WAGNER.
[Sidenote: ="Faust in Solitude."=
_February 15, 1900._]
Musical biography teaches that a hard struggle, not only for
recognition but for existence, is the normal experience of a great
composer. A few great players and singers make fortunes, but great
composers never, and most of them have had to endure stress of poverty
to the end of their lives. Yet it may be doubted whether any other great
composer ever sounded the depths of human misery, as Wagner did during
that first visit to Paris, undertaken in the hope of making his fortune
at the Grand Opera. It is generally supposed that genius is conscious of
its own powers and works on with serene confidence in the future. But,
unfortunately, there is also such a thing as conceit--that is, the
illusory consciousness of powers that do not exist; and a man of genius
who, without private means, had thrown up his employment and taken
himself and his wife on a long journey to a foreign country in order to
win recognition in "la ville Lumière" must, in the course of three
fruitless years, have felt something worse than misgiving. That Wagner
did so feel is a matter not of speculation but of history. He has
described how, when meditating the subject of the "Flying Dutchman," he
sent for a pianoforte to see whether, after the mean drudgery and abject
misery of those years, "he was still a musician." Wagner was not an
ordinary man. Everything about him was on a grander scale--his folly and
rashness no less than his talent. Though more sensitive than others to
the most trifling discomfort, he showed, under an accumulation of
miseries that would simply have crushed almost anyone else, a stupendous
energy and reaction. He had failed to get his "Rienzi" performed in
Paris. For three years he had continued his fruitless endeavours to
obtain a hearing at the opera; and a crisis of frightful despondency
ensued, when, to ruin and beggary and the sense of having made a fool of
himself, was added an attack of a painful skin disease which tormented
him at intervals all his life. Now it was precisely at that crisis that
he wrote the "Faust" Overture--his masterpiece in the strict sense of
the term; that is, the first work of his mastership or mature power.
Thus, instead of being crushed, Wagner is suddenly found drawing upon
the reserve force of his genius to produce a work that stands very
nearly on a level with Beethoven's third "Leonora" Overture. For the
Faust Overture is a tone-picture of the utmost energy, nobility, and
beauty, utterly defying comparison with any other except Beethoven, and
attaining to a kind of demonic eloquence that Wagner himself never found
again, till quite late in life, during the "Ring of the Nibelung"
period.
[Sidenote: =The "Nibelung" Dramas.=
_May 11, 1903._]
Whatever may have happened in former years, it was scarcely possible to
leave the theatre after the "Götterdämmerung" performance on Saturday
with any disposition to satirise the management for the failure of the
stage effects in the final scene. In the course of the week Wagner's
greatest work had been presented with considerably brighter intelligence
and more adequate resource than ever before in this country, and it
was piteous that there should be a slight humiliation at the end. It
may be doubted, indeed, whether the "Ring" in its entirety has ever
been better done, for the amazing excellence of the orchestral
performance was to some considerable extent matched by the singers,
and the dramatic realisation of the composer's intentions was good
everywhere except in certain parts of the prologue, and showed
positive genius at certain points in each of the main dramas forming the
trilogy. The general impression was thus one of a great task nobly
carried out, and the concluding fizzle, however tiresome and distressing
to the stage managers, could but seem a trifling matter to any
appreciative spectator. It is a terrible business, that _finale_ of
"Götterdämmerung." Conceived in a mood of frenzied protest, it bears a
peculiar stamp of extravagance and violence. It shows Wagner as an
Anarchist of the Bakounine type, undertaking, as it were, to "grasp this
sorry scheme of things entire" and "shatter it to bits" on the
off-chance that Nature might afterwards "remould it nearer to the
heart's desire." A lifetime of noble endeavour and great achievement,
with scarcely any response from the world but the crackling of thorns
under a pot, had produced in Wagner such bitterness of spirit as little
men are saved from by their natural limitations, and it is that
bitterness of spirit which finds expression in the smashing and burning
and drowning of the "Götterdämmerung" _finale_. Heroes and demigods,
renouncing a hopeless conflict with the ugliness and meanness of the
world, involve heaven and earth in one red ruin. Such is the
significance of a tableau not worth a tithe of the time, trouble, and
expense devoted to it.
