Life of Wagner Part 6

And in simple but candid truth the decisive importance of the cause called forth the following: "Parsifal furnishes sufficient evidence that the stage is not only not unworthy to portray the grandest and holiest treasures of man and his divine wors.h.i.+p, but that it is precisely the medium which is capable in the highest degree of awakening these feelings of devotion and presenting the impressive ceremony of divine wors.h.i.+p. If the hearer is not prompted to devotion by it, then certainly no church ceremony can rouse such a feeling in him. The stage, that to the mult.i.tude is at all times merely a place of amus.e.m.e.nt, and upon which at best are usually represented only the serious phases of human life, of guilt and atonement, but which is deemed unworthy of portraying the innermost life of man and his intercourse with his G.o.d, this stage has been consecrated to its highest mission by 'Parsifal.'"

The building also, which Semper's art-genius, with the highest end in view had constructed, is worthy of this mission. It has no ornament in the style of our modern theatres. Nowhere do we behold gold or dazzling colors; nowhere brilliancy of light or splendor of any kind.

The seats rise amphitheatrically and are symmetrically enclosed by a row of boxes. To the right and left rise mighty Corinthian columns, which invest the house with the character of a temple. The orchestra, like the choir of the Catholic cloisters, is invisible and everything unpleasant and disturbing about ordinary theaters is removed.

Everything is arranged for a solemn, festive effect. "That is no longer the theatre, it is divine wors.h.i.+p," was the final verdict accordingly. "Baireuth" is the temple of the Holy Grail.

At length we come to the princ.i.p.al theme, and with it to the climax of this historical sketch of such a mighty and all-important artistic lifework, to "Parsifal" itself. The mere mention of its contents attests its importance for the present and the future. Wagner's "Parsifal," in an important sense, can be termed our national drama.

Such a work like aeschylus' "Persian" and Sophocles' Oedipus-trilogy, should recall to the consciousness of a world-historical people the period in which it stands in the world's history, and thereby make clear the mission it has to fulfil.

That we Germans have begun again to make world-history in a political sense, since the last generation, is evidenced by the great action of the time which seems for the present to have settled the politics of Europe and extended its influence upon the world at large. Beyond the domain of politics however the real movers of the world are the ideas which animate humanity and of which politics are but a sign of life possessing subordinate influence. In this movement of the mind we Germans are, without question, much older than a mere generation, as indeed Wagner's poetic material everywhere confirms. The one work in which Kaulbach's genius triumphed, the "Battle of the Huns," gained for him a world-wide fame, more by the plastic idea revealed in the perpetual struggle of the spirits than by its artistic execution. We stand to-day before, or rather in, a like mighty contest. Two moral religious sentiments struggle against each other for life and death in invisible as well as visible conflict. To which shall be the victory?

In the year 1850 Wagner wrote a pamphlet of weighty import. It reveals an expression of the utmost moment, though it has been heeded least by those whom it concerns as much as life and death; or, rather, it has not been understood at all, because these natures are more attracted by the trivial. Its most impressive confirmation is to-day furnished by art, above all else by actual representations on the boards that typify the world. "Parsifal" also is such a symbol, and in so large a world-historical and even metaphysical sense, that by it the stage has become a place dedicated to the proclamation of highest truth and morality. We have seen the grotesque anti-Semitic movement and the lamentable persecution of the Jews. What could inflict more injury to our higher nature, to our real culture? And yet in this lies concealed a deep instinct of a purely moral nature. It does not, however, concern merely that people whom the course of events has cast among other nations, still much less the individual man, who, without choice or intention, has been born among, and therefore forms a part of them.

It involves the secret of the world-historical problems that struggle so long with each other until the right one triumphs. To these problems, with his incomparable depth of soul, the whole life and work of our artist is devoted as long as he breathes and lives, moved by the holiest feeling for his nation, for the time--yes, for mankind, in whose service he as real "poet and prophet" stands with every fibre of his nature and works with every beat of his heart.

