Mise-en-scène du Drame Wagnérien,” by Adolphe Appia, published by Léon
Chailley in Paris in 1893. The sale was afterwards (1895) continued
under the imprint of the well-known publisher, Fischbacher, 33 Rue de
Seine. There is no copy of this work in the New York Public Library,
nor in any other library that I have yet consulted. (The later German
work is comparatively well known among artists of the theatre.) The
only reference to it that I have discovered is in a footnote (Appia
seems destined to be exiled to footnotes) in a now little read work by
Houston Stewart Chamberlain, “Richard Wagner,” issued in 1897, four
years after Appia’s pamphlet had first appeared. Appia dedicated “Die
Musik und die Inscenierung” to Mr. Chamberlain in this fashion: “_à
Houston Stewart Chamberlain qui seul connaît la vie que j’enferme en
ces pages_.”
There is enough interior evidence, without any reference to
chronological evidence, to give one cause to presuppose a knowledge
on Gordon Craig’s part of these books, even the German version of
which appeared before Craig had developed many of his theories. The
chronology, for the most part, is damning, for even in the short
French book (there is a reference in this pamphlet to the fact that
it is a condensed version of a longer work which Appia feared might
never see publication) one may find not only the germs but also a
complete analysis of the principles of modern stagecraft. It was
Appia’s idea that the stage director should use every effort, _by means
of the decoration_ as well as by means of the actor, to bring out
the secret of the drama he was producing. Appia was the first to see
the inconsistency of placing the actor against scenery with painted
perspective. It was Appia who foresaw that lighting should be used for
a more important purpose than mere illumination; that it should serve
as the element which binds together the decoration and the figure of
the actor, a theory which, as Mr. Moderwell points out, was imagined
before a lighting system had been devised to make its practical
application possible. It was Appia who discovered that although Wagner
had invented a new form of drama, he had not the slightest notion of
how to produce it. He is very explicit here. He says, for example, that
the action of the ordinary opera is determined by convention, that of
the spoken drama by life. In other words, the prima donna of opera must
sing her airs in conformation with the beat of the conductor, and she
may stand as near the footlights as she pleases. No question of art
is raised; nor should there be. You cannot improve (beyond a certain
very easily discoverable point) _The Barber of Seville_ by superior
stage management. In a play the actor tries, as best he may, to imitate
life. Between his lines he may take what time he likes to add action to
best serve this purpose. In Wagner’s _Wort-Tondrama_ (the master’s own
expression) the music is used for a double new purpose. It illuminates
the soul of the drama, _le drame intérieur_, and it defines to a
nicety the _time_ of the action (“not the duration of time,” says
Appia, “but time itself”). In other words, the author-composer wished
the illusion of his music-dramas to be as complete as that of the
great tragedies of the spoken drama, but he has set a definite limit
to his characters’ actions by composing music which it takes a certain
time to perform. He takes all liberty away from the actor without
telling him precisely what to do. Thus Tristan and Isolde, after they
have drunk the love-potion, are given a number of moments, songless,
to express their emotion in gesture; just as Brünnhilde, awakened by
Siegfried, must continue to greet the sun until the harp stops playing.
Appia foresaw that this action must be controlled by one man, who must
regulate it to the last detail. He must arrange the scenery and the
lights and the action not only to correspond exactly to the demands
of the music and the words, but also to bring out to the utmost the
underlying meaning of the work.
For this purpose he has gone into detail with which it does not seem to
be necessary to encumber this brief account. In the German work this
detail is, of course, much fuller than in the shorter French version.
The German book, besides, is embellished with engravings which give one
a very good idea of the intentions of the artist-author. Appia, for
instance, is not content with making one drawing for the setting of the
third act of _Die Walküre_; he makes no less than _seven_. These show
the varying condition of the lights and position of the characters at
different stages in the action. Loomis Taylor has called Appia’s idea
for this setting “the most beautiful that one could conceive.” And yet
no one, so far as I know, has ever attempted to use it. The Appia case
is an extraordinary one. Here we have a man who has not only developed
a complete and invaluable theory for the production of a group of
dramas, but who has also gone to the pains to outline to the minutest
detail the manner in which his ideas may be carried out, and no one has
taken the trouble to follow these instructions in the way he intended.
Once his work was complete, Appia seemed content. He has now gone on
to something else. Before the war began he had identified himself with
the Dalcroze school at Hellerau and had gone far beyond practical
present-day stage-decoration methods, evolving still newer theories in
cubes. However, may we not consider, with the evidence, that Appia was
the innovator of the new movement in the theatre?--may we not assure
ourselves that without Appia there would have been no Gordon Craig,
perhaps no Stanislawsky? His ideas have most certainly been awarded
fruition in a thousand forms.
I cannot resist a quotation or two in pursuit of my comparison. “_Das
Rheingold_ presents three elements: water (the bottom of the Rhine),
air (the summit of a mountain separated from Walhalla by the Rhine),
and fire (the subterranean forges of the Nibelungs).” Compare this with
Gordon Craig’s now famous description of the decorations for _Macbeth_:
“I see two things. I see a lofty and steep rock, and I see the moist
cloud which envelops the head of this rock. That is to say, a place for
fierce and warlike men to inhabit, a place for phantoms to nest in.”
But examples in which Appia exacts of the decoration a promise to play
a leading rôle are too frequent to be quoted. One other selection will
show how this comparatively (to the public) unknown designer went to
work twenty-two years ago to evolve a new form of stagecraft:
“The last tableau of _Die Walküre_ represents a mountain-top, the
favorite meeting-ground of the Valkyries. It is purely decorative
up to the moment when the god (Wotan) surrounds it with a circle of
flames to protect the sleep of Brünnhilde, but from that instant it
acquires a deep significance. For this sleep is Wotan’s precaution
against the workings of his own desire; that is to say, the god,
having renounced his power to direct events, has made the _confidante_
of his desire impotent. This fact gives the value of a dramatic rôle
to the decoration, since the return of the scene in _Siegfried_ and
_Götterdämmerung_ not only constitutes for the eye a unity between the
three parts of the trilogy but also always leads the spectator to the
vital point in the drama (Wotan’s will, active or passive).”
Appia’s purpose, in every instance, was, working from the general
to the particular, to discover the author’s intention and then to
illuminate it. The stage director or decorator, in his opinion, was
only the clairvoyant slave in the service of the author’s text. The
leaders of the modern movement in the theatre are in complete accord
with him on this point as well as others.
_August 12, 1915._
FOOTNOTE:
[A] See end of article for list of works.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.