The third act is but a faint replica of the first—without its vigor or novelty. Here the librettist is in sore straits. So he drags in Magdalen washing the feet of Parsifal which is offensively puerile. We again see the scenery acting, pantomimic scenery, and once more we are transported to the Hall of the Holy Grail, where the music of Allegri, Palestrina, and Vittoria is marvellously mimicked. Wagner, not being a strikingly original theme-maker, always borrowed,—borrowed even from Berlioz,—and the results of his borrowings are often greater than the originals. In a beatific blaze of glory—after Parsifal has healed the King—this sacred melodrama ends, and the spectator, drugged by the music, confused by the bells chanting the tortuous story, and his eyes intoxicated by feasts of color, staggers away believing that he has witnessed a great work of art. So he has,—the art of debauch in color, tone, and gesture. “The highest perfection of an art,” says Ehlert, “is not always and necessarily the greatest massing together of forces. It depends upon entirely different conditions. The flower of an art arises only when a positively artistic individuality creates that particular work for which it possesses the most marked and exclusive vocation.” Now Wagner heaps up one art, one idea, upon another. He little cared for the dramatic proprieties or the feelings of his audience when he composed Kundry, a ridiculous hag, an Astarte, a Herodias, a Meg Merrilies, and a Mary Magdalen in one. She is Azucena when she reveals to Parsifal his parentage—perhaps Wagner had heard of Il Trovatore!—and she plays Potiphar’s wife to this effeminate lad. She is of the opera operatic. And Klingsor—is he a creation, this hater of men and women?—why, he is nothing else but any giant or any enchanter in any fairy tale. Parsifal, when he is not a simulacrum of Christ in white baptismal robes, is a peculiarly foolish bore. Without Siegfried’s buoyancy, Wagner tried hard to dower him with Siegfried’s youth. But he is only an emasculate Siegfried. The corpse of Titurel is a horrible idea—yet it fits in this bogie-man’s play. Wagner, after all, was the creature of his century, an incurable Romantic, with all the love of the Romantics for knights, mediæval mysteries, maidens in distress,—in this case a callow boy,—magicians, and dead men who tell tales. The scenery, too, never comes up to one’s realization, and as usual Wagner oversteps the mark by surrounding his hero with too many women. The duo with Kundry is much more effective. The eye and the ear can grasp the situation—a stirringly dramatic one, despite the morbid imagination of the poet who could in his search for voluptuous depravity mingle a mother’s with a courtesan’s kiss. Here Paris itself is surpassed in the piquant and decadent. Wagner’s admiration for Baudelaire’s poetry shows itself in this incident. By the magic of his mother’s name, Kundry evokes a maudlin filial passion, and with his mother’s name on her lips she kisses the youth into the first consciousness of his virility—or a semblance of it, for at no time is Parsifal a normal young man. His act of renunciation, in his particular case, denies life.
Again I ask, What is the lure that gathers multitudes to witness this most nonsensical, immoral of operas? The answer is, The Music, always The Music. Not Wagner at the flood-tide of his musical passion, nor the composer of Tristan and Isolde, or the Ring or Die Meistersinger; yet an aged wizard who had retained his old arts of enchantment, and so great are they that at times he not only makes one forget his book, but even the poverty of his themes—Parsifal is not musically original; rather it is an extraordinary synthesis of styles, an unique specimen of the arts of combination, adaptation, and lofty architectonics. Let us glance at the score.
