When I came back from Silesia, where, on Beethoven’s recommendation, I had spent a considerable time as pianoforte player for Prince Lichnowsky on his estate, I went into his room; he was about to shave and had lathered himself up to the eyes (for his fearful beard extended so far). He jumped up, embraced me cordially and, behold! he had transferred the soap from his left cheek to my right so completely that there was nothing left of it on him. Didn’t we laugh!
With all his kindness to Ries, Beethoven had neither forgotten nor forgiven the affair of the “Andante favori”:
One day when a small company including Beethoven and me breakfasted with Prince (Lichnowsky) after the concert in the Augarten (8 o’clock in the forenoon), it was proposed that we drive to Beethoven’s house and hear his opera “Leonore,” which had not yet been performed. Arrived there Beethoven demanded that I go away, and inasmuch as the most urgent appeals of all present were fruitless, I did so with tears in my eyes. The entire company noticed it and Prince Lichnowsky, following me, asked me to wait in an anteroom, because, having been the cause of the trouble, he wanted to have it settled. But the feeling of hurt to my honor would not admit of this. I heard afterward that Prince Lichnowsky had sharply rebuked Beethoven for his conduct, since only love for his works had been to blame for the incident and consequently for his anger. But the only result of these representations was that Beethoven refused to play any more for the company.
It so happened, that Ries thus lost his only opportunity ever to hear the “Leonore-Fidelio” music in its original form; but this Beethoven could not anticipate, as he could have no suspicion that they were so soon to be parted. Bonn, being now under French rule, Ries was liable to conscription, and notice came that he was among the first drawn. “He was therefore,” says the ‘Harmonicon,’ “obliged to return home immediately, for his disobedience would have exposed his father and family to the risk of ruin.” Before Ries’ departure from Vienna, Beethoven, himself unable to afford him pecuniary assistance, again proved his kindly feelings towards his pupil by giving him a letter commending him to the benevolence of Princess Liechtenstein.
“To Beethoven’s rage,” says Ries, “the letter was not delivered, but I kept the original, written on an unevenly cut quarto sheet, as a proof of Beethoven’s friendship and love for me.” Three years will elapse before we meet Ries again in Vienna—the greater part of which period he passed at Paris in such discouraging circumstances, that he thought seriously of abandoning his profession.
First Performance of “Fidelio”
At the Theater-an-der-Wien none of the new operas produced this season had long kept the stage; although two of them—Schikaneder’s “Swetard’s Zaubergürtel,” music by Fischer, and his “Vesta’s Feuer,” music by J. Weigl—were brought out “with very extraordinary splendor of decorations and costumes.” It was now Autumn and the receipts did not cover the expenses of the theatre. “From the distance,” says Treitschke,
the storm of war rolled towards Vienna and robbed the spectators of the calm essential to the enjoyment of an art-work. But just for this reason all possible efforts were made to enliven the sparsely attended spaces of the house. “Fidelio” was relied upon to do its best, and so, under far from happy auspices, the opera was produced on November 20 (1805). It was possible efficiently to cast only the female parts with Mlles. Milder and Müller; the men left all the more to be desired.
Anna Milder (born December 13, 1785), now just completing her twentieth year, was that pupil of Neukomm to whom Haydn had said half a dozen years before: “My dear child! You have a voice like a house!” Schikaneder gave her her first engagement and she began her theatrical career April 9, 1803, in the part of Juno in Süssmayr’s “Spiegel von Arkadien,” with a new grand aria composed for her by him. Beethoven had now written the part of Fidelio for her. In later years it was one of her grand performances; though, judging from the contemporary criticisms, it was now somewhat defective, simply from lack of stage experience. Louise Müller, the Marcelline, “had already (in April, 1805) developed in a few years into a tasteful and honest singer, although she did not have the help of a voice of especial volume.” She became, in the opinion of Castelli, “a most amiable actress and good singer, particularly in the comic genre.”