Parsifal

Richard Wagner’s final opera is retold in English verse in Parsifal (1903) by Oliver Huckel (1864-1940), a Congregational minister who served the Associate Congregational Church in Baltimore for two decades. Published by Thomas Y. Crowell of New York with illustrations by the German artist Franz Stassen, the book carries the subtitle A Mystical Drama by Richard Wagner Retold in the Spirit of the Bayreuth Interpretation. Its timing was shrewd: the book appeared the same year the Metropolitan Opera mounted the work’s controversial American premiere in defiance of Bayreuth’s monopoly, an event that made the Grail drama a sensation in New York. Huckel went on to retell Wagner’s other music dramas for Crowell in the same pocket format, but this first volume remains the best known of the series. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.