Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-30
IMPRESSIONS
 OF "PARSIFAL' .
Wagner's Opera as Viewed by
 Musician and a Dramatist.
WALTER DAMRosoH DISAPPOINTED


 reuth Production and Regrets Per-
 formance Here-BeIasco Says Bai- reuth Is Outdone-Declares Mystic Play Ia Not SacriI
 cious1 Yes"-seCond Act Marvellous
 The following article in the New York Herald contains two impressions of the New York production of Wag. ner's opera "ParsifaI' from the view point of a musician and dramatist
 Walter Damrosch, the musician, re- cords the production of "ParsifaP' as bold and brave effort on the part of MT. ConTied and his company to achieve the impossible.
 'Wagner's last will and testament beQueathing 'Parsifal' to Baireuth ex- clusively was no idle whim, but in sptred by an absolute conviction, born of an intimate knowledge of operatic conditions, that this work was of character so unique that a proper per formance is almost impossible in a regular opera house and decidedly so during regular opera season.
 Tt would, therefore, be folly to crit fcise this performance on the lines laid down by Wagner, for, though MT. Con- ried had spent money lavishly and had given the work a fine cast of singers and more rehearsals than are usually vouchsafed a new production during an opera season, and though the per formance moved briskly and almost glibly along. Wagners good judgment was abundantly proved, and cannot help but wish that MT. Conried's fine energy and desire to prove his mettle had expended itself on some work less exalted in character and in which so many fine points of art and morals were not at stake.
 "At Baireuth performances there were perfections-artists even there have been known to sing out of tune-bnt the theater is ideally planned, and artists and audiences alike are enabled to con- centrate themselves on the work, in- sptred by the unique conditions sur rounding them and undisturbed by the trfyiaIities of ordinary life.
 T cannot say that the performance reproduced on me the Baireuth inn pression of the beauty and solemnity of
 
 tan church which are enacted and sym bolized before us in the first and third acts. These scenes, which were so deep- ly moving and impressive in Baireuth, became dull and almost irreverent It was frankly 1operatic,' and the scenes might just as well have been taken from some Masonic ceremonial. In the main lines the stage business was the same as in Baireuth, but the inner spir- it was often wanting.
 Whether it was the trivial manner in which the Holy Grail was uncovered or the slouchy way in which the knights of the Grail walked or fussed with their cloaks or the garish lighting of the Hall of the Grail, there was but little illusion and none of the mysticism which should envelop these scenes as with a holy mantle. It was heavily borne in upon me that a performance of an art work dealing directly with things and symbols most sacred should either leave the whole stage parapher- nalia to the imagination or by incessant rehearsals and discipline succeed in pro- ducing a perfect stage illusion. There should be no betwixt and between"
 MT. Damrosch heartily praises the musical performance, though he criti- cises the weakness of the chorus. F1- nally, he cannot see why "ParsifaP' should not be given frankly as an opera at ordinary hours, without all this fummery and affectation of long inter- missions and trumpet calls. These, he says, "are but externals and cannot re- produce the Baireuth spirit. These are but mockery of that ideal which Wag- ner tried to rear in that faraway little country town and which we, who starve in great cities, can only long for as young Parsifal longed for sight of the Holy Grail in his long wanderings."
 David Belasco, the dramatist, says:
 ''I saw 'Parsifap in Baireuth; saw the Passion play in Oberammergau. Transplanting is a delicate undertak- ing, and tParsifaP is almost as difficult to transplant as the Passion play. Race. association, training-all these have f1t- ted MT. Conried for this remarkable task.
 '"There is only one great tragedy in the world, the divine tragedy. Wag- ner has been influenced by it, by the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief Stripped of its incidental ad- 1uncts, 'ParsifaP deals with a young man who, in the hope that he may prove a redeemer remains insensible to his suffering until he becomes clair voyant by the kiss of the temptress Kundry and thereby made to under stand the meaning of pity. Wagner, 1 this volcano of emotions, this creator of barbarians and lusty young lovers, has written work immortalizing pity. But remember he wrote it at the end of his 1 life Already his blood ran cold. Par sifar is predestined. Hence there is no complication, no great fall and no great story-that is, from a dramatic stand | point. Wagner's earlier poems of men l and women who lived to love and loved to live are far more dramatic because 1 they are more human. After all, hu- manity is the playwright's keynote. l ''The difficulties of the book of Par