The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner's Ring.(Book review)

* The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner's Ring, by Paul Schofield. Amadeus Press, LLC (www.amadeuspress.com), 2007. 307 pp. $29.95.

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Paul Schofield is a Wagnerian scholar and former Buddhist monk--strange combination? Not if you read his book, which seeks to show Parsifal as the fifth opera in the Ring Cycle. In addition to a thoroughly fascinating discussion of the main characters in the Ring Cycle and their reincarnated selves in Parsifal, Schofield draws on a wide berth of sources, such as Schopenhauer, Joseph Campbell, Wagner's letters and Buddhist teachings.

Both lovers of Wagnerian opera as well as readers interested in the melding of Eastern and Western religious and philosophical thought will thoroughly enjoy this book. The book begins with a revealing discussion of Wagner's interest in Buddhism and his sketches for a Buddhist opera called Die Sieger. After an exposition on the character connections between the Ring and Parsifal, Schofield enters into a historical examination of the origins of the Grail myth that provides the basis for Parsifal and the Icelandic and German poetic sources for the Ring. Throughout his argument, the author makes clear that the world created by the characters in the Ring is redeemed by the virtue of the ...