nce attended the performance of August 29th, the
last one. "I find no words to voice the impression I have received,"
he said to the committee of the patron society which escorted him. "It
transcends everything that I had expected, it is magnificent. I am
deeply touched, and I perceive that the work can not be given in the
modern theatre." And, finally, "I do not feel as though I am in a
theatre, it is so sublime."

A Frenchman wrote: "The work that actually created a furious storm of
applause is of the calmest character that can be conceived; always
powerful, it leaves the all-controlling sensation of loftiness and
purity." "The union of decoration, poetry, music and dramatic
representation in a wonderfully beautiful picture, that with
impressive eloquence points to the new testament--a picture full of
peace and mild, conciliatory harmony, is something entirely new in
the dramatic world," is said of the opening of the third act.

And in simple but candid truth the decisive importance of the cause
called forth the following: "Parsifal furnishes sufficient evidence
that the stage is not only not unworthy to portray the grandest and
holiest treasures of man and his divine worship, but that it is
precisely the medium which is capable in the highest degree of
awakening these feelings of devotion and presenting the impressive
ceremony of divine worship. If the hearer is not prompted to devotion
by it, then certainly no church ceremony can rouse such a feeling in
him. The stage, that to the multitude is at all times merely a place
of amusement, and upon which at best are usually represented only the
serious phases of human life, of guilt and atonement, but which is
deemed unworthy of portraying the innermost life of man and his
intercourse with his God, this stage has been consecrated to its
highest mission by 'Parsifal.'"

The building also, which Semper's art-genius, with the highest end in
view had constructed, is worthy of this mission. It has no ornament in
the style of our modern theatres. Nowhere do we behold gold or
dazzling colors; nowhere brilliancy of light or splendor of any kind.
The seats rise amphitheatrically and are symmetrically enclosed by a
row of boxes. To the right and left rise mighty Corinthian columns,
which invest the house with the character of a temple. The orchestra,
like the choir of the Catholic cloisters, is invisible and everything
unpleasant and disturbing about ordinary theaters is remove