United States or Togo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But Wagner was afraid to do that, lest his purpose be overlooked. He was a master of theatrical craft, and though he could write a tragedy like "Tristan und Isolde," with little regard for external action, he was quite unwilling to miss so effective a theatrical effect as the death of Tannhauser beside Elizabeth's bier.
Let the courage be restored to him of the faith that for him too the Saviour died!" In a spasm of realisation and self-horror the unhappy Tannhäuser hides his face and sinks to the earth. The angry lords have calmed under the Princess's exhortation. They see in her an angel descended from Heaven to announce the holy will of God.
And in "Tristan" we commence with a fleshly love, as intense as that Tannhäuser knew; but by reason of its own energy, its own excess, it rises to a spiritual love as free from grossness as any dreamed of by Elizabeth or Wolfram, and far surpassing theirs in exaltation.
Tannhäuser falls by the side of the bier; the Pope's staff, which has burgeoned, is brought on; and so the opera ends, Tannhäuser being redeemed. It is necessary to rehearse in this way the dramatic bases of Tannhäuser and Wagner's succeeding operas for two reasons. First, the drama, which played a big enough part in the Dutchman, now becomes more important, more essential, than ever.
If, as I hope he will through you, he really learns his task carefully and goes to it with love, I have no doubt that he will be the FIRST Tannhauser to satisfy my intentions entirely. Greet him very kindly. Your question about the Musical Festival has given me hopes that you might accompany me there. Really, dear Franz, that would be a joy in this sad year.
This was to be drunk to the success of Tannhauser. Bulow also came, depressed and saddened by the burdens of his own life, and hoping to be able to gather courage and renewed vitality from the success of my undertaking. I did not dare to tell him in so many words of the miserable state of affairs; on the contrary, seeing him so depressed, I made the best of a bad matter.
It appears that in over-witty and wholly unproductive Berlin everything has to be born anew. "Kladderadatsch" was quite right in taunting me with the fact that I had surrendered "Tannhauser" to Berlin, solely for the sake of the royalties. That is so. It is my fault, and I have to suffer for it as vulgarly as possible. Very well, I suffer, but unfortunately I do not even get anything by it.
I sincerely regret that the deplorable circumstances which prevent Wagner from living in Germany are still in existence, and that many things occur thereby which impede the natural progress of the performances of "Tannhauser" and "Lohengrin."
But Lucy wanted to hear about Owen Asher and Evelyn, and the operas she had sung, and I told the story of Tannhauser and Tristan. She had never heard such stories before, and, as we got up from the warm grass, she said that she could imagine Evelyn standing in the nuns' garden with her eyes fixed on the calm skies, getting courage from them to persevere. Wasn't it clever of her?
The incident of the sails belongs to Greek story the legend of AEgeus and Theseus; the magic potion may be found in ancient Persian romance; the interlocked rose-tree and vine over the grave of the lovers is an example of those floral auguries and testimonies which I have mentioned in connection with the legend of Tannhauser and the blossoming staff: in token of their innocence flowers spring miraculously from the graves of persons wrongly done to death.
Word Of The Day