In the third act, when Tannhäuser in his despair calls upon Venus, we are informed of her appearance before his fancy by the return of the bacchanalian music. We also see her revealed in the rosy light of her cavern, but this is a complete concession to the public want of imagination. Wagner's original intention was to let the music tell the story of her nearness, but he came to the conclusion that he would not be understood, and so he placed Venus and her court before our eyes. With the return of the pilgrims' chorus at the end of the drama we meet the last repetition of a thematic idea. In none of these repetitions is the leitmotiv method employed. They are simply such repetitions as Gounod makes in "Faust" when the mad Marguerite imagines she hears again the first salutation of Faust, or in "Roméo et Juliette," when the dying Romeo's disordered mind carries him back to the chamber scene and "Non, ce n'est pas le jour."
The dramatic power of "Tannhäuser" is not to be sought in evidences of the development of the future Wagnerian system except in the fidelity of the music to the underlying thought, and of the masterful employment of operatic materials hitherto used wholly with a view to musical effectiveness. In characterisation, too, this score shows an advance over that of "Der Fliegende Holländer," which itself was far ahead of its contemporaries. Wagner himself lays stress upon the deep significance of passages of free composition. For example, he says that in the stanza which Tannhäuser sings in the finale of the second act ("Zum Heil den Sündigen zu Führen")—a stanza which isusually buried by the ensemble—"lies the whole significance of the catastrophe of Tannhäuser, and indeed the whole essence of Tannhäuser; all that to me makes him a touching phenomenon is expressed here alone." And various remarks in his long and—for the theatre—important essay on the performing of "Tannhäuser" show how far from his mind in the preparation of this work was the fully developed Wagnerian system of "Tristan und Isolde." The union of the arts tributary to the drama in the "art work of the future" had already been conceived by him, and the greatness of "Tannhäuser," together with the causes of its radical difference from the typical opera of its time, must be sought in the evidences of Wagner's successful employment of this union. Neither verse nor music had yet disclosed the complete Wagner; but here we find the master in his transitional stage. The puissant eloquence of the vital scenes of "Tannhäuser" will long keep it before the public in spite of its inherent weaknesses.
Romantic Opera in Three Acts.
First performed at the Court Theatre, Weimar, August 28, 1850.
Original Cast.
Wiesbaden, 1853; Stettin, Breslau, Frankfort, Schwerin, Leipsic, 1854; Hanover, Darmstadt, Riga, Prague, Hamburg, Cologne, 1855; Würzburg, Mayence, Carlsruhe, 1856; Munich, Sondershausen, Vienna, 1857; Dresden, Berlin, Mannheim, 1859; Danzig, Königsberg, 1860; Rotterdam, 1862; Gratz, 1863; Budapesth, 1866; Dessau, 1867; Milan, Cassel, Baden, St. Petersburg, 1868; Olmütz, Stuttgart, Gotha, 1869; Brussels, Brunswick, Magdeburg, The Hague, Copenhagen, 1870; Bologna, New York, 1871; Nuremberg, Florence, 1872; Lübeck, 1873; Stockholm, Strassburg, 1874; Boston, 1875; London, Covent Garden, May 8, 1875; Dublin, 1875; Basle, Trieste, 1876;San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chemnitz, Crefeld, Temesvar, Salzburg, Melbourne, Lemburg, 1877; Görlitz, Barmen, Regensburg, Rome, 1878; Altona, Liegnitz, 1879; London (English), Genoa, 1880; Liverpool, Antwerp, Venice, Nice, Naples, Moscow, Madrid, Münster, 1881; Innspruck, Barcelona, 1882.
First performed in America in German at the Stadt Theater, New York, April 3, 1871, under Adolf Neuendorff.
Cast.
First performance in Italian, Academy of Music, March 23, 1874.
Cast.
Whenhe was collecting the materials for "Tannhäuser," Wagner, as we have seen, read the "Parzival" of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The last one hundred lines of that poem contains one of the versions of the story of Lohengrin. It is an insufficient story, however, and would not in itself have provided the foundation of Wagner's most popular work. As I have said in my introduction to the Schirmer edition of the vocal score of "Lohengrin," "Wagner's method of literary composition was to gather all the versions of a national mythological legend, and select the incidents and characters which fitted into his plan." This plan, of course, grows out of his perception of the dramatic possibilities of the story. The sources of Wagner's poem, then, in addition to "Parzival," were "Der Jüngere Titurel," a poem by Albrecht von Scharffenberg, giving a full account of the Holy Grail and its guardians, and also recounting the life and death of Lohengrin after leaving Brabant;Der Schwanen-Ritter, by Konrad von Würzburg, a poem dating from the latter half of the thirteenth century; "Lohengrin," a poem by an unknown Bavarian poet, and the popular form of the legend as given by the Grimm Brothers in the "Deutsche Sagen."
