Speranza
Parsifal at Covent Garden
First Performance in England
The Setting of the Opera
The
Performance
"Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti" was first performed in England on 2 February 1914.
This
review appeared in The Times on the following day.
The author was H.C. Colles
(1879-1943), the newspaper's music critic from 1911.
First
Performance in England
Amfortas---- Herr Paul Bender
TiturelMr Murray
Davey
GurnemanzHerr Paul Knüpfer
Parsifal--- Herr Heinrich
Hensel
KlingsorHerr August Kiess
KundryFrau Eva von der Osten
A
VoiceFrau Bender-Schafer
ConductorHerr Artur
Bodansky
Left: A contemporary illustration of performers in
the 1914 production of 'Parsifal' at Covent Garden (March 28, 1914 issue of the
Illustrated London News magazine).
Paul Knüpfer as Gurnemanz,
recorded in 1914. Ogg format, mono, duration 6 min.
Queen
Alexandra occupied the Royal box at the first performance in England of Wagner's
Parsifal, which took place at Covent Garden last night before a very
distinguished audience.
The huge audience which filled every seat in the Royal Opera
House from the stalls to the gallery was drawn there no doubt by every
conceivable motive and interest, from a devotion bordering upon a religious
enthusiasm to mere curiosity and the desire to share in an historic event.
Yet
for practical purposes it could be divided into two definite classes, those who
knew or thought they knew what Parsifal is and those who had come to make the
discovery.
Both classes no doubt had one question uppermost in their mind: the
question how far what they were to see and hear would be the Parsifal which
until this year has remained secluded at Bayreuth.
The question, though
inevitable, is destructive to the spirit which Wagner fought so hard to gain
from his audience.
He wanted what every artist wants and rarely gets, an
attitude of concentrated sympathy freed from all exterior distractions.
He
wanted an audience without poses either of piety or cleverness to whom he could
speak direct.
The conditions of modern artistic production make the ideal
unattainable, and while those who know Parsifal have by now answered the
question each in his own way, it must be our business to answer it to some
extent for the benefit of the newcomers.
The forest scene, into which Kundry rushes, wild-eyed and
breathless, bringing balsam for Amfortas' wound, and where the boy Parsifal
strays and thoughtlessly shoots the swan, gives a far more spacious view of lake
and mountain than can be shown at Bayreuth.
The temple in which the mystery of
the Grail is celebrated is, on the other hand, a very close representation of
the Venetian architecture of the Bayreuth scene, but the point at which
this production fails is the moving scenery which Wagner intended should link
the two.
The idea was one of Wagner's worst blunders in practical stagecraft.
He
directed that the whole scene should move gradually towards the right, and even
when it is done perfectly it has some of the absurdity of the old-fashioned
panorama show.
But when the scene does not move at all, but is gradually
obliterated by a canvas on a roll (which is what happens at Covent Garden) the
absurdity is multiplied a hundredfold. If the management could have had the
courage to prove Wagner wrong by omitting the moving scenery altogether, letting
the journey to Monsalvat be pictured imaginatively in the magnificent music of
the orchestra, as Siegfried's journey to the Rhine is pictured, a lasting
service to Wagner's art would have been done ...
But these things are really only the accessories.
Every one
realizes now that the heart of Wagner's art lies in the music.
The cast had been
carefully chosen with this in view. Herr Hensel has sung the part of Parsifal in
two Bayreuth festivals; Mme. Eva von der Osten is the possessor of one of the
most beautiful mezzo-soprano voices of modern times, and in Herr Paul Bender,
Herr Knöpfer, and Herr Kiess were secured three of the finest singers possible.
Individually the work of the principal artists was of the highest order.
But one
looks for more than this, and through most of the performance we got more both
in the careful ensemble and in the fine orchestral playing. The opening scenes
were the least satisfactory.
The ending in which Parsifal raises the Grail,
illumined as in the first act, produces an anticlimax musically as well as
dramatically. Wagner's attempt to give it additional significance by the descent
of the dove produces no more than a cheap theatrical effect, and he has no new
musical point to add in the score. In this as in much else one is reminded of
the fact that Parsifal is the work of his old age. His strength was ebbing, but
the sincerity of his purpose sufficed to produce a work which has created a
deeper reverence for opera than any of his earlier masterpieces could achieve.
Even if we do not feel Parsifal to be Wagner's greatest work, its unique beauty
and the loftiness of its standpoint are incontestable.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
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