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The Wagner Journal, 9, 1, 16–22

Knappe oder Ritter?

Peter Quantrill

Who is Gurnemanz? This is not a trick question. According to the (generally well- researched) cast books of the Royal Opera, and New Grove, he is ‘a veteran knight of the Grail’. For René Pape, who sang the role in the most recent ROH and Metropolitan

John Tomlinson’s Gurnemanz in Act III of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s Parsifal (ENO, 2011) was bowed with age.

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Opera productions, he is ‘the highest knight of all’ but then, he would be. The produc-tion team wrote a synopsis which is more non-committal: ‘a senior member of the Grail community’, with overtones of authority and incipient senility that place him some-where between Kenneth Clarke QC MP1 and Victor Meldrew2.

The composer did not think of his character this way. In his 1865 sketch, repro-duced in The Brown Book, he writes: ‘Es giebt aber einen alten Waffenknecht Titurels, Gurnemans, der jetzt noch Anfortas treulich dient.’ (But there is Gurnemans, an old squire of Titurel’s, still loyally serving Anfortas.) What follows is a brief argument that 1 A prominent British cabinet minister, who finally retired to the backbenches in 2014. 2 Hilton Lucas in the American incarnation, Cosby.

For René Pape, seen here in Stephen Langridge’s 2013 production for Covent Garden, Gurnemanz is ‘the highest knight of them all’.

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we should take Wagner at his word, at least in this instance; that Gurnemanz acts as a squire, not a knight; and that this is significant for a modern understanding of the opera. In the medieval world of the Ritterschaft at Monsalvat, the knights who guard the grail are Ritter; they are served and assisted by Knappen or squires, young men who bear the knights’ shields (Waffenknecht), who may also (though not necessarily) be engaged in training to become knights themselves.

To the text. The first piece of personal information about Gurnemanz comes from the Second Knight: ‘Du, der doch alles weiß’ (you, who know everything). Peculiarly, the implications of this statement have been swallowed whole by much critical recep-tion, though there is no reason why it should not suggest weary sarcasm on the part of the knight as much as omniscience in Gurnemanz. So Lucy Beckett writes on the ori-gins of the character, ‘the old knight who, chorus-like, gives the audience an enlighten-ing commentary on the drama, who escorts the young Parsifal to the castle of the Grail, and who receives him on his return in the last act, is an amalgam of several characters in Wolfram [von Eschenbach’s Parzifal].’

So he is, but would Wagner, at the height of his powers, in a drama that gestated for decades, go to the trouble of selecting words and attributes from a knight, a hermit, a maiden and more, in order to offer no more than a commentary? To be clear, Beckett does not say this, but neither does she say that the single salient characteristic with which Wagner originally endows Gurnemanz, as squire to Titurel, is his own inven-tion. Principles of historical enquiry and critical charity demand that he is not, or by no means only, a ‘chorus-like’ plot device to fill in the back story and speed our hero on his way. Nor would we expect to take any other character in Wagner at face value in this way, as a source not only of information but reliable truth. In fact the text is, once more, our guide: hearing Gurnemanz dismiss potions and herbs when ‘only one man may help us’, the Second Knight asks his name, and is brushed off by Gurnemanz, ‘ausweichend’, ‘evasively’: this comes to be a defining characteristic.

Amfortas arrives. To his enquiry after Gawain, the Second Knight answers prompt-ly, ‘Herr’ (Lord). Not once in the opera, here or elsewhere, does the king address Gurnemanz by name or title – or vice versa. His second speech ends rhetorically, ‘War’s nicht so?’ (was it not so?) to which Gurnemanz supplies an answer as redundant in value as it is fascinatingly accusatory in tone, ‘Uns sagtest du es so’ (You told us it was so – my italics). The next person named by Amfortas is Kundry, and Gurnemanz is dismissed as though he were invisible. Were he a knight, one of the brotherhood whom he goes on to describe in the interrupted monologue that occupies the rest of the scene, would he behave this way, and be treated so?