By engaging Dr. Richter for the 1903 production the Covent Garden
authorities made it clear that this time the nonsense of star performers
who make cuts for their own convenience and sacrifice the composer's
intentions to a performer's conceit would not be tolerated; and at the
same time they gave the public the only possible guarantee for adequate
rehearsal. For that privilege London has had to wait twenty-seven years
since the original production in Bayreuth, though "Die Walküre" and
"Siegfried" were long ago taken up into the ordinary Covent Garden
repertory. There can be little doubt that "Rhinegold" is in all
important respects the most difficult part of the "Ring" to make
effective. Epic rather than dramatic in character, it presents to the
actor an unfamiliar kind of task. He finds himself representing some
creature that is scarcely individualised at all, and taking part in the
interplay of elemental forces rather than of human passions. This goes
far towards accounting for the fact that last week the "Rhinegold"
performance fell very far below the level of all the rest. The
representative of Alberic in the first scene seemed to take very little
interest in the love-making with the Rhine maidens. He had apparently
adopted the guide-book view of the dwarf as a creature merely of greed
and hate, and had overlooked the "fruitful impulse"--to borrow Mr.
Bernard Shaw's expression--which drives Alberic towards the Rhine
maidens; for his acting was quite feeble and pointless, nor was it
possible for him to carry out the stage directions that require Alberic
to climb over the rock-work and rush after the Rhine maidens with the
"nimbleness of a Cobold," the rock-work being much too insecure and the
Rhine maidens too restricted in their movements. In that first scene the
rise of the curtain reveals something like the glazed side of a huge
aquarium tank, and it was apparently to the general effect of the
picture as first displayed that all the attention of the scenic artists
had been given. Nibelheim, with the clanking sounds of the Nibelungs at
their smiths' work, was fairly well rendered, but here again Alberic's
part was ineffectively done, and there was far too much fairy-tale
prettiness and variety in the aspect of his crowd of slaves. At Bayreuth
these victims of sweating and improper labour conditions are represented
with horrifying truth as a huddled crowd of little earth-men, driven
hither and thither by the cursing and lashing of their master, and,
instead of being to some slight extent adorned and differentiated,
uniformly grimy and abject. Stage prettiness was never more out of place
than in the Covent Garden presentation of the scene. The setting was
best in the final scene, where the Gods march over the rainbow bridge
into Valhalla. In the rainbow there was a curious predominance of
"greenery-yallery" tints to the exclusion of the primary colours, but it
took its place well enough in a fairly effective stage picture with a
prehistoric building on the heights to the left. Here the only point of
inferiority to the Bayreuth presentation was in the meteorological
background. After the magnificent orchestrated thunderstorm the sky is
supposed to clear and the Gods to enter their new abode amid the glow of
a most radiant sunset. But the secrets of atmospheric effect and cloud
pageantry seem to remain for the present exclusively in the hands of
Bayreuth and Munich, and these things, though they belong to the
framework rather than the essential drama, seem to have loomed large in
Wagner's imagination when he conceived the "Ring," and so to have a
certain importance.
II.
In strong contrast with the embarrassment and falling back on the mere
picturesque of the "Rhinegold" presentation was the rendering of "Die
Walküre" on Wednesday. A dramatic interpretation of Wagner at all
comparable to the musical interpretation which we derive from the
Liszt-Bülow-Richter tradition is not for the present, or for some time
to come, to be expected. But, making allowance for the difference in
standard between the musical and scenic arts, which is simply a
phenomenon of our time, one may well be thankful for such a rendering of
the music's proper scenic background and framework as was given at
Covent Garden on all but the first of the four evenings in the
production of the present year. In the opening act of "Die Walküre" the
setting was adequate, and a strikingly well-balanced performance was
given by Mr. Van Dyck (Siegmund), Mr. Klöpfer (Hunding), and Mme. Bolska
(Sieglinda). At the end of the only scene in which the three figure
together Sieglinda, dismissed by her husband, stands at the door of the
bedroom; Siegmund, who has told his story, sits on the further side of
the stage, the central place being occupied by the beetle-browed
Hunding. It is a moment big with fate in Wagner's peculiar manner.
