RICHARD WAGNER

[Fleuron]RICHARD WAGNER

[Fleuron]

RICHARD WAGNER

The life of the great German reformer of the lyric stage is a most instructive story. In no respect is it more so than in its illustration of the fact that genius sometimes requires development, that the aspirations of a young man of promise may be altogether out of the line of the inspirations of maturity. Wagner began his musical career as the admirer and imitator of that which was most popular and facile in the lyric drama, and became at last the regenerator of that art which some of his early models had dragged in the mire of time-service and gain. There seems to have been a special providence in the utter failure of his inartistic attempts, which forced him in his despair to write what was in him without hope of pecuniary reward. Destiny drove him toward the goal of fame with the stinging whip of adversity.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipsic, May 22, 1813. His father, Friedrich Wagner, a man of considerable education though simply a police superintendent, died in October of the same year of a nervous fever caused by the carnage at the battle of Leipsic. Left with a family of seven children, of whom Albert, the oldest, was only fourteen, the widow married again. Her second husband was Ludwig Geyer, an actor at the Dresden Court Theatre. He was a man of artistic tastes, a poet, and a portrait painter, and withal a kindly man, who had a fatherly regard for his stepchildren. After removing with his family to Dresden, Geyer died in 1821, and Wagner was once more without a father. The day before his death Geyer bade little Richard play two simple pieces which he had learned to strum on the piano, and said feebly to the mother, “Has he perchance a talent for music?” The next day, when the stepfather lay dead, Wagner’s mother said to him, “He hoped to make something of thee.” And the composer adds in his autobiographic sketch, “I remember, too, that for a long time I imagined that something indeed would come of me.”

In his ninth year Wagner went to the Kreuzschule, where he studied Greek, Latin, mythology, and ancient history, and in secret worshipped Weber, whom he saw daily passing by. The boy received some piano lessons, but beguiled his time with attempts to play “Der Freischütz” overture with “fearful fingering.” He never became a good pianist. More important for his future were his poetic studies. On the death of a schoolfellow he wrote a lament which was printed. He made a metrical translation of Romeo’s monologue, and he built a terrible tragedy, compounded of “Lear” and “Hamlet,” in which forty-two persons died, most of them returning as ghosts to finish the play. In 1828 he left Dresden and entered the Nicolaischule in Leipsic. At the Gewandhaus concerts he heard Beethoven’s music. The effect he afterwards described thus: “One evening I heard, for the first time, a Beethoven symphony. I then fell sick of a fever, and when I recovered I found myself a musician.” He tried to write music for one of his tragedies, but discovered that he needed instruction. Gottlieb Müller tried to teach him, but found his pupil too wilful. His wilfulness, however, secured the performance of an overture at the theatre in 1830. The public laughed at it because of the persistent thumping of the bass drum. Fortunately he realized his lack of knowledge, and applied to Theodore Weinlig, cantor at the Thomasschule. Weinlig led him in the right direction, and in less than six months dismissed him as competent to “solve with ease the hardest problems of counterpoint.” The immediate results of this course were an overture, applauded at a Gewandhaus concert, and a symphony in C major, modelled on Beethoven and Mozart.

In 1832 he wrote his first opera libretto, “Die Hochzeit” (“The Wedding”), the music for which he abandoned after a few numbers. In 1833 he visited his brother Albert, tenor and stage manager at the Würzburg theatre, and accepted the position of chorus master. He now had leisure to write another opera. This was “Die Feen” (“The Fairies”), founded on Gozzi’s “La Donna Serpente.” Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner were his models. The work was accepted by Ringelhardt, of the Leipsic Theatre, but not produced. It was resurrected, however, in 1891, and was performed ten times in Germany. In 1834, Wagner heard Wilhelmina Schroeder-Devrient sing in Bellini’s “Montecchi e Capuletti,” and her power as an actress seems to have set his mind to work on the possibility of an intimate union of music with acting. A performance of “Massaniello,” with its quick succession of incidents, completed the formulation of his idea of the road to success. As Adolphe Jullien remarks, his object was “first to imagine an animated scene of action, then to write music easy to sing, and of a nature to catch the public ear.” He now began his second opera, “Das Liebesverbot” (“The Love Veto”), based on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” but so altered as to become practically a glorification of free love.

RICHARD WAGNER’S BIRTHPLACE IN LEIPSIC.From a photograph.

In 1834 he secured the post of musical director at the Magdeburg Theatre, and there, in the season of 1835–36, he produced his new work after only ten days’ rehearsals. The result was failure, penury, and debt. In Magdeburg he fell in love with Wilhelmina Planer, an actress, and following her to Königsberg, when she was engaged there, he became conductor at the theatre. On Nov. 24, 1834, they were married. In 1837 he read Bulwer’s “Rienzi,” and conceived the idea of using it as an opera plot. In the fall of that year he became conductor at Riga, where in 1838 he finished his libretto and began the music. He now wrote without hope of an immediate production, but with a view to future performance at some theatre of large resources. His mental eye, however, fixed itself on Paris, and his “Rienzi” began to develop along lines suggested by the popular composers of the time, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Bellini, and Rossini. In 1839 he and his wife started for Paris, by way of London, on a sailing ship. Stormy weather and the legend of “The Flying Dutchman,” told by the sailors, sowed in his mind seed which grew and subsequently blossomed. At Boulogne he became acquainted with Meyerbeer, who gave him letters to Parisians of note in music, and in September, 1839, he arrived in the French capital.

