The Complete Opera Book Part 28

CHARACTERS

AMFORTAS, son of t.i.tUREL, ruler of the Kingdom of the Grail _Baritone-Ba.s.s_ t.i.tUREL, former ruler _Ba.s.s_ GURNEMANZ, a veteran Knight of the Grail _Ba.s.s_ KLINGSOR, a magician _Ba.s.s_ PARSIFAL _Tenor_ KUNDRY _Soprano_ FIRST AND SECOND KNIGHTS _Tenor and Ba.s.s_ FOUR ESQUIRES _Sopranos and Tenors_ SIX OF KLINGSOR'S FLOWER MAIDENS _Sopranos_

Brotherhood of the Knights of the Grail; Youths and Boys; Flower Maidens (two choruses of sopranos and altos).

_Time_--The Middle Ages.

_Place_--Spain, near and in the Castle of the Holy Grail; in Klingsor's enchanted castle and in the garden of his castle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photographs of the First Performance of "Parsifal,"

Bayreuth, 1882

The Grail-Bearer]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photographs of the First Performance of "Parsifal,"

Bayreuth, 1882

Winckelmann and Materna as Parsifal and Kundry

Scaria as Gurnemanz]

"Parsifal" is a familiar name to those who have heard "Lohengrin."

Lohengrin, it will be remembered, tells Elsa that he is Parsifal's son and one of the knights of the Holy Grail. The name is written Percival in "Lohengrin," as well as in Tennyson's "Idyls of the King." Now, however, Wagner returns to the quainter and more "Teutonic" form of spelling. "Parsifal" deals with an earlier period in the history of the Grail knighthood than "Lohengrin." But there is a resemblance between the Grail music in "Parsifal" and the "Lohengrin" music--a resemblance not in melody, nor even in outline, but merely in the purity and spirituality that breathes through both.

Three legends supplied Wagner with the princ.i.p.al characters in this music-drama. They were "Percival le Galois; or Contes de Grail," by Chretien de Troyes (1190); "Parsifal," by Wolfram von Eschenbach, and a ma.n.u.script of the fourteenth century called by scholars the "Mabinogion." As usual, Wagner has not held himself strictly to any one of these, but has combined them all, and revivified them through the alchemy of his own genius.

Into the keeping of _t.i.turel_ and his band of Christian knights has been given the Holy Grail, the vessel from which the Saviour drank when He inst.i.tuted the Last Supper. Into their hands, too, has been placed, as a weapon of defence against the unG.o.dly, the Sacred Spear, the arm with which the Roman soldier wounded the Saviour's side. The better to guard these sanctified relics _t.i.turel_, as King of the Grail knighthood, has reared a castle, Montsalvat, which, from its forest-clad height, facing Arabian Spain, forms a bulwark of Christendom against the pagan world and especially against _Klingsor_, a sorcerer and an enemy of the good. Yet time and again this _Klingsor_, whose stronghold is nearby, has succeeded in enticing champions of the Grail into his magic garden, with its lure of flower-maidens and its arch-enchantress _Kundry_, a rarely beautiful woman, and in making them his servitors against their one-time brothers-in-arms.

Even _Amfortas_, _t.i.turel's_ son, to whom _t.i.turel_, grown old in service and honour, has confided his reign and wardship, has not escaped the thrall of _Klingsor's_ sorcery. Eager to begin his reign by destroying _Klingsor's_ power at one stroke, he penetrated into the garden to attack and slay him. But he failed to reckon with human frailty. Yielding to the snare so skilfully laid by the sorcerer and forgetting, at the feet of the enchantress, _Kundry_, the mission upon which he had sallied forth, he allowed the Sacred Spear to drop from his hand. It was seized by the evil-doer he had come to destroy, and he himself was grievously wounded with it before the knights who rushed to his rescue could bear him off.

This wound no skill has sufficed to heal. It is sapping _Amfortas's_ strength. Indecision, gloom, have come over the once valiant brotherhood. Only the touch of the Sacred Spear that made the wound will avail to close it, but there is only one who can regain it from _Klingsor_. For to _Amfortas_, prostrate in supplication for a sign, a mystic voice from the sanctuary of the Grail replied:

By pity guided, The guileless fool; Wait for him, My chosen tool.

This prophecy the knights construe to signify that their king's salvation can be wrought only by youth so "guileless," so wholly ignorant of sin, that, instead of succ.u.mbing to the temptations of _Klingsor's_ magic garden, he will become, through resisting them, cognizant of _Amfortas's_ guilt, and, stirred by pity for him, make his redemption the mission of his life, regain the Spear and heal him with it. And so the Grail warders are waiting, waiting for the coming of the "guileless fool."

The working out of this prophecy forms the absorbing subject of the story of "Parsifal." The plot is allegorical. _Parsifal_ is the personification of Christianity, _Klingsor_ of Paganism, and the triumph of _Parsifal_ over _Klingsor_ is the triumph of Christianity over Paganism.

The character of _Kundry_ is one of Wagner's most striking creations.

She is a sort of female Ahasuerus--a wandering Jewess. In the Mabinogion ma.n.u.script she is no other than Herodias, condemned to wander for ever because she laughed at the head of John the Baptist.