Nothing certain is known or decided, but glances full of inquiry and
rapturous or sinister surmise pass between the three, whose variously
coloured kinds of suspense the music interprets. Here the _ensemble_ was
truly admirable, the stress and peculiar atmosphere of that moment big
with fate being successfully caught. Throughout the act Mr. Van Dyck's
suppleness and resource were finely exemplified, the sombre figure of
Mr. Klöpfer's Hunding contrasting effectively, while Mme. Bolska did
much by intelligent acting and good singing to compensate for a certain
lack of personal adaptation to the part.
The majestic Wotan of Mr. Van Rooy was much in evidence throughout the
rest of the drama. A rare loftiness of conception stamps nearly all that
Mr. Van Rooy does. On the other hand, he is somewhat wanting in
suppleness, here and there, sacrificing the _ensemble_ to some extent to
his own rigorous and ultra-heroic impersonation. This is particularly
noticeable in softer scenes, such as the leave-taking with Brynhild.
Only in scenes where Wotan is wrathful or oppressed by the "too vast
orb of his fate" does Mr. Van Rooy succeed completely. His finest moment
is in the muster of the Valkyries, where those terrible warrior maidens
hold converse in music as wild and tumultuous as goes up from some great
parliament of birds, till Wotan stamps with his foot, and the whole
covey of them rush for their horses and go wheeling and galloping away
into the clouds.
To the Brynhild of Miss Ternina it is not easy to do justice. No doubt a
specialist in voice-training might have some objection to raise against
the manner in which this or that note was produced, and as to her
impersonation in the earlier scenes, where Brynhild brandishes her spear
and sings "Ho-yo-to-ho," the doubt might be raised whether it is rugged
enough. But on the whole this artist seems to present a case of almost
providential adaptation to the task of impersonating Wagner's greatest
heroine. From whatever point of view her impersonation be regarded, it
seems better than one could reasonably expect. A most richly endowed and
harmonious personality is the basis of it. Fully matching Mr. Van Rooy
in breadth and dignity of conception, she greatly surpasses her
distinguished colleague in tact and cleverness, whether the matter in
hand be the management of draperies, the humouring of a horse, or any
such secondary matter upon which the proper development of a stage
picture may depend. Vocally, too, Miss Ternina is fully equal to the
tremendous task, and her Brynhild is thus a truly wonderful revelation
of Wagner's art at its best. For Brynhild is beyond all question
Wagner's finest individual creation. In a series of matchless scenes he
shows us the development of the warrior-maid into a perfect woman, every
phase of that development being touched with a kind of demonic power
that makes it impossible for anyone altogether to miss the point. In the
second act of "Walküre" Brynhild comes forth on to the crags in her
shining armour, with helm and shield and corselet of steel. In the
leave-taking with her obdurate father, who, against his better judgment,
has given way to the counsels of Fricka--that Mrs. Grundy of
Valhalla,--the insignia of her Valkyriehood begin to fall off, in
anticipation of the humanising process that is to be completed when
Siegfried, in the ensuing drama, removes the steel corselet for the
bridal feast. Before our eyes, therefore, and step by step Brynhild is
transformed, making the heroic life visible and rhythmic for us at every
moment. She is the vessel into which Wagner has poured the very finest
vintage of his genius. No blackguardly characteristics of the
_Uebermensch_, such as develop so very freely in the Siegfried of
"Götterdämmerung," are allowed to deform the figure and melody of the
superb heroine, who to the end glows with intense and untainted life.
Adequately to render such a conception--adequately both for our eyes and
ears--is no small achievement, and it is Miss Ternina's achievement
which well deserves to be reckoned, along with Dr. Richter's orchestral
interpretation, among the glories of the present production.
III.
