WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

of an audience long ago; instead of which there continue to this

day to open a performance against a deadly competition in the

form of noise, confusion, and a scattered interest.

Finally, out of darkness and distance and mystery soft rich

notes rose upon the stillness, and from his grave the dead

magician began to weave his spells about his disciples and steep

their souls in his enchantments. There was something strangely

impressive in the fancy which kept intruding itself that the

composer was conscious in his grave of what was going on here,

and that these divine souls were the clothing of thoughts which

were at this moment passing through his brain, and not recognized

and familiar ones which had issued from it at some former time.

The entire overture, long as it was, was played to a dark

house with the curtain down. It was exquisite; it was delicious.

But straightway thereafter, or course, came the singing, and it

does seem to me that nothing can make a Wagner opera absolutely

perfect and satisfactory to the untutored but to leave out the

vocal parts. I wish I could see a Wagner opera done in pantomime

once. Then one would have the lovely orchestration unvexed to

listen to and bathe his spirit in, and the bewildering beautiful

scenery to intoxicate his eyes with, and the dumb acting couldn’t

mar these pleasures, because there isn’t often anything in the

Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as

acting; as a rule all you would see would be a couple of silent

people, one of them standing still, the other catching flies. Of

course I do not really mean that he would be catching flies; I

only mean that the usual operatic gestures which consist in

reaching first one hand out into the air and then the other might

suggest the sport I speak of if the operator attended strictly to

business and uttered no sound.

This present opera was “Parsifal.” Madame Wagner does not

permit its representation anywhere but in Bayreuth. The first

act of the three occupied two hours, and I enjoyed that in spite

of the singing.

I trust that I know as well as anybody that singing is one

of the most entrancing and bewitching and moving and eloquent of

all the vehicles invented by man for the conveying of feeling;

but it seems to me that the chief virtue in song is melody, air,

tune, rhythm, or what you please to call it, and that when this

feature is absent what remains is a picture with the color left

out. I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of “Parsifal”

anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or

melody; one person performed at a time–and a long time, too–

often in a noble, and always in a high-toned, voice; but he only

pulled out long notes, then some short ones, then another long

one, then a sharp, quick, peremptory bark or two–and so on and

so on; and when he was done you saw that the information which he

had conveyed had not compensated for the disturbance. Not

always, but pretty often. If two of them would but put in a duet

occasionally and blend the voices; but no, they don’t do that.

The great master, who knew so well how to make a hundred

instruments rejoice in unison and pour out their souls in mingled

and melodious tides of delicious sound, deals only in barren

solos when he puts in the vocal parts. It may be that he was

deep, and only added the singing to his operas for the sake of

the contrast it would make with the music. Singing! It does

seem the wrong name to apply to it. Strictly described, it is a

practicing of difficult and unpleasant intervals, mainly. An

ignorant person gets tired of listening to gymnastic intervals in

the long run, no matter how pleasant they may be. In “Parsifal”

there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one

spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another

character of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires