painter, who, meeting Richard Wagner at Naples, solicited and obtained
the honor of being chosen for the work of the scenery in Parsifal, and
left all to follow the master, is the son of one of Russia's most
illustrious poets, who was the preceptor of Alexander II. The artist
is installed in a house in the immediate neighborhood of Wahnfried,
and lives there like a hermit, putting his whole heart into his work.
The sketches, which are real pictures, are displayed upon the various
easels. On the first is the forest, with the rising sun, for the first
tableau, which, to make place for the second, will slide gently from
left to right, sinking down little by little, while the characters
are supposed to be advancing as they ascend a hill. These characters
will disappear behind masses of rocks, then will be seen again in
grottoes near Cyclopean substructures, then in galleries. They finally
pass through a door, and the temple of the Grail will appear. Here
it is seen, upon the neighboring easel, with its porphyry columns,
its capital of precious stones, its vaults, its double cupolas, its
mysterious depths. The tables destined for the sacred repast, which
bring to mind the sacrament, are arranged on either side of the altar.
The smooth marble-paved floor reflects like a lake. Mr. Brandt,
machinist of the theatre at Darmstadt, a man of genius, it appears,
for whom the word impossible does not exist, says that he can produce
this glittering effect, and that the only difficulty lies in the rapid
shifting of the scenery.
The fantastic garden, created by the magician, Klingsor, in order
to reduce and ruin the Knights of the Grail, was a thing difficult
to conceive. Wagner wished for something absolutely improbable; the
conception of a dream, a wild efflorescence brought to life by the
stroke of a wand, not by plodding earthly labor; he was dissatisfied
with every attempt. He has, however, obtained his desire, and it
appears that on the stage this scene is one of the most successful
of all. What is most singular is that these giant flowers, sheaves,
clusters, and thickets, which leave only a corner on the horizon
visible, fade away and die in the twinkling of an eye, leaving in
sight only an arid moor, shut in by snowy mountains, while a shower of
withered leaves and dried petals falls upon the ground. The flowering
meadow near the spring wood, which shelters the hermit's hut, with its
clear spring murmuring beneath the thick moss, is truly enchanting.
From this we return by a shifting of scenes analogous to that in the
first act, to the temple of the Grail, where the piece ends. The
costumes are not more easy of invention, for the master will not be
satisfied with anything like the costumers' indignation. Even should
they all become wretched they must yield. The enchantresses evoked by
the magician,--women who are flowers, as the syrens are fishes,--are
those who give the most trouble. Wagner will not have attractive young
girls, but real animated flowers. There is also the tunic of the
terrible and marvellous Kundry.
1st October.
The master has kept his promise this evening, and has let us hear
fragments from Parsifal. "Liszt's presence makes me lose my powers in
a measure," he said, laughing, "he intimidates me, for I know that my
false notes irritate him." Unfortunately, Liszt, who only yesterday
improvised upon the piano in a delightful manner, blending with his
own inventions motions from Tristan and Isolde, has slightly wounded
his finger, and cannot play. It must certainly be acknowledged that
Wagner is an imperfect pianist, and he is the first to laugh at his
own imperfection. We notice, however, in a wonderful manner, certain
passages which the author knows how to render with the true expression,
better than any other. A few months ago, Liszt wrote to us: "Wagner
has worked a new miracle, Parsifal. Those who already have the good
fortune to understand this new work share this opinion; the singers
are enraptured. Judging from the general impression, this ought to be
a new transformation in the master's method,--one of those giant steps
to which he is accustomed. In this instance the height and refinement
of art combine to produce an effect of apparent simplicity and perfect
serenity." This evening we take leave of our illustrious hosts,
promising to meet them again next year at the first representation of
Parsifal.
POETIC WORK.
WAGNER'S POETIC WORK.
FROM RIENZI TO TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.