At Marienbad in the summer of 1845 he laid down the outlines of his plan, and in the winter ensuing he wrote the book and invented some of the melodic ideas. He began the actual composition of the opera with the narrative of Lohengrin in the final scene, because, like the ballad of Senta, that monologue contained the most significant musical germs in the whole score. While living at Grossgraufen, near Pilnitz, he wrote the music of the third act between September 9, 1846, and March 5, 1847. The first act was composed between May 12 and June 8, 1847, and the second act between June 18th and August 2d of the same year. The prelude was finished on August 28, 1847, and the instrumentation was made during the following winter and spring. The score of the opera was not published for several years, because Meser, who had printed the previous works of the composer, had lost money by the ventures. Breitkopf & Härtel subsequently secured the score at a small price, not because they were niggardly in offering, but because Wagner's works had no large market value at the time, and he was anxious to sell, being in his chronic condition of financial embarrassment.
The Lohengrin poem gives the story thus: Elsa, daughter of the Duke of Brabant, is left in care of Frederic of Telramund. He aspires to her hand, but she refuses him. He then accuses her before the Emperor of having promised to be his wife and having broken the promise. The Emperor declares that the case must be tried by the ordeal of battle. A passing falcon falls at Elsa's feet with a bell tied to its leg. In her agitation she rings the bell. The sound reaches Monsalvat, where it acts as a summons to Lohengrin,the son of Parzival. A swan appears on the river and Lohengrin knows that he is ordered to go with it. On arriving at Antwerp, five days later, Lohengrin is received with honour, and with Elsa sets out for the court of the Emperor at Mayence. There the combat is fought and Telramund defeated. Lohengrin marries Elsa, having extracted from her the promise not to ask his name or country. They live together two years. Then in a joust Lohengrin conquers the Duke of Cleves and breaks his arm. The Duchess of Cleves sneers at Lohengrin because no one knows who he is. This preys on the mind of Elsa till she asks the fatal question. Then Lohengrin, in the presence of the Emperor and the Court, tells his story, steps into the swan-boat and vanishes.
The story of the "Chevalier au Cygne," as found in the Grimm version also, is evidently a combination of two legends. The first deals entirely with the transformation of human beings into swans, and the second with the Swan-Knight. The mother-in-law of a queen, out of hatred, endeavours to make away with her seven children, each of whom was born with a silver chain about its neck, and to throw suspicion on the queen. She gives them to a knight to slay, but he contents himself with leaving them in a wood, where they are found and cared for by a hermit. The king's mother subsequently learns that the children are still alive, and sends a servant to kill them and bring the chains as evidence. He finds six children, one having gone on a short journey with the hermit, and when he takes the chains off their necks they turn into swans and fly away. The king's mother now brings the false accusation against the queen,and the king declares that, unless a champion can be found to establish her innocence, she must die. An angel goes to Helyas, the son who was not found by the servant, and tells him who he is and of his mother's danger. Helyas goes to Court, declares himself, fights for his mother, and conquers. The chains are brought forth, the six swans fly in, Helyas puts the chains around their necks, and they resume their human forms.
Subsequently Helyas sees a swan appear, drawing a boat, and knows that he is summoned. At Nimwegen he finds that before the Emperor Otto the Duchess of Bouillon has been accused by her brother-in-law of poisoning her husband. The Emperor has ordered the settlement of the case by the ordeal of combat. Helyas defends the Duchess, overthrows her accuser, marries her daughter, and becomes the father of Godfrey of Bouillon. After seven years the Duchess asks the fatal question, and Helyas, without answering it, goes away forever in his swan-boat. The reader will easily discover in the latter part of this story how the Lohengrin legend has been used to manufacture a supernatural father for Godfrey of Bouillon. It was not at all uncommon for the poets of the mediæval period thus to celebrate the mighty.
We have now before us the chief materials out of which Wagner made his beautiful dramatic poem, for the story of Wolfram's "Parzival" served principally to set him on the track, and to make suggestions as to the character of Elsa. That story tells simply that the Duchess of Brabant refused to be the wife of any man save him whom God should send her, and so Lohengrin came and the marriage took place, with thestipulation that he should not be asked his name or race. After some years she asked the fatal question and he returned to Monsalvat.
The Elsa of Wolfram was evidently inclined to become a nun, but in two lines of the "Parzival" Wagner found a suggestion as to her nature of which he made eloquent use in his first act:
The absolute confidence of Wagner's Elsa in the readiness of Providence to send her the knight of whom she had dreamed and her unresisting attitude in the presence of her accuser and her king were certainly drawn from these lines of Wolfram's.
From the story of the Swan-Knight he gathered the idea of the transformation of a human being into a swan by a malignant woman, and his tremendously dramatic development of this idea is seen in the plot of his opera. The accusation of Telramund is increased by the assertion that Elsa has murdered her brother, a suggestion drawn, of course, from the accusation against the queen in the "Chevalier au Cygne." He has in reality been transformed into a swan by Ortrud, the wife of Telramund, a character wholly invented by Wagner. It is she who performs the office attributed in the old story to the Duchess of Cleves, that of inspiring distrust and questionings in the mind of Elsa. The character of Telramund is the merest sketch in the sources of the drama and its individuality is entirely the result of Wagner's dramatic skill.