"Siegfried is a revelation of sensuous life in its natural and joyous
fulness. No historical dress obscures his form, nor are his movements
obstructed by any force external to himself. The error and confusion
arising from the wild play of passion rage around him and involve him in
destruction. But till that destruction is compassed nothing in
Siegfried's environment can arrest his own impulse. Not even in presence
of death does he allow himself to be swayed by any other influence than
the restless stream of life flowing within himself. Fear, envy, and
vindictiveness are alike alien to his nature, and so, too, is any desire
for love arising from reflection. His every movement is determined by
the direct flow of vital force swelling the veins and muscles of his
body to rapturous fulfilment of their functions."
* * * * *
Such, according to his creator, is that central hero of the "Nibelung"
dramas whom critics still for the most part hopelessly misunderstand,
though the best of the actors who have to represent him seem long ago to
have mastered his secret. It is a familiar fact that the cultivated
instinct of a good actor will often go right where all current criticism
goes wrong, and no figure of the world's drama, ancient or modern,
exhibits the point in a more remarkable manner than Siegfried. To any
actor, indeed, with the necessary personal and vocal endowment the part
may well make a strong appeal. It is devoid of all subtlety, simply
requiring him to know his words and his notes and not to allow the
native hue of his resolution to be sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought. Mr. Kraus, the Siegfried of the Covent Garden performances, did
well in most essential respects.
But much more remarkable than any particular impersonation was the
catching of the proper tone and atmosphere in nearly every important
scene of the three main dramas. The glowing forge in the depths of the
primeval forest at the opening of "Siegfried," the play of the sunlight
through the moving branches that so terrifies the dwarf accustomed to a
subterranean environment, the highly realistic smith's work--all these
accessories in the picture of the godlike youth were well done, and the
peculiar early morning exhilaration of that first act was quite
successfully realised. So, too, were the fairy-tale terrors of the
dragon's cave and the leafy splendours of the glade in which Siegfried
holds converse with the birds. Where there is room for improvement in
the Covent Garden staging of these dramas is, above all, in the
meteorological background of "Rhinegold" and "Götterdämmerung";
secondly, in the "Ride of the Valkyries," which has not hitherto been
done in a sufficiently spirited manner anywhere but in Paris; thirdly,
in the final scene of conflagration and ruin. At present the final scene
is much too elaborately done. All that smashing and falling of timber is
a mistake. A chaotic design painted on a sheet of canvas can be let down
at the right moment with better effect to the eyes of the spectators, in
addition to the immense advantage of producing no noise or dust, costing
little, and being completely under control.[1] The present method of
rendering the scene is too costly, too noisy, and too dangerous. The
Valhalla building should be recognisably the same as in the final scene
of "Rhinegold."
[1] This suggestion was adopted in the performances at Covent Garden
in 1905.--ED.
Never have the musical splendours of the "Ring" been revealed to British
audiences as in the past three weeks. The windy and cloudy eloquence of
the "Walküre" music and the heroic pathos of Brynhild's leave-taking
have long been pretty thoroughly appreciated, but not so the songs of
the forge in "Siegfried," where Wagner throws an almost fabulous kind of
energy into the picture of the typical young man singing at his work,
summing up all that is finest in that enthusiasm of labour which is
perhaps the best part of our inheritance from the nineteenth century.
These songs were, in the recent production, allowed to develop without
cuts or distortion. The brawny rhythm, the iron clangour, the fizz and
tumult of the instrumentation--all these things came out as never before
at a performance in this country. So, too, with the long love duet of
Siegfried and Brynhild and the ravishing trio of the Rhine Maidens in
the last act of "Götterdämmerung." But, apart from such dazzling
moments, the performances were in their completeness and sustained
excellence an extraordinary revelation of the composer's power in the
use of musical symbolism. Just before the rise of the curtain on the
first act of "Siegfried" one hears that whine or snarl of the Nibelung
dwarf, entering on the minor ninth along with the hammering theme. It
sounds merely comical and trivial. But just as a personal fault, first
observed as something funny, may in the experience of life or study of
history be found developing into a source of appalling mischief, so, as
these dramas progress, do we find the symbol of Nibelung hatred
developing from a comical snarl into those monstrous and multitudinous
yells that rend the welkin and dismay the soul amid the gathering horror
of the "Götterdämmerung" tragedy. Persons who are in the habit of
chattering about the _Leitmotiv_ as though it were a nostrum might with
advantage take note of a few such points. The symbols of Nibelung hatred
are not more effective nor anywise better done than the other symbols in
the "Ring," but they are shorter and more peculiarly orchestrated, and
so easier to follow.
