If I was surprised at his playing his singing amazed me. He had almost no voice, but he had all the rest—the wonderful thing, imagination, the response to beauty, power of representing a state of mind. I don’t explain well, I am out of my province, perhaps it’s better if I simply say he became Siegmund.
As he played he turned and looked at her. His whole face had changed, transformed by the shadow of tragedy. To him Lizzie was no longer Lizzie, she was the helmed and armored daughter of Wotan delivering his death summons. I can pay no higher tribute to him than to say I forgot him, the burlap walls, the thin tones of the piano and saw a vision of despairing demigods.
“Wer bist du, sag
Die so schön und ernst mir erscheint?”
Then Lizzie:—
“Nur Todgeweihten
Taugt mein Anblick:
Wer mich erschaut,
Der scheidet vom Lebenslicht.”
My vision was dispelled. No one could have kept it listening to her and watching her. As they went on what he created she destroyed; it was the most one-sided, maddening performance. I found myself eager to have her stop that I might hear him. Before they had reached the end I knew that Mr. Masters was an artist and she was not. That is all there was to it.