False Idols Poem by gershon hepner

Having squandered glory to false idols,
our duty is to reinterpret history,
providing its sound track with new subtitles,
recasting villains in the murder mystery.
Transforming idols we reject is better
than smashing them. We do the same when we’re rejected,
by lovers who sent us a Dear John letter,
not trauma but tranquility when recollected.

Inspired by Michael Kimmelman’s review of new productions of “Tannhäuser” and “Parsifal” at Bayreuth (“History vs. Modernity in German Opera Season, ” NYT, July 30,2008) :
Waltraud Meier topped a remarkable cast in Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” here the other night, although the current talk of the opera season in Europe is the promiscuous new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal, ” not too far away, that opened the Bayreuth Festival on Friday: it comes a jackboot shy of “Springtime for Hitler, ” but its ambitions soar, and so do many of the voices…. Scenes of Wilhelminian Germany vanish before filmed backdrops of World War I, then yield to orgies of Weimar decadence, with Flower Maidens cast as copulating showgirls, nursing convalescing troops of Grail knights. The evil Klingsor wears fishnet stockings and high heels; Parsifal, a child’s sailor suit. You have to admire the singers’ sang-froid. Most startling was to hear straight-faced, seasoned Bayreuth fans during intermission express surprise at the sight of Wehrmacht soldiers and Nazi banners during Act II, recalling old days at the festival. It all seemed so inevitable. Postwar ruin, gorgeously imagined, then morphs in the finale into the Bundestag in Bonn, with torpid knights as politicians, and Wagner’s death mask, projected, floating in a ghostly ether. By this point, it’s hardly worth troubling yourself to parse how, precisely, Parsifal — having gone on his quest of sacrifice and knowledge, to return weathered and wise and save the day — serves the metaphor of a newly reunited German democracy and a refreshed Bayreuth. Redemption, suffice it to say, rewards those who, having squandered glory to false idols, face squarely the past. A large mirror turns toward the audience, implying our own obligations to history. Or some such… A German critic during intermission, reflecting the general view among his native colleagues, waved off reservations about the inchoate parts of this “Parsifal” by remarking that novelty gives him something to write about and is obligatory in the German opera world today, where directors are the headliners. He dismissed the production of “Tannhäuser” at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden as a consolation prize for rich people who couldn’t get tickets to Bayreuth. Not really novel, he said.


7/30/08