The scene is laid at Antwerp, as it is in the Bavarian poet's version, but is retained there instead of being shifted to Mayence. The heroine is the Duchess of Brabant. The monarch, however, is not Otto, but Henry I., who reigned from 918 to 936. In his treatment of this character Wagner adheres to historic truth. Henry was a progressive and an aggressive monarch, and he not only led his people in successful wars against the Huns, but brought order out of political chaos at home. It is to these historical matters that the King refers in the speeches of the opening scene of the opera.
In the old stories the Knight has several days in which to reach the woman in distress and fight for her. Wagner has made this episode far more dramatic by requiring the immediate presence of the champion, by the ingenious plan of having the first call unanswered, and by making the fight for Elsa's life and honour take place at once. The arrival of Lohengrin is one of the most theatrically effective scenes in all opera, and the sweet and gentle farewell to the swan, following the hubbub of excitement, affords one of those splendid musical contrasts which are to be found in all Wagner's works and which are, as in this case, entirely his own. The first act of the opera leans heavily on the sources of the story, but the reader can have no difficulty in seeing how ingeniously Wagner has utilised his materials. At the end of the combat it has in recent years been the custom to employ a piece of stage business, authorised by the Bayreuth management, which is destructive of much of the effect of the scene, and obviously contrary to Wagner's original conception. Lohengrin doesnot fell Telramund "with one mighty stroke," as the stage direction in the score says he should, but holds his sword on high, while Frederic, without being struck at all, falls, overcome by the mysterious power which emanates from it. Of course this belittles the knightly character of Lohengrin, who conquers not by his prowess, but by the intervention of supernatural power, and furthermore it is opposed to the text. The Herald in his address to the combatants just before the King's prayer says:
"By evil magic's cunning and deceit distort not the nature of the judgment." The meaning of that speech is certainly a prohibition of the exercise of supernatural power by Lohengrin. And in the old stories it is always related that he defeated his opponent in equal combat. The supernatural element is sufficiently to the fore in this first scene in the appearance of the Swan-Knight in answer to the prayer and in reward of the faith of the innocent maiden under accusation. The love of Lohengrin for Elsa is in accordance with the old stories, and so is Elsa's offer of her crown, her domain, and herself. To the fall of the curtain at the end of Act I. Wagner followed the sources of his story closely, the changes being such as I have pointed out, and chiefly of a kind demanded by the technics of dramatic construction.
But with the second act we enter a chapter more fully the product of Wagner's genius. The original sources give only suggestions of it. The scene between Telramund and Ortrud at the beginning of thisact, so much disliked by those to whom only the saccharine melodies of love and mystic knighthood are pleasing, is one of the most important in the drama. Telramund, robbed of sword and fame, reproaches Ortrud for inducing him to make the accusation against Elsa. He recognises the sacred character of Lohengrin, but Ortrud scoffs at it. She calls her husband's attention to the condition imposed upon Elsa by Lohengrin, that she must ask neither his name nor the place whence he came. Ortrud reveals the fact that if he is forced to answer this question his power is at an end. But Ortrud further counsels her husband to proclaim that the victory was won by magic, thus breaking the law of the sacred ordeal. Still further she says that, if Lohengrin can only be wounded in the slightest way, his power will vanish. To Telramund she entrusts this part of the task, while for herself she reserves the business of inspiring distrust in the mind of Elsa.
She addresses the maiden on her balcony in the accents of despair. Elsa in pity descends to lead her into the house. Then Wagner makes use of the mediæval belief that the old pagan gods had not ceased to exist, but were temporarily in retirement from the assaults of Christianity. Ortrud, who is a pagan at heart, calls on the old Norse gods to aid her in overthrowing these Christian enemies of theirs. When Elsa appears, this dark woman at once expresses her fear that a knight who appeared by magic may disappear. Elsa's trust is not yet to be shaken, and Ortrud follows her into the house. When Elsa and her train are moving toward the church, Ortrud claims the right of precedence and, like the Duchess of Cleves in theold tale, flings the taunt of Lohengrin's namelessness at Elsa. Again the maiden defends her spouse elect. Lohengrin and the King appear. Telramund, carrying out his part of the task, comes forward and declares that Lohengrin conquered him by the aid of magic. The King and the nobles, with full faith in the nature of the judgment, refuse to listen to him. He then whispers to Elsa that if she will admit him to the chamber that night he will clear all doubt. Lohengrin orders him away and leads Elsa into the minster.