Never has Wagner been so bald in his exposition as in the prelude. But its simplicity is deceptive. The Love theme,—in A flat, by von Wolzogen named the Love Feast motive,—the Grail Hope theme, the Dresden Amen, and the Faith theme,—these and a subsidiary theme, the Saviour’s Lament, about comprise this overture. And the figure of the Saviour’s agony contains a few of the most poignant bars Wagner ever penned. This short episode is infinitely more sincere than the Faith motive—“What expression would a man like Wagner find for such an experience?” asks Ehlert. The Speech of Promise, i.e. the prediction “Durch Mitleid wissend,” is charmingly prophetic, but the first section of Act I drags both dramatically and musically. I am never disappointed in the Kundry music, for I have long known it in Liszt’s B minor sonata, and before Liszt it may be found in the opening bars of Chopin’s B minor sonata. There is much Liszt in this score. The trick of the twice repeated modulation into the upper diminished third, as in the case of the Faith theme, is an old Lisztian device. Kundry’s chief motive is to be found in the B minor sonata. It is not very characteristic, nor is the evocation of Arabia. Kundry enters on Valkyrie pinions, and the best thing she does is her shuddering screech—that same cry of distress so cleverly utilized by Massenet in Le Cid. Wagner draws heavily upon the second act of Die Walküre. Indeed Parsifal is full of Wagner quotations: Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger—there is much in Gurnemanz’s bars—and even Götterdämmerung—the Rhine daughters’ music is heard in the garden scene. Amfortas’s suffering motive is not very convincing, nor are we impressed by the Forest Murmur with its canonic appoggiaturas. Ever this essential turn! As in the Good Friday magic spell—written years before the opera—the composer echoes Siegfried and Die Meistersinger,—the first fine, careless rapture of his wood-music he never recaptured. And this is quite natural. An old man, Wagner had reached the end of his ammunition. Many blank cartridges are fired in Parsifal. The Sorcery motive with its Chopin-like chromaticism has meaning; but I confess I do not care for Parsifal’s motive, beautifully as it is developed. It lacks the bold, lusty, clean-cut vigor of his young Siegfried’s horn call. Wagner musically was always true to himself. He unconsciously divined the effeminacy of Parsifal’s nature, and his music is a truer psychological barometer than all the learned pundits who write reams about the purity of Parsifal. Kundry’s Service theme—in “helpful” thirds—is by no means so exquisitely musical as the Mitleid motive in Die Walküre. And what could be more absurd than the use of the Saviour’s Lament motive as the dead swan is reverently carried away. The Herzeleide motive is lovely music, especially when it is thrown into high relief during the next act by Kundry’s blandishments. The fleeting appearance of the Lohengrin Swan motive is a very happy idea.
We have now reached the last part of the first act with its Glockenthema, its laments of Amfortas,—the accents of woe are genuine,—and the magnificent tonal panorama of boys’ voices, bells, choral music. Here, not without reverence, the composer has successfully emulated the service of Rome. The tripartite choral divisions recall both Goethe’s Faust and the spherical order of voices, and the antiphonal choirs of mediæval cathedrals. The effect is indescribable, especially when the pure, sexless boys’ voices are heard a capella. The consummation of this mystical ecstasy is reached when the Grail vase is slowly waved aloft. One realizes that Wagner’s genius, which so often gravitates pendulum-wise between the sublime and the ridiculous, here approaches the former.
Act II, in which the ruling key seems to be B minor,—as A flat predominates the preceding act,—naturally introduces fewer new motives. The Klingsor theme, first heard in Gurnemanz’s slightly tedious recital, and the Kundry theme are most in evidence in the stormy prelude. To be quite frank I always find the Flower Girls’ music a disappointment. The Caress valse theme is a trifle commonplace, and only Wagner’s polyphonic skill lends the music some dignity. The evocation of Kundry by Klingsor in the opening scene is full of demoniacal grandeur. Wagner is nothing if not operatic, and here he shows that his old Weber skin has not been completely shed. Kundry’s galloping motive, also employed for Parsifal, is the familiar Valkyrie figure modified. I heard the Erl-King storm through several bars, and the triplet figuration of the Flower Girls is from a trio in one of Schumann’s symphonies—the B flat, if I remember aright.
