54'N 10°36'E ====
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm
@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude
be found in the end of act two of the drama (after Marke's finding out of
the relationship between Trisatan and Isolde).
Tristan asks Isolde the following (I make use of an English translation
by Lional Salter from 1966):
"Where Tristan now is going
will you, Isolde follow him?
To a land, Tristan means,
where the sunlight never shines;
is it the dark
land of light
from which my mother
sent me forth
when he whom in death
she conceived
in death she let go
into the light:
there where she bore me,
which was the refuge for her love,
the wondrous realm of night
from which I first awoke,
that Tristan offers you,
where now he goes on ahead;
let Isolde now tell him
if she will follow,
loyal and gracious."
In other words, Tristan asks Isolde to follow him into death. But death
is not the end of things - it can be seen as a transfiguration: it is a
"land where the sunlight never shines", this "wondrous realm of night",
*from* which Tristan was sent when he was born. Therefore death is
another existence and not a no-existence, which ordinary people would
expect when they realise that they once were born. No, Tristan offers a
*circle*: You come *from* the land of darkness when you are born and you
*return* to it when you die.
Is this true? Let's hear what Isolde replies:
"When her friend once courted her
for a foreign land,
Isolde, loyal and gracious,
had to follow
the ungracious one.
Now you lead the way to your own land
to show me your heritage:
how could I flee from the land
that spans the whole world?
Isolde will dwell
where Tristans's house and home is:
now show Isolde the way that,
loyal and gracious,
she must follow!"
Moments later Tristan throws himself in the melot's sword, obviously
seeking death.
The answer of Isolde is christal clear: yes, she will follow Tristan into
death and she asks him the way to find death. And yes, here's the circle
once again: the earth, the world, is round as we all know and around it
is "the land that spans the whole world".
When Tristan in the third act finally hears that Isolde is arriving at
Kareol, he tears the bandages of his body, thus causing his almost
immediate death:
"What, do I hear the light?
The torch, ha!
The torch is put out!
To her! To her!"
This is also a reminiscence to the beginning of the love scene in the
second act, when Isolde puts the torch out as a signal for Tristan to
come, but more important now, is that Tristan's torch is put out, meaning
he looses his life and enters into the "realm of night". The circle is
round.
And at the end of the drama when Isolde sinks in Brangänes arms "as if
transfigured" ("wie verklärt"), we can asume that she - also - has found
the way to the "land where the sunlight never shines". Though Wagner is
not very clear about her being dead at the end of the drama, it would be
rather pointless if she was not: Tristan would have swung himself in vain
into Melot's sword and Marke's blessing of the dead bodies at the very
end of the drama would be be a beautiful, but rather meaningless gesture.
Derrick Everett
> And at the end of the drama when Isolde sinks in Brangänes arms "as if
> transfigured" ("wie verklärt"), we can asume that she - also - has
> found the way to the "land where the sunlight never shines". Though
> Wagner is not very clear about her being dead at the end of the drama,
> it would be rather pointless if she was not: Tristan would have swung
> himself in vain into Melot's sword and Marke's blessing of the dead
> bodies at the very end of the drama would be be a beautiful, but rather
> meaningless gesture.
Agreed.
A.C. Douglas
>[snipped - original post is below]
> Wagner stated that Kundry had undergone "Isolde's transfiguration" many
> times. If Isolde's transfiguration is a kind of death, then this makes
> sense, in that Kundry has also undergone a kind of death (her deathlike
> sleep) many times.
---------------------------------------------------------
The important thing to keep in mind here is that one must treat all of Wagner's
before-and-after-the-fact reflections on his creations as nothing more or other
than before-and-after-the-fact reflections, interesting and intriguing as they
may be. What's of importance -- the only thing of importance in a matter
such as this -- is what W's creative unconscious -- the animating
force behind the creation of all his mature works, _T&I_ most particularly --
intended in the heat of the creative act itself as that creative unconscious,
the key to W's genius, was all but infallible. And the key to understanding
the intentions of that creative unconscious is the score itself.
That W intended Kundry to die an actual death is, I think, unquestionable.