“Das Liebesverbot” was accepted by Jolly, director of the Renaissance Theatre, which went into bankruptcy before the work was rehearsed. Wagner wrote “A Faust Overture,” which also failed to come to a performance, and other attempts were fruitless. He was now reduced to arranging music for a publisher, and contributing to a musical journal. He wrote at this time some charming songs and his notable article, “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven,” and he worked hard at his “Rienzi.” An overture, “Columbus,” was played, but was not liked. He tried to get a position as a chorus singer at a small theatre, but was rejected. In “the last stage of his misery,” Meyerbeer arrived, and Leon Pillet, under his influence, allowed Wagner to have hopes of preparing a work for the Grand Opéra. He wrote a sketch of the book of “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”), and to his disgust, Pillet proposed to buy it of him and have some one else write the music. Finally, reserving the German rights, he did sell the sketch to Pillet for five hundred francs. Then he wrote the libretto and began to compose his own fine music. He had not composed for so long a time that he doubted his powers. “As soon as the piano had arrived,” he writes, “my heart beat fast for very fear; I dreaded to discover that I had ceased to be a musician. I began first with the ‘Sailors’ Chorus’ and the ‘Spinning Song’; everything sped along as though on wings, and I shouted for joy as I felt within me that I still was a musician.” His sketch, sold to Pillet, was made into a French opera under the title of “Le Vaisseau Fantôme,” music by Dietsch, and failed signally. Wagner, taking no thought for the future, but working according to his own artistic impulses, completed his own version in seven weeks, and began to develop the system which was to remodel opera. In the mean time “Rienzi” had been accepted by the Dresden Court Theatre, and early in 1842 the “Holländer” was accepted. “As regards Paris itself,” he writes, “I was completely without prospects for several years; I therefore left it in the spring of 1842. For the first time I saw the Rhine; with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland.”

LUDWIG GEYER.Reproduction of a portrait painted by himself. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic.

“Rienzi” was produced on Oct. 20, 1842, with the following cast: Rienzi, Tichatschek; Irene, Frl. Wüst; Stefano, Dettmer; Adriano, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient; Paolo, Wachter; Raimondo, Rheinhold; Baroncelli, Vestri; Cecco, Risse; Messenger, Frl. Thiele. The opera achieved an immediate and emphatic success, which fifty years of popularity have approved. “Der Fliegende Holländer” was now hurried upon the stage, and produced at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843, with Schroeder-Devrient as Senta, and Mitterwurzer as Vanderdecken. The great change in style from “Rienzi,” the sombreness of the story, the simplicity of the action, and the originality of the music surprised and disappointed the public. Only Spohr seemed to perceive its real value. He said, “Among composers for the stagepro tem., Wagner is the most gifted.” Spohr produced the “Holländer” at Cassel on June 5, 1843, and was to the end an admirer of Wagner.

Immediately after finishing this work in Paris, Wagner cast about for new material. He read a new version of the story of “Tannhäuser,” which set him to work to trace to its source the connection of this tale with that of the Wartburg song contest. Thus he came to read “Der Wartburgkrieg,” which introduces the story of “Lohengrin,” and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”; “and thus,” as he says, “an entirely new world of poetical matter suddenly opened before me.” Before the rehearsals of “Rienzi” he began the book of “Tannhäuser.” He completed the opera (though he afterwards made some changes) on April 13, 1844. In the mean time (January, 1843) he was made court conductor at Dresden, where he served seven years, producing the masterpieces of Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Spontini, and even Palestrina in the most artistic manner. He produced “Tannhäuser” at Dresden, Oct. 19, 1845, with Tichatschek in the title rôle; Schroeder-Devrient as Venus; his niece, Johanna Wagner, as Elizabeth; and Mitterwurzer, as Wolfram. The work pleased neither the public nor the critics. The music, except the simple broad march and chorus of Act. II., was pronounced ugly. Even the mellifluous “Evening Star” song was disliked; Tannhäuser’s dramatic story of his pilgrimage was called “a pointless and empty recitation,” and Wagner was blamed for not marrying his hero and heroine. Even Spohr, though he saw much that was “new and beautiful,” was troubled. Schumann alone declared of the work: “It contains deeper, more original, and altogether an hundred-fold better things than his previous operas; at the same time, a good deal that is musically trivial.” Wagner was discouraged, but instead of losing faith in his ideals, he decided on a course of literary propagandism: “to induce the public to understand and participate in my aims as an artist.” From this resolve sprang his subsequent theoretical writings: “Art and Revolution” (1849), “The Art Work of the Future” (1850), “Opera and Drama” (1851), etc.

RICHARD WAGNER’S MOTHER.Reproduction of a portrait painted by Ludwig Geyer. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic.

Before the production of “Tannhäuser,” he had made sketches for the books of “Lohengrin” and “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”). He finished the former work in March, 1848. In the mean time failure had brought debt and trouble upon him. Even his wife, though an admirable woman in other respects, did not comprehend his intellect, and grieved at his preference of artistic works over paying operas of the familiar sort. Restless and irritated, he plunged into the revolutionary movement and gave utterance to radical opinions, even arguing in a lecture that the king ought to proclaim Saxony a free state. In May, 1849, Dresden streets were barricaded against troops sent to disperse rioters, and in spite of assertions to the contrary, there is good evidence that Wagner was fighting on the people’s side.[1]The Prussian troops scattered the revolutionists, and Wagner fled to Weimar, where he was received with open arms by Franz Liszt, thenceforward his most devoted friend. The police were on his track, however, and he hastened by way of Paris to Zurich, Switzerland.

