The second Act was over. The
curtain had descended slowly, hiding the singers;
the lights had flashed up, revealing the House.
It was crowded from the pit to the gallery.
The double row of loggias was ablaze with colour;
and from them came a light ripple of talk and of laughter,
broken loose as the curtain fell, a sound like the
running of water over smooth pebbles.
The Schultz was ill. So it was
advertized all over the foyer on huge yellow placards;
and a new Bruennhilde was to take her place.
The name was unknown; a young singer doubtless, brought
forward under the stress of the dilemma. The
audience whispered together and the ripple grew louder.
In the next Act, the final scene, she would appear.
The moments were passing.
Suddenly the door at the back of one
of the loggias opened, and an usher ran hurriedly
in. He gave a hasty glance over the occupants,
and then bent and whispered to a gentleman in the
rear.
“Monsieur Velasco?”
The gentleman nodded.
“Sir the Kapellmeister
has been seized with a sudden attack of giddiness
and is unable to continue with the performance.
He begs earnestly that you will conduct the last
Act in his place.”
“I ?” said Velasco.
“There is no other musician
in the House, sir, who could do it. The Kapellmeister
is in great distress. The minutes are passing.”
“Tell him I will come,”
said Velasco, “I will come.” He rose
and followed the usher from the loggia.
When the curtain went up for the third
Act, a young, slender figure appeared in the orchestra
pit, mounting the platform; only his head with the
dark hair falling, the arm raised, and the baton, were
visible. The House was in darkness; a hush had
crept over it.
The Act was progressing.
Already the smoke was in wreaths about
the couch of Bruennhilde, hiding it, enveloping the
stage in a grey, misty veil. Flames flashed up
here and there, licking in tongues of fire about the
rocks and the trees. As they rose and fell and
the smoke grew denser, the music became more vivid,
intense, full of strange running melodies, until the
violins were to the ear as the flames to the eye.
The stage was a billow of smoke curling, and the
sound of the orchestra was as fire, crackling, leaping.
The smoke grew denser like a thick,
grey fog, rolling in wreaths. The music was
a riot of tones sparkling, and the hearts of the audience
beat fast to the rhythm.
Suddenly through the veil, dim, indistinct,
showed the couch of Bruennhilde, shrouded in the billows
and puffs of the smoke; the goddess herself stretched
lifeless, asleep; and the form of Siegfried, breaking
through the ring of the fire, leaping forward, the
sword in his hand. He sprang to the couch, gazing
down at the sleeping Walkuere, straight and still,
covered with the shimmering steel of the buckler, the
spear by her side and the helmet on her head, motionless,
glittering in the flare of the flames. “Bruennhilde Bruennhilde!”
Siegfried lifted his voice and sang
to her he had taken the shield from her
now and was bending lower, clasping his hands as if
in ecstasy.
The House was like a black pit, silent,
without movement or rustle, hanging on the notes,
watching the glittering, prostrate form and Siegfried
stooping. . . . Presently she stirred.
The smoke had grown lighter, more vapoury, translucent.
Her form stirred slowly, dreamily, raising itself
from the couch. The magic was broken; the goddess
was aroused at last.
Bruennhilde opened her eyes and
half kneeling, half reclining, she stared about her,
dazed, half conscious. Siegfried hung over her.
The flames, the smoke were dying away. She
seemed in a trance; and then, as she gazed at the
sky and the sunlight, the rocks and the trees, her
lips parted suddenly; she raised her arms, half in
bewilderment half in ecstasy, stretching them upwards,
and began to sing.
It was like a lark, disturbed by the
reapers, rising from its nest in the meadows.
The notes came softly, dreamily from her throat; and
then as she rose slowly to her feet, clasping the
spear, it was as if a floodgate had been opened and
the sounds poured out, full, glorious, irresistible,
ringing through the darkness and the silence of the
House. Drawn to her height she stood, the helmet
tipped back on her red-blonde hair, the white robes
trailing about her, the spear uplifted. As she
sang her throat swelled, her voice came like a torrent:
above the wood-winds and strings, the brass and the
basses, the single voice soared higher and higher,
deeper and richer, full of passion and pure.
“Heil dir, Sonne!
Heil dir, Licht!
Heil dir, leuchtender Tag!”