The spectacle, which represents a series of lofty and still loftier
peaks of a chain of mountains, at the moment when the morning mists
envelop them, furnishes a just comparison to that given us by these
works, which rise successively, one above the other, from the lovely
green hill to the dazzling and, for many, inaccessible summits. From
Rienzi to the Gloom of the Gods there is the same difference of
attitude as between the Capitoline Hill and the Himalaya. And what
gigantic strides from one work to the other. A powerful, enthusiastic
genius already reveals itself in Rienzi; but it has done little more
than assimilate, with the greatest facility, the beauties that had
most charmed one in the works of its predecessors. Wagner likes show,
pompous processions, the tumult of battle; the brilliant orchestra
resounds, is carried away, enthusiastic; the power which moves it,
not yet under control, expends itself in vociferations, heroic cries
of extreme vehemence; but as yet nothing presages the innovator, if
it be not the almost prophetic sense of the subject, so ardently
revolutionary.
Between Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman lies an abyss. The young master,
disdaining the success of his first work, judges it with severity
and casts it aside; he considers it an essay. From the first he has
equalled his models, but he feels that he is still far from his ideal;
a new world palpitates in his mind; he must break the old moulds and
fetters of routine that he may soar untrammelled toward unexplored
regions. The artist, now sure of himself, definitely abandons
historical subjects, whose too hard reality is not in keeping with the
idealism of music. The natural poetry of legend and myth suits him far
better. Henceforward the path is found, he will no longer turn aside
from it, but continually enlarge upon its thought. From the popular
song, hummed by the Norwegian spinners while turning their wheels, he
will rise to the savage grandeurs of the northern theogonies. It was
upon a sea-voyage, during a storm, which cast him upon the coast of
Norway, that Richard Wagner induced the sailors themselves to repeat to
him the frightful story of the Flying Dutchman--Ahasverus of the Sea,
who, blaspheming, defied the storm with Satan's aid, and was condemned
to wander eternally, he and his fantastic ship. But the mystical young
girl, grown pale from the snow's reflections, who languishes with
love for the damned one, carried incessantly through shipwrecks and
lightning, will save him by her faithful devotion, even unto death, if
he but reaches her.
This work seems to have come at a single stroke, under the inspiration
of a violent emotion. The ocean, with its rage, its awe, its mystery
and sweetness--all is in this music, which is like the sea's own
soul. If a few traces of the old formulæ remain, it is only in the
subordinate parts of the work. The orchestra is no longer a great
guitar, accompanying a song; it already assumes a capital importance;
the designs, dividing and blending, have a precise meaning; the whole,
less noisy, acquires a power until then unknown. The orchestral
tissue becomes the woof upon which the characters are embroidered;
it becomes the ocean which bears the ship, the atmosphere which
envelops the action, where the thoughts, the sentiments of the heroes,
reverberating, amplifying, become visible, so to speak, and make the
mind experience all that is inexpressible in the sensations of the
soul.
The legend of Tanhäuser still exists in Germany, above all in leafy
Thuringia, where the famous castle of Wartburg stands, which, under
the hospitable landgraves of the thirteenth century, was the theatre
of pacific contests, fought by the illustrious troubadours. In front
of the castle rises a bare, dreary mountain, burned as it were,
which makes a strange blot in the midst of the fresh vegetation of
the neighboring valleys. This is the terrible Venusberg, inhabited,
according to popular tradition, by a dangerous goddess. This divinity
was formerly Hulda the beneficent, who came each year to awaken the
spring, and wandered over the country scattering flowers under her
feet. But being cursed by Christianity, she was obliged to take refuge
in the unknown caverns of the mountain; she was soon confounded with
Venus, the sovereign of the senses. The graces, syrens, bacchantes,
and fauns constituted her court, and enchanting voices seduced those
whose impure desires guided them toward the mountain; unknown roads
enticed them, and they were borne away to the mysterious palace which
it encloses, in the abode of eternal perdition, from which none return.
The Knight Tanhäuser, curious and intrepid, found the path of the
grottoes in the Venusberg, and was the spouse of the goddess during
seven years, after which, his desires satiated and himself devoured
with remorse, aspiring to human suffering, he succeeded in tearing
himself from the arms of his love by invoking the Virgin Mary. He
went and confessed to the pope, imploring his pardon, but the pontiff
replied, "that having tasted the pleasures of hell he was forever
damned." Then raising his crosier, he added, "Even as this wood cannot
become green again, so is there no pardon for thee." The legend adds,
that at the expiration of three days the crosier began to blossom,
signifying that celestial grace is greater than that of a pontiff.