As to Dr. Richter's interpretation of these gigantic scores perhaps
enough has been said. The modern executive musician can approach no
greater task than that in the performance of which the foundation of Dr.
Richter's reputation was laid when the work was heard for the first time
twenty-seven years ago in the composer's presence, and we have been
fortunate in hearing his authoritative rendering once more. If Wotan had
understood his business anything like as well as Dr. Richter, Valhalla
would never have come to grief.
[Sidenote: =The Bayreuth Festival.=
_July 23, 1904._]
Apart from the Wagner Theatre and the undertakings connected therewith,
Bayreuth is a decayed "Residenzstadt," with an "Old Castle" of the
fifteenth century, a "New Castle" of the eighteenth, and other not very
carefully preserved relics of the Court which Franconian Margraves long
kept here. Of country residences and "pleasaunces" too, designed in the
over-fantastic manner of the South German potentate, there is more than
one in the neighbourhood, and no doubt such things help to create an
atmosphere that is favourable to artistic enjoyment. The smoke of modern
industrial enterprise is not unknown here, but in the fulfilment of the
part of its destiny which is connected with Wagnerian drama Bayreuth is
aided by the leafy dells and dingles and the stately avenues of the
Hofgarten, if not by the fantastic waterworks of the "Eremitage."
The Festival, which stands as a concrete symbol of Wagner's artistic
mission, is just now at the zenith of its prosperity. It is twenty-eight
years since the theatre was opened and twenty-one since Wagner's death,
and the only thing which Bayreuth now fears is American piracy. One kind
of calumny after another has been silenced, and in years past the
institution seems to have done nothing but gain in solidity and dignity.
It has formed an international public with a somewhat higher average of
intelligence than is to be found anywhere else; and if there are certain
weak and wrong-headed elements in the internal organisation, they are
not so bad as to ruin the combined result of the brilliant and
exceptional talent with which nearly every department--musical,
dramatic, scenic, architectural, mechanical, and administrative--is
worked. One might make a long list of the points in which the Wagner
Theatre is somewhat better than any other of the kind. For example, the
situation and approaches are more agreeable, the exits and entrances are
more convenient, the ventilation is much more satisfactory, the acoustic
is much finer, the distractions during the performance are fewer in
consequence of specially good arrangements, structural and other, and
by reason of the early start and long intervals the audience is less
fatigued; the stage machinery works better, and the discipline behind
the scenes is more thorough. The orchestra, besides being more
advantageously placed, is larger, and has a higher average of executive
ability. Apart, therefore, from the special Wagnerian enthusiasm, there
is much to attract persons who take any kind of interest in musical
drama, and as a matter of fact the audience commonly includes dozens of
well-known musicians from different parts of the world whose own
tendencies are anything but Wagnerian.
