Radio: ‘Parsifal’ Change

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31027, 5 April 1966, Page 8

Radio: ‘Parsifal’ Change

The entire programme of 3YC on Sunday was devoted to a performance of Wagner’s “Parsifal” from the 1965 Bayreuth Festival.

The opera is not one of Wagner’s best but it has its admirers for while some find it too long and too boring others find it profoundly moving. When “Parsifal” returned to Covent Garden in February after an absence of six years, there was a relaxing of the no-applause ban, a minor revolution brought about by Harold Rosenthal, editor of “Opera.” He had suggested that it was time to applaud the work, even though some thought it profanity to applaud Wagner’s “sacred drama” while others thought 'they were following the composer’s personal wishes.

“One is tempted to ask, is it any more profane to applaud ‘Parsifal’ than Handel’s ‘Messiah’ or the Verdi ‘Requiem,’ the spiritual content of which is surely as profound as that of ‘Parsifal,’ he argued. “As far as the composer’s wishes concerning applause,” he said, “at the first performance of the work at Bayreuth, Wagner appeared on the stage at the end surrounded by the singers, amidst the acclamations of the audience. He asked the audience to refrain from applause during the course of the performance; and accordingly the second performance was received in complete silence.

“Wagner then made another pronouncement, telling the public it was only during the performance—i.e., in the middle of scenes—that

he objected to applause, but that the appreciation due to singers at the fall of the curtain was quite a different matter. “So at the third and subsequent performances the audience expressed its enthusiasm at the end of each of the three acts.”

In all probability, Rosenthal suggested, the “mystique” surrounded “Par-

sifal” grew up after Wagner’s death in 1833, beginning perhaps in the summer of that year when “Parsifal” was again performed at Bayreuth. This “mystique” was undoubtedly encouraged by Cosima Wagner, who wished to preserve “Parsifal” as Bayreuth’s very own prerogative as far as performance was concerned.

“The composer’s grandson, Wieland Wagner, certainly has advocated applause for ‘Parsifal’ at Bayreuth but the die-hards will have none of it,” Rosenthal said. The matter was discussed in the correspondence columns of “The Times.” One man said applause was a relic of the menial position of musicians of the eighteenth century and that as everyone was expected to give of their best to summon them later for commendation was unnecessarily patronising. Another said the question of applause had been discussed by some “War Requiem” soloists and conductors and they had concluded it was, in principle, wrong to “direct” an audience.

It turned out for “Parsifal,” as it had at that “War Requiem,” that there was applause.