The “Heil” was like a
clarion note ringing through space; like the sound
of an echo through mountain passes. The audience
listened and gazed as under a spell; the orchestra
played as it had never played before; the baton waved.
Siegfried sang to her and she responded; their voices
rising and mingling together, every note a glory.
On the stage, still dim with the smoke
and the flames, the light grew stronger, illuminating
the helmet of Bruennhilde, the tip of her spear, falling
full on her face and her eyes. She drew nearer
the foot-lights, still singing, her sight half blinded,
gazing unconsciously into the pit of the House and
the darkness. She was clasping her spear, and
her voice rose high above the violins.
Her eyes sought the baton, the face
of her Master; and then as she stood, she trembled
suddenly. Her voice died away in her throat;
her steps faltered.
The Conductor leaned over the desk,
the baton moving mechanically as if the fingers were
stiffened. The orchestra played on. A shudder
ran over the House.
What had happened? Bruennhilde
had stopped singing. Siegfried was trying in
vain to cover her part, singing his own. The
Walkuere stood motionless, transfixed, her eyes riveted
on the Conductor. A slight murmur ran over the
House: “Was she ill struck with
sudden paralysis? Or was it the stage-terror,
pitiless, irresistible, benumbing her faculties?”
She stood there; and then she stretched
out her hands, trembling; her voice came back.
“Velasco!” she cried.
“Kaya Kaya!”
But the audience thought she had called
out to Siegfried, and to encourage her they applauded,
clapping and stamping with their feet and their hands.
The sound revived her suddenly like the dash of cold
water on the face of a sleep-walker.
“I must go on!” she said
to herself, “Whatever happens I must go on!”
Her eyes were still riveted.
The face of Velasco was white as death;
great drops stood out on his brows, his fingers quivered
over the baton. He moved it mechanically, gazing,
and he swayed in his seat as if faint and oppressed.
The other hand was stretched trembling toward her
as if a vision had come in his path suddenly and he
was blinded.
Her lips moved again, and his.
For a moment it seemed as if he were about to leap
to the stage over the foot-lights. Bruennhilde
fell back.
“For God’s sake!”
whispered Siegfried, “What is it? Are you
mad? Sing sing! Let out your
voice take up your cue! Go on!”
Again she cried out; but this time
her voice was in the tone, and the emotion of it,
the longing, rent the air as with passion unveiled
and bared. She shook the spear aloft in her
hands, brandishing it, until the gleam from the flames
lit it up like a spark, and fell on her helmet.
Siegfried besought her and she answered,
they sang together; but as she answered, singing,
her eyes were still fixed, and she sang as one out
of herself and inspired.
“Siegfried!”
“Bruennhilde!”
“Siegfried! Siegfried! seliger
Held!
Pu Wecker des Lebens,
siegendes Licht!”
The tempo quickened and the rhythm;
and the tones grew higher and richer, ringing, more
passionate. Such acting such singing!
It was as if the Walkuere herself had come out of
the trance back to life, and the audience saw Bruennhilde
in the flesh. The House reverberated to the
sound of her voice; it was a glory, a revelation.
She sang on and on, and Siegfried
answered; but the eyes of the Singer, and her hands
lifted, were toward the House, the orchestra pit, the
desk, the baton the head with its dark hair
falling and the arm outstretched.
The curtain fell slowly.
“Bruennhilde! Bruennhilde!”
With the flaring up of the lights
the House was in an uproar. “Who was she?
What was she? Where did she come from?
Ah h! Bruennhilde!”
They clapped and stamped, and shouted
themselves hoarse, calling her name: “Bruennhilde!”
“She is there!” cried
the Kapellmeister, “Go to her, Velasco; go to
her quickly! Gott! I thought the Opera
would have come to a standstill! My heart was
in my mouth! Go!”
He pushed the Violinist towards the
door and closed it behind him; then he fell back against
the wall and listened. The noise in the House
was like a mob let loose.
“Bruennhilde! Why doesn’t
she come? Bring her before the curtain! . .
. Bruennhilde!”
“I must go,” he said,
“I must speak to them tell them anything she
is ill she is exhausted! Something it
doesn’t matter! I must go and quiet the
tumult!”
The Kapellmeister leaned for a moment
against the background of the scenery; he looked at
the door and listened. The House was going mad:
“Bruennhilde! Bruennhilde!”
Then, staggering a little, with his
hands to his face, he went out on the stage.