[Sidenote: ="Parsifal."=
_July 24, 1904._]
On the second day of this festival "Parsifal" was given for the 122nd
time in Bayreuth, where, since the original production in 1882, it has
formed the principal feature of every festival except that of 1896. Any
attempt to describe impressions of the performance has to be preceded by
a shaking of oneself free from that hypnotic influence which Wagner's
art in its latest phase exercises. The curtain falls on the first act,
the lights are turned up, and one emerges quickly into the light of day
to find oneself once more in the midst of a chattering but well-behaved
international crowd that wanders about the open sandy space girdled with
plantations on either side of the theatre. It is not quite the same
experience as a child's on awakening from an importunate dream, because
the feeling that it was not one's own dream but another's is peculiarly
strong, together with a sense of utter astonishment that it should be
possible for the consciousness of an adult person to be ravished away
into the dream-world of another. Then comes further reflection and the
inevitable question how it is done. Is it primarily by means of the
music, which passes through the chambers of consciousness like the fumes
of an anæsthetic, or does the peculiar potency lie in the dramatic
symbols, for the elaboration of which the subtlest essences of a hundred
arts seem to have been brought together? All the objections to
"Parsifal" would seem to resolve themselves ultimately into distrust of
something that is so dreamlike, and dreamlike in a manner so
inexpressibly soft and luxurious. It is all rhythmic with the slow,
musically ordered movements of the Grail's knights, who are so holy as
to feel sin like a bodily pain; it is solemn with hieratic pageantry,
and rich with the lustre of costly stuffs and the glitter of
ecclesiastical embroideries and jewels. In the first and last acts it
has the atmosphere of a Christian sanctuary, and the second act, passing
in Klingsor's garden, seems to represent the pleasures of sin as
imagined by the most innocent of mediæval monks. All this the orthodox
moralist regards with some distrust as tending to create a distaste for
hard work and cold water. But let him remember the mischief done by the
Puritans in the seventeenth century, and be careful how he lays about
him with the iconoclastic hammer. Whatever else "Parsifal" may be, it is
certainly the most marvellous theatrical show in the world, and, as the
ultimate achievement of a man who for a lifetime had been considerably
in advance of any other person in knowledge of theatrical art, it
deserves to be treated with a measure of respect.
What Bayreuth accomplishes at a "Parsifal" performance, in the smooth
and harmonious working of infinitely complex scenic resources, is
without parallel, and the almost miraculous stage management was last
week at its best. The slow transformations of the first and last acts
were carried out in faultless correspondence with the musical
suggestions. The sudden collapse of Klingsor's garden into ruin and
desolation was also perfectly done, and in all the elaborate evolutions
of the knights' retainers and scholars there was never the semblance of
a false move. A specially admirable feature was the fine co-ordination
of the dangerously complicated musical scheme in the latter part of the
first act, where the conductor has to keep together a body of singers
and players who are spaced out at four different levels--the orchestra
below the stage, the knights seated at the love-feast or manoeuvring
about on the stage, the older scholars on the first gallery of the dome,
and the younger scholars at the top. All the multifarious choir-singing
of boys and men was beautifully done; the only mistakes were made by
Amfortas and Titurel. The conductor was Dr. Muck, of Berlin, whose
_tempi_ seem to have been considered too slow by some of the _habitués_,
though his interpretation was admitted to be in all other respects above
reproach.
[Sidenote: ="The Ring."=
_July 28, 1904._]
This year's festival includes two complete presentations of the "Ring"
tetralogy, of which the first began on Monday. It seems to be generally
admitted here that the performance of the Prologue ("Rheingold") given
on that day was the best that has yet been achieved. Dr. Richter was at
the helm for the first time this year, and the generalship that has been
one great factor in Bayreuth's reputation ever since the opening of the
Wagner Theatre in 1876 soon became perceptible in the plastic force of
the orchestral rendering and the consummate knowledge with which
everything was disposed in such a manner as to give each performer the
best possible chance of doing justice to himself and his part. Moreover,
"Rheingold" is, of all the Wagnerian dramas, the one best adapted to
display the art of Bayreuth advantageously. The staging is of the most
extraordinary kind. All the action takes place up in the clouds, down in
the waters, or where the forges resound in the fiery caverns of
Nibelheim, and not one of the characters is a plain human being. Gods,
goddesses, giants, dwarfs, and water nymphs make up the _dramatis
personæ_, and the whole drama is more completely outside the range of
ordinary operatic art than any other musical and dramatic work. It is
therefore natural that Bayreuth, which alone among theatres devoted to
musical drama is not hampered by the operatic traditions, should
establish pre-eminence in the staging and dramatic presentation of
"Rheingold." There is no part for a prima donna or leading tenor, and
everything depends on a kind of extraordinary character-acting created
by Wagner, along with those richly animated figures from Norse mythology
which so effectively represent the natural forces and psychic impulses
of his greatest and most characteristic poem. The most important person
is Loge, the tricksy Fire God, who is far from sure that he did wisely
in joining the firm of Wotan and Company.
