Identifier: richardwagnerhis02jull (find matches)
Title: Richard Wagner : his life and works
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Jullien, Adolphe, 1845-1932 Hall, Florence Percival, tr
Subjects: Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883
Publisher: Boston : J.B. Millet
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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s turn arrives to sing, and he is hooted by the crowd.Walther is easily proclaimed victor, and thus gains the handof Eva.1 Apropos of this work, essentially historic, a questionpresents itself. Does not this exclusion of history in favorof legend, preached by Richard Wagner, seem too arbitraryand absolute, even when applied to his own productions ?Some very just reflections upon this point have been utteredby two French authors, who have written a really clear andclever book about Richard Wagner, — a rare thing. Itseems to them, in the first place, that the merit of a dra-matic poem lies not so much in the choice of the scene inwhich the action moves, as in the manner in which it movesin that scene, whatever it may be; for the fact is that there 1 M. Joseph Fluggen, author of the pretty composition on the opposite page,had charge of the decorations at the Munich Opera House, and it is he whowas engaged to design the costumes for the Bayreuth representations of Tristanand Isolde. *»
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EVA IN THE WORKSHOP OF HANS SACHS.Act III. of the Meistersinger. After a painting by M. J. Fliiggen. 228 RICHARD WAGNER are excellent historical libretti, and there are also worthlesslegendary ones. And then, they continue, what is thelegend ? Is it not usually unverified history, the counter-feit of history, a different reading, more or less embellished?Who shall decide where the one commences and the otherends? Wagner seems to be perfectly able to establish thisdistinction; he declares himself boldly; he rejects history,he must have the legend, always the legend. But his workpartly contradicts this ambition. . . . Lohengrin and Tristanare knights living at an epoch and in a country which theauthor himself is careful to state precisely, and the acces-sories with which he surrounds them, are furnished by his-tory, not by legend. Tannhauser, the younger brother ofRobert le Diable, unveils to us a scene from the MiddleAges, where the chevalier-singers accomplish exploits whichhave nothi

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