In 1901 the effect was altogether
different from the spirit of the master. In 1876 the rococo
setting of Baireuth seemed the correct atmosphere for Siegfried
and Brunhilde, perhaps even for Parsifal. Baireuth was out of the
world, calm, contemplative, and remote. In 1901 the world had
altogether changed, and Wagner had become a part of it, as
familiar as Shakespeare or Bret Harte. The rococo element jarred.
Even the Hudson and the Susquehanna -- perhaps the Potomac itself
-- had often risen to drown out the gods of Walhalla, and one
could hardly listen to the "Gotterdammerung" in New York, among
throngs of intense young enthusiasts, without paroxysms of
nervous excitement that toned down to musical philistinism at
Baireuth, as though the gods were Bavarian composers. New York or
Paris might be whatever one pleased -- venal, sordid, vulgar --
but society nursed there, in the rottenness of its decay, certain
anarchistic ferments, and thought them proof of art. Perhaps they
were; and at all events, Wagner was chiefly responsible for them
as artistic emotion. New York knew better than Baireuth what
Wagner meant, and the frivolities of Paris had more than once
included the rising of the Seine to drown out the Etoile or
Montmartre, as well as the sorcery of ambition that casts spells
of enchantment on the hero. Paris still felt a subtile flattery
in the thought that the last great tragedy of gods and men would
surely happen there, while no one could conceive of its happening
at Baireuth, or would care if it did.
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