Metropolitan Opera Archives

Scrutiny of the attitude of the audience and that of some of the singing actors in the annual Good Friday performance of "Parsifal" at the Metropolitan Opera House yesterday afternoon served to disclose some subjects for comparison. The theater was crowded, as much so as if some celebrated prima donna had been advertised to fill the atmosphere with trills and staccati. And it was an audience of rapt demeanor, immersed profoundly in the moods of the drama. The first act was observed as if it had been indeed a religious rite.

It would be idle to say that those behind the footlights took the great "Amen" of Wagner quite so seriously. Mr. Taucher was a resolute and unfaltering Parsifal, but one felt that his afternoon was one of onerous duty. Mme. Easton, on the other hand, projected into the auditorium the conviction of a deeply sincere artist engaged in a self-sacrificing interpretation. She sang with her spirit as well as with her voice. Her share of the opera was of beauty and artistic finesse.

The victim of Kundry's wiles was Mr. Schorr, whose Amfortas was honest, straightforward and correct, but lacking something of the poignant pathos which is the life of the role. But within the limits of Mr. Schorr's powers all was admirably done. Mr. Bohnen as Gurnemanz exhibited a wealth of action and gesticulation. Genuflections before the altar of the Grail occupied him when he might otherwise have passed across the stage unobserved. There were a few moments in the first and third acts when the audience was not invited to keep its eyes on him. Such pictorial ingenuity has its uses in the lyric drama, but it has not been traditionally associated with the role of Gurnemanz.

The choruses, except that of the flower maidens, were well sung, though the unseen boys in the temple dome had moments when they should also have been unheard. And the problem of the bells behind the scenes has not yet been solved. From some of them one hears only certain overtones and not the fundamentals, so that they appear to be out of tune with Mr. Kirscher's tympani, which as a rule are mercilessly accurate. Since, however, the representation went home to a large audience and probably put hearers in a reverent frame of mind, its minor defects call for mention only because they were regrettable blemishes on an influential work of art. Mr. Bodanzky conducted with authority, but it seems that only a few pages of this score thrill him.

Search by season: 1923-24

Search by title: Parsifal,

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