Wagner’s exile lasted from 1849 till 1861, and this period embraces the climax of his creative labors. He began his career as a citizen of Zurich by pouring forth a long series of literary works, of which those above mentioned and “Judaism in Music” may be regarded as the most important. There will be occasion to speak later of those bearing on his operatic ideas, but the “Judaism” article produced bitter comment at the time, and has remained a source of offence to many. It was published in theNeue Zeitschrift für Musik, over thenom de plumeK. Freigedank. The chief contentions of the article were that the Jews, being of no nation, but of all nations, are without national feeling; that their art work, especially in music, lacks that genuineness which is one of the products of nationality; and that an instinct for gain causes them to sacrifice pure art for the profitable fashion of the time. His examples were Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, the latter of whom he again censured in “Opera and Drama.” The authorship of the strictures on the Jews was speedily suspected, and a host of pamphlets appeared in answer to it. The principal result was that Wagner’s writings sold well. In a letter written in 1847 he declared that he esteemed Meyerbeer as a man, but as a composer viewed him as the embodiment of “all that is repellent in the incoherency and empty striving after outward effect of the operatic music of the day.” This was his only answer to the charge that he had repaid Meyerbeer’s early assistance with ingratitude.

VILLA TRIEBSCHEN.Richard Wagner’s Residence on Lake Lucerne, where the “Meistersinger,” “Rheingold,” and “Götterdämmerung” were composed.

His opera, “Lohengrin,” was produced by Liszt at Weimar, Aug. 28, 1850, with the following cast: Lohengrin, Beck; Telramund, Milde; King Henry, Höfer; Elsa, Frl. Agthe; Ortrud, Frl. Faisstlinger. It was received very much as “Tannhäuser” had been, but it gradually won its way through Germany, being brought out at Wiesbaden in 1853, Leipzic, Schwerin, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Breslau, and Stettin, in 1854; Cologne, Hamburg, Riga, and Prague, 1855; Munich and Vienna, in 1858; Berlin and Dresden, 1859. In the mean time Wagner was laboring on the largest, if not the greatest, of his works, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“The Nibelung’s Ring”). In 1848 he had considered two subjects, the story of Frederick Barbarossa and that of Siegfried, the hero of the “Nibelungen Lied.” The latter was his choice, and he wrote an essay entitled “Der Nibelungen Mythus als Entwurf zu einem Drama” (“The Nibelung Myth as Subject for a Drama”). Immediately afterward, in the fall of 1848, he wrote “Siegfried’s Tod” (“Siegfried’s Death”) in three acts and a prologue, and even conceived some of the musical ideas for the setting. In May, 1850, he had this poem printed and read parts of it as illustrations in a lecture on the music-drama delivered at Zurich. The prospects of “Lohengrin” moved him to take it up again, and we find him writing to Liszt thus:—

“You offer to me the artistic association which might bring ‘Siegfried’ to light. I demand representatives of heroes, such as our stage has not yet seen; where are they to come from? Not from the air, but from the earth, for I believe you are in a good way to make them grow from the earth by dint of your inspiring care.... Well, then, as soon as you have produced ‘Lohengrin’ to your own satisfaction, I shall also produce my ‘Siegfried,’ but only for you and for Weimar. Two days ago I should not have believed that I should come to this resolution; I owe it to you.”[2]

WAHNFRIED.The home of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. From a photograph.

The immediately subsequent letters are full of his determination soon to begin work on “Siegfried’s Death”; but when he attempted it, he found that there was too much explanatory matter, and he decided to embody that in a prefatory drama to be called “Young Siegfried.” Here again, however, he found the same difficulty, and on Nov. 20, 1851, he writes to Liszt that “this ‘Young Siegfried’ also is no more than a fragment.” He continues thus:—

“Two principal motives of my myth, therefore, remain to be represented, both of which are hinted at in ‘Young Siegfried,’ the first in the long narrative of Brünnhilde after her awakening (Act III.), and the second in the scene between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second act, and between the Wanderer and Mime in the first. That to this I was led not only by artistic reflection, but by the splendid and, for the purpose of representation, extremely rich material of these motives, you will readily understand when you consider the subject more closely. Think then of the wondrously fatal love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, of Wotan, in his deep, mysterious relation to that love, in his dispute with Fricka, in his terrible self-contention when, for the sake of custom, he decrees the death of Siegmund; finally of the glorious Valkyrie Brünnhilde, as, divining the innermost thought of Wotan, she disobeys the god, and is punished by him; consider this wealth of motive indicated in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala, and at greater length in the above-mentioned tale of Brünnhilde, as the material of a drama which precedes the two ‘Siegfrieds’; and you will understand that it was not reflection, but rather enthusiasm, which inspired my latest plan. That plan extends to three dramas: (1) ‘The Valkyrie’; (2) ‘Young Siegfried’; (3) ‘Siegfried’s Death.’ In order to give everything completely, these three dramas must be preceded by a grand introductory play, ‘The Rape of the Rhinegold.’ The object is the complete representation of everything in regard to this rape; the origin of the Nibelung treasure, the possession of that treasure by Wotan, and the curse of Alberich, which in ‘Young Siegfried’ occur in the form of narration.”