Here Wagner makes another change. According to him she is condemned for laughing in the face of the Saviour as he was bearing the cross.

She seeks forgiveness by serving the Grail knights as messenger on her swift horse, but ever and anon she is driven by the curse hanging over her back to _Klingsor_, who changes her to a beautiful woman and places her in his garden to lure the Knights of the Grail. She can be freed only by one who resists her temptations. Finally she is freed by _Parsifal_ and is baptized. In her character of Grail messenger she has much in common with the wild messengers of Walhalla, the Valkyrs.

Indeed, in the Edda Saga, her name appears in the first part of the compound Gundryggja, which denotes the office of the Valkyrs.

THE VORSPIEL

The _Vorspiel_ to "Parsifal" is based on three of the most deeply religious motives in the entire work. It opens with the =Motive of the Sacrament=, over which, when it is repeated, _arpeggios_ hover, as in the religious paintings of old masters angel forms float above the figure of virgin or saint.

[Music]

Through this motive we gain insight into the office of the Knights of the Grail, who from time to time strengthen themselves for their spiritual duties by partaking of the communion, on which occasions the Grail itself is uncovered. This motive leads to the =Grail Motive=, effectively swelling to forte and then dying away in ethereal harmonies, like the soft light with which the Grail illumines the hall in which the knights gather to worship.

[Music]

The trumpets then announce the =Motive of Faith=, severe but st.u.r.dy--portraying superbly the immutability of faith.

[Music]

The Grail Motive is heard again and then the Motive of Faith is repeated, its severity exquisitely softened, so that it conveys a sense of peace which "pa.s.seth all understanding."

[Music]

The rest of the _Vorspiel_ is agitated. That portion of the Motive of the Sacrament which appears later as the Spear Motive here a.s.sumes through a slight change a deeply sad character, and becomes typical throughout the work of the sorrow wrought by _Amfortas's_ crime. I call it the =Elegiac Motive=.

[Music]

Thus the _Vorspiel_ depicts both the religious duties which play so prominent a part in the drama, and unhappiness which _Amfortas's_ sinful forgetfulness of these duties has brought upon himself and his knights.

Act I. One of the st.u.r.diest of the knights, the aged _Gurnemanz_, grey of head and beard, watches near the outskirts of the forest. One dawn finds him seated under a majestic tree. Two young _Esquires_ lie in slumber at his feet. Far off, from the direction of the castle, sounds a solemn reveille.

"Hey! Ho!" _Gurnemanz_ calls with brusque humour to the _Esquires_.

"Not forest, but sleep warders I deem you!" The youths leap to their feet; then, hearing the solemn reveille, kneel in prayer. The Motive of Peace echoes their devotional thoughts. A wondrous peace seems to rest upon the scene. But the transgression of the _King_ ever breaks the tranquil spell. For soon two _Knights_ come in the van of the train that thus early bears the _King_ from a bed of suffering to the forest lake nearby, in whose waters he would bathe his wound. They pause to parley with _Gurnemanz_, but are interrupted by outcries from the youths and sounds of rushing through air.

"Mark the wild horsewoman!"--"The mane of the devil's mare flies madly!"--"Aye, 'tis Kundry!"--"She has swung herself off," cry the _Esquires_ as they watch the approach of the strange creature that now rushes in--a woman clad in coa.r.s.e, wild garb girdled high with a snake-skin, her thick black hair tumbling about her shoulders, her features swarthy, her dark eyes now flashing, now fixed and gla.s.sy.

Precipitately she thrusts a small crystal flask into _Gurnemanz's_ hand.

"Balsam--for the king!" There is a savagery in her manner that seems designed to ward off thanks, when _Gurnemanz_ asks her whence she has brought the flask, and she replies: "From farther away than your thought can travel. If it fail, Arabia bears naught else that can ease his pain. Ask no further. I am weary."

Throwing herself upon the ground and resting her face on her hands, she watches the _King_ borne in, replies to his thanks for the balsam with a wild, mocking laugh, and follows him with her eyes as they bear him on his litter toward the lake, while _Gurnemanz_ and four _Esquires_ remain behind.

_Kundry's_ rapid approach on her wild horse is accompanied by a furious gallop in the orchestra.

[Music]

Then, as she rushes upon the stage, the =Kundry Motive=--a headlong descent of the string instruments through four octaves--is heard.

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_Kundry's_ action in seeking balsam for the _King's_ wound gives us insight into the two contradictory natures represented by her character. For here is the woman who has brought all his suffering upon _Amfortas_ striving to ease it when she is free from the evil sway of _Klingsor_. She is at times the faithful messenger of the Grail; at times the evil genius of its defenders.

When _Amfortas_ is borne in upon a litter there is heard the =Motive of Amfortas's Suffering=, expressive of his physical and mental agony. It has a peculiar heavy, dragging rhythm, as if his wound slowly were sapping his life.

[Music]

A beautiful idyl is played by the orchestra when the knights bear _Amfortas_ to the forest lake.

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One of the youths, who has remained with _Gurnemanz_, noting that _Kundry_ still lies where she had flung herself upon the ground, calls out scornfully, "Why do you lie there like a savage beast?"