Seeing things at Wagner's 'Parsifal'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1882, the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera Parsifal took place at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria. In the audience was 25-year-old American Gustav Kobbé, an ardent opera fan who would go on to write Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book, a standard reference work on the subject.

As he watched the opening scene of Parsifal, his gaze became fixed on one spot of the painted scenery, depicting a pile of rocks. Was that Wagner’s face painted on one of the rocks? Or was that Wagner himself, staring out at the singers on stage? During the intermission, he asked others if they had seen what he had, but they just looked at him as if the heat of the Bavarian summer had affected the young American’s brain.

But after the opera he asked one of the singers, who was surprised at his sharp eyesight — but confirmed what he saw. To ensure that singers followed his specific directions where to stand and when to move, Wagner had, in fact, been standing on stage amid the painted rocks. To all eyes but Kobbé’s, Wagner’s craggy, sun-tanned face had blended in perfectly with the painted scenery.

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Act I excerpt from Parsifal; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; James Levine, conductor; DG 437 501

On This Day

Births

• 1782 - Irish composer and pianist John Field, in Dublin

• 1791 - Austrian composer and pianist Franz Xaver Mozart in Vienna. He was the sixth child and youngest surviving son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (who died in December of 1791 when Franz Xaver was less than a year old). Franz Xaver studied with Hummel and Salieri, among others.

• 1856 - British dramatist and music critic George Bernard Shaw, in Dublin

• 1874 - Russian-born American double-bass player, conductor and new music patron, Serge Koussevitzky, in Vishny-Volochok (Julian date: July 14). He was engaged as the permanent conductor of the Boston Symphony, a post he held for 25 years.

• 1876 - American composer, conductor and pianist Ernest Schelling, in Belvidere, New Jersey

• 1949 - South African-born Irish composer Kevin Volans, in Pietermaritsburg

Premieres

• 1882 - Wagner: opera Parsifal, in Bayreuth at the Festpielhaus, Herrmann Levi conducting

• 1940 - Henry Cowell: Pastoral and Fiddler’s Delight, by the All-American Youth Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1985 - Elliott Carter: Penthode at London’s Royal Albert Hall, with the Ensemble InterContemporain and the Paris Orchestral Ensemble conducted by Pierre Boulez