RICHARD WAGNER’S STUDIO IN BAYREUTH.From a photograph of a painting by R. Steche.

Thus we find him impelled by the demands as well as the artistic possibilities of a fruitful story to the construction of his great tetralogy, consisting of the dramas eventually named “Das Rheingold” (“The Rhinegold”), “Die Walküre” (“The Valkyrie”), “Siegfried,” and “Die Götterdämmerung” (“The Dusk of the Gods”). A further incentive to the creation of this four-part work was his belief that the true lyric play should be modelled after the Greek drama, in whose literature he found the trilogy of Æschylus—the “Agamemnon,” “Chœphoræ,” and “Eumenides” and “The Seven against Thebes,” believed to have been the final play of a tetralogy. He began to labor at this gigantic undertaking without any definite hope of its performance; indeed, with doubts as to his living to complete it. So great, however, was his enthusiasm that, in spite of the formidable artistic problems which he had to solve and the novelty and complexity of his own musico-dramatic system, now to be developed for the first time to its logical outcome, he had the poem completed and printed for private circulation early in 1853.[3]

“During the summer of 1853 he visited a place near Saint Maurice, and from there he undertook a trip into the North of Italy.... It was during a sleepless night at Spezzia that the first ideas of the ‘Rheingold’ music passed through his mind. He brought his journey to an end, and hastened to regain his tranquil home at Zurich, that he might not commence such a work on Italian soil.”[4]The score of “Das Rheingold” was completed in May, 1854. The next month he began “Die Walküre” and finished all save the instrumentation in the winter of 1854–55. The score was done in 1856, and in 1857 most of the first two acts of “Siegfried” were composed and orchestrated. His labors had been interrupted by the production of “Tannhäuser” at Zurich in 1855, by a visit from his best of friends, Liszt, and by a journey to London to conduct the concerts of the Philharmonic Society from March to June, 1855. He felt that he must accept this engagement or, as he said in a letter to Praeger, “renounce the public and all relations with it once and for all.”[5]

BAYREUTH HILL AND THE THEATRE OF THE FESTIVALS.From a photograph.

A more important interruption, however, was to come. In 1851, Arthur Schopenhauer’s “Parerga und Paralipomena” was published, and created a sensation which called attention to his earlier philosophical work, “The World as Will and Representation” (1818), hitherto unnoticed in the glare of Hegel’s and Schelling’s success. Wagner plunged into Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy with ardor. At the same time he was reading Godfrey von Strassburg’s “Tristan,” and conceived the idea of embodying Schopenhauer’s pessimism in a story of unhappy passion. He read Strassburg’s poem to Praeger, who was visiting him, and spoke of its adaptability to operatic treatment. The next morning at breakfast, in a fit of abstraction, he conceived some of the love music. Now the desire seized him to write a work which could be completed and produced. Moreover he needed money. And to end all, a mysterious agent appeared with a commission for an opera from the Emperor of Brazil. Wagner hesitated about the commission, but he began “Tristan and Isolde.” He finished the poem early in 1857, the music of the first act in the winter, the second act in Venice, March 2, 1859, and the third act in Lyons, August, 1859.

THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE, SHOWING RESIDENCE OF RICHARD WAGNER.From a photograph.

In September of the same year he went to Paris with a faint hope of getting the new work, or one of his earlier ones, produced. M. Carvalho, of the Théâtre-Lyrique, was favorably inclined toward “Tannhäuser,” but afraid. Wagner gave a concert and lost money. Then help came from an unexpected quarter. Under the persuasion of the Princess de Metternich the Emperor ordered a production of “Tannhäuser” at the Grand Opéra. The text was translated into French, a great number of rehearsals was held, $40,000 were spent on the mounting, and Wagner was allowed to select his own singers. The cast he chose was as follows: Tannhäuser, Niemann; Elizabeth, Mlle. Saxe; Venus, Mlle. Tedesco; the Shepherd, Mlle. Reboux; the Landgrave, Cazaux; and Wolfram, Morelli. In his first interview with the director of the Opera, Wagner was informed that a ballet in the second act was an absolute necessity, because the subscribers, chiefly members of the Jockey Club, never arrived till the middle of the evening, and they demanded a ballet at that time for their especial delectation. Wagner refused to introduce a meaningless dance into his second act, but “saw in the first act, at the luxurious court of Venus, a most perfect opportunity for a choreographic scene of some real meaning.”[6]In accordance with this idea he rewrote the Venus scene, arranging what is now known as the Paris version of “Tannhäuser.” M. Adolphe Jullien’s account of the production on March 13, 1861, and the ensuing performances (Chap. VIII.) is careful and candid; and it settles conclusively the fact that the failure of the work was due to the persistent opposition of the members of the Jockey Club, who blew hunting whistles, indulged in hisses and catcalls, and otherwise made such a disturbance that the work did not get a fair hearing. Wagner withdrew it after three performances, in spite of the increase of receipts, which ran as follows: first, 7,491 francs (subscription, 2,790); second, 8,415 francs (subscription, 2,758); third, 10,764 francs (subscription, 230). The smallness of the subscription at the third performance is accounted for by its having been given on Sunday night in order to get rid of the irate subscribers, who, nevertheless, wenten masse, buying admission tickets. Wagner fully comprehended the meaning of it all. “Never,” he said, “have I been in the least disposed to doubt the Parisian public when it is upon an impartial ground.”