Throughout this act the immense dramatic skill of Wagner is manifested. With only a few meagre suggestions from the old legends,—basic ideas, indeed, but undeveloped,—he built up an act of extraordinary dramatic power and musical fecundity. In its construction this act equals anything in the entire range of opera. The effective series of pictures, ranging from the dismal pair on the cathedral steps in the gloom, through that of Elsa apostrophising her lover on the moonlit balcony, the entrance into the house of the two women in the glimmer of the torches, the break of day, and the growing glitter of the festal morning with its pageant, up to the splendid climax of the scene in the denouncement of Frederic and the final entry into the church, are as ingeniously arranged as anything in the Meyerbeerian operas; but these scenes succeed one another in a perfectly natural and poetical sequence, and without forcing theatrical craft upon our attention. And in this act Wagner develops with transcendent power the characters of Ortrud and Telramund. Of the malignant pagan sorceress his own words are the best description. In one of the letters to Liszt he says:
"Ortrud is a woman who does not know love. By this everything most terrible is expressed. Politics are her essence. A political man is repulsive, but a political woman is horrible. This horror I had to represent. There is a kind of love in this woman, the love of the past, of dead generations, the terribly insane love of ancestral pride which finds its expression in the hatred of everything living and actually existing. In man this love is ludicrous, but in woman it is terrible, because a woman, with her strong natural desire for love, must love something; and ancestral pride, the longing after the past, turns in consequence to murderous fanaticism. In history there are no more cruel phenomena than political women. It is not therefore jealousy of Elsa, perhaps for the sake of Frederic, which inspires Ortrud, but her whole passion is revealed only in the scene of the second act, where, after Elsa's disappearance from the balcony, she rises from the steps of the minster and invokes her old, long-forgotten gods. She is a reactionary person, who thinks only of the old and hates everything new in the most ferocious meaning of the word; she would exterminate the world and nature to give new life to her decayed gods. But this is not merely an obstinate, morbid mood in Ortrud; her passion holds her with the full weight of a misguided, undeveloped, objectless feminine desire for love; for that reason she is terribly grand."
"Ortrud is a woman who does not know love. By this everything most terrible is expressed. Politics are her essence. A political man is repulsive, but a political woman is horrible. This horror I had to represent. There is a kind of love in this woman, the love of the past, of dead generations, the terribly insane love of ancestral pride which finds its expression in the hatred of everything living and actually existing. In man this love is ludicrous, but in woman it is terrible, because a woman, with her strong natural desire for love, must love something; and ancestral pride, the longing after the past, turns in consequence to murderous fanaticism. In history there are no more cruel phenomena than political women. It is not therefore jealousy of Elsa, perhaps for the sake of Frederic, which inspires Ortrud, but her whole passion is revealed only in the scene of the second act, where, after Elsa's disappearance from the balcony, she rises from the steps of the minster and invokes her old, long-forgotten gods. She is a reactionary person, who thinks only of the old and hates everything new in the most ferocious meaning of the word; she would exterminate the world and nature to give new life to her decayed gods. But this is not merely an obstinate, morbid mood in Ortrud; her passion holds her with the full weight of a misguided, undeveloped, objectless feminine desire for love; for that reason she is terribly grand."
This Ortrud of Wagner's touches hands with the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare. The same ambition, the same political, unsexed womanhood, the same desperate daring, and the same brazen resolve appear in both. Both seek a throne by foul means. Both are labouring for their husbands, and both fear the weakness of the spouse. Ortrud might fairly take from the lips of Lady Macbeth her invocation:
Telramund, "infirm of purpose," like Macbeth, is swayed and mastered by the superior force of his wife's indomitable will and insatiable ambition. Fate follows his footsteps as relentlessly as it does those of the Thane of Cawdor, and when he falls a victim to vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself, he falls a victim of Nemesis.
The last act places before us several salient features of the original material. Elsa, not after years of married bliss, but on the bridal night, asks the fatal question. Here Wagner shows a deep appreciation of the poetic possibilities of the theme, undoubtedly suggested to him by the resemblance of the situation to that of Zeus and Semele in classic fable. Elsa never could have grasped the essential nature of this sacred messenger, and so Wagner cuts the knot by ending the marriage at its very outset, before the final surrender of the heroine's womanhood. Lohengrin was never hers; she was never his. Frederic's last attempt follows the utterance of the question, and then before the assembled court, on the river bank where first he appeared, Lohengrin tells the marvellous, thrilling tale of Monsalvat, the Holy Grail and his origin, opening to us for a few moments the cathedral vistas of Wagner's "Te Deum,"—"Parsifal." Ortrud prematurely triumphs and announces that the swan is the missing brother: she herself placed the chain about his neck. Lohengrin calls upon God, and the spell is broken. The rightful heir of Brabant is restored to his sister's arms, and the Swan-Knight floats away in his shallop, this time drawn by a dove, the messenger of heaven. The reader will have no difficulty now in recognising the sources of these incidents, except, perhaps, in the death of Telramund, which was suggested to Wagner, as was the idea of robbing Lohengrin of his saintly power by wounding him, by passages in "Der Jüngere Titurel." The narrative of Lohengrin is suggested by Wolfram's "Parzival."