It is from this recital, enlarged by a powerful spirit, that Wagner
has taken his drama, inter-weaving with his own tissue the tradition
about the famous contests of the poet-singers, and also the chaste
and melancholy face of Elisabeth, whom he voluntarily confounds with
the sainted princess whose virtuous life shed a lustre over the the
castle. But what Richard Wagner has above all wished to bring out in
this marvellous work is the eternal struggle between the flesh and the
spirit, the brute and the angel, which, being in man, dispute his soul.
And this he has rendered with incomparable clearness and grandeur. The
discussions formerly raised by the representation of Tanhäuser have
made this debated work better known than many others illustrious from
success. It is useless, therefore, to speak of it further.
Lohengrin, which has never been represented in Paris, and which can
scarcely be appreciated from partial executions of the most inferior
order, is, strange to say, almost popular. Whoever has heard the
orchestral prelude typifying the vision of King Titurel, when the
angels bring to him the Holy Grail, can never forget this admirable
passage, and the extraordinary impression which it produces. At first
an almost imperceptible vibration takes possession of the highest
notes of the flutes and violins. The air becomes agitated, the light
approaches and grows larger, soon with an irradiation of trumpets the
luminous vision shines resplendent in all its glory. The incomparable
cup, cut from a stone, it is said, which fell from Lucifer's crown when
he was precipitated from heaven, and which is now filled with the blood
of the Saviour, is confided to the pure hands of a holy knight. Then
the angels again take their flight, the glimmering becomes obliterated,
and the atmospheric vibrations, which can no longer be heard, little
by little diminish and die away. The curtain rises upon a site near
the environs of Anvers, on the borders of Scheldt. We find ourselves
in the tenth century. Henry the Fowler, King of Germany, has come to
Brabant to convoke the noble lords according to the feudal custom.
Frederick of Telramund, the most valiant of all the lords of Brabant,
has just accused, before all the people, Elsa, Duchess of Brabant, of
the murder of her young brother, who has disappeared, leaving no trace.
The young girl possesses no method of proving her innocence; her cause
then is to be submitted to the judgment of God. But when the herald has
resounded the trumpet toward the four quarters of the world, no knight
has entered the lists in her defence. Elsa, however, has confidence in
a singular vision: a charming warrior has appeared to her in a dream;
he will fight for her. However, the herald's second summons remains
without response. It is then that, with an impulse of sublime faith,
she throws herself upon her knees, and beseeches Heaven to send her the
defender who has visited her in a vision.
Soon, in fact, the people, grouped upon the banks of the river, see
in the distance, with increasing agitation, a strange bark drawn
by a dazzling swan; it approaches, it draws nearer; a knight of
wondrous beauty stands erect in the bark; his light helmet, his silver
breastplate are resplendent, he rests one hand upon his shield. "A
miracle! a miracle!" cries the crowd. "Can it be an angel sent by God?"
The mysterious knight steps upon the shore. With a calm and modest
voice he bids farewell to the beautiful swan which has conducted him
and now returns to the unknown regions from which it came. Then the
knight advances in the midst of the surprised and rejoicing multitude.
"I am come," he says, "to defend the innocent girl unjustly accused.
Who will do combat with me?" Telramund, notwithstanding the sacred
character of his adversary, and preferring death to dishonor, raises
the gauntlet and upholds the accusation. The knight draws near the
enraptured Elsa, and in a sweet, grave voice, says to her: "If I bear
off the victory, wilt thou that I should become thy husband? Then must
thou promise never to seek to discover from what countries I come, nor
what is my name or nature." "My shield, my angel, my savior!" cried
Elsa, "thou who defendest me in my distress, how could I do other than
faithfully keep to the law thou imposest upon me?" "Elsa, I love thee,"
murmurs the unknown knight with deepest tenderness. The king blesses
the arms, and the combat begins. The knight gains an easy victory over
his adversary, whose life he spares. Elsa's innocence is proclaimed by
the entire people in a triumphal hymn of joy.