Through the intercession of the Princess de Metternich he received permission in 1861 to return to Germany. The succeeding three years, owing to the smallness of the royalties on his operas, were years of pecuniary distress. His hopes in “Tristan” were shattered, for after fifty-seven rehearsals at Vienna it was shelved as impracticable. In 1861 (May 15) at Vienna he had the pleasure of hearing “Lohengrin” for the first time. He was encouraged to begin a new work, and he took up his old sketch of “Die Meistersinger” made in 1845. In “Tannhäuser” he had drawn a picture of a contest of song among knightly minnesingers; in this comic opera he gave a humorous representation of a contest among the common people. In the winter of 1861–62 he finished the libretto, though he afterwards made alterations. He went to a little place opposite Mayence to work on the music. He gave a number of concerts to keep the wolf from the door, and in 1864 published the poem of “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with a pathetic renunciation of all hope of living to see it completed or performed. Pecuniary distress finally broke his spirit, and in 1864 he accepted an invitation to live in Switzerland. He was on his way thither when his earthly providence intervened.

This providence was the young King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, a sincere lover of art and a warm admirer of Wagner. Hardly had he mounted the throne before he sent a messenger after the composer with the words, “Come here and finish your work.” Wagner’s joy may be imagined. He went to Munich, where he was provided with a stipend of $500 a year from the king’s private purse. One of the musician’s first acts was to compose his familiar “Huldigungs Marsch” (“March of Allegiance”). He received the royal order to complete the “Nibelungen” in the fall of 1864; his allowance was increased, and a house given him. The king began to talk about building a theatre for the production of the tetralogy; “Tristan und Isolde” was put in preparation, and Hans von Bülow was summoned to conduct it. On June 10, 1865, this formidable work was produced in exact accordance with the composer’s ideas. The original cast was as follows: Tristan, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld; Isolde, Frau Schnorr von Carolsfeld; King Mark, Zottmayer; Kurvenal, Mitterwurzer; Melot, Heinrich; Brangäne, Frl. Deinet; Shepherd, Simons; Steersman, Hartmann. In December, 1865, the composer went to live at the Villa Triebschen, on Lake Lucerne, where he finished “Die Meistersinger,” twenty-two years after he had made the first sketch. It was produced under Von Bülow at Munich on June 21, 1868, with these principals: Eva, Frl. Mallinger; Magdalena, Frau Dietz; Hans Sachs, Betz; Walther, Nachbauer; David, Schlosser; Beckmesser, Hölzel. While at Triebschen he also continued his work on the “Nibelungen,” and in June, 1870, had finished the first act of “Die Götterdämmerung.”

It was in this year that he married a second time. His first wife had never understood his artistic ideas, and the two were wholly without sympathy, though Wagner never ceased to speak with kindness of Mina. His professional intercourse with Von Bülow led to his intimate acquaintance with Cosima von Bülow, the daughter of Liszt. Wagner found in her the comprehension and sympathy which he craved. Mina was unable to endure the supremacy of the more brilliant woman, and in 1861 left her husband and went to Dresden. She died in 1866, and in 1870, Cosima, having secured a divorce from Von Bülow, became Mme. Wagner, destined to survive her husband and perpetuate his triumphs.

Now began the remarkable series of events with which Wagner’s career culminated. The king abandoned his idea of building a Wagner theatre in Munich, and the composer selected Bayreuth as a place adapted, by reason of its seclusion, to the consummation of his ambitious plans. Money had to be raised, and Emil Heckel, of Mannheim, conceived the notion of Wagner Societies. The success of his scheme was beyond expectation. Such organizations were founded all over the world—even in Milan and New York—and more than $200,000 was subscribed. Wagner settled in Bayreuth in April, 1872, and on May 22 gave a concert to celebrate the beginning of the building of the theatre. The music of the tetralogy was finished in November, 1874, and rehearsals were begun under Hans Richter. The first performances were given on Aug. 13, 14, 16, and 17. The work was twice repeated in the same month. The principals were: Wotan, Betz; Loge, Vogel; Alberich, Hill; Mime, Schlosser; Fricka, Frau Grün; Donner and Gunther, Gura; Erda and Waltraute, Frau Jaïde; Siegmund, Niemann; Sieglinde, Frl. Schefzky; Brünnhilde, Frau Materna; Siegfried, Unger; Hagen, Siehr; Gutrune, Frl. Weckerlin; Rhinedaughters, Frl. Lili and Marie Lehmann and Frl. Lambert; concert-master, Wilhemj; conductor, Hans Richter. The performances, like all successive festivals at Bayreuth, attracted music lovers from all over the world and called forth volumes of criticism, favorable and bitterly unfavorable.

PALAZZO VENDRAMIN, VENICE, WHERE RICHARD WAGNER DIED.From a photograph.