It's the only thing that makes both philosophic, and more importantly, dramatic
sense. The only alternative (she faints) is simply silly, and there's not a
hint in the score of anything to do with transfiguration. That W intended
something quite different for Isolde is also, I think, unquestionable. Instead
of his usual formula of a mere _sinkt_, he makes a point of saying (if not as
decisively as he might have; I mean, there's that not so _süße Wörtlein,"_wie_")
of what that _sinkt_ consists: a _Verklärung_ ("_wie verklät_"). And that's
perfectly in keeping with the underlying philosophic and dramatic context of all
that preceded it.
The ending of _T&I_ has a crucial dimension I've not seen mentioned or even
hinted at by any commentator, but it's crystal-clear from the score, both
libretto and music.
Consider, please, that if T and I are actually dead at drama's end, that means
they do NOT become one with the World Soul. They're merely dead, and dead is
dead, and that's the end of everything as far as the two of them are concerned.
If that's what W intended, it's certainly tragic enough, but then the music
could not end as it does with that sublime resolution. There's certainly
tragedy enough in T committing suicide, but the tragedy is not merely that he's
a suicide, but that he himself -- Isolde's "teacher," so to speak -- doesn't
really understand the "lessons" he taught her (i.e., doesn't understand that
dead is dead, and that suicide is not a passport to that delusion-free state
where "I myself am the world"). Isolde, however, and in keeping with W's
career-long way with his heroines, DOES finally understand (it's not for nothing
that W takes the music for the _Verklärung_ from the Act II love music), but
comes to that understanding only at drama's end when confronted by T's corpse
(explicitly and pointedly called that by W). What she comes to understand in a
radiant moment of perfect clarity is that death is not the way to that state
free of desire and delusion where one becomes one with the World Soul, but
rather a surrender of the will to live that's the transport to that perfect
state of "_höchste Lust_." And so W has Isolde "_sinkt, wie verklät_" in the
surrender rather than merely _sinkt_ as was his typical direction at such a
point, and gives the orchestra and the drama that sublime resolution at drama's
end, which could in no way be the case had Isolde ended a virtual suicide
(i.e., willing herself dead for the sake of love).
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.10.11....@c2i.net...
A.C. Douglas
>[snipped - original post is below]
> And the key to understanding
> the intentions of that creative unconscious is the score itself.
---------------------------------------------------------
That should have read: "And the key to understanding the intentions of that
creative unconscious is, as always, the score itself," as I didn't simply mean
in the case of _T&I_, but with all W's mature works.
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:Lc0ib.172817$0v4.13...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote
>
> >[snipped - original post is below]
> > Wagner stated that Kundry had undergone "Isolde's transfiguration" many
> > times. If Isolde's transfiguration is a kind of death, then this makes
> > sense, in that Kundry has also undergone a kind of death (her deathlike
> > sleep) many times.
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> The important thing to keep in mind here is that one must treat all of
Wagner's
> before-and-after-the-fact reflections on his creations as nothing more or
other
> than before-and-after-the-fact reflections, interesting and intriguing as they
> may be. What's of importance -- the only thing of importance in a matter
> such as this -- is what W's creative unconscious -- the animating
> force behind the creation of all his mature works, _T&I_ most particularly --
> intended in the heat of the creative act itself as that creative unconscious,
> the key to W's genius, was all but infallible. And the key to understanding
> the intentions of that creative unconscious is the score itself.
>
[remainder snipped]
Derrick Everett
> That W intended Kundry to die an actual death is, I think,
> unquestionable. It's the only thing that makes both philosophic, and
> more importantly, dramatic sense. The only alternative (she faints) is
> simply silly, and there's not a hint in the score of anything to do with
> transfiguration. That W intended something quite different for Isolde
> is also, I think, unquestionable. Instead of his usual formula of a
> mere _sinkt_, he makes a point of saying (if not as decisively as he
> might have; I mean, there's that not so _süße Wörtlein,"_wie_") of
> what that _sinkt_ consists: a _Verklärung_ ("_wie verklät_").
Sorry for my bad typing: it's "wie verklärt" (as if transfigured).
I agree that Wagner intended something different (from other heroines) for
Isolde. Also that he was less than decisive in his directions: he did not
write "she falls dead", or even, "she is transfigured". And just for the
record, he called the ending a "love-transfiguration", not a "love-death".