That unnoticed, misunderstood expression at the close of the paper by "K. Freigedank," in 1850, was this: "One more Jew we must name, who appeared among us as a writer, namely, Boerne. He stepped out of his individual position as Jew, seeking deliverance among us. He did not find it, and must have become conscious that he would only find it in our own transformation also into genuine men. To return in common with us to a purer humanity, however, signifies, for the Jew, above all else, that he shall cease to be a Jew. Boerne had fulfilled this. But it was precisely Boerne who taught us how this deliverance cannot be achieved in cool comfort and listless ease; but that it involves for them, as for us, toil, distress, anxiety, and abundance of pain and sorrow. Strive for this by self-abandonment and the regenerating work of salvation, and then we are united and without difference! But, remember that your deliverance depends upon the deliverance of Ahasrer--his destruction!"

No other people has received those cast out by all the world with such sacredly pure, humane feeling as the Germans. Will they then at last find their deliverance among us from the curse of homelessness, their new existence by absorption into a larger, richer, deeper whole? It is this question which animates and moves Wagner; but by no means in the sense of a casual and s.h.i.+fting quarrel among different races or even religious parties. On the contrary, he feels that this question is a life-question of the time, approaching its final solution. It is not the Jews, however, but the Jewish spirit, that represents the antagonist--that spirit which at first, after the birth of Christianity, and aided by the filth of Roman civilization, with its inherent evil germs, this people devoted to a world-historic power of evil; and which, even in its most brilliant revelation, in Spinoza, as has been most clearly demonstrated from his own works by Schopenhauer, seeks only its own advantage, to which it sacrifices the whole, but does not recognize the whole to which it must lovingly sacrifice itself.

Such concrete, actual historical developments Wagner regards not as a hindrance, but as the external support of his art-work. For a poetic composition requires some connection with a time or s.p.a.ce to make perceptible to the senses its view of the advancing development of the mind of humanity. So it is that Kleist's "Arminius-battle" does not in the least refer to the ancient Romans, but to the degenerate race, the mixture of tiger and ape, as Voltaire has called them, and in this symbol of art he strengthened the determination of his people until in the battles of nations it conquered. Wagner even transfers the scene of this conflict into those distant centuries in which the struggle between Christians and Infidels was very fierce, while that between Jews and Occidentals had not yet even in existence. Like the real artist, he also uses only individual phases of the present time, which, it is quite true, bear but too close a relation to the character of that Arabian world that once engaged in conflict with Christianity for the world's control, and thus proves that this question, least of all is a pa.s.sing "Question of time and controversy," but is one of the ever-present questions of humanity which has again come to the front in a specially vivid and urgent form. His inborn feeling for the purely human, which we have seen displayed with such touching warmth in all his doings, and that has created for us the genuine human forms of a "Flying Dutchman,"

"Tannhaeuser," "Lohengrin," and "Siegfried" is true to itself this time, indeed this time more than ever. He antic.i.p.ates the struggling aspiration. He sees the form already appear on the surface, and only seeks a pure human sympathy to show the true and full solution which denies to neither of the disputing parties the G.o.d-given right of existence.

Klingsor, the sorcerer, representative of everything hostile to the Holy Grail and its knights, summons Kundry, the maid, subject to his witchcraft--in other words to that evil moral law which the individual alone is unable to resist--and reproachfully says:

Shame! that with the brood of knights, Thou should'st like a beast be maintained!

The German cla.s.s-pride which regarded the Jew as a body servant is strongly enough characterized and our own ancient injustice still more sharply expressed in his words:

"Thus may the whole body of knights In deadly conflict each other destroy."

Thus Wagner reveals still more clearly than in the "Flying Dutchman"

with his "fabulous homesickness" an absolute trait and the inner view of that sentiment which here longs for salvation, to be mortal with the mortals. At the sight of the n.o.bler qualities and real human dignity which Kundry for the first time in her life sees in the person of Parsifal, who has been born again through the recognition of the truth, she breaks down completely and with the only word that she now knows, "serve! serve!" she throws all evil selfishness away. For the first time it is now fully disclosed how deeply after all, and with what intensity those of alien race and religion serve the ideas, not so much of our own similarly narrow contracted race-life, but those ideas which have transformed us from a mere nation to an historical part of humanity that guards the world's eternal treasure in this Holy Grail, as its last and grandest possession.

