What is it about?
In May 1849 Wagner fled Dresden after the failure of the uprising of which he was a leader. His last creative work in Dresden was prose sketches for an opera Jesus of Nazareth, the result of his study of the Graeco-Roman world and the New Testament together with some knowledge of biblical criticism. Although he portrays Jesus as a social revolutionary in that he attacks the Pharisees, oppression and injustice, he is by no means a political messiah; indeed Wagner emphasizes his sacrificial death which results in the giving of the Holy Spirit. Key theological themes of the work which I explore include Jesus’ messiahship, law and freedom, and the significance of his death.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This much neglected work of early 1849 demonstrates again the composer as a great dramatist and had he completed it I think we would have one of the greatest artworks concerning the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. The work portrays the composer's theological outlook as he started work on the Ring cycle and indeed provides a key to understanding certain key aspects of this great tetralogy.
Perspectives
1. I hope this article makes this work more widely known. It may even encourage someone somewhere to fill out the sketches and produce a play (audio or on stage) using the music from the Ring cycle as incidental music (I have my own ideas as to how this could be done!) Note that we have only one musical sketch (11 bars) for what Wagner intended as an opera; hence my ideas for a play rather than an opera. 2. If my argument is sound it implies that at certain points in the Ring cycle we have a Christian allegory. Would any opera house like to take this up?
Richard Bell
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Richard Wagner’s Prose Sketches for Jesus of Nazareth, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, December 2017, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/17455197-01502007.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
