Laurence Dreyfus, Extract from ‘Parsifal’s Seduction’: A Novel

November 2022, Volume 16, Number 3, 51–63.

The following text is an extract from Parsifal’s Seduction: A Novel. As yet unpublished in English, a German translation of the original text by Wolfgang Schlüter appeared in August 2022 as Parsifals Verführung. As soon as I encountered the figure of Hermann Levi (1839–1900) – son of the Grand Ducal Hessian District Rabbi of Gießen, intimate of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner’s chosen conductor for the premiere of Parsifal – I couldn’t help but be riveted by a story rich in personal and cultural resonances.