The crowning scene of this act—one is tempted to say of the entire work, for Wagner spreads his music thin over a wide surface—is the duo of Parsifal and Kundry. Herein the entire gamut of passion, maternal, exquisite, voluptuous, is traversed by a master hand. And never has Wagner’s touch been so sure. Intellectually nothing could be more complete than this delineation, morbid and morose as it occasionally is. In a dramatic sense it saves the opera. We hear the Parsifal, the Herzeleide motives—and a supplementary Herzeleide theme. The outburst of Parsifal after the kiss with its memories of Amfortas’s suffering is wonderful. The Saviour’s theme, Kundry’s Yearning theme and Self-Abandonment motive, are all made up of familiar material. Here the spinning of the web into something strange and touching is the principal virtue, not the themes themselves. Klingsor’s sudden appearance and the hurled lance which is carried out in the score by harps glissando through two octaves, the mourning cries of the pretty girls, and Parsifal’s final words—all these kaleidoscopic effects impress one considerably; action is paramount. Parsifal’s music in Es startt der Blick dumpff auf das Heil’sgefäss may arouse the indignation of the purist with its direct succession of the G flat major and D minor triads (page 187 of the vocal score); but to modern ears his scheme of harmonization is as normal as the book is abnormal. In a Wagner opera, or, if you will, a music-drama, everything must be accepted, dissonantal harmonies as well. This composer follows every curve of his poem, and when a situation demands jarring ugliness, he freely offers it. Who to-day shall say what is or what is not ugly music?
The music of the last act presents little novel thematic material. In the gloomy prelude we find epitomized the wandering of Parsifal in search of the Grail domain, in conjunction with the funeral music of Titurel. Again the static and contemplative forms a contrast to the rapid action of the preceding scene. The very pauses seem pregnant with music. And I must halt here a moment to lay my tribute of admiration at the feet of Milka Ternina, whose Kundry is a dramatic and musical creation of rare imagination and technical skill. She presents three different women—we are perplexed to say whether Kundry defiant, or Kundry seductive, or Kundry repentant is the most wonderful. But Ternina is always wonderful! It is in this scene, with its sun-smitten meadows, its worshipping knight and mournful penitent, that I agree with those commentators who perceive the profound influence exerted upon Wagner by early German and Flemish religious pictorial art. Parsifal’s attitudes here would suit a Gothic triptych—as M. Charles Tardieu so happily expresses it. There is little movement, all gesture has been transferred to the orchestra, and the spectator seems to be participating in one of those miracle plays or viewing the stiff pictures of a Cimabue or a woodcut after Dürer. The moving forest and the final scene lose because of repetition. But what was the poet to do? Only in Act II does he escape the lack of variety. For instance, in Act I Parsifal stands for a long time immobile, with his back to the audience, while Kundry, in the last act, utters but two words. She is a pantomimic lay figure kept on the stage to emphasize the resemblance between Jesus and Parsifal. And the feet washing episode is absolutely unnecessary. It does not help the story. Nowhere but in Wagner would all this mish-mash of gospel narrative, mediæval romance, and Teutonic philosophy be tolerated. Yet the Wagnerites sit through it all as if listening to a new evangel of art, philosophy, and religion. Perhaps they are. In America, where new religions sprout daily as do potatoes in a dark cellar, slighter causes have led to the foundation of a religion—witness the rise and growth of Mormonism. If religion could ever become moribund, perhaps in Wagner’s Parsifal would be found the crystallization of many old faiths, presented in a concrete, though Wagnerized, form. “I know of but one thing more beautiful than Parsifal,” wrote Alfred Ernest, and approvingly quoted by M. Kufferath, “and that is any low mass in any church.” And in this sentence the French author puts his finger on the weak spot of Parsifal—its lack of absolute sincerity. No matter how great an art work it may be, it yet lacks the truthful note that is to be found at any low mass in a Roman Catholic church—about the most unadorned service I can remember. With all its grandeur, its pathos, its conjuring of churchly and philosophical motives, its ravishing pictures and marmoreal attitudes, Parsifal falls short of the one thing—faith, a faith you may find in any roadside Bavarian cabin. We have seen that it is weakest musically in the Faith motive of the prelude, and ethically it suffers from the same sterility. All the scholarly efforts to make the work an ethical, philosophical, and an artistic message are futile. Parsifal, even if it will “enjoy a small immortality,” must remain an opera, a cunning spectacle devised by a man of genius in the twilight of his powers. It is Wagner’s own Götterdämmerung, the sunset music of his singular career.
