The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal in December 1903 stirred what was arguably the first American religious controversy over an artistic event to claim national attention in the twentieth century. Although the outcome was predictable – the protests appeared only to fuel box office success – the significance lies in what this controversy reveals about the music drama's most ardent opponents and supporters at a key moment in American religious history. The 1903 Parsifal controversy unfolded in the midst of a crisis in American Protestantism, as conservative establishment Protestants defended their weakening hold on American culture, and their theologically liberal brethren viewed that same culture as both a source of spiritual inspiration and a cause for redemption. Drawing primarily upon accounts published in the New York press, nationally circulated periodicals (including strongly partisan contributions to the debate by The Musical Courier), and the writings of several prominent Protestant clergy and lay leaders, this reception study argues that the religious controversy surrounding the 1903 Parsifal production was a substantive skirmish in this American Protestant crisis, and brought forward competing interpretations of the music drama which highlighted the cultural implications of what had been, until that point, largely a theological dispute. Conservative response fastened onto elements of the drama found to be sacrilegious, while liberal response was conditioned by its kinship to the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Kunstreligion, and a broad view of redemption that extended beyond the individual soul to the artwork and the artist, and to all of culture.

中文翻译：

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瓦格纳的灵魂之战：帕西法尔和美国新教的危机，1882-1904

理查德瓦格纳的大都会歌剧院首演帕西法尔1903 年 12 月，引发了可以说是 20 世纪美国第一次就艺术活动引起全国关注的宗教争议。尽管结果是可以预料的——抗议似乎只是为了推动票房成功——但意义在于这场争论揭示了音乐剧在美国宗教历史上一个关键时刻最热心的反对者和支持者的情况。1903 年帕西法尔争议在美国新教危机中展开，保守派新教徒捍卫他们对美国文化的削弱，他们的神学自由派弟兄将同一文化视为精神灵感的来源和救赎的原因。主要参考纽约报刊上发表的报道，全国发行的期刊（包括强烈的党派对辩论的贡献）音乐信使)，以及几位著名的新教神职人员和非专业领袖的著作，这项接受研究认为，围绕 1903 年的宗教争议帕西法尔在这场美国新教危机中，制作是一场实质性的小冲突，并提出了对音乐剧的相互竞争的解释，突出了在此之前主要是神学争论的文化影响。保守派的反应依赖于被认为是亵渎神明的戏剧元素，而自由派的反应则取决于它与 19 世纪的现象的亲缘关系。艺术宗教，以及超越个人灵魂，延伸到艺术品和艺术家以及所有文化的宽广的救赎观。