But Ortrud, Telramund's wife, daughter of the King of Friesia, who
aspires to the throne of Brabant, succeeds in exciting feminine
curiosity in Elsa, and in pouring the poison of doubt into her heart
in order to blight her joy. She torments her until at last Elsa,
distracted, violates her oath, exacting from her spouse the avowal
of his origin. Doubt has killed faith, which carries with it all
happiness; the night of love ends in despair. It is upon a meadow
near the border of the Scheldt, amid flying, banners and flourishing
trumpets, in the presence of Brabant counts, followed by their vassals
called by King Henry for an expedition against the Hungarians, that the
mysterious knight will unveil his origin. "In a distant country," he
says, "upon a high mountain, called Mont Salvat, stands a magnificent
temple, in which knights of absolute purity guard a miraculous cup; it
is the Holy Grail, the cup in which Christ consecrated the bread and
wine at the time of the Lord's Supper, and in which, later, Joseph of
Arimathea received his blood. This cup had been carried to heaven by
the angels, but they brought it back again to the holy king, Titurel,
who founded the temple of the Grail, and the order of its knights.
Those who serve the Grail are endowed with wonderful virtue, but an
inflexible law forces them to remain unknown among men. If their name
be discovered, they must immediately depart, and once more regain the
sacred mountain. For this reason I must leave you, informing you that
Parsifal, my father, is King of the Grail, and I, his knight, am named
Lohengrin." The swan reappears upon the shore to bear the warrior away
to his miraculous country; Elsa has destroyed her happiness; she sees
her guardian angel depart forever.
Lohengrin is, perhaps, the most perfect of the three lyric dramas
which form the second period in the master's work. From Lohengrin to
Tristan and Isolde as great a distance is marked as between Rienzi and
the Flying Dutchman. It is a new revelation, a new art,--something
perfect and definite, a prodigious flight toward the future. There is
no longer, so to speak, any question of music in the sense formerly
attached to this word; it is poetry in superb and precise form, with a
sonorous resonant soul,--Apollo and Orpheus melted in a single lyre.
The works following may, perhaps, be grander, but Tristan and Isolde
is and will remain the masterpiece of masterpieces, by reason of the
poetical subject which, in art as in the human soul, takes by right the
first place. In Tristan and Isolde love itself, in its most complete
and perfect form, finds utterance. The most pointed phases of the
passion are pushed to their extreme. In the first act it is unavailing
love, heroically conquered, which consumes the heart while not a cry
escapes the lips,--Tristan, conducting toward another the royal
betrothed, whose hand he himself, in his blind love, has solicited for
the King of Cornwall. Tristan's love believes itself despised. Isolde,
consumed with anger and tenderness, powerless to master the tumult in
her soul, wishes shipwreck to the vessel which bears her away, with the
hero who disdains her, toward the shore which she hopes never to reach.
"Death rather, death for us both!" she cries. And when the tempest
betrays her, when already the hated land is signaled, she offers poison.
Tristan cannot refuse to empty a cup in Isolde's honor, to drink to
their reconciliation, for a debt of blood lies between them, long
since effaced by their unavowed love, but which she begins to remember.
Tristan well knows that eternal forgetfulness is poured out for him
by the hand which he secretly adores; he accepts with gratitude this
mitigation of evils which have no remedy. On the threshold of death,
however, both drop their mask, the fire then breaks out triumphant,
love casts them into one another's arms in the intoxication of a
supreme joy which should repay them for their past sufferings. Heart
against heart, eyes looking into eyes, thus will their hearts cease
to beat, and their mutual gaze be extinguished. But alas! they are
betrayed; the two devoted followers have substituted for the mortal
draught a love-drink, and instead of the kindly shade which reunited
them, behold the detested shore, and the deceitful day which separates
them.
Such a love once free can no longer be stifled or conquered. It
is a formidable conflagration, a flame which death itself cannot
extinguish. It has devoured everything,--loyalty, honor, virtue.
