Part 3

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.

The master has kept his promise this evening, and has let us hear fragments from Parsifal. "Liszt's presence makes me lose my powers in a measure," he said, laughing, "he intimidates me, for I know that my false notes irritate him." Unfortunately, Liszt, who only yesterday improvised upon the piano in a delightful manner, blending with his own inventions motions from Tristan and Isolde, has slightly wounded his finger, and cannot play. It must certainly be acknowledged that Wagner is an imperfect pianist, and he is the first to laugh at his own imperfection. We notice, however, in a wonderful manner, certain passages which the author knows how to render with the true expression, better than any other. A few months ago, Liszt wrote to us: "Wagner has worked a new miracle, Parsifal. Those who already have the good fortune to understand this new work share this opinion; the singers are enraptured. Judging from the general impression, this ought to be a new transformation in the master's method,--one of those giant steps to which he is accustomed. In this instance the height and refinement of art combine to produce an effect of apparent simplicity and perfect serenity." This evening we take leave of our illustrious hosts, promising to meet them again next year at the first representation of Parsifal.

POETIC WORK.

WAGNER'S POETIC WORK.

FROM RIENZI TO TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.

The spectacle, which represents a series of lofty and still loftier peaks of a chain of mountains, at the moment when the morning mists envelop them, furnishes a just comparison to that given us by these works, which rise successively, one above the other, from the lovely green hill to the dazzling and, for many, inaccessible summits. From Rienzi to the Gloom of the Gods there is the same difference of attitude as between the Capitoline Hill and the Himalaya. And what gigantic strides from one work to the other. A powerful, enthusiastic genius already reveals itself in Rienzi; but it has done little more than assimilate, with the greatest facility, the beauties that had most charmed one in the works of its predecessors. Wagner likes show, pompous processions, the tumult of battle; the brilliant orchestra resounds, is carried away, enthusiastic; the power which moves it, not yet under control, expends itself in vociferations, heroic cries of extreme vehemence; but as yet nothing presages the innovator, if it be not the almost prophetic sense of the subject, so ardently revolutionary.

Between Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman lies an abyss. The young master, disdaining the success of his first work, judges it with severity and casts it aside; he considers it an essay. From the first he has equalled his models, but he feels that he is still far from his ideal; a new world palpitates in his mind; he must break the old moulds and fetters of routine that he may soar untrammelled toward unexplored regions. The artist, now sure of himself, definitely abandons historical subjects, whose too hard reality is not in keeping with the idealism of music. The natural poetry of legend and myth suits him far better. Henceforward the path is found, he will no longer turn aside from it, but continually enlarge upon its thought. From the popular song, hummed by the Norwegian spinners while turning their wheels, he will rise to the savage grandeurs of the northern theogonies. It was upon a sea-voyage, during a storm, which cast him upon the coast of Norway, that Richard Wagner induced the sailors themselves to repeat to him the frightful story of the Flying Dutchman--Ahasverus of the Sea, who, blaspheming, defied the storm with Satan's aid, and was condemned to wander eternally, he and his fantastic ship. But the mystical young girl, grown pale from the snow's reflections, who languishes with love for the damned one, carried incessantly through shipwrecks and lightning, will save him by her faithful devotion, even unto death, if he but reaches her.

This work seems to have come at a single stroke, under the inspiration of a violent emotion. The ocean, with its rage, its awe, its mystery and sweetness--all is in this music, which is like the sea's own soul. If a few traces of the old formulæ remain, it is only in the subordinate parts of the work. The orchestra is no longer a great guitar, accompanying a song; it already assumes a capital importance; the designs, dividing and blending, have a precise meaning; the whole, less noisy, acquires a power until then unknown. The orchestral tissue becomes the woof upon which the characters are embroidered; it becomes the ocean which bears the ship, the atmosphere which envelops the action, where the thoughts, the sentiments of the heroes, reverberating, amplifying, become visible, so to speak, and make the mind experience all that is inexpressible in the sensations of the soul.

