Richard Wagner and His Poetical Work, from "Rienzi" to "Parsifal"

by Judith Gautier

We pass to the dining-room. The master is now rapturously gay; he expresses himself with some difficulty in French, which does not, however, prevent his playing upon the words as no one else can. He tells us of his journey to Naples and Venice, of the pleasure he has derived from Italy, and we quickly divine in him a longing for the sun and new horizons; he is thinking of Greece, the Bosporus, India. Oh Wahnfried, Wahnfried! One thing evidently wearies him greatly; it is the instrumentation of Parsifal. He complains of not being able to form young artists capable of aiding him in his work; but this is simply make-believe, he well knows that it is impossible. "When one is young," he said, "when the nerves are not yet fatigued, and one writes scores with a certain ease, even that of Lohengrin, without knowing all the resources of coloring and combination, the work is not comparable to that which the new works demand, and which must be written at a maturer age. Auber, however, wrote until his eighty-fourth year without fatigue; but he had not changed his manner." Liszt relates a speech of Auber's, to whom a young musician of great promise had been presented. "Are we not enough already?" cried the master. He afterwards spoke of a counterbass with five chords, the object of which is to descend still further in the lower notes than the ordinary counterbass does. Wagner said of a gentleman who came to submit a similar process to him, that he sent him about his business. Mendelssohn, however, has already tried something of the kind and produced a fine effect.

We were reproached for not having come a month sooner, when the house was full of singers, to whom the parts of Parsifal were assigned, and who began their first studies. To console us, Wagner promised to let us hear certain passages. But he pretends to play badly, so that it will not be the same thing. There is a project to go to-morrow to the theatre to see the models of the scenes, provided the machinist who is expected has arrived to show them:

30th September.

We are early to-day at Wahnfried. The gate is never shut except by a bolt, and we can take a solitary walk in the garden without disturbing any one. Long trellises of virgin vines, already bloodstained by the precocious autumn, creep the length of each side of the way leading to the house; it is almost dark under their shelter; in places, however, the green roof becomes lighter, and the dead leaves rustle under our feet. The space intervening between these trellises and the centre walk is reserved for the kitchen garden; but the soil does not appear to be fertile. We come out at the conservatory, where there is already a fire; all the delicate flowers have been brought in-doors. A few exotic plants destined to ornament the drawing-room, but which are withering, are there as in an infirmary. In front of the hot-house, on the other side of the house, cries and a flapping of wings indicate the hen-house; it is large and gay, and might be taken for a sample from the garden of acclimation in Paris. Peacocks, silver pheasants, rare hens, and a scattering of pigeons fill it, defying the cook's knife, for the place is as sacred to them as if they were taking their sports within the enclosure of a Brahmin temple.

In front of the drawing-room, and surrounding the fountain, is the pleasure-garden; with fine lawns, beds of Bengal roses, and flowers of all kinds, but many of them are already frostbitten. This free space is enclosed by a bushy wood forming a sort of wall. One must penetrate its shadows to approach the tomb, which has been already so much talked of, and which by a sufficiently exuberant fancy the master caused to be built at the same time with his house. It is completely enveloped by the thick coppice, and is without egress; it is only when autumn strips the trees that a large, gray marble slab can be seen through the confusion of branches, over which the briars twine themselves. A graceful pavilion of two stories, a gymnasium for the children, hemicycles of grass, with stone benches, are scattered in this wood, which leads to a little gate, looking out upon the royal residence. The stroke of the clock recalls us to the house. The master has finished his morning task, and shows us his well-filled page lying upon the table. His life is one of the greatest regularity, above all when, as at this time, he is pursuing a hurried and fatiguing work. He rises at six, but after his bath retires again and reads until ten. At eleven he sets himself to work until two o'clock. After dinner he rests for a short time, always in company with a book. From four until six he drives, then goes back to his work until supper, at eight; the evening is passed gayly with his family, and before eleven all the household is in bed.

At table Liszt announces that Darwin declares himself a partisan of vivisection, but that this frightful practice has just been interdicted in England. It is well known that Richard Wagner is one of the warmest defenders of those innocent victims of the physiologist's cruel curiosity. Some time ago he wrote a long article full of sadness and anger, in which he repeats the words of Faust, "The dogs themselves will no longer wish to live in such a world." "Our campaign has already had good results in Germany," he said; "the joiners who manufacture the instruments of torture destined for the unfortunate dogs complain of the diminution of their sales." He asks us if this humane cause has defenders in France; to which we reply that there are very ardent ones; in the first instance, all honest people: and then we cite among the journalists Victor Meunier, who, in the Rappel, rises vehemently against these cruelties, and very justly compares the actual position of animals to that of the former slaves, over whom their masters were supposed to have every right.

A visit to the theatre is again spoken of; the machinist whom we expected, evidently cannot come; but we shall go to see the models and scenery in M. Ioukouski's studio. "My theatre will, I think," said the master, "become a sort of conservatory where singers will be found, and where the method in which my works will be executed and put upon the stage will serve as a model to directors and managers who will mount them elsewhere." The Paris Conservatory still holds to the tradition of the movements of Gluck's Iphigenia.... "You have there," he added, "an orchestra of the first order—Beethoven's Symphonies were played to perfection." Liszt tells of a very singular appreciation on Boieldieu's part of the Beethoven Symphonies, at the time of their first hearing in Paris. "It certainly produces an effect," he said, "but it bears a resemblance to people chewing tobacco and swearing in a guard-house."

We start upon a visit to M. Paul Ioukouski's studio. This young 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.