United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The evident desire of Evelyn not to talk about herself clouded Louise's pleasure in talking of herself, and she paused in her account of the Wotan, the Brunnhilde, the conductor and the Rhine Maidens to tell Evelyn of the inquiries that had been made about her all were looking forward to her Kundry next year. Madame Wagner had said that there never had been such a Brunnhilde.
The ground is strewn with withered flowers, among which Kundry lies prostrate, and all that a moment before was bright with exotic beauty now lies a bare and desert waste. Many years have passed before the third act opens. Evil days have fallen upon the brotherhood of the Grail. Amfortas, in his craving for the release of death, has ceased to uncover the Grail.
Even when he puts his request in the form of the suggestion: "He who should defy you would set you free. Try it then with the boy at hand!" she stubbornly refuses. "He is even now climbing the rampart!" Klingsor persists. Kundry wrings her hands. "Woe! Woe! Have I waked for this?
The first scene opens in a cool woodland glade near the castle of Monsalvat, where Gurnemanz, one of the knights, and two young esquires of the Grail are sleeping. Their earnest converse is interrupted by Kundry, who flies in with a healing medicine for the wounded King, which she has brought from Arabia.
"You have anointed my feet," speaks Parsifal again; "let now the brother-at-arms of Titurel anoint my head, for on this day he shall hail me as king." Whereupon Gurnemanz anoints him as king. Kundry has been gazing with a devout hushed face.
"And I," he groans, "the fool! the coward! I could rush to the insensate exploits of a boy!" Kundry has been amazed and somewhat alarmed, but for a moment still, as it appears, has not understood.
He saw himself taking her home from the theatre at night in the brougham. In the next instant they were in the train going to Bayreuth. In the next he saw her as Kundry rush on to the stage. He felt that, whatever it cost him, that was the life he must obtain.
Klingsor calls up Kundry and changes his castle into an enchanted garden full of flower-maidens; Parsifal comes in, and, though curious about the maidens, does not know what they would be at; he angrily drives them off; Kundry calls him.
The same may be said of Marianne Brandt, who sang the part of Kundry at the second "Parsifal" representation at Bayreuth, having been Frau Materna's alternate in 1882. With her superbly rich, deep-toned voice and her splendid vocal and dramatic control she thrilled her audiences in her Wagnerian rôles, in Beethoven's "Fidelio," and in all she attempted, whether in opera or concert.
But with her laughter ending in a scream, Kundry has abruptly vanished. "What? Already at work?" muses Klingsor. "Ha ha! I knew the charm which will always bring you back into my service!" Then turning his attention once more to the youthful intruder filling his eyes with the unimagined glories of the garden: "You there, fledgling!
Word Of The Day