The Redeemer Reborn, Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner’s Ring with Paul Schofield

HERE IS THE LINK TO AN ARCHIVAL VIDEO OF THIS PRESENTATION: https://youtu.be/dN0HYfzd3-o

Continuing our series of lectures that focus on Parsifal, Paul Schofield will offer his fascinating insights on Wagner’s works. His book, “The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner’s Ring” shows how Parsifal in fact completes the Ring Cycle. Schofield explains how these five musical dramas portray a single, unbroken story which begins at the start of Das Rheingold when Wotan breaks a branch from the World Ash-tree and Alberich steals the gold of the Rhine, thus separating Spear and Grail, and ends with the reunion of the Spear and Grail in the temple of Monsalvat at the end of Parsifal. Schofield explains how and why the four main characters of the Ring are reborn in the opera Parsifal, needing to complete in Parsifal the spiritual journey begun in the Ring.

A Wagnerian scholar for more than forty years, he is a writer and musician, as well as a former Zen Buddhist monk.  He has been a contributor to and editor of our scholarly journal, Leitmotive, as well as a former board member of The Wagner Society of Northern California.  His book, The Redeemer Reborn combines his extensive research into Wagner’s life and works with his own insights developed from nine years in Buddhist monastic training.  He has lectured in cities across the U.S., to opera, Buddhist, and university audiences and resides in Crescent City, California.