|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 35
After hearing the whole opera twice, with all the supposed advantages
of the stage, the main thing borne in upon me is that the stage and
actors and accessories, far from increasing the effect of the music,
actually weaken it excepting in the first act. In that act there is
not a word or a note to alter. The story compels one's interest, and
the music is rich, tender, and charged with a noble passion. Even the
killing of the duck--it is supposed to be a swan, but it is really a
duck--is saved from becoming ludicrous by the deep sincerity of the
music of Gurnemanz's expostulations. The music, too, with the
magnificent trombone and trumpet calls and deep clangour of cathedral
bells, prevents one thinking too much of the absurdity of the trees,
mountains, and lake walking off the stage to make the change to the
second scene. On reflection, this panorama seems wholly meaningless
and thoroughly vulgar; and even in the theatre one wonders vaguely
what it is all about--for Gurnemanz's explanation about time and space
being one is sheer metaphysical shoddy, a mere humbugging of an
essentially uncultured German audience; but one does not mind it, so
full is the accompaniment of mystical life and of colour, of a sense
of impending great things. The whole cathedral scene--I would even
include the caterwaulings of Amfortas--is sincere, impressive, and
filled with a reasonable degree of mysticism. There is no falling off
in the second act until after the enchanting waltz and Kundry's
wondrously tender recital of the woes suffered by Parsifal's mother
(here the melody compares in loveliness with the corresponding portion
of "Siegfried"); indeed, the passion and energy go on increasing until
Parsifal receives Kundry's kiss, and then at once they disappear.
Between this point and the end of the act there is scarcely a fine
passage. Every phrase is insincere, not because Wagner wished to be
insincere, but because he tried to express dramatically a state of
mind which is essentially undramatic. Parsifal is supposed to
transcend almost at one bound the will to live, to rise above all
animal needs and desires; and though no human being can transcend the
will to live, any more than he can jump away from his shadow--for the
phrase means, and can only mean, that the will to live transcends the
will to live--yet I am informed, and can well believe, that those who
imagine they have accomplished the feat reach a state of perfect
ecstasy. Wagner knew this; he knew also that ecstasy, as what can only
be called a static emotion, could not be expressed through the medium
that serves to express only flowing currents of emotion; he himself
had pointed out, that for the communication of ecstatic feeling, only
polyphonic, non-climatic, rhythmless music of the Palestrina kind
served; and yet, by one of the hugest mistakes ever made in art, he
sought to express precisely that emotion in Parsifal's declamatory
phrases. The thing cannot be done; it has not been done; all
Parsifal's bawling, even with the help of the words, avails nothing;
and the curtain drops at the end of the second act, leaving one
convinced that the drama has untimely ended, has got into a
cul-de-sac. And in a cul-de-sac it remains. There is much glorious
music in the last act; the "Good Friday music" is divine; the last
scene is gorgeously led up to; and the music of it, considered only as
music, is unsurpassable. But heard at the end of a drama so
gigantically planned as "Parsifal," it is unsatisfying and
disappointing. It is to me as if the "Ring" had closed on the music of
Neid-h�hle with the squabblings of Alberich and Mime. The powers that
make for evil and destruction have won; one knows that Parsifal is
eternally damned; he has listened and succumbed, even as Wagner
himself did, to the eastern sirens' song of the ease and delight of a
life of slothful renunciation, self-abnegation, and devotion to
"duty." The music of the last scene sings that song in tones of
infinite sweetness; but it cannot satisfy you; you turn from the
enchanted hall, with its holy cup and spear and dove, its mystic
voices in the heights, its heavy, depressing, incense-laden
atmosphere; and you hasten into the night, where the winds blow fresh
through the black trees, and the stars shine calmly in the deep sky,
just as though no "Parsifal" had been written.
"Parsifal" does not imply that Wagner in his old age went back on all
he had thought and felt before. Born in a time when the secret of
living had not been rediscovered, when folk still thought the victory,
and not the battle, the main thing in life, he always sought a creed
to put on as a coat-of-mail to protect him from the nasty knocks of
fate. Nowadays we do not care greatly for the victory, and we go out
to fight with a light heart, commencing where Wagner and all the
pessimists ended. Wagner wanted the victory, and also, lest he should
not gain it, he wanted something to save him from despair. That
something he found in pessimism. In his younger days--indeed until
near the last--he forgot all about it in his hours of inspiration, and
worked for no end, but for the sheer joy of working. But towards the
end of his life, when his inspiration came seldomer and with less
power, he worked more and more for the victory, and became wholly
pessimistic, throwing away his weapons, and hiding behind
self-renunciation as behind a shield. He won a victory more brilliant
than ever Napoleon or Wellington or Moltke won; and in the eyes of
all men he seemed a great general. But life had terrified him; he had
trembled before Wotan's--or Christ's--spear; in his heart of hearts he
knew himself a beaten man; and he wrote "Parsifal."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|