In what follows, Gurnemanz places himself as in lief to Titurel and thence to Amfor-tas, whom he calls ‘Unser Herr’ (our Lord). Of Kundry he remarks: ’Übt sie nun Buß’ in solchen Taten,/die uns Ritterschaft zum Heil geraten’ (Now she makes atonement by such deeds as benefit our knightly order – my italics). There is, however, no sug-gestion that Gurnemanz has undertaken any of the missionary deeds of the knights in foreign lands. Far from it. He bears witness to his impotent presence at the single most important event in the history of the Grail Knights, the loss of the spear: ‘Ich sah dich schwingen von unheiligster Hand!’ (I saw you wielded by the most unholy of hands!). We can only wonder what Gurnemanz was doing as Amfortas consorted with Kundry.

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Spying on his king around a corner, ‘Schon nah’ dem Schloß’? With ‘Des Königs Flucht / gab kämpfend ich Geleite’ (I fought, covering the King’s flight) he hardly covers himself in glory: in other contexts, this would sound like idle boasting. If Gurnemanz is a knight, he has not behaved like one, let alone ‘the highest knight of all’, though it is worth noting that there is a certain theatrical necessity to his presence at the scene of the crime: someone must be there to tell the story.

Meanwhile, he continues to evade responsibility for action, or an account of his own history. The Third Squire suggests to Gurnemanz that he should send Kundry to look for the spear: ‘Das ist ein andres’ (that’s another matter altogether), he replies vaguely, without contradicting the squire. He pieces together the history of the brotherhood in fragmented reminiscences, with a vicarious thrill as he recounts the voluptuous pleas-ures of Klingsor’s magic garden which he had experienced when in company with Amfortas, presumably (we are not told) on a mission to conquer the sorcerer’s realm. So much is unclear, not least to Gurnemanz himself, in particular the nature and role of Kundry. His speech can be seen as attempting to discover some truth for himself.

The Third Squire tries again: ‘So kanntest du Klingsor?’ (So you knew Klingsor?); Gurnemanz’s attention is conveniently diverted by the first two squires with news of Amfortas. Our brave young squire tries one more time, laying it on thick with the familiar ‘Väterchen’ (would he address a knight this way?): ‘du kanntest Klingsor, wie mag das sein?’ (Come on grandad, we’re dying to find out – you knew Klingsor, didn’t you? How come? – my demotic translation). Masterfully, Gurnemanz gives an answer that is no answer at all: ‘Titurel, der fromme Held, der kannt’ ihn wohl’:

He is not explicit here about his relationship with Titurel – that is left for the ears of Parsifal, and Act III – but the music tells us where he stands, with a solid, oratorical, even pompous phrase moving from A flat minor to C flat major linking Titurel’s name with the Grail theme, modulating briefly to a plain, brusque cadence on C: a reply that brooks no further questions.

Parsifal arrives. Gurnemanz ‘escorts him to the castle of the grail’. What next? There is no suggestion in Wagner’s poem or stage direction that Gurnemanz joins the knights in the grail ceremony, either here or in Act III. Indeed, his narrative frame either side of the grail’s revelation suggests that he is as much an observer as Parsifal himself, albeit a

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Emil Scaria as Gurnemanz in the 1882 Bayreuth production with Amalie Materna as Kundry and Theodor Reichmann as Parsifal. Photograph by Hans Brand

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more informed one. Frustratingly, the only images of Emil Scaria, the first Gurnemanz, show him as the hermit of Act III. Again from the sketch of 1865: ‘Gurnemans, unter solchen Umständen schnell zum fast kindischen Greis gealtert, hat sich an den heili-gen Quell am Ende des Waldes zurückgezogen, um dort als Einsiedler zu sterben.’ (Gurnemans, under such circumstances rapidly aged and become almost a childish old man, has retired to the sacred spring at the edge of the forest, there to die a hermit.)