Even so, I think that she is dead at the end of the opera.
I also agree that we should treat his after-the-fact reflections with
caution. Despite this reservation, it might be of some help to understand
what he mean by "transfigured" to recall his comparison of Isolde's
transfiguration with the assumption of the Blessed Virgin, specifically as
portrayed by Titian in a painting that he saw in the church of Santa Maria
dei Frari in Venice:
"doch leugnet R., dass die Assunta die Muttergottes sei, das sei Isolde in
der Liebes-Verklärung". (CT 22.10.1882)
mpresley
> Sorry for my bad typing: it's "wie verklärt" (as if transfigured).
It's no wonder about your bad typing. I checked your posting header and
found:
"User-Agent: Pan/0.14.0 (I'm Being Nibbled to Death by Cats!)"
It's hard to use a keyboard with a den of hungry beasts attacking!
michael-linux ru#224791
Mike Scott Rohan
from cha...@verizon.net (Charles Zigmund) contains these words:
> I'm truly sorry I started this thread.
One of the liveliest we've had for some time. Like in army education
lectures, Friday afternoon, everyone dozing off and not paying a blind
bit of notice -- and then the lecturer slips in the words "Jennifer
Lopez" or similar, and instantly the whole damn class is awake and
goggling....
Cheers,
Mike
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - original post is below]
> And just for the record, he [Wagner] called the ending
> a "love-transfiguration", not a "love-death".
---------------------------------------------------------
Actually, also just for the record, he called it simply the _Verklärung_
(transfiguration). He reserved the name _Liebestod_ to refer to the prelude to
Act I.
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.10.12....@c2i.net...
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
{snip}
> > > There's no such thing as blonde pubic hair as far as I know...just like
> > > blonde people can only have brown eyebrows.
> >
> > I perceive, said Sherlock Holmes, you have not spent a great deal of
> > time in Scandinavia.
> Touché. No I've never been.
In the circumstances, perhaps *not* touche.
But I've spent a fair amount of time in Finland, and can testify. I also
compared notes with a Danish friend of mine, a Viking expert who speaks
for his own country and has spent much time in Iceland. He confirms it.
> >
> > In any case, even if there is
> > > such a thing, the combination of blonde/brunette is completely
> > > feasible...
> >
> > Hmm. Only up to a point, I think; it would still make the hair dye more
> > obvious, especially with the rather primitive Victorian shades.
> >
> Wouldn't he have had to have a lot of experience with people's crotches to
> really have any of this register in his mind as signifigant?; How many times
> do you think the idea of the relationship between the colorations of pubic-
> and head- hairs entered the Master's thoughts? And would he really have even
> got that good of a look at her crotch in the first place, unless they
> engaged in cunnilingus?
> Must vomit now.
Dear me, I didn't think anyone was so sensitive these days. Anyhow, the
practice was apparently common enough at the time. Along with some
really arcane ones, according to Memoiren eines Sangerin (approx. title)
which is generally thought to have been by Wagner's idol Wilhelmina
Schroder-Devrient. If he ever had a fling with her, it might have been
educational, to put it mildly.
Anyhow, we can of course know no details; but I think if the
relationship is more than a passing one, you sooner or later find out.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from ctij...@yahoo.com (Cruz Tijerina) contains these words:
> > So speculation
> > about pube-colour is all academic.
> Is it just me or does this speculation seem anything but academic?
It is just you. Our speculations stem from the purest of desires for
abstract knowledge, and are perfectly in keeping with the standards of
modern research.
I mean, I recently had to cope with a discussion that lasted most of a
very solemn seminar on the exact degree of Sam Pepys's physical
involvement with his various women -- and varities of method. One part
boiled down to whether it was possible in a 17th-century hackney coach,
and if so how, and took in everything from Madame Bovary to Thomas
Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull -- not to mention the wickerwork
sides. Also whether he'd been vasectomized by his bladder-stone op,
complete with the contemporary print (can be seen in Claire Tomalin's
book, preferably not before lunch or anywhere you have trouble crossing
your legs).