In the great revival of the "Ring" here in 1896 the impersonation of
Loge by the late Vogel of Munich was a brilliant feature. Vogel was at
the time recognised as the best Loge, and his mantle has now fallen on
Dr. Otto Briesemeister, who, with a much less effective costume than his
predecessor's, dances very cleverly through his long and important part.
But among the stage performers it was Mr. Hans Breuer, the
representative of the dwarf Mime, to whom the principal honours of
Monday's performance fell. Already in 1896 Mr. Breuer was the Bayreuth
Mime, and he seems to have been steadily improving his presentation ever
since. It is now beyond all expression brilliant. Mime (or Mimmy, as the
name has been well Anglicised) is perhaps the best invented of Wagner's
purely grotesque figures--better individualised than his master, the
sinister Alberich, representing gold as a world-power, for whom Mimmy is
compelled to do smith's work. From beginning to end the part presents
unfamiliar problems to the actor, for never before was the attempt made
to give a musical vehicle to such whining and cringing and snarling. But
those problems have all now been solved by Mr. Breuer in a manner
suggesting finality. He has penetrated to the very marrow of the
composer's conception, and he gives us a figure that glows with
imaginative power at every moment. Almost equally good in its very
different way is the mighty elemental brutality of Mr. Johannes
Elmblad's Fafner--another case of an actor completely identified with
the particular part,--and the second giant (Mr. Hans Keller) fairly
matched his colleague and Messrs. Breuer and Briesemeister in expressive
pantomimic interpretation of the music. The enchanting "Rhine Daughter"
trio of the first and last scenes was beautifully rendered, the swimming
manoeuvre of the former scene being done probably better than ever
before. Besides doing justice to the drama as an allegorical picture of
life in the light of certain nineteenth-century ideas, the performance
was a specially good revelation of its amusing and naïvely entertaining
qualities. Regarding the show simply as an enacted fairy-tale, one could
not but call it a mighty good one, and that aspect of the matter was
almost certainly never before brought out so well.
[Sidenote: ="The Ring."=
_July 30, 1904._]
Too much ridicule has been expended on those who, in the days when the
works of Wagner were new to the world, declared them impossible of
performance. After witnessing one complete series of the dramas forming
the programme of this year's festival I am profoundly impressed by the
newness of the art that has been worked out, mainly in this place, under
stress of Wagner's peculiar requirements. The stage manager and the
singing actor, no less than the orchestral player and the conductor,
have been compelled to acquire a new technique. It is even possible to
state approximately the order in which the special kinds of technique
required by Wagner were developed. Of course the instrumental came
first, for without it there could have been no attempt to bring the new
art before the world. Here the most important influence, in addition to
the composer's own, was that of Liszt, Bülow, and Richter--the original
stalwarts of the Wagnerian school. Next arose a new race of dramatic
singers, of whom Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Niemann, and Materna were early
examples; and the key to the enigma of the music was found. But Wagner's
art is complex. Including, as it does, all the elements of the tragedy,
which Aristotle describes as having music for one of its parts, together
with modern scenic presentation, it is indeed somewhat more complex than
any other known art, and that is why it has taken so long to master the
technique of it. To the civilised world of no more than twenty-five
years ago it was still inconceivable that both the drama and the music
in one work could be important. A play with a little incidental music
was a familiar thing, and so was an opera with a conventional dramatic
framework having as its only purpose the advantageous display of musical
embroideries. But a dramatic work with music as an integral part lay
outside the range of all that was then believed to be possible, and long
after the new race of dramatic singers had arisen the peculiar problems
of _mise-en-scène_ and stage management which Wagnerian drama presents
were left quite unsolved. However, no such battle had to be fought over
the stage presentation as had been fought over the music. There was the
Bayreuth theatre, with plenty of time and, latterly, plenty of money to
work out the scenic and mechanical problems; and very slowly they were
worked out. The improvement since 1896, when I last saw the "Ring" here,
is enormous, and from the mighty trilogy as now presented that old sense
of awkward, cumbrous, and unmanageable material has to a great extent
disappeared--not, indeed, to the same extent in all the four parts
(prologue and three-fold drama). The change and improvement is most
startling in "Rheingold," which, with all its mythological and
thaumaturgical paraphernalia, used to be thought peculiarly clumsy and
full of bad quarters of an hour, despite the genius that scintillated
here and there. Now that the staging has been perfected, it no longer
embarrasses the performers or distracts the spectator's attention, and
one has unimpeded enjoyment of the story, with all its rich imaginative
play and its Aristophanic quality, as it is interpreted by a group of
actors and actresses who have thoroughly mastered their peculiar
business. "Rheingold" one now perceives to be a comedy big with tragedy.