It is here, in the landscape that stands in for the Judaean desert with the river Jor-dan, situating Gurnemanz in isolated, John-the-Baptist-like splendour where he eats (vegetarian) roots and berries rather than locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4 – see also the leather belt around Scaria’s waist), that we come nearer the truth. With the spear returned to the grail’s demesne, consummation of the story near, Gurnemanz must confess his liegedom to the late Titurel, ‘mein alter Waffenherr […] mein heil’ger Held’. This is the most explicit indication that Gurnemanz was, and still defines him-self accordingly, as a weapons-bearer, a squire, to Titurel.

The poem leaves open the possibility that Gurnemanz is relating ancient history, that after serving as squire he trained to be a knight, but it does not encourage this imaginative leap across an invented gap. Nor is there any need for such a gap. Again, the music tells in terms more intensely moving than even Gurnemanz’s exalted words how noble was the calling of squire to Titurel, and by extension how bitter to him was the all-too-human fall of Amfortas. His speech in its setting reasserts his right to take hold of the story and give himself a central part in its conclusion, fulfilling his Johan-nine potential to act as one calling in the wilderness and baptise ‘one who is more powerful than me and whose sandals I am unworthy to carry’ (Matthew 3:11).

Whether or not Wagner saw Parsifal as fully willing and able to accept the Christ-like implications of Gurnemanz’s ritual action is another matter, and there are more questions to be asked about the nature and language of kingship in the opera. Am-fortas is styled throughout as ‘König’ or ‘Herr’; Titurel as ‘Held’; Parsifal calls himself ‘König’ in the act of baptism. Just plausibly, these are choices of convenience for word-setting, but let us credit Wagner with more philosophical intelligence than that. King of what? The grail’s domain is no state or country. Again to quote the Gospels with which Wagner was so productively familiar, ‘[Jesus answered] “My kingdom is not of this world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So then you are a king!” Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king”’ (John 18:36–7). Wagner’s subtle linguistic play may lead us to think that Parsifal is no more suited than Amfortas to be the kind of leader of the Grail brother-hood envisaged by Titurel; that indeed the notion of the Ritterschaft has already died with Titurel; that Gurnemanz is incapable of anticipating the nature of any new com-munity led by Parsifal.

The final words of Gurnemanz confirm the revelation of his identity – maybe even his destiny – which has been both divulged and developed in stages throughout the opera: ‘Gestatte, Herr, daß dein Knecht dich geleite!’ (Allow me, Lord, as your servant to guide you!). This is no mere formality but a declaration of willed submission. ‘Knecht’ bears the mark of servitude even more obviously than ‘Knappe’ (think of Wotan and Hunding), but then Gurnemanz is not in need of the instruction that the boys received at curtain up in Act I. He is not inferior in status to the two young knights of Act I, but as a retainer of long standing, the servant of the old king, he is entitled

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to and demands the respect due to him in a feudal hierarchy. His independence from Amfortas and his story-telling of varying truth values places him both in and at a distance from the main action: he is (as much as Parsifal himself) a version of the yuro-divy, the ambiguous ‘holy fool’ character that recurs through world culture no less enigmatically than the ‘demonic woman’ (Wagner’s description to Mathilde Wesen-donck) incarnated by Kundry.

Not every Gurnemanz shares the confidence of René Pape. To select three more no-table interpreters of the role, Hans Hotter, John Tomlinson and Kwangchul Youn have sung Gurnemanz as a squire, not a knight, in interpretations developed with stage directors (most prominently in each case, Wieland Wagner, Harry Kupfer and Stefan Herheim). The experience of seeing Youn on stage at Bayreuth and in concert elsewhere was a catalyst for this argument but also and inevitably a far richer exposition of its thrust than any words can convey.

Richard Mayr, another early Gurnemanz at Bayreuth. He first sang the role there in 1908; the photo dates from six years later.