One more note must be made before we pass to a brief examination of the music of Wagner's most popular work. There is a strange resemblance between some of the fundamental features of the story of "Lohengrin" and those of "Der Fliegende Holländer." Senta and Elsa are both dream-haunted maidens. Both dream of lovers. About each of the lovers there is something mystic or supernatural. Each of the lovers is to come to the maiden from the water. In each case the maiden is called upon to submit to a certain ordeal, and her failure is to result in the return of the lover to the element from which he came. And in one element of the story the fact is similar, but the relations of the personages changed. In one a maiden is to save the lover; in the other, the lover comes as a champion and saviour. Is it not possible that the origin of the two legends is the same, the story of Skeaf, the mysterious king of the Angles, who drifted to their shores in a rudderless shallop when a babe, and grew to be a good and great monarch? When he died, they laid his body in the shallop and the little vessel floated away into the unknown, whence it came.
And now let us look at the music of this opera, music which is usually listened to with complacent admiration for its mellifluous melody, but too seldomconsidered in respect of its dramatic significance. "Lohengrin" is musically far in advance of "Tannhäuser." True, there is not in this opera any piece of writing so puissant in its revelation of a human heart as the narrative of the returned pilgrim, but the score in its entirety is more closely knit, more coherent in style, more certain in its characterisations, more dramatic in its development of emotional climaxes and its explication of the scenes. In "Lohengrin" we find the grasp of his material much firmer in Wagner's hands. The organism is higher; the unity of word, action, and tone nearer to that for which the author constantly sought.
"Tannhäuser" is a hybrid. Old forms jostle the new; thin melodic strophes in conventional song-patterns lower the potency of some scenes to the level of Italian opera. But in "Lohengrin" the song form disappears forever from the Wagnerian scheme. The music is the utterance of speech; the melody, the spontaneous embodiment of feeling. There is no longer any recitative. There is only musical dialogue. And the leitmotiv, temporarily laid aside in the composition of "Tannhäuser," returns with wider and deeper and more varied meaning. We are at the culmination of the transition period of Wagner's genius, standing at the outer gates of "Tristan" and "Die Meistersinger."
Wagner himself recognised the nature and the limits of the advance made in this opera. He declares in the "Communication" that he was here seeking to free himself from the tyranny of the final cadence—that which tells the ear of the completion of a melodic form—and to make the music the outgrowth of the speech.But he saw in later years that he was still under the domination of melodic fashion in "Lohengrin"; and it is precisely his subservience to this fashion, with which the easy-going public from long use has become familiar, that makes "Lohengrin" the favourite of opera-goers the world over. We find the most potent evidences of the domination of the closing cadence in Elsa's narrative, in the duet of Ortrud and Telramund in the second act, and in the passages of the duet in the chamber scene. On the other hand, there is a close approach in the score of "Lohengrin" to the endless melody of the later dramas, and we are not surprised by the recollection that the Nibelungen trilogy was the next work to which Wagner turned.
The prelude to "Lohengrin" may be described as an instrumental representation of the vision of the Holy Grail. The motive on which it is built is that which throughout the opera typifies the sacredness of Lohengrin and his identity as a messenger of the Grail.
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THE GRAIL.
This theme is heard at the beginning of the prelude in its first form. It is heard again when Lohengrin prepares to bid farewell to the swan which is to return to Monsalvat, the palace of the Grail, thus announcing the identity of the knight as a messenger of the Grail. It is not heard again till the third act, except for a passing moment in Act II., where theHerald's delivery of Lohengrin's message to the nobles is preceded by the Grail motive, the first half intoned by the trumpets on the stage and the second half by the orchestra. It then disappears till the final scene of the opera, when it sounds forth as the warp and woof of that marvellously lovely piece of writing, the narrative of Lohengrin's origin. Next to the Grail motive stands that which is indicative of the knightly nature of Lohengrin.
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LOHENGRIN THE KNIGHT.
This motive immediately follows the first appearance of the Grail motive in the first act and becomes the instrumental background to Elsa's "In lichter Waffen Scheine ein Ritter nahte da" ("I saw in splendour shining a knight of glorious mien"). It is heard again when Lohengrin appears in the distance coming down the Scheldt in answer to Elsa's prayer, and at the end of the first act, when the triumph is complete, it peals forth fortissimo. It announces Lohengrin's entrance in Act II. and again in the final scene of the opera. At the end of all Wagner shows us that the knightly character of Lohengrinis intimately associated with his position as guardian of Brabant, for the knighthood motive is transferred in all its splendour to the rescued Gottfried, while, as Lohengrin disappears in the distance, it is heard for the first time in the minor mode. Another motive, which is a companion of Lohengrin's, is the swan motive.
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THE SWAN.
