Transformation Scenes in Parsifal

Music and Scenery

arsifal contains a number of special effects, such as the suspension of the Spear in the second act and the scenes of transformation between the forest and the temple in the outer acts. For the latter in the first production of Parsifal, the composer decided that a backdrop on rollers, the Wandeldekoration, should move across the stage, producing the illusion that the figures on stage were moving. Apparently such devices were in use in Paris in the 1830s, where Wagner might have encountered one during his stay there from 1839 to 1842. The stage technician who was commissioned to produce the various effects and illusions was, as in 1876, Carl Brandt. Unfortunately, Brandt died a few months before the start of the festival, and the stage effects became the responsibility of his son Fritz.

 Act I Transformation Music, Knappertsbusch, Bayreuth 1951

This effect, engineered by Brandt, and found hugely effective by most who saw it, was not a wholly original invention. The Baroque theatre had used moving bands of painted cloth, often in a continuous loop, for fire and water effects, as did later pantomime and popular theatres. The earliest large-scale panorama mobile to appear in an opera house was probably that used at Covent Garden in 1826 for Weber's Oberon and it is more than likely that Wagner would have known about it. Carl Brandt's teacher Ignatz Dorn used the technique in 1836 to portray a hot-air balloon trip from Turkey to Darmstadt, while Brandt himself put it to use in 1863, also at the Darmstadt Theatre, for Aimé Maillart's comic opera Lara.

he Wandeldekoration covered an area of more than 2500 square metres, weighed some 700 kilograms and cost 17,694 marks. The scenes were painted by the Brückner brothers following the set designs by Paul von Joukowsky. During rehearsals, it was discovered that the transformation music of the first and third acts did not last long enough to allow the Wandeldekoration to be fully revealed. This presented something of a problem and little time remained to find a solution.

A Production Problem

Only on one point had we to make a tiresome compromise, on this occasion: by a still inexplicable misreckoning, the highly-gifted man to whom I owe the whole stage-mounting of Parsifal, as formerly of the Nibelung pieces — and who was torn from us by sudden death before the full completion of his work — had calculated the speed of the so-called Wandeldekoration (moving scenery) in the first and third acts at more than twice as fast as was dictated in the interest of the dramatic action. In this interest I had never meant the passing of a changing scene to act as a decorative effect, however artistically carried out; but, at the hand of the accompanying music, we were to be led quite imperceptibly, as if in dream, along the 'pathless' adits to the Gralsberg; whose legendary inaccessibility to the non-elect was thus, withal, to be brought within the bounds of dramatic portrayal.

When we discovered the mistake, it was too late to so alter the unusually complicated mechanism as to reduce the scenes to half their length; for this time I had to decide not only on repeating the orchestral interlude [Act I] in full, but also upon introducing tedious retardations in its tempo; the painful effect was felt by us all, yet the mounting itself was so admirably executed that the entranced spectator was compelled to shut one eye to criticism ¹. For the third act, however — though the moving scene had been carried out by the artists in an almost more delightful and quite a different manner from the first — we all agreed that the danger of an ill effect must be obviated by complete omission ...

How Humperdinck Saved the Day

he above account is not, of course, the entire story.

You now expect me to compose by the metre!", the Master exclaimed, horrified. Well, there was no other way round it, [Fritz] Brandt replied, the machine couldn't be operated any quicker, and the sets couldn't be altered — it would cost a kings' ransom, and in any case, there wasn't enough time. Wagner was beside himself and kept on swearing that he would have nothing more to do with the rehearsals and performances, and stormed out in high dudgeon.

 Act III Transformation Music, Knappertsbusch, Bayreuth 1962

Dismayed, we watched him go. What was to be done? It was simply not possible to risk the whole production, with all its attendant difficulties, merely because of a stupid miscalculation. And it wasn't as bad as all that, Levi thought; just as cuts can be made, so it was possible to repeat the odd phrase. I thought the matter over. To expect the already overburdened Master to undertake such a thoroughgoing revision at the eleventh hour was out of the question. I preferred to try my own solution. I ran home, quickly sketched out a few transitional bars, orchestrated them and incorporated them into the original score. Then, filled with anxious expectancy, I took the original to the Master. He look through the leaves, nodding affably, then said, 'Well, why not? It should work! Be off with you to the Chancellery and copy out the parts, so that we can get on.' No sooner said than done. The sets and music were now in glorious accord and no one in the audience had the least suspicion at any of the performances that the score had been patched together by a back street cobbler plying his modest trade. Of course, the sets were altered in time for the following year's performances; the interpolated passage, dignified by Levi with the conscientious note 'H. ipse fecit', was removed and the original music reinstated.