Wagner's life and works . ed, but she afterward hadreason to regret the choice, as her experience at Bay-reuth was unpleasant, Wagner showing his preferencefor Materna and Malten in a manner which, to saythe least, was not very gallant toward a devoted ar-tist. In the first and second acts Materna and Brandtwere fully equal to the exacting demands ofthe character. Reichman was an admirable Am-fortas. But the most striking performance was un-doubtedly the Gurnemanz of Scaria, a noble creation,resonant musically and dramatically finished to thelast detail, a perfect example of musical and dramat
Wagner's life and works . ed, but she afterward hadreason to regret the choice, as her experience at Bay-reuth was unpleasant, Wagner showing his preferencefor Materna and Malten in a manner which, to saythe least, was not very gallant toward a devoted ar-tist. In the first and second acts Materna and Brandtwere fully equal to the exacting demands ofthe character. Reichman was an admirable Am-fortas. But the most striking performance was un-doubtedly the Gurnemanz of Scaria, a noble creation,resonant musically and dramatically finished to thelast detail, a perfect example of musical and dramaticart. This is really the only individual performancewhich stood out in bold relief against the rest, andperhaps it may be as much due to the striking charac-ter which Wagner drew as to the merits of the artist,for all engaged in this performance seemed devotedto the one idea, as grand as it is rare, of reproducingwith the utmost fidelity the intentions of the poet andthe composer. The difficult choruses were given In - m. ^i^ m ft^^^ BAYREUTH 125 a flawless manner and so was the orchestral portionof the work. I have touched upon several of the ingenious me-chanical properties used in Parsifal. Probably thereader will be interested in a description of threeother important Wagnerian properties—the Lohen-grin swan and the Siegfried dragon and were described in a fully illustrated article, Behind the Scenes of an Opera House, which Icontributed to Scribners Magazine of October, 1888(Vol. IV., No. 4), the description being here repro-duced with the permission of Messrs. Charles Scrib-ners Sons. The illustrations which accompanied thearticle were after photographs taken by me behindthe scenes of the Metropolitan Opera House, Mr. Stan-ton, the managing director, courteously placing everyfacility at my disposal. The drawings of the swan,dragon and forge in this book^are after other photo-graphs taken by me at the same time. The Lohengrin swan, as at present constructed,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectwagnerr, bookyear1896
