[Met Concert or Gala] CID:9620



Concert: Parsifal (Selections)
Metropolitan Opera House, Sun, February 15, 1891




Concert: Parsifal (Selections)



Metropolitan Opera House
February 15, 1891


CONCERT: PARSIFAL SELECTIONS

Prelude

Grand Scene from Act II

Kundry..................Pauline Schöller-Haag
Parsifal................Heinrich Gudehus

Act III Excerpts

(Prelude. Gurnemanz. Parsifal's Return. Good Friday Spell. Transformation. Titurel's Funeral. The Knights of the Holy Grail. Salvation of Amfortas. Parsifal as King of the Holy Grail. Finale.)

Parsifal................Heinrich Gudehus
Amfortas................Theodore Reichmann
Gurnemanz...............Emil Fischer

Conductor...............Anton Seidl








Review 1:

Review of W. J. Henderson in The New York Times

The concert at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening, consisting of selections from "Parsifal," upon the whole indicated the judgment of the managers in not having given it before. Of course, the subject matter has an interest to students of music and to well-inured hearers of Wagner, in addition to the peculiar interest that attaches to it as his "Swan Song.'" Frau Wagner's decision to confine the production of the opera to Bayreuth may be unwise, but it is certainly less wise to sanction the production of it in concerts where it loses much of its musical charm in losing most of its dramatic significance, and a prohibition of such a performance would be an appropriate tribute of respect to the composer's memory.

Such a performance puts upon the hearer that he must be a very industrious and patient hearer if he does not regard as more than his fair share of the work. The prelude, of course, is a noble piece of music that may properly be and has often been detached from the opera, the Funeral of Titurel is musically majestic and impressive, and the Good Friday Spell is also of an independent musical interest. Of course, there are many beautiful passages for the orchestra, but the vocal parts as they were given last night must be rather more a task than a pleasure, especially the scene of the second act between Kundry and Parsifal. We say this without any intended disrespect to the singers engaged in that scene, though Frau Scholler Haag's performance was not at all satisfactory. Herr Fischer and Herr Reichmann can impart a certain interest even to the most ungrateful parts by purely vocal gifts and accomplishments and, in fact, the vocal parts in the selection from the third act are much less ungrateful than in the selection from the second, and the orchestral writing is also "of a higher mood."

Of very much of this music from the third act it may be said that it is far better to have heard it in the form of a concert selection than not to have heard it at all, but the better it is the more anxious the hearer must be to hear it given properly, and more evident is the injustice done to it in giving it otherwise. To none of Wagner's works do his own words apply more strictly: "I care absolutely nothing about my works being given; I am only anxious that they should be so given as I intended."



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