The people were divided into two camps,—those for Wagner, and those against him. So strong was the feeling, that during the 1880’s, in Germany, signs in cafés read: “It is forbidden to discuss religion or Wagner”! The proprietors wished to save their chairs and china which the fists of their patrons would destroy.
Parsifal
During this time he was at work on Parsifal, a drama in music as serious as oratorio yet with the most thrilling stage effects and richness of music. Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, The Ring and Die Meistersinger are to every other opera what a plum pudding is, compared to a graham cracker. In fact, all Wagner’s late music dramas are like plum puddings, so rich and compact are they.
Parsifal was produced in 1882 in Bayreuth and was not given again for six years. Later it was the occasion for yearly pilgrimages to Bayreuth, as if to a shrine. It is so long that it takes the better part of an afternoon and evening to perform it, yet you sit enraptured before its gripping spell of beauty and holiness.
In 1903 the musical world was startled by the first performance in America of Parsifal, as Wagner, in his will, had forbidden a stage performance outside of Bayreuth. It was covered by copyright until 1913, which was supposed to have protected it from performance. Heinrich Conried, director of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City, in his eagerness for novelties, disregarded the master’s wish, and mounted an elaborate production under the direction of Alfred Hertz. This so offended the Wagner family that they refused to allow anyone who had taken part in that performance to appear in Bayreuth.
Bayreuth became a Mecca, to which pilgrims went every other year, to attend the festivals. After the World War, Wagner’s family turned to America for help to continue these festivals, interrupted by the war, as the Wizard himself had done, when building his theatre. In 1924 his son, Siegfried, visited America, conducted some symphony concerts and secured funds to carry on the festivals.
Parsifal is a combination of three legends—of which one is the Parsifal of our old friend the Minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach (1204). (Chapter VIII.)
It is the story of the Redemption of Mankind, told in symbols with great beauty of poetry, music and scenery. It is certain to fill you with religious fervor, for it reaches the depths of your soul and raises you above the things of the earth. Amfortas, the guardian of the Holy Grail, whose wound represents the suffering of mankind, hears the mystic voice of his father, Titurel, who tells him that not until a sinless one comes with pity in his heart will the wound be healed. Parsifal, “the guileless fool,” is his redeemer.
The year following the first production of Parsifal Wagner’s health began to fail and he went to Venice where he died suddenly in 1883. He was buried with fitting honors at Bayreuth which always honors the memory of the Great Master of German Opera.
Here is a picture of Wagner in the words of his brother-in-law: “the double aspect of this powerful personality was shown in his face; the upper part beautiful with a vast ideality, and lighted with eyes which were deep and severe, gentle or malicious, according to the circumstances; the lower part wry and sarcastic. A mouth cold and calculating and pursed up, was cut slantingly into a face beneath an imperious nose, and above a chin which projected like the menace of a conquering will.”