From a photograph by Hanfstaengl. Half-tone plate engraved by H. DavidsonRICHARD WAGNER❏LARGER IMAGE
From a photograph by Hanfstaengl. Half-tone plate engraved by H. DavidsonRICHARD WAGNER❏LARGER IMAGE
From a photograph by Hanfstaengl. Half-tone plate engraved by H. Davidson
RICHARD WAGNER
❏LARGER IMAGE
BY HENRY T. FINCK
Author of “Wagner and His Works,” “Chopin,” “Success in Music,” etc.
THE outcome of the first Bayreuth Festival, in 1876, was a deficit of $37,500. There was need of thirteen hundred subscriptions to cover the expenses, but barely one half that number had been secured, thanks to the hostility of the German press, which for years in advance had systematically decried the project as a humbug, and at the last moment actually got up a fake smallpox scare in order to frustrate the festival. Wagner was only sixty-three years old at that time, and therefore quite too young to be appreciated in a country where it seems to be held that the only real genius is a dead genius. A series of concerts given in London in the hope of covering the deficit referred to resulted in further losses. The plan of repeating the Nibelung performances in Bayreuth every year or two consequently vanished like a rainbow, and it was not till Wagner was ready with his swan-song, “Parsifal,” in 1882, that he found it possible again to invite the world to that Bavarian town. This time there was actually a surplus of $1500. Wagner was beginning to be appreciated! Six months later he died.
If he came back to-day, thirty years after, what would he find? If he glanced at the newspapers and the musical periodicals, he would note, perhaps not without some surprise, that no trace is left of the virulent opposition to his music-dramas which had thwarted his plans and made life a burden to him. He would see himself ranked with the classics, the musical world no longer divided into Wagnerites and anti-Wagnerites, and most of those who do not personally care for his music yet willing to pay him the tribute of respect which they give to Bach and Beethoven.
It is not generally known that Wagner was forty-four years old and had written all but three of his operas before a single one of them was produced in Vienna, Munich, or Stuttgart, and that he was fifty-six and over before even his early works were staged in France, Italy, and England. He was obliged to publish “Rienzi,” “The Flying Dutchman,” and “Tannhäuser” at his own expense, and never got his money back. The leading musical firms in Germany were aghast at his asking $7500 for the publishing rights of “Das Rheingold,” “Die Walküre,” “Siegfried,” and “Götterdämmerung.” He needed money, and reduced his demand by one half; but again his offer was declined. Breitkopf and Härtel did buy “Lohengrin,” only to be jeered at for so doing by Mendelssohn, who thought it was a bad bargain. The same firm purchased “Tristan and Isolde,” but had to wait years to get back the sum expended.
Soon after Wagner’s death the tide turned, and if he came back to-day, he would enjoy a spectacle which would perhaps surprise him as much as the disappearance of his detractors. Though he had great faith in his “music of the future” (it was not he, but one of his enemies who dubbed it so), he would hardly be prepared to find that in New York, as in all the cities of Germany, his operas year after year now have a greater number of performances than those of any other composer, and that the same is true even in the cities of Italy, Spain, and France whenever it is possible to secure for them competent singers and conductors. But the most astonishing spectacle would be presented to him in the warehouses of the publishing firms, nearly all of which have whole floors stacked to the ceiling with reprints of his scores ready to be rushed into the markets the moment the copyright on them has expired a few months hence. While he might be wroth at a law which will thus suddenly reduce the income of his heirs, he could not but feel flattered on discovering that no other composer had ever been reprinted in such wholesale fashion, proof of unprecedented popularity.
If it were possible to communicate with him to-day, would he join his widow and son and their followers in petitioning parliament to make an exception to the copyright law in favor of preserving“Parsifal” forever for Bayreuth? I very much doubt if he would. In all probability he would say to them:
“My prose writings and letters should have made it clear to you that my chief reason for building a theater at Bayreuth for special model performances of my music-dramas was that the royal opera-houses of the empire had neither the means nor the good-will to produce these works in a satisfactory manner. To-day I find the situation entirely changed, the opera-houses vying with one another in their efforts to present my works in exact accordance with my wishes. There is therefore no reason for withholding ‘Parsifal’ from them any longer. They will stage it conscientiously, and henceforth not only those who are wealthy enough to travel to Bayreuth, but hundreds of thousands of others, will be able to hear it. That the Bayreuth atmosphere is not a necessity for the appreciation of my last work I infer from the reports from New York, where ‘Parsifal’ is always listened to in the devotional attitude which this semi-religious composition calls for.”
In 1852, Wagner wrote that a Lohengrin singer was yet to be born. Twenty-four years later, for the Bayreuth performances of the Nibelung dramas and “Parsifal” he selected his singers from all the German opera-houses; yet it is not difficult to read between the lines of his subsequent comments, appreciative and cordial though they were, that few of these singers approximated to his ideal, and in most cases he had to turn instructor to impart correct ideas of his new vocal style, in which melody and declamation are amalgamated. Emil Scaria, the wonderfulGurnemanzof the Parsifal festival in 1882, was the nearest approach to his ideal. Lilli Lehmann was too young in 1876 to assume the part ofBrünhildin which she afterward established a new standard of singing, combining the Italianbel cantowith German realism of dramatic accent and emotional coloring.
That it was at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York that Lilli Lehmann first revealed this new art is a detail of operatic history which would interest Wagner if he came back to-day. When he composed “Tristan and Isolde” he had in his mind prophetic visions not only of Lehmann, but of Jean de Reszke, who established the same new standard for tenors. While good dramatic singers are still scarce, the general level has been raised, as Wagner would be the first to acknowledge. How happy he would have been could he have had at Bayreuth masters of his style as Nordica, Eames, Ternina, Krauss-Seidl, Gadski, Fremstad, Schumann-Heink, Matzenauer, Homer, Knote, Burrian, Reiss, Goritz, Alvary, the De Reszke brothers, Urlus, Braun, and Fischer, all of whom are or have been associated with the Metropolitan.
One of the most important changes Wagner would note relates to the importance now attached to orchestral conductors. Before he wrote his essay on conducting, the orchestral leaders as a rule were little more than mere time-beaters. He taught them by example and precept to be real interpreters, molding an orchestral performance to their own will as much as a pianist does the piece he plays.
What would Wagner say about the operas composed since his death? Of all of them he would, I believe, like best Humperdinck’s “Die Königskinder,” which, while written entirely in his own style, nevertheless is charmingly original in its melodies. He would certainly not admire the operas of Richard Strauss, partly because of their repulsive subjects, partly because of the violence they do to the human voice, but chiefly because this composer too often uses his large orchestral apparatus to hide his poverty of invention. On the other hand, he would be likely to denounce Debussy for his boycotting of melody in “Pelléas et Mélisande” and for his neglect of modern orchestral means of expression and coloring. Turning to Italy, he would smile at the two short operas of Mascagni and Leoncavallo, which, when first launched, were supposed to have dethroned him. Possibly he might admire Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and the last act of “Tosca.” In any case, he could not but feel flattered on noting how, after his death, Verdi, who was born in the same year as himself, but lived nineteen years longer, followed his methods in “Otello” and “Falstaff.” In other countries Wagner would find no indication of a genius able to alienate the affections of opera-goers from his music-dramas. There has been no progress, no important development, since his death.