(Lecture-Recital)
WE are proceeding on the supposition that this music-drama of "Bluebeard"
is a posthumous work of Richard Wagner. It is said (our authority being a
late number of the musical and Court Journal, _Die_Fliegende_Bla'tter_)
that a housemaid, while tidying one of the rooms in a villa formerly
occupied by the Wagner family in summer, perceived an enormous halo shining
persistently over a certain bedstead standing against the wall, the said
halo absolutely refusing to remove itself when attacked with a feather-
duster. The housemaid thought at first that it was simply an effect of the
sunlight, but observed subsequently that the halo was just as large, fine
yellow, opaque, and circular on dark days as on bright ones; consequently,
on a certain morning when it was so huge and glaring as to be positively
offensive to the eye, inasmuch as it did not hang over a Holy Family, but
over an ordinary and somewhat uncomfortable article of furniture, she
adopted the courageous feminine expedient of looking underneath the bed,
where she found this priceless legacy of the master reposing in a hat-box
in which it had lain for nearly half a century, unsuspected, undisturbed.
If this incident is true it is exquisitely pretty and touching; if not, it
is highly absurd and ridiculous, but the same may be said of many
hypothetical historical incidents. At all events, the financial
arrangements which followed upon the discovery of the MS. and the price
demanded for it by the Wagnerian housemaid convinces me absolutely of its
authenticity.
To me it is not strange that Wagner should choose to immortalize the story
of Bluebeard, for the interesting and inspiring myth has been used in all
ages and in all countries. It differs slightly in the various versions. In
some, the shade of the villain's beard is robin's-egg and in others indigo;
in some the fatal key is blood-stained instead of broken; while in the
matter of wives the myth varies according to the customs of the locality
where it appears: In monogamous countries the number of ladies slain is
generally six, but in bigamous and polygamous countries the interesting
victims mount (they were always hung high, you remember) to the number of
one hundred and seventeen.
I ought, perhaps, to confess to you that there are critics who still deny
the authenticity of this work, although they concede that it is full of
Wagner's spirit and influence and may have been produced by some ardent
follower or pupil; one steeped to the eyebrows in mythologic lore and
capable of hurling titanic tonal eccentricities against the uncomprehending
ear-drum of the dull and ignorant herd. There are those, too, who think
that some disciple of Richard II.,--Strauss, not Wagner,--had a hand in the
orchestration, simply because his "Sinfonia Domestica" occupies itself with
the same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard
libretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be
sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day
arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have
been other days!
The incredulous ones urge that Wagner would never have been drawn to the
Bluebeard myth as a foundation for a libretto; but for myself I regard its
selection as a probable reaction, violent, no doubt, from the composition
of Parsifal. In Parsifal the central themes and the unavoidable conclusion
are derived from outgrown beliefs that have long since ceased to influence
the heart of mankind. Parsifal is medieval, mystic, rapt, devout. Its
ideals are those of celibacy and asceticism, the products of an age whose
theories and practices as regards sex-relationships can have no echo in
modern civilization. What more natural than that Wagner should fling
himself, for mental and emotional relief, into a story throbbing with human
love and marriage? Neither would some calm domestic drama serve, some story
of the nursery or hearth-stone, dealing with the relations of one fond
husband and father, one doting mother and child. As a contrast to the
asceticism and celibacy of Parsifal we have in Bluebeard rampant and
tropical polygamy; fervent, untiring connubialism. The ardent and
susceptible Solomon might have been a more dignified hero, one would think;
but, although he could furnish wives enough to properly fill the stage, his
domestic life was not nearly as varied, as thrilling, and as upset as
Bluebeard's, whose story makes a well-nigh invincible appeal to manager,
artists, and subscribers alike; and, for that matter, is as likely to be
popular with box-holders as with the gallery-gods.
This master work enunciates the world law that Woman (symbolized by Fatima,
Seventh Wife, singing actress) is determined to marry once at any cost; and
that Man (symbolized by Bluebeard, baritone) is determined, if he marries
at all, to marry as thoroughly and as often as possible. It holds up to
scorn the marriage of ambition and convenience on the one hand, but on the
other, pursues with wrath and vengeance the law-breaker, the indiscriminate
love-winner, the wife-collector and wife-slayer; and, although women still
have a strange and persistent fancy for marriage, they might sometimes
avoid it if they realized that a violent death were the price.
We must first study the musical construction of the overture with which the
music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares
the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the
leading motives appear in this _Vorspiel_ and must be appreciated to be
understood. First we have the "_Blaubart_motiv_" (Bluebeard Motive). This
is a theme whose giant march gives us in rhythmic thunders the terrible
power of the hero.
["_Blaubart_motiv_"]
The "_Blaubart_motiv_" should be constantly kept in mind, as it is a clue
to much of the later action, being introduced whenever Bluebeard budges an
inch from his doorstep. We do not hear in it the majestic grandeur of the
Wotan or Walsungen motifs, and why? Simply because it was not intended to
illustrate godlike power, but _brute_force_.
Now if this were all, we had no more to say; but listen!
[Immer-wieder-heirathen Motiv]
What does this portend--this entrance of another theme, written for the
treble clef, played with the right hand, but mysteriously interwoven with
the bass? What but that Bluebeard is not to be the sole personage in this
music-drama; and we judge the stranger to be a female on account of the
overwhelming circumstantial evidence just given.
Bluebeard, when first introduced--you remember the movement, one of somber
grandeur leading upward to vague desire was alone and lonely. Certainly the
first, probably the second. If his mood were that of settled despair,
typical of a widower determined never to marry again no matter what the
provocation, the last note of the phrase would have been projected
_downward_; but, as you must have perceived, the melody terminates in a
tone of something like hope. There is no assurance in it--do not
misunderstand me; there is no particular lady projected in the musical
text--that would have been indelicate, for we do not know at the moment
precisely the date when Bluebeard hung up his last wife; but there _is_ a
groping discontent. At the opening of the drama we have not been informed
whether Bluebeard has ever been married at all or only a few times, but we
feel that he craves companionship, and we know when we hear this
"_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_" (Always About to Marry Again Motive)
that he secures it. The sex created expressly to furnish companionship will
go on doing so, even if it has to be hung up in the process.
Look again at the second theme, the "_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_"
(Always About to Marry Again Motive). Do you note a mysterious reflection
of the first theme in it? Certainly; it would be evident even to a
chattering opera-party of the highest social circles. But why is this, asks
the sordid American business man, who goes to the music-drama absolutely
unfitted in mind and body to solve its great psychological questions. Not
because Wagner could not have evolved a dozen _Leit-Motive_ for every
measure, but for a more exquisitely refined and subtle reason. The wife is
often found to be more or less a reflection of her husband, especially in
Germany, therefore an entirely new and original motive would have been out
of place. It is this extraordinary insight into the human mind which brings
us to the feet of the master in reverential awe; and it detracts nothing
from his fame that his themes descriptive of average femininity would have
been quite different had he written them for the women of this epoch. The
world moves rapidly. This motive slips with a series of imperceptible
musical glides into the "_Siebente-Frau_Motiv_" (Seventh Wife Motive):
Bluebeard enters well in advance; Fatima, contrapuntally obedient, coming
in a little behind.
[Siebente-Frau Motiv]
This Fatima, or Seventh Wife Motive seems to be written in a curiously low
key if we conceive it to be the index to the character of a soprano
heroine; but let us look further. What are the two principal personages in
the music-drama to be to each other?
If _enemies_, the phrase would have been written thus: [separation of 5
octaves]