The legend of Tanhäuser still exists in Germany, above all in leafy Thuringia, where the famous castle of Wartburg stands, which, under the hospitable landgraves of the thirteenth century, was the theatre of pacific contests, fought by the illustrious troubadours. In front of the castle rises a bare, dreary mountain, burned as it were, which makes a strange blot in the midst of the fresh vegetation of the neighboring valleys. This is the terrible Venusberg, inhabited, according to popular tradition, by a dangerous goddess. This divinity was formerly Hulda the beneficent, who came each year to awaken the spring, and wandered over the country scattering flowers under her feet. But being cursed by Christianity, she was obliged to take refuge in the unknown caverns of the mountain; she was soon confounded with Venus, the sovereign of the senses. The graces, syrens, bacchantes, and fauns constituted her court, and enchanting voices seduced those whose impure desires guided them toward the mountain; unknown roads enticed them, and they were borne away to the mysterious palace which it encloses, in the abode of eternal perdition, from which none return. The Knight Tanhäuser, curious and intrepid, found the path of the grottoes in the Venusberg, and was the spouse of the goddess during seven years, after which, his desires satiated and himself devoured with remorse, aspiring to human suffering, he succeeded in tearing himself from the arms of his love by invoking the Virgin Mary. He went and confessed to the pope, imploring his pardon, but the pontiff replied, "that having tasted the pleasures of hell he was forever damned." Then raising his crosier, he added, "Even as this wood cannot become green again, so is there no pardon for thee." The legend adds, that at the expiration of three days the crosier began to blossom, signifying that celestial grace is greater than that of a pontiff. It is from this recital, enlarged by a powerful spirit, that Wagner has taken his drama, inter-weaving with his own tissue the tradition about the famous contests of the poet-singers, and also the chaste and melancholy face of Elisabeth, whom he voluntarily confounds with the sainted princess whose virtuous life shed a lustre over the the castle. But what Richard Wagner has above all wished to bring out in this marvellous work is the eternal struggle between the flesh and the spirit, the brute and the angel, which, being in man, dispute his soul. And this he has rendered with incomparable clearness and grandeur. The discussions formerly raised by the representation of Tanhäuser have made this debated work better known than many others illustrious from success. It is useless, therefore, to speak of it further.

Lohengrin, which has never been represented in Paris, and which can scarcely be appreciated from partial executions of the most inferior order, is, strange to say, almost popular. Whoever has heard the orchestral prelude typifying the vision of King Titurel, when the angels bring to him the Holy Grail, can never forget this admirable passage, and the extraordinary impression which it produces. At first an almost imperceptible vibration takes possession of the highest notes of the flutes and violins. The air becomes agitated, the light approaches and grows larger, soon with an irradiation of trumpets the luminous vision shines resplendent in all its glory. The incomparable cup, cut from a stone, it is said, which fell from Lucifer's crown when he was precipitated from heaven, and which is now filled with the blood of the Saviour, is confided to the pure hands of a holy knight. Then the angels again take their flight, the glimmering becomes obliterated, and the atmospheric vibrations, which can no longer be heard, little by little diminish and die away. The curtain rises upon a site near the environs of Anvers, on the borders of Scheldt. We find ourselves in the tenth century. Henry the Fowler, King of Germany, has come to Brabant to convoke the noble lords according to the feudal custom. Frederick of Telramund, the most valiant of all the lords of Brabant, has just accused, before all the people, Elsa, Duchess of Brabant, of the murder of her young brother, who has disappeared, leaving no trace. The young girl possesses no method of proving her innocence; her cause then is to be submitted to the judgment of God. But when the herald has resounded the trumpet toward the four quarters of the world, no knight has entered the lists in her defence. Elsa, however, has confidence in a singular vision: a charming warrior has appeared to her in a dream; he will fight for her. However, the herald's second summons remains without response. It is then that, with an impulse of sublime faith, she throws herself upon her knees, and beseeches Heaven to send her the defender who has visited her in a vision.

Soon, in fact, the people, grouped upon the banks of the river, see in the distance, with increasing agitation, a strange bark drawn by a dazzling swan; it approaches, it draws nearer; a knight of wondrous beauty stands erect in the bark; his light helmet, his silver breastplate are resplendent, he rests one hand upon his shield. "A miracle! a miracle!" cries the crowd. "Can it be an angel sent by God?" The mysterious knight steps upon the shore. With a calm and modest voice he bids farewell to the beautiful swan which has conducted him and now returns to the unknown regions from which it came. Then the knight advances in the midst of the surprised and rejoicing multitude. "I am come," he says, "to defend the innocent girl unjustly accused. Who will do combat with me?" Telramund, notwithstanding the sacred character of his adversary, and preferring death to dishonor, raises the gauntlet and upholds the accusation. The knight draws near the enraptured Elsa, and in a sweet, grave voice, says to her: "If I bear off the victory, wilt thou that I should become thy husband? Then must thou promise never to seek to discover from what countries I come, nor what is my name or nature." "My shield, my angel, my savior!" cried Elsa, "thou who defendest me in my distress, how could I do other than faithfully keep to the law thou imposest upon me?" "Elsa, I love thee," murmurs the unknown knight with deepest tenderness. The king blesses the arms, and the combat begins. The knight gains an easy victory over his adversary, whose life he spares. Elsa's innocence is proclaimed by the entire people in a triumphal hymn of joy.