This is heard as the accompaniment to the closing words of Lohengrin's farewell to the swan in Act I.; again in Act III., when the half-hysterical Elsa fancies she sees the swan coming to take Lohengrin away, and finally when the Knight is about to address the swan preparatory to his departure in the last scene. A part of the melody which accompanies the entrance of Elsa in the first act is also evidently designed to act as a leading motive. This may be called the motive of Elsa's faith.
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ELSA’S FAITH.
It is repeated immediately after the entrance of the maid, when the King asks her if she will be judged by him, and the stage direction bids her make a gesture expressive of hercomplete trust. In the last scene, when Elsa enters dejected after having broken her vow, the King asks her the cause of her sadness, and she tries to look him in the face but cannot. Then we hear the broken faith motive:
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ELSA’S FAITH BROKEN.
Two themes are employed to signify the evil elements of the drama. The first of these is the prohibition motive:
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THE PROHIBITION.
Nie sollst du mich befragen.
The ban of secrecy imposed by Lohengrin becomes a potent weapon for evil in the hands of Ortrud. It is heard ominously in the introductory measures of the second act, and with portentous meaning when Ortrud begins to unfold her plan to Frederic. When Ortrud in the scene with Elsa says, "May he never leave thee who was by magic hither brought," theprohibition motive is given out adagio by the wind; and at the end of act, as Ortrud expresses by face and gesture her triumph over Elsa entering the cathedral, this motive is pealed forth at full power by the trumpets and trombones. It recurs in most mournful instrumental colour at the end of the chamber scene in Act III., when Elsa has asked the fatal question. The other theme significant of evil is the motive of Ortrud's influence:
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ORTRUD.
This is first heard in the introduction to Act II. It reappears when Ortrud begins to reveal her ideas to Frederic, and accompanies each of her suggestions for the overthrow of Lohengrin and destruction of Elsa. It is heard again in the accompaniment to the short ensemble which succeeds Lohengrin's appeal to Elsa in the finale of Act II., when to his dismay he sees that she is wavering. Again it sounds when Frederic whispers to Elsa in the same scene, and when the maid declares her doubts in the chamber scene it is repeated to show that she is acting under the influence of Ortrud. This is a very close approach to the fully developed employment of the leitmotiv, for in the later dramas we find these themes frequently used to connect the passing action with the influences which have led to it or to associate it with an absent personality.
A less important motive, but one whose treatment foreshadows Wagner's later musical method, is that of the ordeal:
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THE ORDEAL.
This makes its appearance in Act I. after the nobles shout "Zum Gottesgericht!" ("a judgment of God!"), and immediately before the King addresses Telramund asking him if he will do battle. In the major mode it is sounded by the trumpets on the stage as the summons to Elsa's champion to appear, and its fundamental rhythm becomes that of the music to which the six nobles pace off the measurement of the ground. In the fight itself this motive is worked out orchestrally as an accompaniment to the action. It belongs strictly to the music of the scene, yet it is treated thematically and developed as far as needed.
These are all the leading motives of "Lohengrin." The rest of the music is freely composed, but the attentive hearer will note that while ethereal string harmonies intone the Grail motive, Lohengrin's knighthood is announced by the brass, and to the wood wind choir is allotted Elsa's music. For the rest the lover of this opera must seek his intellectual enjoyment in the general fidelity of the score to the thought of the text, to the increasing freedom from the shackles of formularies, and to the flexible, changeful, constantly significant harmonic plan.
The enormous variety of the rhythmic effects is obtained without frequent changes of time. The firstact, for example, is all in common time up to the beginning of the King's prayer, which is in three-fourths measure. At the beginning of the combat the common time returns and is continued till the end of the act. The entire second act is in common time. In the third act two-fourths time is used for the "Bridal Chorus" and then the composer returns to common time and retains it to the end. These facts are alone sufficient to show the wide gulf which separates the Wagner score from that of the old-fashioned Italian opera, wherein the elementary dance rhythms are all used with as much variety as possible. Wagner attains an infinitely greater variety of styles and expression with only two interruptions of his original time signature.
Yet the one thing which Wagner felt most keenly in the composition of this opera was his subserviency to rhythm—not musical, but poetical. He admits that he had not yet freed himself from old melodic ideas and that the dominance of the cadence was still felt in his work, but his real difficulty was the inflexibility of verse written in modern metre, which makes such rigorous demands for imitation in the form of the musical setting. He was in later works to find the solution of that problem and enter the kingdom of perfect freedom from textual rule. The music of "Lohengrin," then, must be regarded as standing midway between the style of "Der Fliegende Holländer" and that of "Die Meistersinger." Its extraordinary popularity is due to the external and sensuous charms of its melody, which make their appeal to the aural palate of those incapable of comprehending a dramatic scheme such as Wagner's.This outward attractiveness of the music Wagner himself would have been the first to blame, and he always felt that his own beautiful conception of the character of Lohengrin was not revealed to the public.
Action in Three Acts.