A very large deficit caused Wagner to try the experiment of grand concerts in London in 1877; but he made only $3,000 out of that venture. Wagner’s last work was now well under way. Early in life, as already noted, he had read Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival,” and in 1857, at Zurich, he began his own “Parsifal,” with a sketch of the Good Friday music. The completed libretto was published Dec. 25, 1877. The sketch of the first act was finished early in 1878, and the whole was completed April 25, 1879. The instrumentation was finished at Palermo, Jan. 13, 1882.[7]The first performance took place at Bayreuth on July 25, 1882, and the work was given altogether sixteen times that summer. The performers who alternated in the principal parts were as follows: Parsifal, Winklemann, Gudehus, and Jäger; Kundry, Materna, Brandt, and Malten; Gurnemanz, Scaria and Siehr; Amfortas, Reichmann and Fuchs; Klingsor, Hill, Degele, and Plank. Conductors, Hermann Levi and Franz Fischer. “Parsifal” was assailed fiercely by the now numerous opponents of Wagner’s musical system, but it has continued to draw great crowds to Bayreuth years after its creator’s death. The power of this and the other dramas was due not only to their inherent truth and beauty, but also to the manner of their production. As an American newspaper correspondent (W. S. B. Mathews) wrote:—

“‘Parsifal,’ as here given, is a revelation. The performance is of such a consistently elevated character, and so evenly carried out in every department, as to make one realize that in his whole life he has never before witnessed an artistic presentation of opera.”

LUIGI TREVISAN.Richard Wagner’s Venetian Gondolier. Drawn by Giacomo Favretto.

In the autumn of 1882, Wagner went to live in Venice. His health had been failing. He recuperated sufficiently to conduct a performance of his youthful Symphony in C; but on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1883, as M. Jullien relates, “as he was about to step into his gondola, some discussion arose, and he gave way to a fit of anger; suddenly he started up from his seat, choking, and cried, ‘I feel very badly!’ He fell fainting. They carried him to his bed, and when his physician, Dr. Keppler, arrived, in all haste, he found him dead in the arms of his wife, who believed him sleeping.” On Feb. 18 he was buried in the garden of his villa, “Wahnfried” (“Fulfillment of Ideal”), at Bayreuth. He left one son, Siegfried, the fruit of his second union.

This outline of a remarkable career, in which artistic success was pursued by pecuniary embarrassment, in which envy, malice, and vituperation barked at the heels of progressive intellect, will best be closed by the quotation of a few lines concerning the man’s personality. M. Jullien, who writes with kindness and yet with candor, says:—

“The most striking thing about Richard Wagner, at first sight, was the extraordinary life and energy which animated this insignificant body, surmounted by a very large head, with an enormous frontal development.... His bright eyes and pleasant glance softened the strongly marked face, and his mouth, notwithstanding the undue prominence of nose and chin, had a singular expression of sweetness and affability. With his extreme rapidity of movement, gait, and gesture, he gave from the first an impression of unusual and powerful originality; he fascinated by his conversation, so animated was he on all subjects which interested him, and he always acted out his discourse. He was violent, even explosive in temper; with him gayety, like wrath, was tempestuous and overflowing.”

RICHARD WAGNERReproduction of a photograph from life, made in 1877, by Elliott & Fry in London.

Mr. Dannreuther, who knew him well, testifies that he was most amiable among his friends, with whom he was a very different person from “the aggressive critic and reformer who addressed himself to the public.” There is no doubt that Wagner was fully convinced of the tremendous importance of his own work, and that he developed to its fullest extent the exasperating egotism of a man whose whole soul is absorbed in his aims. He was intolerant of opposition, and ungenerous in his views of other musicians. He was dogmatic in style, even when most logical in thought; and like many another genius, he had some very small weaknesses, such as a sybaritic love for silk and satin clothing, and a belief that the world ought to gratefully pay the expenses of his support while he completed his great works. With all his peculiarities, which were largely the outcome of his fierce struggle for recognition, he possessed “a simple kindness of heart, an extreme sensibility.” As to his manner of work, Dr. Praeger has given testimony:—

“Wagner composed at the piano, in an elegantly well-arranged studio. With him composing was a work of excitement and much labor.... He labored excessively. Not to find or make up a phrase; no, he did not seek his ideas at the piano. He went to the piano with his idea already composed, and made the piano his sketch book wherein he worked and reworked his subject, steadily modelling his matter until it assumed the shape he had in his mind.”

The names, dates of production, and principal singers of his music-dramas have already been given, together with some mention of his minor compositions. An overture (“Faust”), three marches, the “Siegfried Idyll,” built on themes from the drama, a chorus, a male quartet, a funeral march for Weber, five piano pieces, a few lovely songs (two of them studies for “Tristan” music), and nearly a dozen arrangements (among them piano scores of “La Favorita,” and “L’Elisir d’Amore,” pathetic mementoes of his starving days in Paris), are the musical remains of this genius, outside of his operatic works. The lyric stage was the theatre of his career, and in the works prepared for it he expended the force of his intellect, and developed the ideas that proclaim him an epoch-maker. Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the Wagner theories, and their practical exposition in the so-called “music of the future,” which has become so intensely that of the present. What is the Wagnerian theory of the opera? How does it differ from that which preceded it? From what germs did Wagner develop it? How has he embodied it? These are questions which naturally arise, and which demand answers.

It may well be questioned whether Wagner had a wholly comprehensive view of the essence and results of his own artistic theories. There can be no doubt that much of his work was the fruit of what were in his own mind vaguer inspirations, which he himself was unable to reduce to theoretical formulæ. Therefore, while we may appeal to his prose writings for evidence as to the sincerity and direction of his intentions, we may readily agree with the assertion of Mr. Hadow that “the arguments which have established the Wagnerian theory of opera are to be found not in ‘Opera and Drama,’ but in the pages of ‘Tristan’ and ‘Parsifal.’”[8]It behooves us, therefore, to endeavor to trace the development of the Wagnerian theory in the mind of its inventor, and in order to do that we must follow the plan of Mr. Krehbiel,[9]and make some inquiry into “the origin and nature of the lyric drama.”

