Vocal Victories. Wagner’s Female Characters from Senta to Kundry er den første musikvidenskabelige sammenligning af alle Richard Wagners store kvindeskikkelser.

Det har længe været kutyme at betragte kvinderne og andre operaheltinder som ofre, da de som regel går til grunde i løbet af operaen. Et nærmere studium af kvindernes musik – deres sang og de orkesterstemmer der omgiver dem – viser imidlertid, at det er kvinderne, der præsenterer det nye og banebrydende musikalske materiale, og at kvindeskikkelserne er langt mere styrende for værkernes forløb, end det på overfladen ser ud til.

Bogen argumenterer for, at Wagner var langt forud for sin tid, når det kommer til spørgsmålet om kønnenes ligeberettigelse. De musikalske analyser understøttes af citater fra komponistens egne skrifter, så billedet af Wagner som radikal kritiker af det kvindeundertrykkende samfund træder klart og tydeligt frem.

Nila Parly, ph.d., ekstern lektor ved Institut for Kunst og Kulturvidenskab, Københavns Universitet. This book is the first musicological comparison of all of Richard Wagner’s great female characters. It has long been customary to view them and other opera heroines as victims, because the women, as a rule, perish during the plot of the opera. A closer study of the music of the women reveals, however, that it is in the female characters that the new and groundbreaking musical material comes into being, and that the women are far more in command of the development of the works than a superficial view will show. The book claims that Wagner was far ahead of his time in terms of equality between the sexes, and the musicological analyses are supported by the composer’s own writings.

Nila Parly is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Copenhagen. She has also been trained as an opera singer at the musical academy ‘Santa Cecilia’ in Rome.