First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, Munich, June 10, 1865.
Original Cast.
Weimar, 1874; Berlin, 1876; Königsberg, Leipsic, 1881; Hamburg, 1882; London, June 20, 1882.
First performed in America at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on December 1, 1886.
Cast.
Conductor, Anton Seidl.
Fromthe dramatic and musical style of "Lohengrin" to that of "Tristan und Isolde" is a far cry, and the reader must brace his intellectual forces to assault a new world. It would be easier for some reasons to take up the consideration of this work after that of the "Meistersinger" and "Der Ring," but such a proceeding would lead to a confusion of historical facts in the mind of the reader, and therefore we shall take it up in the order of its production. We must bear in mind that before writing the score of this work Wagner wrote those of "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre," and that therefore he had entered into his fully developed style. Further than that we shall see that he went beyond his own conceptions of his theories, and that in this work he gave us the fullest, freest, and most potent demonstration of the vitality and justice of his methods and his style.
In an undated letter to Liszt, written in the latter part of 1854, Wagner says: "I have in my head 'Tristan und Isolde,' the simplest but most full-blooded musical conception: with the 'black flag' which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die." But in the meantime, as we have seen, he was working on the first parts of the "Ring" series.When he had about half written "Siegfried" there came upon him a period of depression. He felt that he was writing works which he would not live to see produced. He hungered for a closer, an active connection with the stage, and he needed money, and so he regretfully laid aside the "Ring" scores and set to work on the poem of "Tristan und Isolde." This was written at Zurich in 1857. The music was begun in the same year, and the score of the first act was finished at Zurich on December 31st. The second act was finished at Venice in March, 1859, and the third at Lucerne in August of the same year.
Many persons labour under the delusion that "Tristan und Isolde" is a new fancy of Wagner's; they do not know that the tale is one of the famous old legends of the Arthurian cycle and that it ranks as one of the great epics of mediæval Europe. First of all, however, this story belonged to the great English cycle of legends, which have supplied material to so many poets down to Tennyson and Swinburne. The latter wrote a version of this very tale under the title of "Tristram of Lyonnesse," which is only a modern adaptation of the earliest known title, "Tristam de Leonois," a poem dating from 1190.
The story is of Celtic origin, yet we find that it first took definite poetic shape in France. The Arthurian cycle consists of the "Romance of the Holy Grail," "Merlin," "Launcelot," "The Quest of the Saint Graal," and "The Mort Artus." From the last was drawn the beautiful "Morte d'Arthur" of Sir Thomas Mallory, a story of which about one-third is devoted to the life and adventures of Tristram, not properly told in this version. How was it that the Frenchromantic poets were engaged in celebrating the doings of English heroes? In the heart of the Midi the forerunners of the Troubadours sang the deeds of Arthur and Launcelot and Merlin, just as Tennyson did in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As far as we can ascertain at this time, the exploits of Arthur, which had been narrated in scattered song and story for many a long year through all the vales of England, were compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He died in 1154, the year in which Henry II. ascended the throne of England. Henry was of the house of Anjou, and united the crowns of England and Normandy under his sceptre. At about the same period, according to Professor Morley, Walter Map, an Archdeacon of Oxford (1154-89), is believed to have introduced the Holy Grail into the romances which existed before his time.
The conditions were now precisely right for the introduction of the Arthurian legends and the Grail into the romantic literature of France. The Norman Court took great delight in the English tales. The French poets were only too glad to find new material which was sure of favour in high places. And their own blood was not averse to the nature of the poetry. The French of the Middle Ages were a wonderfully cosmopolitan people. Near Tours, far to the north of the sunny land of the Troubadour, Charles Martel crushed and scattered the army of the Prophet, and for centuries after that the Saracen trod the valleys of the Midi. Long before that the Greeks had sent settlers into the region, and the old nature-loving Hellenic spirit found its expression and its means of preservation in the folk songs and dances of the people. But the inhabitants of the Midi were, nevertheless, Celts. MatthewArnold says: "Gaul was Latinised in language, manners, and laws, and yet her people remained essentially Celtic." And so we need not be astonished at finding the Celtic Arthurian legends taking root in the literature of mediæval France. Robert de Borron, a Trouvère, born near Meaux, wrote about 1170 or 1180 the Provençal version of the Grail legend. Chrétien de Troyes, another of the French romanticists, wrote a version of the Grail legend about the same time as Borron.
Of the oldest French versions of the Tristram tale, two are known. M. Gaston Paris and Dr. Golther have put forth in their books on the Tristram legend studies of what is called the minstrel version of the story. The first was made by Beroul in England out of the scattered traditions relating to Tristan. It dates from 1150 and only a fragment of it remains. There was also a very early German version by Eilhart von Oberge, and from this indirectly originated the unsatisfactory version given by Mallory. The other old French one was that of Thomas of Brittany, an Anglo-Norman. This poem was the previously mentioned "Tristam de Leonois," and from it, about 1210, Gottfried of Strassburg, a German, drew the great mediæval Teutonic form of the tale, the direct source of Wagner's work.