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Herman van der Woude" <hvdwoude @ zonnet.nl> contains these words:
> I think, that the answer of the ending of Tristan and Isolde can already
> be found in the end of act two of the drama (after Marke's finding out of
> the relationship between Trisatan and Isolde).
{snip}
> This is also a reminiscence to the beginning of the love scene in the
> second act, when Isolde puts the torch out as a signal for Tristan to
> come, but more important now, is that Tristan's torch is put out, meaning
> he looses his life and enters into the "realm of night". The circle is
> round.
> And at the end of the drama when Isolde sinks in Brangänes arms "as if
> transfigured" ("wie verklärt"), we can asume that she - also - has found
> the way to the "land where the sunlight never shines". Though Wagner is
> not very clear about her being dead at the end of the drama, it would be
> rather pointless if she was not: Tristan would have swung himself in vain
> into Melot's sword and Marke's blessing of the dead bodies at the very
> end of the drama would be be a beautiful, but rather meaningless gesture.
{replacing an earlier, much clearer post which has vanished!)
Thank you for an excellent analysis, Herman; agree, agree.
Wagner’s choice of image, the “night-bound land”, is interesting, though
-- rather along Buddhist lines, but not precisely so. It makes me wonder
if he'd ever come across the Venerable Bede’s image of life -- not
impossible. He depicts it as a sparrow, flying out of the night into the
light and warmth of the hall, and swiftly flying out into darkness once
again. It very much resembles the Tristan concept in its image of life
as an island in the surrounding dark; the difference is that the dark
here is seen as a higher, transcendent existence.
That makes some sense, in terms of the drama. The potion is a
supernatural agent, a force out of that transcendent dark world. It
creates an extraordinary, intense bond (though based on a more natural
pre-existing attraction). You could say it purifies their attraction,
beyond the bounds and trammles of ordinary existence (including,
perhaps, that of mere physical desire), creating something that should
only normally exist in the darkness -- so naturally it comes into
conflict with the light. The two are bound in the dark world, and only
there can that intensified relationship be fulfilled. Both their deaths
are therefore essential, and that’s why Tristan looks forward to his and
embraces it (without waiting for her) and why she must inevitably die.
It’s interesting, perhaps, that an idea common to many romantics --
Shelley, for example -- was that children are born with an instinctive
wisdom derived from a pre-natal existence, which they lose in increasing
contact with the adult world. Now this may simply mean that those
romantics didn’t have children, or at least didn’t have to look after
them all day -- but it’s still intriguingly similar -- what that twit
Dawkins might call a meme, unfortunately.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Mike Scott Rohan <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> contains
these words:
> The message <84377877.03101...@posting.google.com>
> from ctij...@yahoo.com (Cruz Tijerina) contains these words:
> > > So speculation
> > > about pube-colour is all academic.
> > Is it just me or does this speculation seem anything but academic?
> It is just you. Our speculations stem from the purest of desires for
> abstract knowledge, and are perfectly in keeping with the standards of
> modern research.
Perhaps I should have put a :-) on that one. But just as life extends
above and below the belt, so does art and so, therefore, does academe.
The chastest nude in fine art is still to some degree about sex, and can
be discussed on that basis -- albeit boringly. And if that's true for a
bit of immobile garden marble, how much more true it is for that great
throbbing mass of Tristan. If the exact Mathilde-Wagner relationship
isn't relevant, I don't know what is.
Anyhow, take it from me, even academics are allowed the occasional
snigger -- it makes up for so much....
Cheers,
Mike
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - original post is below]
---------------------------------------------------------
For a more detailed argument on this matter:
http://acdouglas.com/archives251B/000513.html
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"A.C. Douglas" <acdo...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:Lc0ib.172817$0v4.13...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "Derrick Everett" <deve...@c2i.net> wrote
[prior posts snipped]
@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude
| Thank you for an excellent analysis, Herman; agree, agree.
(blush, blush!...)
No, really, Tristan und Isolde is my all time favorite opera (and by
writing 'opera' I know, that I insult Wagner). Even a mediocre
performance brings tears into my eyes.
I am not a Buddhist, nor a believer in the theory of rebirth and I don't
think Wagner was. I think he 'flirted' with the idea.
