They all attempt, in different forms and through
different languages, to translate the invisible and eternal into
sensuous forms, and through sensuous forms to produce in other souls
experiences akin to those in the soul of the translator, be he poet,
musician, or painter. That they are three correlated arts, attempting,
each in its own way and by its own language, to express the same
essential life, is indicated by their co-operation in the musical drama.
This is the principle which Wagner saw so clearly, and has used to such
effective purpose in his so-called operas, whose resemblance to the
Italian operas which preceded them is more superficial than real. In the
drama Wagner wishes you to consider neither the music apart from the
scenery, nor the scenery apart from the acting, nor the three apart from
the poetry. Poetry, music, and art combine with the actor to interpret
truths of life which transcend philosophic definition. Thus in the first
act of "Parsifal," innocence born of ignorance, remorse born of the
experience of temptation and sin, and reverence bred in an atmosphere
not innocent yet free from the experience of great temptation, mingle in
a drama which elevates all hearts, because in some one of these three
phases it touches every heart. And yet certain of the clergy condemned
the presentation as irreverent, because it expresses reverence in a
symbolism to which they were unaccustomed.
But while it is true that these three arts are correlative and
co-operative, they do not duplicate one another.
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