The Union Jack Read Online Free PDF Page B

opera
Die Walküre
—had an impact like a street mugging, a sudden attack for which I was unprepared in every sense. Naturally, I was not so uninformed as to be unaware that Richard Wagner himself had written the librettos of his operas, making it advisable to read through the texts before listening to his operas. But I was unable to procure the libretto for
Die Walküre
, any more than Wagner’s other librettos, a state of affairs to which pessimism induced by my milieu, and lassitude induced by that pessimism—a lassitude that was always instantly ready for renunciation of any kind—no doubt also contributed, though to be completely fair I should add that in the disaster era, which happened to be the era in which Richard Wagner began to interest me, Richard Wagner was actually classified as an undesirable composer, and thus his opera librettos were not available for sale, his operas were generally not performed, so to this day I don’t understand and don’t know why
Die Walküre
, of all his operas, was being performed, and with a fair degree of regularity at that. I do recall that some sort of so-called programmebooklet was on sale, the sort of disaster-era programme booklet which, alongside (disastrous) synopses of other operas, ballets, plays, marionette shows and films, also provided a five- or six-line synopsis of the “content,” so to speak, of
Die Walküre
, out of which I understood nothing at all and which presumably—though this did not occur to me at the time—had been deliberately contrived in such a way that nobody should understand it; in truth, to hold nothing back, I was even unaware that
Die Walküre
was the second piece in an interlinked tetralogy. That was how I took my seat in the auditorium at the Opera House, which even in the disaster era was still an exceedingly agreeable, indeed splendid, place. What happened to me is what came next: “… the lights in the auditorium went down and below their box the orchestra broke into the wild pulsating notes of the prelude. Storm, storm … Night and tempest … Storm, a raging tempest, in the forest. The angry God’s command resounded, once, twice repeated in its wrath, obediently the thunder crashed. The curtains whisked open as though blown by the storm. There was the rude hall, dark save for a glow on the pagan hearth. In the centre towered up the trunk of the ash tree. Siegmund, a rosy-cheeked man with a straw-coloured beard, appeared in the timber-frameddoorway and, beaten and harried, he leaned against the door-post. His sturdy legs, wrapped round with hide and thongs, carried him forwards with tragically dragging steps. Beneath his blond brows and the blond forelocks of his wig his blue eyes fixed the conductor with an imploring gaze. At last the orchestra gave way to the tenor’s voice, which rang clear and true, though he tried to make it sound like a gasp … A minute passed, filled with the singing, eloquent flow of the music, rolling its waves at the feet of the events on the stage … Sieglinde entered from the left … They looked at each other with the beginning of enchantment, a first dim recognition, standing rapt while the orchestra interpreted in a melody of profound enchantment … Again their glances met and mingled, while below the melody voiced their yearning.” Yes, that is how it was. Try as I might to follow it, straining my ears and eyes to the utmost, I understood not a single word of the text. I had no idea who Siegmund and Sieglinde were, who Wotan and the Valkyrie were, or what motivated them. “His wrath roared itself out, by degrees grew gentle and dispersed into a mild melancholy, on which note it ended. A noble prospect opened out, the scene was pervaded with epic and religious splendour. Brünnhilde slept. The God mounted the rocks.” Yes, where-asI stepped out of the Opera House onto Stalin Avenue, as it happened to be called at that time. I shall not attempt—naturally, it would be pointless