But Ortrud, Telramund's wife, daughter of the King of Friesia, who aspires to the throne of Brabant, succeeds in exciting feminine curiosity in Elsa, and in pouring the poison of doubt into her heart in order to blight her joy. She torments her until at last Elsa, distracted, violates her oath, exacting from her spouse the avowal of his origin. Doubt has killed faith, which carries with it all happiness; the night of love ends in despair. It is upon a meadow near the border of the Scheldt, amid flying, banners and flourishing trumpets, in the presence of Brabant counts, followed by their vassals called by King Henry for an expedition against the Hungarians, that the mysterious knight will unveil his origin. "In a distant country," he says, "upon a high mountain, called Mont Salvat, stands a magnificent temple, in which knights of absolute purity guard a miraculous cup; it is the Holy Grail, the cup in which Christ consecrated the bread and wine at the time of the Lord's Supper, and in which, later, Joseph of Arimathea received his blood. This cup had been carried to heaven by the angels, but they brought it back again to the holy king, Titurel, who founded the temple of the Grail, and the order of its knights. Those who serve the Grail are endowed with wonderful virtue, but an inflexible law forces them to remain unknown among men. If their name be discovered, they must immediately depart, and once more regain the sacred mountain. For this reason I must leave you, informing you that Parsifal, my father, is King of the Grail, and I, his knight, am named Lohengrin." The swan reappears upon the shore to bear the warrior away to his miraculous country; Elsa has destroyed her happiness; she sees her guardian angel depart forever.

Lohengrin is, perhaps, the most perfect of the three lyric dramas which form the second period in the master's work. From Lohengrin to Tristan and Isolde as great a distance is marked as between Rienzi and the Flying Dutchman. It is a new revelation, a new art,--something perfect and definite, a prodigious flight toward the future. There is no longer, so to speak, any question of music in the sense formerly attached to this word; it is poetry in superb and precise form, with a sonorous resonant soul,--Apollo and Orpheus melted in a single lyre. The works following may, perhaps, be grander, but Tristan and Isolde is and will remain the masterpiece of masterpieces, by reason of the poetical subject which, in art as in the human soul, takes by right the first place. In Tristan and Isolde love itself, in its most complete and perfect form, finds utterance. The most pointed phases of the passion are pushed to their extreme. In the first act it is unavailing love, heroically conquered, which consumes the heart while not a cry escapes the lips,--Tristan, conducting toward another the royal betrothed, whose hand he himself, in his blind love, has solicited for the King of Cornwall. Tristan's love believes itself despised. Isolde, consumed with anger and tenderness, powerless to master the tumult in her soul, wishes shipwreck to the vessel which bears her away, with the hero who disdains her, toward the shore which she hopes never to reach. "Death rather, death for us both!" she cries. And when the tempest betrays her, when already the hated land is signaled, she offers poison.

Tristan cannot refuse to empty a cup in Isolde's honor, to drink to their reconciliation, for a debt of blood lies between them, long since effaced by their unavowed love, but which she begins to remember. Tristan well knows that eternal forgetfulness is poured out for him by the hand which he secretly adores; he accepts with gratitude this mitigation of evils which have no remedy. On the threshold of death, however, both drop their mask, the fire then breaks out triumphant, love casts them into one another's arms in the intoxication of a supreme joy which should repay them for their past sufferings. Heart against heart, eyes looking into eyes, thus will their hearts cease to beat, and their mutual gaze be extinguished. But alas! they are betrayed; the two devoted followers have substituted for the mortal draught a love-drink, and instead of the kindly shade which reunited them, behold the detested shore, and the deceitful day which separates them.

Such a love once free can no longer be stifled or conquered. It is a formidable conflagration, a flame which death itself cannot extinguish. It has devoured everything,--loyalty, honor, virtue. The earth itself becomes effaced in the ravishing rapture of mutual possession. Infinite and sublime ecstasy follows, which no heart can have either experienced or foreseen. Their happiness even crushes and stifles them; the heart cannot contain such love, the human voice has no words to express it; the most burning embraces leave them disunited. Tristan and Isolde are two, and they would become one soul, a single thought, a scintillation of love in an unlimited night. Desperate and unsatisfied, they aspire to the infinity of death. They dream of a flight beyond all worlds in that mysterious shade which protects them upon earth, but over which the day and the empty phantoms of life triumph, ceaselessly inflicting the tortures of impending separation. The eternal and great night of love without the terrors of the morning! A long enchanting dream in unlimited space; no names to separate; a single flame; a single thought; a sweet swoon in each other's arms; the ardent rapture of death without end, without awakening! Such is their thought. But suddenly, behold the cruel day, and with it shame. This sublime love is dragged before the world, which calls it an indiscretion, and censures. Then follows the combat, in which Tristan, overcome with a divine ecstasy, is no longer the victorious hero, but falls mortally wounded.