SYNOPSIS

Goldmund waits in a castle dungeon, condemned to execution and expecting a priest for his final confession. When a priest enters, Goldmund plans to kill him and escape using the priest’s cape. Instead, he finds Narcissus before him—an old friend, and perhaps the only true one he has ever had. Overcome with emotion, Goldmund confesses that he does not want to die. Narcissus reveals that he has sacrificed part of his autonomy within the cloister to save Goldmund. Goldmund then begins to recount their first meeting.

In Mariabronn, the young Goldmund admires Narcissus and longs to become like him. Narcissus, in turn, is drawn to Goldmund’s vulnerability and dangerous allure, yet believes Goldmund belongs to another world entirely. One day, while running an errand outside the monastery, Goldmund encounters a Gypsy woman and awakens to beauty and desire. He returns to tell Narcissus of his decision to leave the monastery. Even during retreat, Narcissus breaks cloister to meet him, agrees with his choice, and bids him farewell.

Goldmund describes his life beyond the cloister to Narcissus. It is filled with love, desire, and countless women, as well as a growing passion for sculpting. He becomes an apprentice to a renowned sculptor and carves a work named John the Apostle—the very name Narcissus took upon his ordination.

Goldmund questions whether it is truly God’s will that humanity suffer through plague, revealing that the woman who carried his unborn child has also died. Narcissus responds that death comes to all and that suffering is part of God’s divine trial. Enraged, Goldmund rejects this reasoning—yet still asks Narcissus for a studio within the cloister where he may continue sculpting.

Back at the cloister, Goldmund fills the grounds with sculptures. One figure, however, remains veiled: the face of Maria, which he recognizes as the face of his own mother—one he cannot fully remember.

Goldmund tells Narcissus that he must leave again, that his art demands immersion in the outer world. Before his departure, the two confess that the love between them is deeply meaningful. Narcissus admits that through Goldmund, he has learned the true meaning of love.

After wandering, Goldmund eventually returns to Narcissus to die. He no longer feels the need to carve Maria’s face. His memory of his mother has fully returned, and with it, a sense of peace. He asks Narcissus how a man can die without his mother. After Goldmund’s death, Narcissus sings as the fire within him is finally ignited.


REVIEW

I read Narcissus and Goldmund many times during my high school years in Korean translation, and again when I studied in the U.S. in English. I still return to the novel now, reading it on Kindle.

For me, it is very difficult to separate the novel from a staged adaptation, and it does not feel fair to compare the two. Because of that, I should probably begin by admitting that I am not fit to review this musical. I am deeply biased.

I read the novel perhaps fifty times when I was in high school—a vulnerable age, maybe—in Korean. Later, when I picked up a Penguin Classics edition while studying in the U.S., I expected my illusion to finally break: that age had changed me, or that the Korean translation had mystified the book. Surprisingly, it did not. I felt the same ache when I read the opening description of Goldmund. I still do.

The ache comes from the way the description captured me then and continues to do so now. A novelist, using only words, evokes an image of overwhelming beauty and vulnerability in a boy.

The first thing that strikes me whenever I read the novel is the detailed description of the splendor and fragility of Goldmund as he enters the cloister holding his father’s hand. That vivid image makes all of Goldmund’s later sins forgivable. His earthly passions with numerous women, even his vision of sublime ecstasy in a woman giving birth, are redeemed because the reader continues to see the golden boy inside the philanderer.

That beauty is impossible to describe—or reproduce—on stage.

The musical instead begins with Goldmund imprisoned in a dungeon for having a clandestine romance with a countess, then moves backward to the first encounter between Narcissus and Goldmund. From there, the plot follows Hesse’s novel closely, tracing their friendship and Goldmund’s wandering life. As a two-hander, much of Goldmund’s life is explained through dialogue or sung reflection. Inevitably, this makes Goldmund less of a purely instinctive, free-spirited soul and more of a logical thinker. That limitation feels unavoidable in a minimally staged two-hander.

Narcissus is not a man without emotion. He is someone who chooses to separate and control emotion through reason. And it is precisely through that control that he is able to love Goldmund as much as he does—very deeply.

In the novel, Narcissus says that he learned what love is through Goldmund, and he can describe that love rationally. Yet he never chooses to live that love as a form of life. This is not repression, but selection; not lack, but ethics. All of Narcissus’s actions are incomprehensible without love, yet that love is never completed as a relationship.

Because of this, what I feel from Goldmund is admiration, while what I feel from Narcissus is a much deeper and heavier love. Goldmund’s endless pursuit of beauty, and his eventual return toward what may be the image of his mother, make Narcissus a sanctuary—a place to return to.

For Goldmund, Narcissus is not a romantic partner or even a peer. He is shelter. Goldmund loves Narcissus because Narcissus is the only one who truly sees him. It is a profound dependence and admiration, but it does not carry the same weight of responsibility. Goldmund takes; Narcissus provides.

The musical conveys much of this relationship faithfully. However, in the final moment—when Narcissus touches Goldmund’s face and moves close to him—I found the expression uncomfortable. Without that moment, I could accept the declaration of love. I could say that kind of closeness exists between people who love each other deeply. But it is not erotic love, and that distinction matters.

This production was presented as a showcase performance in Germany, with German actors. I suspect German audiences may have filled the empty spaces on stage with their internalized Hesse. For audiences unfamiliar with the novel, the story might read as genre fiction (BL), however, or as a conflict between thinking and feeling types.

That gap is not a flaw, but a condition. This work asks its audience a question: what do you bring with you? The reason this performance felt empty to me is that the empty space was already filled—long ago—with other sentences.

Goldmund is a character who must throw himself into the world in order not to break—or paradoxically, in order to break. His salvation lies not in arrival, but in pursuit itself. When he grows old and is rejected by all women, the shock devastates him. His life was never about possession, only longing.

This absence of beauty, however, cannot be laid at the actor’s feet. I imagined that one of the very few performers who might have embodied that impossible beauty would have been Jonathan Groff in his Spring Awakening days. I say this because I remember his curly hair shimmering under the spotlight. That image, layered over years of blurred memory, made the scene even more beautiful.

And perhaps that, too, is the problem. Perhaps I, too, am drawn to Goldmund as Narcissus was, because I tend to separate emotion and look at it through reason.

Yet I admire the production for securing the rights and for resisting the temptation to distort the plot. That restraint deserves respect.

Editions read:
Korean translation (Minumsa, 지와 사랑)
English paperback (Penguin Classics)
English Kindle edition (trans. Ursule Molinaro)