What I think, that I do know is that in Buddhism being reincarnated over
and over again, always in another 'character', serves a purpose. You,
your 'soul' or your 'spirit' or whatever you name it, need to learn
something, to experience things in all of the lifes you live to become a
better and better entity all the time.
This is not the case in Tristan und Isolde: death is just another form of
life, though not very clearly defined (exept then the things Tristan
tells isolde in the presence of Marke and Melot) and in this particular
case death is an escape from life and a fulfillment of life.
In death they will have a unification of their spirits - maybe even of
their bodies, but that is not said.
In the text of act II (nor of course in the text of the other acts) is
something mentioned of them 'having done it', but you don't even be a
good listener to notice that the music of the love scene is orgastic:
they 'do it' on stage, in front of your eyes, well at least in front of
your ears. (When I first mentioned this to my already long dead father,
he was shocked, but after a short while he agreed: the music of the love
scene is the sound of two lovers 'in action'.) So, yes, hearing what I
hear, I can only state, that the affair between Tristan and Isolde was
consummated in life. And as they could never live as a pair in life,
there was the only solution for them in death.
In short: the lifes of both Tristan and Isolde didn't serve a higher
purpose. But wasn't it romantic enough that this man and this woman were
really made for each other?
In my earlier contribution I mentioned a circle as a symbol of this
life-death awareness of Tristan: death is this "wondrous realm of night",
from which Tristan was sent when he was born. Tristan offers a circle:
you come *from* the land of darkness when you are born and you *return
to* it when you die. No development here, only repetition, or in
otherwords: a circle.
As there is development (to my humble understanding) in Buddhism, you
could see it more as a 'spiral', rather than a circle. Therefor I think,
that Wagner (not unlike myself) has heard (and read) of Buddhism and of
being reborn again after death without a really understanding of the
meaning of this rebirths.
| Wagner's choice of image, the "night-bound land", is interesting,
| though -- rather along Buddhist lines, but not precisely so. It makes
| me wonder if he'd ever come across the Venerable Bede's image of life
| -- not impossible. He depicts it as a sparrow, flying out of the
| night into the light and warmth of the hall, and swiftly flying out
| into darkness once again. It very much resembles the Tristan concept
| in its image of life as an island in the surrounding dark; the
| difference is that the dark here is seen as a higher, transcendent
| existence.
Here I do agree. Fortunately (maybe) for the story of Tristan and Isolde
there is no need for a 'higher philosophy'. The story as it already is,
is stuff enough to give us the most wonderful music and in the same time
a very deep insight into the human soul - far before the very existence
of Freud himself.
This transcendent existence
| makes some sense, in terms of the drama. The potion is a
| supernatural agent, a force out of that transcendent dark world. It
| creates an extraordinary, intense bond (though based on a more natural
| pre-existing attraction). You could say it purifies their attraction,
| beyond the bounds and trammles of ordinary existence (including,
| perhaps, that of mere physical desire), creating something that should
| only normally exist in the darkness -- so naturally it comes into
| conflict with the light. The two are bound in the dark world, and only
| there can that intensified relationship be fulfilled. Both their
| deaths are therefore essential, and that's why Tristan looks forward
| to his and embraces it (without waiting for her) and why she must
| inevitably die.
The potions, both potions, the love potion and the death potion from the
first act, are often regarded as almost unnecessary, weakening
ingredients of the story. The longer I think about them, the more I do
see them as necessary: the death potion is the first signal of the "land
of the night", whereas the love potion stands for the light, i.e. life.
Before Tristan and Isolde even sip of one of the potions, everyone is
already aware of the bonds, which tie them together (please read the
Isolde's monologues in the first act). They eagarly drink what they
expect to be the death potion, which will bring them to the land of the
night - they get as we know the love potion. Is it at this moment, that
they fall in love with each other (which would make that there is a very
weak spot in Wagner's telling)? No, of course not: they only become
*aware* of their *true* feelings for each other.
|
| It's interesting, perhaps, that an idea common to many romantics --
| Shelley, for example -- was that children are born with an instinctive
| wisdom derived from a pre-natal existence, which they lose in
| increasing contact with the adult world. Now this may simply mean
| that those romantics didn't have children, or at least didn't have to
| look after them all day -- but it's still intriguingly similar --
| what that twit Dawkins might call a meme, unfortunately.