Notwithstanding the undertow of forces making for monstrous mischief, it
is as thoroughpaced an Aristophanic comedy as anything having Norse
instead of Hellenic characters and imagery could be. The scene in which
the different uses of gold are explained by Loge, with exquisitely
humorous interpolated comments by Fricka (the Mrs. Grundy of Valhalla)
and others, is worth the attention of any philosopher; and yet that and
other passages of similar merit used to pass unnoticed. Together with
the mention in my former message of Messrs. Briesemeister's, Breuer's,
and Elmblad's achievements as Loge, Mimmy, and Fafner respectively,
there should have been some reference to the Fricka of Mme. Reuss-Belce,
who was simply perfect in the scene where that dignified lady sidles up
to Loge to inquire whether the gold cannot also be used to make nice
ornaments for ladies.
In regard to "Walküre" and "Siegfried," which have long been in the
repertory of London, Paris, and other capitals, the superiority of
Bayreuth is very much less certain--that is to say, of Bayreuth as
represented by this year's performances. There was serious weakness in
two out of the three great protagonists, Wotan and Brünnhilde, and for
that weakness no degree of skill in the presentation of the finely
fantastic and ever-shifting backgrounds could compensate, nor even the
superb orchestral interpretation. The Siegfried of Mr. Ernst Kraus was,
however, on the whole a very striking performance, as it was at Covent
Garden in 1903. It was best in Acts i. and ii. of "Siegfried"--the
forging of the sword and the slaying of the dragon, preceded and
followed by the wonderful forest _rêverie_,--and it was least good in
the "Götterdämmerung" scene, where the hero tells the story of his youth
to his hunting companions. Here a certain lack of resource in purely
lyrical expression was a serious defect. But on the whole Mr. Kraus
would seem to be the best Siegfried of the present day--best, at any
rate, of those who can be induced to enact the part without mutilation.
No excellence in the staging and general interpretation could obviate
or appreciably soften the unsatisfactoriness of "Götterdämmerung." The
final drama of the "Ring" series remains a terrible monster among the
dramatic works of mankind, with a dreary first and second act, in which
little seems to occur besides the heaping up of gloomy storm-clouds. The
fierce animation of the retainers' muster in the Hall of the Gibichungs
produced on Thursday the utmost effect of which it is capable; but the
atmosphere of these scenes in which the tragedy of the curse resting on
the Ring is worked out remained, as before, almost intolerable; and,
despite the ravishing Rhine-daughter music in the third act, the
romantic beauty of the "Erzählung" (story of Siegfried's youth), and the
monumental grandeur of the funeral scenes, the last day of the trilogy
left one with the old sense of oppression. As most persons are aware,
the whole "Ring" drama began in the composer's mind with "Siegfried's
Death"--that part which is now called "Götterdämmerung,"--and the other
three parts were written to lead up to it. Nevertheless the original
nucleus remains the monstrous product of a disordered imagination, while
the three parts, conceived as something secondary, form a series of
masterpieces. Books, we know, have their fates, and the fate of this one
is not the least curious. The experience of this year, while tending to
show that the supposed defects of "Rheingold," "Walküre," and
"Siegfried" almost entirely vanish in a rendering that is harmonious on
all sides, leaves one with a greatly increased sense of the final
drama's inherent unsatisfactoriness.