Of the origin of the drama it is not the province of this article to speak, but we may note that the introduction of music into plays was a natural movement. In Italy, where the opera was born, choruses had been sung in plays as far back as 1350, but up to 1597 the ecclesiastical contrapuntal style prevailed, and in that year the speeches of a single personage, in a comedy of Orazzi Beechi’s, were sung in five-part choruses of sombre canonic form. The younger and more progressive minds in Florence began to perceive the unsuitability of this kind of music to the drama. In their search after a new form they were guided by the revival of interest in classic antiquity, known as the Renaissance; and they set about reconstructing the musical declamation of the Greeks. Their work began with the production of “monodies,” or what we should call to-day dramatic scenes for one voice. Encouraged by their success in this direction, two of these enthusiasts, Ottavio Rinuccini, poet, and Jacopo Peri, musician, wrote a pastoral called “Daphne.” This had all the elements of modern opera, and its favorable reception at a private performance led the two men to try again. This time they wrote “Eurydice,” performed in public in 1600, and recognized as the first opera. The pregnant achievement of Peri in these works was the foundation of dramatic recitation. It was nothing like the recitation of the Greeks, but it was a new and noble art form, in which music strove to imitate the nuances of speech without ceasing to be music. “Soft and gentle speech he interpreted by half-spoken, half-sung tones [modernparlando], on a sustained instrumental bass; feelings of a deeper emotional kind, by a melody with greater intervals, and a lively tempo, the accompanying instrumental harmonies changing more frequently.”[10]Peri’s theory, in short, was that recitative should copy speech, and that his new art form, which was christeneddrama per musica, should follow the Greek tragedies as its models. Claudio Monteverde advanced along the path indicated by Peri, and furthermore began to make the orchestra a potent factor in the musical exposition. But instrumental music now exercised a baneful effect on the opera, and in Cavalli’s “Giasone,” produced in 1649, we find the germs of the operatic aria, modelled on the simple cyclical forms used by the fathers of the sonata. Cavalli was opposed to recitative, and furthered the cause of simple rhythmical tune in opera. This new style was easy of comprehension and popular. Alessandro Scarlatti took it up and developed the aria so that it became the central sun of the operatic system. The result was inevitable. The person who could most beautifully sing an aria captured the public heart; the singer became the dominating power in opera, and the composer was relegated to a secondary place. From that time onward, the history of the artistic development of opera is a series of contests between the singer and the composer, with the supremacy mostly on the side of the former. The result of this was the imposition upon the opera of a number of meaningless, artificial forms, in which a musical purpose was manifest, but a dramatic design wholly undiscernible. In Handel’s time this artificiality had reached an absurd stage. The different kinds of arias were labelled with extreme minuteness in the matter of distinctions, and the composer was required to produce just so many in each opera and in each act. No vocalist might have two consecutive arias, nor might two arias of the same kind be sung in succession. But in the second and third act the hero and the heroine each had a claim to one grand scena followed by anaria di bravura, the latter being designed simply to display agility in ornamental passages. These laws were afterwards modified, but down to the time of Wagner’s supremacy an opera librettist was expected to construct his book so that arias, duets, trios, quartets, and ensemble numbers should be found at places suitable to the composer. In short, the nature and purpose of the opera had been lost sight of; it was no longerdrama per musica, butdrama pro musica,—a vastly different thing.

The first resolute opposition to this style of thing was made by Gluck, who had the same high regard for the classics of antiquity as Peri and his confreres had. Gluck’s theories and purposes are succinctly expressed in his preface to “Alceste.” He says:—

“I endeavored to reduce music to its proper function, that of seconding poetry by enforcing the expression of the sentiment and the interest of the situations without interrupting the action or weakening it by superfluous ornament. My idea was that the relation of music to poetry was much the same as that of harmonious coloring and well-disposed light and shade to an accurate drawing, which animates the figure without altering the outlines.... My idea was that the overture ought to indicate the subject and prepare the spectators for the character of the piece they are about to see; that the instruments ought to be introduced in proportion to the degree of interest and passion in the words; and that it was necessary above all to avoid making too great a disparity between the recitative and the air of a dialogue, so as not to break the sense of a period or awkwardly interrupt the movement and animation of a scene. I also thought that my chief endeavor should be to attain a grand simplicity; and consequently I have avoided making a parade of difficulties at the cost of clearness.”

Fac-simile autograph letter from Richard Wagner, written in Zurich, May 30, 1853, addressed to some musical director, and advising him to give “Tannhäuser” before producing “Lohengrin.”

Fac-simile autograph musical manuscript written by Richard Wagner for lithographic reproduction. Opening bars of the “Song to the Evening Star,” from the full score of his “Tannhäuser” thus reproduced. The original is in the Bibliotheca Musica Regia in Dresden.