The story as told by Gottfried is briefly as follows: Morold, an Irish warrior, brother of Ireland's Queen, holds Cornwall in fear, and demands a tribute to his King and master. Tristan, nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, challenges him to mortal combat. Morold wounds Tristan, and declares that, as his sword was poisoned, only his sister, Queen Isolt of Ireland, can heal the wound. Tristan smites Morold's head off,but a piece of the sword remains in the skull. Tristan's wound will not heal, so in company with his servitor Kurvenal and several other attendants he sails for Ireland to seek aid of Queen Isolt. Morold's body and head are taken back to Ireland. Tristan appears before the Queen disguised as a harper, calling himself Tantris. The Queen, pleased with his music, agrees to heal him if he will teach music to her daughter, also named Isolt. He consents, is healed, and returns to Cornwall. There he sings the praises of the Queen's daughter, the younger Isolt, and offers to return to Ireland and ask for her hand for his uncle, King Mark. He goes, and, on his arrival, finding the land devastated by a dragon, slays the monster and cuts out its tongue. Being overcome by the creature's foul breath, he sinks unconscious, and the Queen's steward, who has heard the sound of the conflict, comes and cuts off the dragon's head to show as evidence that he slew the beast. The steward claims the hand of the Princess, which has been promised to the slayer of the dragon, but the Queen Mother by her magic discovers that another did the deed, and going forth at dawn finds the unconscious Tristan.
It is now decided that the question between Tristan and the steward shall be settled by combat, and the Princess orders Tristan's armour to be made ready. In looking at the sword she discovers the nick in the blade, and finds that the splinter from Morold's head, which has been preserved, fits it. It also dawns upon her that "Tantris" is "Tristan" reversed. She would slay Tristan, but the Queen desires to know what matter of great import brought him again to Ireland. He makes known his mission, and as the Queen professes herself ready to forgive Tristan for killing Morold, her brother, the compact is made. Princess Isolt goes with Tristan. As they depart for Cornwall, the Queen confides to Brangäne, the Princess's kinswoman and companion, a love potion, to be given to King Mark and the Princess on the marriage night that they may ever afterward love each other. The Princess is loath to leave her own people, and she hates Tristan for having slain her Uncle Morold.
On the way to Cornwall a serving-maid, who is asked for a drink for Tristan and Isolt, ignorantly gives them the love potion, and they love one another. The poem narrates many incidents in the course of deceit pursued by the lovers, but they need not be recapitulated here. The King's steward, Majordo, aided by the dwarf, Melot, watches the lovers and informs the King of their infidelity. But with the help of Brangäne's cunning, they several times avoid detection. The King even banishes them from Court, but, finding them asleep in a forest retreat with a naked sword between them, takes them back, though he orders them to remain apart. Finally he surprises them in the garden, and then Tristan is forced to flee from Cornwall. He finds a refuge in Arundel, the land of Duke Jovelin, whose daughter, Isolt of the White Hand, falls in love with him. As he is always singing of his lost Isolt, she thinks that he loves her. He, hearing nothing from the old Isolt, deems himself forgotten, and concludes that it would be as well to marry Isolt of the White Hand.
Gottfried's poem ends here. In the other versions, however, the tale is completed. Tristan does marry the second Isolt. He receives a poisoned wound whileaiding a friend to meet clandestinely another man's wife. Knowing that none save his first Isolt can heal the wound, he sends Kurvenal to bring her, telling him that if he succeeds in getting her he must hoist a white sail when entering port on his return, but if he fails he is to hoist a black one. Isolt of the White Hand hears this, and when the ship is sighted bearing a white sail, she tells her husband that it is black, whereupon he turns his face to the wall and dies. Tristan's Isolt arrives to find him dead. She lays herself on the bier beside him and expires. King Mark, having learned the story of the love potion, has the two buried in the same chapel, on opposite sides. A rose tree grows from Tristan's tomb and a vine from Isolt's, and the branches reach across the chapel and intertwine.
The falsehood of the second Isolt has greatly annoyed some of the modern writers. Bayard Taylor simply declined to believe that such a thing happened. Matthew Arnold made the second Isolt faithful to her love. She nursed her dying husband tenderly even while waiting for the first Isolt to arrive. But Wagner wisely ignored this part of the legend. We hear nothing of any second Isolt. As is invariably the case, his treatment of the story draws together all the beauties of the original material and moulds them into a compact, consistent whole, instinct with dramatic force and poetic beauty. In attempting to set forth the Wagnerian arrangement of the materials, I find it difficult to proceed coolly and systematically. There is a witchery in this marvellous drama of fatal love thatmasters my mind. If the reader finds me wanting in the calm of judicial equipoise, let him forgive me, for I am dealing with that which lies next to my heart. As Louis Ehlert says: