United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The moment Kundry calls to Parsifal, "Parsifal... Remain!" those are the words, I think, Wagner inspiration begins, then he is profound, then he says interesting things. John opened the door of his room.
Must I, indeed?... Must I?" At which first intimation of weakening, Klingsor ceases to press his authority, and adopts a different method of persuasion. Climbing to the battlement, he describes the approaching figure: "Ha! He is beautiful, the boy!" "Oh! Oh!" moans Kundry, "woe is me!"
The Grail perchance will glow for you then of Itself!" But the knights shrink away. Then it is that Parsifal, who with Gurnemanz and Kundry has entered unnoticed, advances and with the point of the Sacred Spear touches Amfortas's wound. "One weapon alone avails. The wound can be closed only by the Spear which made it. Be whole, pardoned and absolved, for I now hold the office in your stead!"
And now perceive each blade and meadow flower, That mortal foot to-day it need not dread." Kundry washes "the dust of his long wanderings" from his feet, and looks up at him with earnest and beseeching gaze. Gurnemanz recognizes the sacred spear, hails him as the King of the Grail and offers to conduct him to the great hall where the holy rites are once more to be performed.
Kundry, the sorceress, who attempts his destruction at one time and is in the service of the knights of the Grail at another, anoints his feet and dries them with her hair, as the Magdalen did the feet of Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Parsifal baptizes Kundry and admonishes her to believe in the Redeemer: Die Taufe nimm Und glaub' an den Erloser! Kundry weeps.
Whereupon Parsifal flies at her and seizes her by the throat; but Gurnemanz holds him back, and Kundry sinks down exhausted. Parsifal answers to the "Thor," but it remains to be seen whether he is the "reine Thor."
"At the bottom of art is this essential condition teaching. The aim of art is neither gain nor glory; the true aim of art is to teach, to elevate gradually the spirit of humanity; in a word, to serve in the highest sense 'dienen' as Wagner says by the mouth of the repentant Kundry, in the third act of Parsifal." There is in this a mixture of Christian humility and aristocratic pride.
In revenge, Klingsor studied the magic arts and created for himself a fairy palace, which he peopled with beautiful women, whose sole duty it was to seduce the Knights of the Grail. One of these women, a mysterious creature of wonderful fascinations, Kundry by name, had beguiled Amfortas, who thus fell into the power of Klingsor.
He chafes and calls and brings her back to consciousness. She is the Kundry of the first act, but so changed, pale with the strained pallor of one lately exorcised; the wildness and roughness all gone out of her face, and in its place a strange rapt fixity; in her bearing an unknown humility.
She calculated the price it would fetch, and at the same time was convinced that Monsignor's permission to sing on the concert platform, and possibly to go to Bayreuth to sing Kundry, would not affect her decision. She wanted to leave the stage. Half-measures did not appeal to her in the least. If she was to give up the stage, she must give it up wholly.
Word Of The Day