Wagner’s Mature Music-Dramas (Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and Parsifal) in Light of Their Allegorical Relationship to The Ring of the Nibelung

Paul Brian Heise

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781680532920
• eBook ISBN: 9781680532944
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

Scholars devoted to analysis of Richard Wagner’s operas and music-dramas have long noted his numerous comparisons between their characters and plots in his letters, essays, and recorded remarks. Yet no one has previously attempted to assess their implications for our systematic understanding of his art. Following Heise’s allegorical interpretation of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, The Wound That Will Never Heal (Academica Press, 2021), this second installment of the author’s lifelong Wagner project will examine Wagner’s mature music-dramas Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and Parsifal in light of their relationship to the Ring as understood through Heise’s allegorical interpretation. It will demonstrate how Wagner’s Ring is a master-myth which can make sense of these other mature music-dramas as never before.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Tristan and Isolde
• The Mastersingers of Nuremberg
• Parsifal
• Conclusion
• Introduction to the Guides to the Musical Motifs of Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and Parsifal
• Tristan and Isolde Motif Guide
• The Mastersingers of Nuremberg Motif Guide
• Parsifal Motif Guide
• References
• Index