How fully is Goethe's saying "the power that ever seeks the evil and yet produces good" realized. Kundry is the messenger of the same Holy Grail against which her lord and master conducts the fatal war. To all distant lands it is she that brings the higher element of culture, the purer humanity which she gets from the Grail and its life. Though the peculiar portraiture of Kundry is drawn from his own experience of the present, the poet has gone still further and pictured that omnipresent spirit of evil which can never by simple partic.i.p.ation in the sorrows of others gain knowledge of the perpetual sorrow of the world. Klingsor summons from the chaotic, primeval foundation of the world, where good and evil still lie commingled, the blind instinct of nature, as that wonderful element in the world's history which must everywhere be at once servant of the devil and messenger of grace, with the all-comprehensive words:

"Thy master calls thee, nameless one; Primeval devil! rose of h.e.l.l!

Herodias thou wast and what more?

Gundryggia there, Kundry here!"

It is the feminine Ahasrer, present in all ages and spheres, in our time revealing its tangible form in the ruling spirit of Judaism. As her sinful nature at last is overcome by Parsifal's purity, and she humbly approaches him to receive the baptism that is awarded to every one who believes and acts in the spirit of pure humanity, he proclaims, when he has withstood her temptation and thereby has regained from Klingsor the holy lance of the Grail, the impending catastrophe by tracing with the lance the sign of the cross and saying:

"With this sign thy spell I banis.h.!.+

Even as it heals the wound Which with it thou hast dealt-- So may thy delusive splendor in grief and ruin fall."

When in the last century, Roman Catholicism had become sensual and worldly through Jesuitism, and Protestantism had put on either the straight-jacket of orthodoxy or had been diluted with rationalism, there came to the surface, outside of the religious sects, secret societies, such as the Freemasons. In their well-meant but flat humanitarian idealism, those strangers to our race and religion, the hitherto despised Jews, also took active part and what "delusive splendor" have they not since then provided for themselves in literature and art and general ways of life? A single actual resurrection of that sign in which we Germans alone have attained world-culture and world-importance has "in grief and ruin destroyed"

all this, and we hope in truth that we are now approaching a new epoch of our spiritual as well as moral existence. Just as, out of the first awakening of a pure human feeling such as Christianity brought us, there rose in contrast to priesthood a work like the "Magic Flute,"

child-like, artless but devoutly pure and full of feeling, so now there resounds like the mighty watchword of this full national resurrection, Wagner's "Parsifal."

Let us see how the poem itself has done this and what it signifies.

According to the legend of the Holy Grail, already artistically resurrected by the master in "Lohengrin," the chalice from which Christ had drank with His disciples at the last supper, and in which His blood had been received at the cross, had been brought into the western world by a host of angels at a time of most serious danger to the pure gospel of Christianity. King t.i.turel had erected for it the temple and castle of Monsalvat in the north of Spain, where knights of absolute purity of mind guard it and receive spiritual as well as bodily nourishment from its miraculous powers. This sanctuary can only be found by the pure. The king keeps the holy lance, which had opened the Savior's wound, and with it holds in check the hostile heathen.

Klingsor, the sorcerer, on the southern decline of the mountain, rules the latter. He had likewise once been seized with remorse for his sins, his "pain of untamed longings and the most terrible pressure of h.e.l.lish desires," and had mutilated himself and then seeking deliverance had wandered to the Holy Grail. Amfortas however, t.i.turel's son, now king of the Grail, perceived his impurity and sternly turned away the evil sorcerer, who only seeks release for worldly gain.

Angered thereat, the latter now contrives through the agency of Kundry, who appears in the highest and most bewitching beauty, encircling the king himself with the snares of pa.s.sion, to obtain power over him and to wrest from him the lance with which he wounds him. This wound will burn until the holy lance shall be regained. This then is the supreme deed to be accomplished. The Grail itself at one time has proclaimed during the keenest pangs of the suffering king, that it shall be regained by him who, deficient in worldly knowledge, shall from pure sympathy with his terrible sufferings recognize the sufferings of humanity and through such blissful faith bring to it new redemption. The body of humanity, which Christianity had called into new life, had been invaded by a consuming poison and only so far as by the full unconsciousness of innocence, its genius itself was re-awakened, was it possible to again expel the poison.

