AT THE ALTAR OF ST WAGNER By Mark Twain Bayreuth, August 2.
was in Nuremberg where we hit the flood of music fans heading toward Bayreuth. We have never seen such crowds of excited pilgrims and bullies. It took a good half hour to pack and bring them together to the train, and this was the longest train we had seen in Europe. Nuremberg had been witnessing this kind of experience a couple of times a day for two weeks. This gives an impressive sense of the magnitude of this biennial pilgrimage. CHTMLXstill nothing. When Nuremberg us we had a lot of people who had come on pilgrimage without first securing the seats and shelter. Not found neither in Bayreuth. Marched through the streets of Bayreuth sadly for a while, went to Nuremberg and found neither beds or rooms, and toured their strange streets all night, waiting to open and empty hotel guests in the trains, leaving room for these brothers defeated and sisters in faith. They had endured 30 to 40 hours by train through Europe-with all that that implies of fatigue, worry and financial deterioration, and all they had achieved and were going to get for it was skill and accuracy sympathizethemselves, practical experience with the streets of both cities, while other people were sleeping in their beds.
These humiliated outcasts had the look grim, dusty and wet cats apologetic, and his eyes were glazed by sleepiness, curled their bodies from head to foot, and all good hearted people refrained ask them if they had been in Bayreuth and have succeeded, knowing that they lie.
by Web-Cam Bayreuth in 2008.
 Bayreuth We arrived at mid-afternoon on a rainy Saturday. We were wise and we had secured the Opera and accommodation months in advance. | I'm not a music critic, and did not come here to write essays on the operas or making judgments on their merits. Bayreuth children could do with more sympathy and more intelligent than myself. Just want to bring 4 or 5 pilgrims to the operas, pilgrims are able to appreciate and enjoy. What I write here about this event, in my spare time, I offer the public just as a glance, without any educational value. | Asher of the room to the stage.
All the lights were sedated, so pale that the congregation sat in deep and solemn gloom. The funereal rustling of dresses and the low tone of the conversation started off smoothly, and there was no sound or the ghost of a sound. This deep and progressive impressive silence lasted some time, the best conceivable preparation for music, show or conference. I think we should show people have invented or imported this simple and impressive way to ensure and solidify the attention of an audience, long ago, instead, opening the shows continue today with a deadly competitionsng of noise, confusion and interest faded.
Finally the darkness, distance and mystery, gentle and beautiful notes emerge on silence, and from his grave the dead magician began to shake his spells on his disciples and steep their souls their tricks. There was something strangely impressive in the idea that seemed to penetrate the composer was aware from his grave of what went on there, and that those sounds were the robes divine the feelings at that time passed through his brain, not the sounds family and recognized that others had been produced in the past.
Cmasters been out over 7 hours. Seven hours at $ 5 a ticket is almost too much for this money.
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Bayreuth in the early century.
Until we walked through the aisles among the crowd at intermission I met a dozen friends from different parts of America, and some who were more familiar with Wagner said that "Parsifal" seldom Like the first, but after listening to several times was almost certainly became the favorite piece. It seemed impossible, but it was true, because this assertion come from people whose word could not doubtthe opera house and arrived about the beginning of Act II. My ticket got me into the thresholds, I passed the police and the chain, and I thought I would take a break on a bench for an hour or two and waited for the third act.
At a time when the bugles sounded and the crowd began to move and blend into the theater. I will explain that this clarion call is one of the nice details here. You can see that the theater is empty, and a few hundred people in the audience are in the restaurant, the first trumpet is about a quarter of an hour before the curtain rises. This business of bugles, in uniform, marching in military pass and sent over
an emperor's niece was beautiful, had a kind face, he was not proud, it was known as having a common human sympathy. There are many kinds of princesses, but this class is the most damaging of all, because the people where they are reconciled to the monarchy and slow the clock of progress. The princes desirable and valuable, are the czars and their class. Through its mere silent presence in this world, they cover them with derision every argument that can be invented in favor of royalty by the most ingenious casuists. At the time, the husband of the princess was valuable. He led a degraded life, it sank it into their own hands in mysterious circumstances and was buried like a god. CHT
MLXC
In Opera there is a long hall behind the audience, a kind of open gallery, where the princes are aligned, is sacred to them, is the glory of glories. As soon as you fill the theater, the crowd stood, turned and fixed his eyes upon the princely framework and provide for long, lovingly and sadly contemplate as sinners paradise. Stay happy, unconscious, embedded in worship. There is nowhere more pathetic spectacle than this. It is worth crossing many oceans to see. Not far from the same look that people made about Victor Hugo, or Niagara, or the bones of a mastodon, or the guillotine of the Revolution or the Great Pyramid, oeEU has come by luck, and has not been won. A dollar found on the street gives you more satisfaction than ninety-nine who have to earn by working. A prince is the greatness, power, permanent party and support, by accident, the accident of birth, and remains with the haunted eyes of poverty and obscurity, as a monumental representative of luck. And then, the uppermost value of all-his is the only good fortune in the land that is safe. The millionaire trader can become a beggar, the enlightened policy can have a vital mistake and be thrown out and forgotten, the illustrious general can lose a decisive battle and with it the consideration of men, but a prince is always a prince, ieIt looks more like something calming our curiosity but no interest will be next time. But is not the same for Europeans. I am very sure. 18 years ago I was in London and called the home of English a cold December afternoon, cloudy and sad, to visit his wife and married daughter, a half hour later than the agreed time they appeared, ice cream. I explained that had been delayed by unforeseen circumstances, while passing through the neighborhood of Marlborough House they saw a crowd gathered and were informed that he was about to get the Prince of Wales, so stayed to take a look, were half an hour waiting on the sidewalk, freezing with the rest of the people, but ultimately DeSilusionaron as Prince changed his mind. I said, quite surprised, "Is it possible that you two have always lived in London and have never seen the Prince of Wales?" Apparently they were the surprised and they exclaimed: "What an idea! We have seen hundreds of times! "
They had seen hundreds of times, but had waited half an hour in the fog and cold, in the middle of a mix of patients of the same asylum, hoping to see him again.