But if this Parsifal music lacks the virile glow and imaginative power of his earlier music, it is none the less fascinating. Over all hovers, like the dove in the temple, a rich mellowness, a soothing quality that is the reverse of his stormy, disquieting, youthful art. It really seems as if Pity, pity for the tragedy of existence, for the misery of all animated beings, had filled parts of the score with a soothing balm. The muted pauses, the golden stream of tone, and the almost miraculous musicianship fill the listener with awe. Never before has Wagner’s technical mastery come to such a triumphant blossoming. And the partition is covered with miniatures that excite admiration both for their workmanship and their musical meanings. It was Nietzsche who first called critical attention to the Lilliputian delicacy of Wagner’s music. A fresco painter, he yet finds time to execute the most minute and tender jewel-like bits, that are lost sight and sound of at the first hearing. Never has Wagner’s instrumentation been so smoothly sonorous, so well mixed, so synthetic. It recalls richly embroidered altar cloths or Gobelin tapestry. Weaving similes force themselves upon the hearer when describing this marvellous and modern polyphonic art. But how tell of the surge and undertow of his melting, symphonious narrative! It flashes with all the tints of a Veronese, of a Makart, and then appear in processional solemnity the great flat spaces and still figures of some mediæval, low-toned, distemper painter. Painting and weaving—always these two arts! But there is not the same passionate excess in decoration, the same tropical splendor, that we find in the earlier Wagner. Venus wooes Tannhäuser in more heated accents than does Kundry Parsifal. And Kundry is the depraved woman of all art, for Kundry’s quiver of temptations is more subtle, more decadent.
The correspondence of King Ludwig and Wagner, of Ludwig and Josef Kainz, the actor, throws much light on the enigmatic character of Parsifal. Wagner needed money and encouragement, badly. So it is not difficult to conceive of him playing up to every romantic extravagance of the young king—“le seul vrai roi de ce siècle,” as Paul Verlaine poetically called the monarch, whose madness admirably matched his own. Read in this sense, the psychology of Kundry’s kiss and its repelling effect and its arousing of pity for Amfortas in Parsifal is no longer a mystery. Wagner never erred in his morbid musical psychology, and he thus symbolized Amfortas—Wagner—as being rescued from suffering by Parsifal—Ludwig. Wagner had been ever an ungrateful man, but for the King he entertained the most exalted sentiment of gratitude. There is a psychiatric literature on this esoteric subject in German and French beginning with Oskar Panizza, ending with the remarkable study of Hanns Fuchs, entitled Richard Wagner.
Parsifal will long remain a rare and stimulating spectacle to those for whom religious feeling must be dramatized to be endurable. The stern simplicities of doctrinal truths have no attraction for such. Wagner, luxuriously Byzantine in his faiths, erected a lordly pleasure drama in which the mystically inclined, the admirer of theatrical pomps, and the esoteric worshipper could all find solace, amusement, and consolation. Yet Parsifal’s pale virtue can never stir us to higher issues, as do the heroic sacrifices of Tannhäuser or Senta. Parsifal is the predestinated one, predestined to save the life of the King. Lacking freedom of will, he is not a human being that provokes our sympathy—but why demand logic, even dramatic logic, of Wagner? He was first a musician, then a poet and a philosopher; and in the last of these three was least. Parsifal is his final offering to the world. It is the work of a man who had outlived his genius. Nietzsche quotes with approval the exclamation of a musician: “I hate Wagner, but I no longer stand any other music.” We are all Wagnerians whether we rebel at Parsifal or not.