The idea of children born with an instinctive wisdom derived from a
pre-natal existence, is not an idea which vanished after the romantic
age. You can still hear this from people who believe (or pretend to do
so) in para-psychological events. It is used in hypno-therapy and of
course Buddhist believe in this: a dalai-lama is only recognised as such
after a thorough investigation by Buddhist priests who interview the
'candidate' about his life before the one he is living now...
Maybe, one day, we find a born again Tristan looking for his Isolde, or a
composer who wants us to listen to the music from the "realm of night"...
Steppenwolf
philosophical meaning Wagner intended to be attached to Tristan
without a good knowledge of Schopenhauer. Otherwise we can merely
clutch at straws, the hidden meaning remaining an enigma.
The work is saturated in Schopenhauer. Very briefly (I am trying,
crudely, to summerise a whole two volumnes of weighty, complex
metaphysics written German, to the brevity of a mere paragraph!), the
world has two aspects, an outer and an inner. The outer world, the
word of phenomena which we experience is ultimately an illusion
created by human consciousness. With death it passes away. It is like
'maya' in buddhism and hinduism. This world, the word of 'phenomena',
is symbolised by 'day' and 'light' in the opera, both of which are
condemned as false and illusionary by the two lovers. The inner world,
the ground of being, the metaphysical core of all reality (which
Schopenhauer described as the 'Will', to express its fundamental
nature of striving and yearning which underlies all life), lies at the
center of each one of us. Night and darkness symbolise this mysterious
center of being. By falling in love, Tristan and Isolde wish to
transcend the false seperateness of the phenomenal world and become
one together by merging with their metaphysical core. Is that not the
deep, unconsious aim of all love-making, to become one with the other
person and transcend seperation? Death enables the phenomenal world to
disapear, and for the two lovers to be united in metaphysical
one-ness. There are many different levels upon which this can be
interpreted, not merely in the literal sense of death. Orgasm was once
described as the 'small death', the moment at which through mutual
ecstacy the illusion of the ego, of seperate individuality, is given
up, and the two lovers unite together as one.
Schopenhauer believed that their are various ways to percieve the
metaphysical reality underlying the world. One is through sex, which
he believed is the clearest and most vivid expression of the Will to
Live, the life force that emenates from the mystical center of all
things, also through music, and through compassion, which is felt when
one recognises the essential unity of all life, and therefore suffers
with (mit-leid) other sentient beings as if they were other 'selves'.
Knowledge of the Will is the path to enlightenment, or in Wagnerian
language, redemption. So Tristan represents redemption through sexual
ecstacy, Meistersinger redemption through the power of music, and
Parsifal through compassion.
Mike Scott Rohan
from bodhi_dh...@hotmail.com (Steppenwolf) contains these words:
{snip}
> Schopenhauer believed that their are various ways to percieve the
> metaphysical reality underlying the world. One is through sex, which
> he believed is the clearest and most vivid expression of the Will to
> Live, the life force that emenates from the mystical center of all
> things, also through music, and through compassion, which is felt when
> one recognises the essential unity of all life, and therefore suffers
> with (mit-leid) other sentient beings as if they were other 'selves'.
> Knowledge of the Will is the path to enlightenment, or in Wagnerian
> language, redemption. So Tristan represents redemption through sexual
> ecstacy, Meistersinger redemption through the power of music, and
> Parsifal through compassion.
I tend to steer clear of the philosophical discussions, having studied
only the more utilitarian varieties; but it strikes me here that
Schopenhauer's view of sex as you present it is remarkably close to the
more radical 19th-century English religious reformers like Charles
Kingsley, for whom sex was no longer a sin per se and heaven, at least
in his private musings, was a self-annihilating union of permanent
sexual ecstasy.
So far as I know Kingsley knew nothing of Tantrism, and wouldn't have
liked it if he did; did Schopenhauer?
Cheers,
Mike
Steppenwolf
subject, somehow I stuffed it up and started a new thread! Oh well ...
