New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-04-05
THE RECENT WAGNER SEASON.

The great success which rewarded the recent
venture of producing four operas by Richard
Wagner on the stage of 0ur Academy of Music
was in some respects well deserved. The COM
pany submitted to an amount of hard and ex-
hausting work at rehearsal for which they ought
to receive the highest credit, and the instru-
mental part, always of the first Importance in
Wagner's scores was so well done that it must
have seemed to some old haunters of the Acad-
emy like a new revelation. Such an orchestra
has certainly not been heard at an opera in
New-YOrk for many years. Nor should praise
stop here. The singing of one of the artists
was always admirable, and there were other
points of merit in the performance to which
we have done justice from time to time in our
critical notices. With regard to the recent
representations of the "Walkure," however,
there is something which still needs to be said
The four divisions of "The Ring of the
"Nibelungs were not written for the ordi
nary theater, and the composer has always pro-
tested against the representation of any of
them in the ordinary way. They were in
tended as illustrations of a peculiar theory of
dramatic art, involving a great change in
nearly all the customs of the lyric stage In
them Wagner hoped to realize his ideal of the
close union of musical and poetic expression,
dramatic action, and scenic illusions, and he
built theatcr for them at Bayreuth because
he knew that only in some such special temple
of art could he secure the conditions he re-
qured, surround the music with all the me-
chanical aids, and teach the artists the
proper manner of delivering his novel
musical phrases. He has kept the tenor Unger
under salary for year and half to make
him study exclusively the music of Siegfried,
unaffected by the current theatrical influences.
All the artists engaged in the work spent two
Summers at Bayreuth learning under Wagner's
direction not merely the musc-that they
could have soon mastered-but the new style
of dramatic expression which the music absO-
lutely needed. And we must remember that
the special method of delivery, the broad
clocutiOn, the picturesque stage setting, the
large orchestra, arc not the accessories of the
performance they are part of its essence,
TO give the opera without them destroys it.
The "Walkre" differs from the rest of the
1rilogy in requiring no very elaborate mech
anism but in this, just as well as in the other
chapters of the story, we must have the peculiar
effects of Wagner's SYSTEM or else we do not
have a specimen of Wagner's art. Those who
complained that great deal of the music the
other night seemed dull and unmeaning were
quite right. But it was not Wagner's oval
"kre" which they heard.
We know the remark is often made that the
plrest music is that which requires no scenic
and dramatic Interpretation, which speaks to
the heart by it's own beauty. Let that pass.
But suppose composer has chosen to invent
a style of music which he tells us will pro-
duce a great effect if it is performed in
certain manner and will not produce that eff
feet if it is performed otherwise: if we give
it at ALL let lis at least give it according to his
directions else we cannot judge whether his
theory is right or wrong. Now this is what
the director of the recent performance at the
Academy failed to do. He could not do it
with the means at his disposal, and especially
with company of singers not one of whom
(the Briinnhlde always excepteO had any
conception of the style of musical
elOcutlon which ought to give meaning and
beauty to the composers strange phrases, and
to bring form out of the tuneless chaos. Hence
those who went to the Academy out of curl
Osity to see what the famous Bayreuth opera
was like, came away with their wish unsatis-
fed They only saw the skeleton stripped of
its flesh and decked with fragments Of skin
and hair and tattered bits of finery that made
it still more hideOus than the bare bones. The
eight dreadful women who travestied the Ride
of the Valkyries, the tiresome Wotan who
Numbered his dcnunciatiOns at the first violin
when he ought to have been upbraid-
ing tire women behind him, the huge
tin sword in the last stages of ele-
phantiasis, the Fricka who chirped through
curtain lecture, and the comic white horse with
a pink eye who stood yawning at the prompt
ers box until Briinnhilde kindly shufiied him
off to bed-these were absurdities such as
Wagner never anticipated. We wish he could
have seen them. In an ordinary opera they
might have been overlooked, but here!
Some day we trust Mr.. Fryer will do justice
to himself and to the music by presenting the
real Walkire," with better singers and with
all the proper effects. The opera has already
taken its place in the repertory of the stage,
because it can be separated from its three COM
panions, and it exacts nothing which respect
able modern opera house cannot furnish.
-
Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman is sharply criti-
cised England for rehearsng IN the third volume OF
Miss Martineaus Memoirs" the story OF that lady's
disagreement with her brother It has long been well
known In literary circles that his sisters population OF
Theism and adoption Of Mesmerlsm elected from her