In Alcestis, listen to the lugubrious effect of the voice of the oracle, saying on a sustained note: “The king to-day must die, if in his stead none other offers up his life.”[172] It is full of a sombre beauty, and the terrible persistency of the rhythm is very expressive of the antique fatalism.
Must it be added that Gluck has proved by his own example the inevitable absurdity of a melodic phrase in the mouth of a divinity who is made to intervene in human events?
Diana appears in order to save Iphigenia and her brother; the goddess sings her aria, and we see with pain one of the most admirable chefs-d’œuvre of dramatic music finish as miserably as the utterly forgotten Iphigenia of Piccini.
Again, Mozart wishes to evoke the shade of the Commander; the statue becomes animated and speaks:
“Before the dawning thou wilt cease to smile.”[173]
This phrase, by its harmonies and rhythm, reminds us of the voice of the oracle:
“Le roi doit mourir aujourd’hui.”
Here an objection will probably be made that the statue lays aside this uniform tone, and that Mozart ventures to entrust it with a more melodic phrase. The answer is simple: the form created by Gluck is necessary when the supernatural being preserves its mysterious character, and issues not from the cloud that conceals it from our eyes. But if the statue descends from its pedestal and again becomes the Commander, if the oracle or the god takes a body, if you allow him human feelings, there can be no reason against his expressing them. It is no longer the hidden divinity who dictates an inevitable decree, but one who, having taken the form of a man, speaks in man’s language.
In the same way Wagner, when making gods and genii the personages of his dramas, gives them the accents of the human voice. Mingling among men, they too may well love and suffer, weep and sing.
After Gluck and Mozart,[174] Schubert also makes Death speak; he also accepts as necessary the form given by Gluck. To the young girl’s supplication Death answers by a phrase the rhythm and harmonies of which perhaps too much recall the voice of the oracle in Alcestis.