In the forest of the castle old Gurnemanz and two s.h.i.+eld-bearers lie slumbering at early dawn. The solemn morning-call of the Grail is heard and they all rise to pray and then await the sick king who is to take a soothing bath in the near lake. All medicinal herbs have proved useless. Kundry shortly after suddenly appears in savage, strange attire and proffers balm from Arabia. The king is carried forward. We listen to his lamentations. He thanks Kundry, who, however, roughly declines all thanks. The s.h.i.+eld-bearers show indignation at this but are reprimanded by Gurnemanz who says: "She serves the Grail and her zeal with which she now helps us and herself at the same time is in atonement for former sins." When she is missing too long, a misfortune surely is in store for the knights. She preserves for them by the opposing forces of her nature the true and good in their consciousness and purpose. With that he tells them Klingsor has established on the other side of the mountain, toward the land of the Arabian infidels, a magic garden with seductively beautiful women to menace them by enticing the knights there and ruining them. In the attempt to destroy this harbor of sin the king had carried away the wound and lost the lance which, according to the revelation of the Grail, only "the simple fool knowing by compa.s.sion" could recover.

Suddenly cries of lamentation resound in the sacred forest. A wild swan slowly descends and dies. s.h.i.+eld-bearers bring forward a handsome youth whose harmless, innocent demeanor inspires involuntary interest.

He is recognized by the arrows he carries as the murderer of the bird which had been flying over the lake and which had seemed to the king, about to take his bath, as a happy omen. Gurnemanz upbraids him for this deed of cruelty. The swan is doubly sacred to the Grail. It is a swan also that conducts Lohengrin to the relief of innocence! "I did not know," Parsifal replies. The universal lamentation however touches his heart and he breaks his bow and arrows. He knows not whence he came, knows neither father nor name. The only thing he knows is that he had a mother named "Sad-heart." "In forest and wild meadows we were at home." Gurnemanz perceives however by his manner and appearance that he is of n.o.ble race, and Kundry, who has seen and heard everything in her constant wanderings confirms the impression.

"Thus he was the born king Who had the aspect of a lordly youth,"

says Chiron to Faust of the young Herakles. As his father had been slain in battle, the mother had brought him up in the wilderness a stranger to arms--foolish deed--mad woman! Parsifal relates that he had followed "glittering men" and after the manner of the vigorous primitive peoples, had led the wild life of nature, following only natural instincts. Gurnemanz reproaches him for running away from his mother and when Kundry states that she is dead, Parsifal furiously seizes her by the throat. It is the first feeling for a being other than himself, his first sorrow. Again Gurnemanz upbraids him for his renewed violence but remembering the prophecy and the finding of the secret pa.s.sage to the castle, he believes that there may be n.o.bler qualities in him. For this reason he speaks to him of the Grail, which, now that the king has left the bath, is to provide them anew with nourishment. Upon secret paths they reach the castle of the Grail which only he of pure mind can find. The knights solemnly a.s.semble in a hall with a lofty dome. Beyond Amfortas' couch of pain, the voice of t.i.turel is heard as from a vaulted niche, admonis.h.i.+ng them to uncover the Grail. Thus the dead genii of the world admonish the living to expect life! Amfortas however cries out in grievous agony that he, the most unholy of them all, should perform the holiest act, that in an unsanctified time the sanctuary should be seen. The knights however refer him to the promised deliverance and so begins the solemn unveiling for the distribution of the last love-feast of the Savior, whose cup is then drawn forth, resplendent in fiery purple. Parsifal stands stupefied before this consecration of the human although he also made a violent movement toward his heart when the king gave forth his pa.s.sionate cry of anguish. But the torments of guilt which produce such sorrows he has not yet comprehended. Gurnemanz therefore angrily ejects him through a narrow side-door of the temple to resume his ways to his wild boyish deeds. He had first to experience the torments of pa.s.sion and deliverance from the same in his own person.

