Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1898-07-08
TOLSTOI AT THE OPERA.
Will Wagnetites Laugh. Weep OF Rage
Over His Impressions?

Over His Impressions?
One hardly knows whether to laugl
or weep over Tolstoi's account Of hi!
impressions of rendering of "Sieg,
fried. 10 the great world it will come
as surprise that Tolstoi has been in
side theater within recent years. III
went, however, at the urgent entreaty
Of friends who assured him that hC
could not understand Wagner without
seeing him. Tolstoi was Of a different
opinion, and that opinion, apparently
he retained.
He tells us in the new section of hi:
essay on art how he went rather late,
how he found the great Moscow theatel
crowded with grand dukes and person:
of distinction, and of the extreme diff
Guilty with which his friends kept him
from escaping at the end of the first act.
We could imagine that in such sur
roundings the simple living ascetic
would be i'll at ease, whatever the opera
on the stage. Tolstoi's preconceiyed an
tipathy to Wagner, his distrust Of his
method, his disbelief in the possibility
Of the music poem, and his conviction
that the whole of the "Ring" was one
stupendous counterfeit are expressed in
lively terms enough.
The thing that impresses him most
about Mime-iudeed he cannot shake
it offs that be was dressed in "trico-
tights. " Gle opened his mouth in a
strange way. He sang something incom-
prehensible. The music Of various in
struments accompanied the strange
sounds which be emitted" The rest be
gathers from the libretto-which shows
that he saw an exceptionally bad Mime.
The scene between Siegfried and Mime
bored him to death When Wotan ap-
peared, he notes that he stood in a stu
pid pose, with a spear-which was very
likely true-and that he was dressed up
in wig and tights at the same time.
"The riddles have no meaning except
to tell the audience what the Nible.
lungs are, what the giants are what
the gods are aud what has happened be-
fore.
And this is how Tolstoi was impress
ed by the foregoing scene and the song
Of the sword; "Siegfried seizes one Of
the pieces of what is meant to represent
the broken sword, saws it up, puts it
on what is meant TO represent the forge,
melts it, and then FORCES it and sings;
Heaho, heaho, hobo Hobo, hobo, hobo,
hobo! Hoheo, haho, haheo, hobo. "
Surely if ever there was a song that
would carry away an opera house not Of
abnormals, or decadents, or hypnotized
cultured people. but of Coyent Garden
pOrters. or even Tolstoi's own simple
natured peasants, it is that song But
not a bit Of it, He sees no humor in ono
Of the greatest Of comedies, and az any
INTO ~ the earicatuTe he has given to
the world the whole business suggested
to his mind nothing but gnome in one
sort OF tights, god in another and a
youth with a horn shouting "HoheoW
Che best Ihat IOlstoi will admit as to
Wagner's musical capacity is that he
was not destitute Of talent. Somehow
the old TItan's rage seems to have
blinded aud deafened him. BY one Of
those ironies 80 common where great
men are working by different roads to-
ward the same end Tolstoi does not see
that Wagner's art was as religious in
its bent as his own; that two masters,
neither knowing where the other was
going, have unconsciously been working
toward the same goal. Chron-
icle.