was a startling assertion, but one is compelled to believe in the English, but how are you say things. I hesitate for a moment, I blurted out: "I can not understand anything. If I do not hubiwas never seen General Grant, I doubt I would have done the same to get a look. " With a slight emphasis on my words.
Her pale face showed that they were surprised that parallel what they said, coldly, "Of course not. He's just a President. "
is an indisputable fact that the Prince has a permanent interest, an interest that is not subject to deterioration. The General who was never defeated, the general who never held a council of war, the only General who commanded a front line from 1200 miles away, the blacksmith who forged the pieces of a great republic and restored so that survivemonarchies to all present and future, was not a person that deserved the attention of those people. For them, my General was only a man, after all, while the Prince was clearly much more than that, a being of a completely different construction and constitution, a being that had no relationship to the men and the eternal lights sky did not have with the poor and greasy candles in the windows. Drooling and die and leave nothing but a handful of ashes and odor.
saw the last act of "Tannhäuser." I sat in darkness and profound silence, waiting a minute, two minutes, I do not know exactly how long, then, the soft music of a hidden orchestra began aexhalar exquisite sighs from beneath the distant scene, y. .. step by step, the curtain was opened in half and was guided gently to the sides, revealing the dark forest and a shrine on the road, praying with a young woman dressed in white, and a man standing near her. At that moment he heard approaching a noble chorus of male voices, and from that moment until the curtain was closed music, just music, music that can be drunk with pleasure, music that makes you take the bag and the staff and give around the world to hear.
To those who think coming here in the Wagner season next year, I tell them to bring their own comidada. If you do, you never cease to thank me. If they do, they will find a tough fight to save themselves from starvation not in Bayreuth. Bayreuth is merely a large town and has no big hotels or restaurants. The main shelters are the Golden Anchor and the Sun in any of these places you can get a great meal, no, I mean you can go there and see how other people get it. Has no fault. The village is full of restaurants, but they are small and bad, and are overwhelmed by customers. Must book a table with two hours notice, and often, when you get find someone occupying it. We had that experience. We had had a dispute over daily life and when digor us, including crowds of people. I have the impression that the only people who do not have to fight are the veterans, the disciples who have been here before and know the strings. I think they arrive about a week before the first opera, occupying all the tables for the season. My tribe has tried all sorts of places, some out of town, a mile or two, and has only caught the end leftovers and snacks, never in any instance a complete meal and convincing. "Digestible? No, quite the contrary. These leftovers will serve as souvenirs of Bayreuth, and in this aspect should not underestimate their worth. The photos fade, memories are lost, busts of Wagner are broken, but once it absorbs a meal of a restaurant in Bayreuth, this isyour possession and your property until it's time to anoint his body. Some of these pilgrims here become, in effect, toilets, toilets memories of Bayreuth. It is believed among scientists that could examine the crop of a dead peregrine Bayreuth, anywhere in the world and know where they come. But I like this ballast.
Thursday. - They kept two sets of singers in stock for the main roles, and one of them is composed of the most renowned artists in the world. I guess there must be a double set, no doubt a single set could die of exhaustion in a week, since all functions last from 4 pm ha single expression until the curtain closes and the last sounds have paled slowly and end, then the dead rise in one impulse and shake the whole building with their applause. All seats are filled in the first act, and there is one vacancy in the latter. If a man wants to be noticed, let him come here and to withdraw from the room through an act. This would make him the most famous. 
This hearing did not remember anything I've ever seen before, or anything you have read, except for that city in the Arabian tale where all the inhabitants had become brass, and travelers were found after the centuries, mute, motionless, and still retaining those gestures qXC Could this be a pleasant atmosphere for the people that music produces a sort of divine ecstasy, for which its creator is a deity, the theater is a temple, the work of his brain and hands, holy things and participation in it, with their eyes and ears, a sacred solemnity? Clearly, no. So maybe this explains the temporary expatriation, the tedious journey of seas and continents, the pilgrimage to Bayreuth, these devotees may well worship in an atmosphere of devotion. Only here can be found without mottling or staining of any other pollution. In this remote village there is nothing to see, no newspapers that we brought into the world's worries away, nothing happens, it is always dominantngo.
The pilgrim walks to his temple, outside the town, and returns to his bed at night with his heart, his soul and his body, exhausted after long hours of tremendous emotion, and not in a position to anything other than lying awkwardly and gather strength for the next session.
This opera of "Tristan and Isolde" last night broke the hearts of all witnesses in faith, and I know some have heard from many who could not sleep, but mourn over overnight. I feel out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the only sensible in a community of crazy, sometimes as the only blind man where all pu
