Editing Richard Wagner (section)

===== ''Parsifal'' =====
Wagner's final opera, ''[[Parsifal]]'' (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a "''Bühnenweihfestspiel''" ("festival play for the consecration of the stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the [[Holy Grail]]. It also carries elements of [[Buddhist]] renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=308}} Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card".{{sfn|Cosima Wagner|1978|loc=II, p. 647. Entry of 28 March 1881.}} It remains controversial because of its treatment of Christianity, its eroticism, and its expression, as perceived by some commentators, of German nationalism and antisemitism.{{sfn|Stanley|2008|pp=169–175}} Despite the composer's own description of the opera to King Ludwig as "this most Christian of works",{{sfn|Newman|1976|loc=IV, pp. 578. Letter from Wagner to the King of 19 September 1881.}} Ulrike Kienzle has commented that "Wagner's turn to Christian mythology, upon which the imagery and spiritual contents of ''Parsifal'' rest, is idiosyncratic and contradicts Christian [[dogma]] in many ways."{{sfn|Kienzle|2005|p=81}} Musically the opera has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style, and Millington describes it as "a diaphanous score of unearthly beauty and refinement".{{sfn|Millington|2002b}}