United States or French Southern Territories ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Parsifal has wandered for years trying to find Monsalvat, and at last encounters Gurnemanz, now a very old man, living as a hermit near a forest spring, and the saddened Kundry is serving him. It is the Good Friday morning, and forests and fields are bright with flowers and the verdure of spring.
In acting or recitations, could you be glad to take a minor part to help on the whole, or would you be huffy and cross-grained because your powers were not brought to the front? In the Wagner music at Baireuth, the singers take the good parts in turn, and the best prima donna, as Kundry in "Parzival," in one whole act has only one word.
Kundry, who has listened in wonder, exclaims: "So it was my kiss which gave you universal vision! The full cup of my love then would make you to a god!" and coming back eagerly to her point: "Deliver the world, if such is your mission. If an hour can make you to a god, let me, for that hour, suffer damnation...." "For you, too, sinner, I will find salvation," is Parsifal's mild reply.
I have found in a motet of Vittoria one of the motives of "Parsifal," almost note for note, and there is no doubt that Wagner owed much to Palestrina and his school. But even the sombre music of Vittoria does not plead and implore like Wagner's. The outcry comes and goes, not only with the suffering of Amfortas, the despair of Kundry. This abstract music has human blood in it.
Elizabeth was the essential penitent, she who does penance not for herself, she has committed no sin, but the sublime penitent who does penance for the sins of others. Not for a moment could he admit the penitence of Kundry. In her there was merely the external aspect. "Parsifal" was to Ulick a revolting hypocrisy, and Kundry the blot on Wagner's life.
She might begin with "Margaret" and "Norma," if she liked, for in singing these popular operas she would acquire the whole of her voice, and also the great reputation which should precede and herald the final stage of her career. "Isolde," "Brunnhilde," "Kundry," Wagner's finest works, had remained unsung they en merely howled. Evelyn should be the first to sing them.
And turning to Kundry, as if the thought had but just occurred: "Hey! Tell me, you! Where were you roaming when our master lost the Spear?" The woman gazes gloomily, and preserves a silence which we afterwards see to be significant. "Why did you not help us at that time?" "I never help!" she exclaims darkly, and turns away.
All creation gives thanks for this, all the short-lived things that bloom; for to-day all Nature, absolved from sin, regains her day of Innocence." Kundry has slowly raised her head and fixed upon Parsifal her prayerful wet eyes. Either from his recent contemplation of the flowery lea, or some occult association of her personality with the past, the flowers of Klingsor's garden come into his mind.
Robbed of their miraculous nourishment, the knights are sunk in dejection. Titurel is dead, and Gurnemanz dwells in a little hermitage in a remote part of the Grail domain. There one morning he finds the body of Kundry cold and stiff. He chafes her to life once more, and is surprised to see in her face and gestures a new and strange humility. A warrior now approaches clad in black armour.
Kundry, he pointed out, had no such prayer, and he derisively sang the cries of amorous desire. The character of Parsifal he could admit even less than the character of Kundry. As he would say in discussion, "If I am to discuss an artistic question, I must go to the very heart of it.
Word Of The Day