@zonnet.nl Herman van der Woude
| This was meant as a REPLY to a message in another thread with the same
| subject, somehow I stuffed it up and started a new thread! Oh well ...
Which makes me curious about WHAT thread and/or specific message you were
refering.
Steppenwolf
> only the more utilitarian varieties; but it strikes me here that
> Schopenhauer's view of sex as you present it is remarkably close to the
> more radical 19th-century English religious reformers like Charles
> Kingsley, for whom sex was no longer a sin per se and heaven, at least
> in his private musings, was a self-annihilating union of permanent
> sexual ecstasy.
>
> So far as I know Kingsley knew nothing of Tantrism, and wouldn't have
> liked it if he did; did Schopenhauer?
Schopenhauer once wrote that the ecstacy of orgasm was not only the
most explicit and direct manifestation of the Will-to-live, Die Wille
zum Leben (apart from music, which he considered could be equally
vivid), not only the essence of all existence, of the whole universe,
but the whole point and purpose of life itself. But Schopenhauer was
the supreme pessimist, for whom the world, as a manifestation of the
will-to-live, was full of suffering and misery - in fact, utterly
diabolical and corrupt. And existence could be 'blamed' on the blind,
purposeless drive of the will-to-live, always striving and never being
satisfied, and causing violence to other manifestations of itself in
its blind pursuit of purposeless existence. Unlike other mystics, who
usually take a favourable view of the essence of things, the ground of
being, Schopenhauer thought the Will-to-live to be fundamentally evil
and horrible. The path to enlightenment - to redemption - was by
renouncing it, and thereby escaping it through self-annihilation (in a
spiritual, metaphysical sense ... not through literal suicide). Think
Wotan, willing his own extinction.
Therefore, eventhough Schopenhauer credited great importance to sex,
in the sense that he believed it to be the whole essence of life
itself, since he took a negative view of life, he also took a negative
view of sexuality. Sexual love CAN be sublime (as for instance
expressed in works of erotic art), only in so far that it leads to
objective knowledge of the inner nature of the world, but once that
knowledge is gained, the world - and consequently sex - is to be
rejected. The life of the ascetic who renounces egoism and sexuality
is the ULTIMATE path to Schopenhauerian redemption.
It seems Wagner took a long time to fully understand this point. In
Tristan sexual love is glorified (unless you interpret the final
resolution of the harmonic tension, when Isolde sinks down 'lifeless',
as her finally giving up the lust and love that previously held her in
its thrawl - but I suspect Wagner saw it more and the mystical
tranquility and psychic union that descends on lovers after the
'little death' of orgasm), and when Wagner was writing Tristan he
drafted a letter to Schopenhauer (which he did not end up sending)
'correcting him', with the insight that sexual ecstacy can be a DIRECT
path to renounciation of the Will. However, by the end of his life he
seems finally to have understood what Schopenhauer meant, and in
Parsifal the hero renounces selfish lust in favour of unselfish
compassion. This brings to mind one of Nietzsche's rants against
Parsifal (Nietzsche came to hate the nihilistic pessimism of
Schopenhauer), in which he criticised Wagner for teaching (and ONLY
teaching, NOT living!) the lie that sexuality was evil, when in his
youthful operas (eg. Das Liebesverbot) he said (rightly, in
Nietzsche's view) the exact opposite.
I am not aware that Schopenhauer was aware of the Tantra, although he
did study Indian philosophy so it would be surprising if he never came
accross it. I doubt he would have approved. I personally see Tristan
as very Tantric.
Mike Scott Rohan
from bodhi_dh...@hotmail.com (Steppenwolf) contains these words:
{snip}
> I am not aware that Schopenhauer was aware of the Tantra, although he
> did study Indian philosophy so it would be surprising if he never came
> accross it. I doubt he would have approved. I personally see Tristan
> as very Tantric.
Whew -- quite an answer, for which many thanks, though I won't try to
keep up with it.
As to Tristan being Tantric, at the risk of mere frivolity (perish the
thought) he is in one respect -- his name, and the anagram of it under
which he got cured by Isolde. Almost a pity that came from one of the
legendary sources, or one could have suspected Wagner of making a subtle
reference!
Cheers,
Mike