Tristan again...
Wagner's explicit ideological project in Tristan is radical in its very superficial simplicity. It brings together what his mentor, Schopenhauer, opposed. For Schopenhauer, the only salvation consists in total self-obliteration of the will to life, whose ultimate expression is sexual craving, whereas Wagner simply combines these two opposites: our very exhaustive surrender to sexual love brings about redemptive self-obliteration. One should thus never forget that (in contrast to, say, Romeo and Juliet) Wagner's Tristan is not a tragedy but a sacred, aesthetico-religious musical play with a "happy" outcome of attaining the looked-for bliss.
Opera's second death, Slavoj Žižek