The second act takes us to Klingsor's magic castle. Klingsor sees the fool advance, joyous and childish, and summons Kundry, the guilty one, who rests in the dead lethargy of destiny, and in sorrow and anger only follows his command. She longs no more for life, but seeks deliverance in the eternal sleep. She has laughed at the bleeding head of John, laughed when she beheld the Savior bleeding at the cross, and is now condemned to laugh forever and to ensnare all in her net of pa.s.sion: "Whoever can resist thee, will release thee," says Klingsor, the father of evil. "Make thy trial upon the boy." The youth approaches. The fallen knights seek to hinder his progress, but he easily vanquishes them all, and stands victorious upon the battlement of the castle, gazing in childish astonishment at all this unknown silent splendor below. Soon, however, the scene becomes animated. The ravis.h.i.+ng enchantresses appear in garments of flowers, and each seeks to win the handsome youth for herself. He remains, however, toward them what he is--a fool. Suddenly he hears a voice. He stands astonished, for he heard the name with which in times long past his mother had called her hearts-blood; it is the one thing he knows. The beauties disappear. The voice takes on form. It is Kundry, no longer of repulsive, savage appearance, but as a "lightly draped woman of superb beauty." She explains to him his name:

"Thee, foolish innocent, I called Fal parsi-- Thee, innocent fool, Parsifal!"

She tells him of his mother's love, of his mother's death. What he, a giddy fool, has thus far done in life, suddenly overwhelms him as well as the thought that despair at his loss has even killed his mother. He sinks deeply wounded at the feet of the seductive woman; it is the first soul-despair in his life. She, however, with diabolic persuasiveness, avails herself of this to overcome his manly heart by her only way, the painful, longing sensation for his mother, and offers him the consolation which love gives, "as a blessing, the mother's last greeting, the first kiss of love." At this he rises quickly in great alarm and presses his hands against his heart.

"Amfortas! the wound burns in my heart!" The miracle of knowledge has happened to him, and in a moment has changed his whole nature. It is regeneration by grace, recognized from the earliest time as the sense of all religion. He now experiences the trembling of guilty desires that burn within our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and understands also the mystery of salvation which he can now obtain for the unhappy King of the Grail.

Out of the depths of his soul he hears the supplications of the Grail:

"Redeem me, save me From hands defiled by sin!"

The evil demon of voluptuousness displays all its charms. Astonishment gives way more and more to pa.s.sion for this pure one, but he sinks into deep and deeper reverie until a second long, burning kiss suddenly and completely awakens him. Then, having gained "world-knowledge," he sees into the deep abyss of this being full of guilt and penitence, and impetuously repulses the temptress. She herself, however, is now overpowered by the pa.s.sion which she has sought by all the means of temptation to instil into the innocent youth, and fancies she sees in him again the Savior whom she had once laughed at. She tells him with heartrending truth her inextinguishable suffering, her eternal sorrow, her lamentation full of the laughter of derision, the whole wide emptiness of her misery, and implores him to be merciful, and let her weep for a single hour upon his pure bosom--for a single hour to be his. But the answer comes like the voice of an avenging G.o.d, terribly stern and annihilating:

"To all eternity thou wouldst be d.a.m.ned with me, If for one hour I should forget my mission."

At last she seeks, like the serpent in Paradise, to allure him with the promise that in her arms he will attain to G.o.dhood. He remains, however, true to himself. Roused now to furious rage, she curses him.

He shall never find Amfortas, but shall wander aimlessly. Klingsor then appears, and puts his power to the utmost trial by brandis.h.i.+ng his sacred lance, but Parsifal's pure faith banishes the false charm.

The lance remains suspended above his head. Kundry sinks down crying aloud. The magic garden is turned to a desert. Parsifal calls out:

"Thou knowest where alone thou canst find me again."

That true womanly love roused for the first time in her will also show this desolate heart the path to eternal love. And Parsifal had finally shown her, the pitiable one, the only thing he could--pity!

