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If this incident is true it is exquisitely pretty and touching; if not, it is highly absurd and ridiculous, but the same may be said of many hypothetical historical incidents. At all events, the financial arrangements which followed upon the discovery of the MS. and the price demanded for it by the Wagnerian housemaid convinces me absolutely of its authenticity.

To me it is not strange that Wagner should choose to immortalize the story of Bluebeard, for the interesting and inspiring myth has been used in all ages and in all countries. It differs slightly in the various versions. In some, the shade of the villain’s beard is robin’s-egg and in others indigo; in some the fatal key is blood-stained instead of broken; while in the matter of wives the myth varies according to the customs of the locality where it appears: In monogamous countries the number of ladies slain is generally six, but in bigamous and polygamous countries the interesting victims mount (they were always hung high, you remember) to the number of one hundred and seventeen.

I ought, perhaps, to confess to you that there are critics who still deny the authenticity of this work, although they concede that it is full of Wagner’s spirit and influence and may have been produced by some ardent follower or pupil; one steeped to the eyebrows in mythologic lore and capable of hurling titanic tonal eccentricities against the uncomprehending ear-drum of the dull and ignorant herd. There are those, too, who think that some disciple of Richard II.,–Strauss, not Wagner,–had a hand in the orchestration, simply because his “Sinfonia Domestica” occupies itself with the same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard libretto. Strauss’s symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have been other days!

The incredulous ones urge that Wagner would never have been drawn to the Bluebeard myth as a foundation for a libretto; but for myself I regard its selection as a probable reaction, violent, no doubt, from the composition of Parsifal. In Parsifal the central themes and the unavoidable conclusion are derived from outgrown beliefs that have long since ceased to influence the heart of mankind. Parsifal is medieval, mystic, rapt, devout. Its ideals are those of celibacy and asceticism, the products of an age whose theories and practices as regards sex-relationships can have no echo in modern civilization. What more natural than that Wagner should fling himself, for mental and emotional relief, into a story throbbing with human love and marriage? Neither would some calm domestic drama serve, some story of the nursery or hearth-stone, dealing with the relations of one fond husband and father, one doting mother and child. As a contrast to the asceticism and celibacy of Parsifal we have in Bluebeard rampant and tropical polygamy; fervent, untiring connubialism. The ardent and susceptible Solomon might have been a more dignified hero, one would think; but, although he could furnish wives enough to properly fill the stage, his domestic life was not nearly as varied, as thrilling, and as upset as Bluebeard’s, whose story makes a well-nigh invincible appeal to manager, artists, and subscribers alike; and, for that matter, is as likely to be popular with box-holders as with the gallery-gods.

This master work enunciates the world law that Woman (symbolized by Fatima, Seventh Wife, singing actress) is determined to marry once at any cost; and that Man (symbolized by Bluebeard, baritone) is determined, if he marries at all, to marry as thoroughly and as often as possible. It holds up to scorn the marriage of ambition and convenience on the one hand, but on the other, pursues with wrath and vengeance the law-breaker, the indiscriminate love-winner, the wife-collector and wife-slayer; and, although women still have a strange and persistent fancy for marriage, they might sometimes avoid it if they realized that a violent death were the price.