These words make it plain that Gluck distinctly perceived the fundamental principle of artistic truth in opera,—that the music must be considered as a means and not an end. He felt that the music should be devoted, not to the exploitation of musical possibilities, but to the faithful expression of the emotions of the characters on the stage. His reforms met with determined opposition, and some of his contemporaries complained bitterly that they were compelled to pay two florins “to be passionately excited and thrilled instead of amused.” But while Gluck made sweeping changes for the better, he failed to reach the root of all evil. He did not abolish from the operatic stage the set forms, which made the musician the superior officer of the poet, commanding the insertion of here a solo and there a duet. The continuance of these forms was conserved, too, by the splendid genius of Mozart, who breathed into them a verisimilitude which they had not before possessed. The glorious boy had no reformer’s blood in his veins, but with the instinct of spontaneous mastership he made the spirit of his music vital, even though its form was conventional. He founded no school, but he was an excuse for the continuance of old traditions by others less gifted than himself. So only twenty-six years after Gluck’s death all Europe went mad over “Ditanti palpiti,” and the name of Rossini became the watchword of the lyric stage. The opera was regarded as a parade ground for great singers, and its music was expected to be cast in the simplest melodic moulds, so that it could be hummed, strummed, whistled, or indifferently sung by the most poorly equipped amateurs. All conception of the opera as a drama employing music as a means of expression had been lost, and a man who asserted that its model had originally been and ought always to be the Greek play would have been stared at as one unsound of mind. That there were a few who were ready to raise from triviality so splendid an art form was proved by the gathering of warm and faithful adherents around the banner of reform raised by Wagner.

Like most young artists he began his career by imitating the work of the acknowledged masters of his time. As we have already seen, he had no novel ideas in the composition of “Die Feen.” He simply tried to imitate Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner. At this time the music of Beethoven was his ideal. Heinrich Dorn has testified that no young musician could possibly have known the works of the immortal symphonist more thoroughly. But Wagner soon saw very clearly that it was not in his power to adopt the Beethovenian style to the lyric drama. For models for his second work, therefore, he chose Auber and Bellini. The former’s “Massaniello” had opened his eyes to the value of action with brisk music to accompany it. The latter’s “Montecchi e Capuletti,” or rather Schroeder-Devrient’s inspiring performance of Romeo, had given him suggestions as to the dramatic possibilities of vocal melody. In his second work, “Das Liebesverbot,” he tried to effect a combination of the styles of these two masters. It must not be supposed that he was searching merely for popular applause. He was intensely in earnest even at that stage of his career, and his aim was to produce real art. He did not yet perceive the utter falsity of the prevailing system, though he was honest in his endeavor to make it tell the truth. In his autobiographical sketch he records thus the ideas raised in his mind by the Bellini performance:—

“I grew doubtful as to the choice of the proper means to bring about a great success; far though I was from attaching to Bellini a signal merit, yet the subject to which his music was set seemed to me to be more propitious and better calculated to spread the warm glow of life than the painstaking pedantry with which we Germans, as a rule, brought naught but laborious make-believe to market. The flabby lack of character of our modern Italians, equally with the frivolous levity of the latest Frenchmen, appeared to me to challenge the earnest, conscientious German to master the happily chosen and happily exploited means of his rivals, in order then to outstrip them in the production of genuine works of art.”

Artistic sincerity of purpose, then, was already the man’s moving force. The immediate impulse which led him to take the first step in the development of his own individuality was the conviction that the provincial public of the smaller German cities was incapable of forming a judgment as to the value of a new work. He, therefore, began “Rienzi” with a determination to write an opera which could be produced only at a grand opera house, and he decided not to trouble his mind as to what theatre of that rank would give him an entrance. He says:—

“I allowed naught to influence me except the single purpose to answer to my subject. I set myself no model, but gave myself entirely to the feeling which now consumed me, the feeling that I had already so far progressed that I might claim something significant from the development of my artistic powers, and expect some not insignificant result. The very notion of being consciously weak or trivial, even in a single bar, was appalling to me.”

Wagner never wrote words fraught with greater significance. To sit down with a determination to not be weak or trivial in a single bar, and to be always faithful to his subject, and yet to construct his opera on the prevailing models, was for a man of Wagner’s intellectual power and artistic temperament to discover the radical defects of the opera of his day. He could not follow his models without being consciously weak or trivial at times. An examination of the libretto of “Rienzi” shows that while there is carelessness in the poetry, the dramatic construction is excellent. No better opera libretto dates from the time of its production. But it was constructed, as Wagner confessed, to enable him “to display the principal forms of grand opera, such as introductions, finales, choruses, arias, duets, trios, etc., with all possible splendor.” Consequently, while there is much in the music that is noble, dignified, and characteristic of Wagner, there is more that is weak, trivial, and imitative. “Rienzi” is a very good opera of the old sort, and the dramatic force of its book, together with the excellence of much of its music, has kept it favorably before the public. But it lacks artistic coherency, because its fundamental principle is false; and Wagner knew it before he had completed the work. The writer of this article does not believe that this master, as some of his warmest admirers have asserted, began “Rienzi” with a deliberate intention of catering to a depraved public taste for the sake of success. Wagner earnestly craved success at that time; he needed money, and he yearned for public recognition; but his own words show that he was deluded into supposing that artistic work could be done on the lines of the popular opera of his day. It required the writing of “Rienzi” to bring to his mind the convictions, which were put to test in “The Flying Dutchman,” after he had abandoned the hope of pecuniary success. This is not the place for a discussion of the relative importance of objectivity and subjectivity in art; but it is certain that “The Flying Dutchman” is the result of an overwhelming desire for self-expression. Wagner at this period of his mental growth could have cried with Omar Khayyám:—

Back to Index Next