The last act takes us once more into the domain of the sacred Grail which Parsifal since then has been longingly seeking. Gurnemanz, now grown to an old man, lives as a hermit near a forest spring. From out the hedges he hears a groan. "So mournful a tone comes not from the beast," he says, familiar as he is with the lamenting sounds of sinful humanity. It is Kundry, whom he carries completely benumbed out of the thicket. This fierce and fearful woman had not been seen nor thought of for a long time. Her wildness now however lies only in the accustomed serpent-like appearance, otherwise she gives forth but that one cry "to serve! to serve!" Whoever has not comprehended the highest and most actual elements of our life when they a.s.sert themselves, is condemned to silence. Only by silent acts and conduct can she attest the growing inner partic.i.p.ation in the higher and n.o.bler human deeds.

She enters the hut close by and busies herself. When she returns with the water pitcher she perceives a knight, clad in sombre armor, who approaches with hesitating steps and drooping head. Gurnemanz greets him kindly but admonishes him to lay aside his weapons in the sacred domain and above all on this the most sacred of days--Good Friday.

With that he recognizes him. It is Parsifal, now a mature and serious man. "In paths of error and of suffering have I come," he says. He is at once saluted by Gurnemanz who recognizes the sacred lance as "master" for now he can hope to bring relief to the suffering king of the Grail whose laments Parsifal had once listened to without being moved to action. He learns through the faithful old man of the supreme distress and gradual disappearance of the holy knights. Amfortas has refused to uncover the life-preserving Grail and prefers to die rather than linger in pain and anguish, and thus the strength of the knights has died away. t.i.turel is already dead, a "man like others," and Gurnemanz has hidden himself in solitude in this corner of the forest.

Parsifal is overcome with grief. He, he alone has caused all this.

He has for so long a time not perceived the path to final salvation.

Kundry now washes his feet "to take from him the dust of his long wanderings," while Gurnemanz refreshes his brow and asks him to accompany him to the Grail which Amfortas is to uncover to-day for the consecration of the dead t.i.turel. Kundry then anoints his feet and Gurnemanz his head that he may yet to-day be saluted as king and he himself performs his first act as Savior by baptizing Kundry out of the sacred forest spring. Now for the first time can she shed tears.

Thereby even the fields and meadows appear as if sprinkled with sacred dew, for according to the ancient legend, nature also celebrates on Good Friday the redemption which mankind gained by Christ's love-sacrifice and which changes the sinner's tears of remorse to tears of joy.

In the castle of the Grail the knights are conducting t.i.turel's funeral. Amfortas, who in his sufferings longs for death as the one act of mercy, falls into a furious frenzy of despair when the knights urge him to uncover the Grail which alone gives life, so that they all retreat in terror. Then at the last moment Parsifal appears and touches the wound with the lance that alone can close it. He praises the sufferings of Amfortas that have given to him, the timorous fool, "Compa.s.sion's supreme strength and purest wisdom's power" and a.s.sumes the king's functions. The Grail glows resplendent. t.i.turel rises in his coffin and bestows blessing from the dome. A white dove descends upon Parsifal's head as he swings the Grail. Kundry with her eyes turned toward him sinks dying to the ground while Amfortas and Gurnemanz do him homage as king and a chorus from above sings:

"Miracle of Supreme blessing, Redemption to the Redeemer!"

The holy Grail, the symbol of the Savior, has at last been rescued from hands defiled by guilt--has been redeemed.

Such is the short sketch of the grand as well as profoundly significant dramatic action of the artist's last work! It is easy to see that the figures and actions are but a parable. They symbolize the ideas and periods of human development. Nay more, the phases and powers of human nature are here disclosed to view. It is the inner history of the world which ever repeats itself and by which mankind is always rejuvenated. The pure and restored genius of the nation arises anew to its real nature. Its lance heals the wound which we have received at the hands of the other--the evil and foreign genius. It is this pure genius which all, even the dead and the dying, hail as King, and do homage to new deeds of blessing. Next to religion itself, it was art which more than all else constantly brought to the consciousness of humanity the ideals which originated with the former, and here art even entered literally into the service of divine truth.