Synopsis

On today’s date in 1882, eminent German conductor Hermann Levi led the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera, Parsifal — a work that would also turn out to be his last, as Wagner would die the following year in Venice.

No other Wagner opera would arouse the same level of controversy as Parsifal. Some thought it a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Mass, others, like the anti-religious Friedrich Nietzsche, saw it as a sanctimonious sell-out. Wagner helped fuel the controversy by calling the work a “sacred stage festival play.” Despite the notorious anti-Semitism of Wagner and his circle, the bulk of those Bayreuth performances, like the very first, would be conducted by Hermann Levi, who was Jewish.

Levi wrote to his father about an unusual occurrence that took place during the final performance of the first run of Parsifal at Bayreuth:

“Just before the final scene, Wagner appeared in the pit, twisted and turned his way up to my desk, took the baton from my hand and conducted the performance to the end. I remained at his side, because I was afraid he might slip up, by my fears were quite groundless — his conducting was so assured that he might have been nothing but a Kapellmeister all his life. At the end, the audience burst into applause which defies all description.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Transformation Music, from Parsifal; London Symphony; Sir Adrian Boult, conductor; EMI Classics 62539