The earth itself becomes effaced in the ravishing rapture of mutual
possession. Infinite and sublime ecstasy follows, which no heart can
have either experienced or foreseen. Their happiness even crushes
and stifles them; the heart cannot contain such love, the human
voice has no words to express it; the most burning embraces leave
them disunited. Tristan and Isolde are two, and they would become
one soul, a single thought, a scintillation of love in an unlimited
night. Desperate and unsatisfied, they aspire to the infinity of
death. They dream of a flight beyond all worlds in that mysterious
shade which protects them upon earth, but over which the day and the
empty phantoms of life triumph, ceaselessly inflicting the tortures of
impending separation. The eternal and great night of love without the
terrors of the morning! A long enchanting dream in unlimited space;
no names to separate; a single flame; a single thought; a sweet swoon
in each other's arms; the ardent rapture of death without end, without
awakening! Such is their thought. But suddenly, behold the cruel day,
and with it shame. This sublime love is dragged before the world,
which calls it an indiscretion, and censures. Then follows the combat,
in which Tristan, overcome with a divine ecstasy, is no longer the
victorious hero, but falls mortally wounded.
When we see him again, in the agonies of death, it is in the ancient
dungeon of his ancestors in Brittany. The faithful shield-bearer has
taken him across the seas in a bark. Now he is sheltered from all
surprise. But Isolde? When his eyes, which seem to be forever closed,
will awake to life, if they are not gladdened by his soul's sweet
sovereign, they will close again forever. Isolde knows her loved
one's retreat; she is coming to him, but the minutes are centuries,
and the sea is deserted and void, even to the silent horizon. See, the
hero now comes to himself with the dear name upon his lips. Tristan
cannot die while Isolde is still in the empire of the sun. The gates
of death, which had already closed upon him with a clang, reopen wide
before this invincible desire to see once more her with whom alone he
can lose himself in eternal night. Void and deserted is the sea! Thus
it is that the fury of despair tears Tristan's soul. Love and fever
mingling their delirium, he writhes upon his bed of pain with cries
of superhuman suffering. Nothing can render the impression of this
frightful agony, in which the flame of love cannot be extinguished by
death, of this distracted and expectant soul, retarding the supreme
departure. At intervals the hero falls to the ground, seemingly dead;
but when the weeping shield-bearer stoops to hear a last sigh, a last
palpitation, Tristan in a low voice murmurs the name of Isolde! Yet once
again hope springs to life in the breast of this martyr to love; he
perceives the ship, although common eyes cannot distinguish it, and
on the ship Isolde, who makes a sign to him. "Dost thou not see it
yet? Tender and majestic she crosses the breadth of the sea like a
sovereign; she comes carried toward land as by waves of intoxicating
flowers; her smile will pour out supreme consolation. Oh, Isolde!
Isolde! how beautiful, how welcome art thou!" The ship is, in truth,
signalled. The soul's eyes are not deceived. All sails spread, it flies
over the waters. She approaches--she, the enchanting one, she comes.
What delirious impatience, what joyous transports!
"Intoxication of the soul, rapture without measure, impetuous and
overheated, blood, how shall I support you chained to this couch? Up
then, up, on the march toward the beating heart!" Already Isolde's
voice is heard, and the hero throws himself, staggering, from his bed.
She comes, she calls him, holds her arms toward him; but he can only
die at her feet, uttering for the last time the infinitely-beloved
name. "Ah, live with me yet one hour, only an hour," cries the
distracted Isolde in her despair. "I have only lived through so many
days of anguish and desire to watch one hour with thee. Do not die of
thy wound, let me heal thee, that safe and strong we may share the
sainted delights of night." The flame is extinguished, the soul has
fled. Isolde, always faithful, will follow Tristan in death. Already
the loved one draws her toward the mysterious land; mighty waves seem
to overpower her. Her ears resound with murmurs of the infinite. Night,
consoling night, gently envelops her, overwhelms her. She is drowned,
lost, to unite herself forever to the twin flame, and loses herself
in the divine breath of the universal soul. It is almost impossible to
imagine the intensity of expression which this poem, so passionate,
so intense in itself, acquires united to the magic of music. It
is like the vital energy of the soul, a supernatural rapture. The
intoxication and the acute torments experienced in hearing this work
are ineffaceable. All who have entered into its transcendent beauties,
and undergone its terrible charm in all its power, recognize that no
other artistic impression is comparable to that which makes itself felt
in this extraordinary work. Many volumes in all languages have been
written upon Tristan and Isolde; many will still be written, for it is
the magnificent prerogative of a great masterpiece to be the perpetual
inspiration of noble minds.
THE MASTERSINGERS OF NUREMBURG.