In December 1903, Richard Wagner's Parsifal arrives at the Metropolitan Opera House for its American debut, and New York is consumed by a peculiar fever: extravagant spending, social maneuvering, and a near-religious reverence for a work many have never heard. W. J. Henderson was there, and in this sparkling period piece, he documents the spectacle while mounting a sharper argument: that Parsifal represents the autumn of Wagner's genius, a work drained of the human drama and visceral emotion that made his earlier operas revolutionary. Henderson writing in 1904 was making a case that still resonates over a century later: what happens when art becomes more about tradition than truth? His prose crackles with the confidence of a critic who knows his readers will disagree, and his willingness to challenge the sacred cows of high culture makes this more than a period artifact. It is a window into the eternal debate about what music owes the present moment versus the past, and whether reverence for genius can blind us to its absence.
