would be that of a plastic artist and his work achieved in stone or colour, were it possible to speak of a metempsychosis into this lifeless matter.” [799W-{3-6/71}The Destiny of Opera: PW Vol. V, p. 150-151]
[800W-{3-6/71}The Destiny of Opera: PW Vol. V, p. 152-153]
[P. 152] {FEUER} {SCHOP} “Coming at last to the contentment of ideal aspirations, from the working of that all-powerful dramatic Artwork itself we might see, with greater certainty than has hitherto been possible, the length to which such aspirations were justified in going. Their boundary would be found at the exact point in that Artwork where Song is thrusting toward the spoken Word. By this we in no sense imply an absolutely lowly sphere, but a sphere entirely different, distinct in kind; and we may gain an instant notion of this difference, if we call to mind certain instinctive transgressions on the part of our best dramatic singers, when in the full flow of song they have felt driven to literally speak a crucial word. To this, for example, the Schroeder-Devrient found herself impelled by the cumulative horror of a situation in the opera ‘Fidelio’; in the sentence ‘one further step and thou art – dead,’ where she aims the pistol at the tyrant, with an awful accent of desperation she suddenly spoke the closing word. The indescribable effect upon the hearer was that of a headlong plunge from one sphere to the other, and its sublimity consisted in our being given, as by a lightning-flash, a glimpse into the nature of both spheres at once, the one the ideal, the other the real. Plainly, for one moment the ideal was unable to bear a certain load, and discharged it on the other: seeing how fond people are of ascribing to Music, particularly of the passionate and stirring type, a simply pathologic character, it may surprise them to discover through this [P. 153] very instance how delicate and purely ideal is her actual sphere, since the material terror of reality can find no place therein, albeit the soul of all things real in it alone finds pure expression. – Manifestly then, there is a side of the world, and a side that concerns us most seriously, whose terrible lessons can be brought home to our minds on none but a field of observation where Music has to hold her tongue: this field perhaps may best be measured if we allow Shakespeare, the stupendous mime, to lead us on it as far as that point we saw him reach with the desperate fatigue we assumed as reason for his early withdrawal from the stage. And that field might be best defined, if not exactly as the soil, at least as the phenomena of History. To portray its material features for the benefit of human knowledge, must always remain the Poet’s task.” [800W-{3-6/71}The Destiny of Opera: PW Vol. V, p. 152-153]
[801W-{7/18/71} CD Vol. I, p. 391]
[P. 391] {FEUER} “A profound, indescribable impression; a wooing of the utmostbeauty; Siegfried’s fear, the fear of guilt through love, Bruennhilde’s fear a premonition of the approaching doom; her virginal and pure love for Siegfried truly German.” [801W-{7/18/71} CD Vol. I, p. 391]
[802W-{7/71} Introduction to The Collected Works: PW Vol. I, p. xvii-xviii]
[P. xvii] “Often was it painful to myself, and often bitterness, to have to write about my Art, when I would so gladly have listened to others [P. xviii] on it. When finally I accustomed myself to this necessity, because I learnt to comprehend why others could not say the thing that was given to just me to say, neither could it but in time
