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DROLLA: Gernot! Gernot! Gernot! Gernot! Gernot! Gernot! 'tis thou, 'tis thou!
GERNOT: Drolla! Drolla! Drolla! Drolla! 'tis thou, 'tis thou, 'tis thou, 'tis thou, 'tis thou, 'tis thou, &c.
The style is frequently mature beyond the composer's actual years,—the admirable finish to the scene between Arindal and the others, for example (full score, p. 111), where the vocal themes are taken up by the orchestra and played out in a beautifully managed diminuendo; or the perfect little picture of the fairy garden at the commencement of the first Act (I question whether so imaginatively conceived and skilfully coloured a garden scene is to be found anywhere in previous or contemporary opera); or the expressive scoring of Ada's cavatina (full score, pp. 114 ff.); or the septet at the end of the first Act; or the fine management of the chorus of beaten warriors at the beginning of the second Act, with the reiterated calls in the bass horn and trumpet; or the fine Schwung of the trio between Lora, Arindal and Morald (pp. 219 ff.); or the big aria of Ada in the second Act (pp. 251 ff.); or the charming theme that is used when the children are introduced. The born musical dramatist is seen in the variety of expression he can command even at this age; and one is struck by the first signs of the faculty that is so noticeable in the later Wagner,—that of always having something in reserve when a new and cumulative effect is needed. The larger the canvas to be covered, as in the final ensembles, the more resource does he show himself to possess. There is a good deal in The Fairies that is quite boyish,—much that is conventional, many things to provoke a smile. But it is equally certain that there was not another young man in Europe capable of writing such a work at that time. The overture, which was written a few days before the last touches were put to the third Act, is excellently handled throughout; the invention never flags, the technique never fails; it is his best work of this order until we come to the overture to the Flying Dutchman,—finer in idea, closer in texture, and surer in touch than the King Enzio Overture of 1832, and far beyond the Columbus, the Polonia, or the Rule Britannia. Altogether one imagines that, in spite of the old-fashioned quality of the libretto of The Fairies, one could listen to a stage performance of the opera with at least as much interest as to Rienzi. It was given for the first time in Munich under Hermann Levi in 1888, and between then and 1895 it ran to over fifty performances.
As we have seen, Das Liebesverbot ("The Ban on Love") was a product of the wild days of 1834-5, when he had momentarily turned against sobriety both in life and in art. In framing his libretto he passed over everything in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure that had a touch of moral gravity in it: he transports the action from Vienna to Sicily, brings the strait-laced viceroy Friedrich into the same focus as the other amorists, and makes the whole play an attack on "puritanical hypocrisy" and a laudation of "unrestrained physicalism." In the music he does his best to forget that "German style" in which, as he says, Die Feen had been written, and copies to the best of his ability the more sparkling style of the lighter Italian and French opera. The work is in two Acts,—the only opera of Wagner's in this form—and in its structure follows the ordinary pattern of the day. Occasionally the spoken word takes the place of recitative.
In 1866 Wagner gave the score of the opera to King Ludwig, prefacing it with a stanza in which he spoke of it as a sin of his youth, for which he hoped to find pardon in his protector's grace. Apparently he always adopted this depreciatory attitude towards the work in later life. Glasenapp tells us that Wagner liked the overture to Das Liebesverbot better than that to Die Feen, but thought the rest of Das Liebesverbot "horrible," except the "Salve regina cœli."[398] A perusal of the score, however, will convince most people that he underrated the interest and the value of it. It almost invariably fails when it aims at expressing serious feeling; but the gay and humorous scenes are admirable, and the youthful gusto of the whole thing is irresistible. The general idiom may be a borrowed one, but for the most part Wagner uses it very skilfully, making at least as good a show with it as the ordinary French or Italian opera writer of the time. He has every trick of the trade at his finger-tips, every recipe for froth and foam and sparkle. He is as expert as any of them at lashing up the interest by the device of repeating a piquant figure a score of times: this, for example, from the overture—
No. 5
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It is given first of all mainly to the strings, with a little harmonic thickening in bassoons and horns. Then, as the melody goes an octave higher in the strings, it is doubled in the oboes and clarinets, with added harmonic enrichment in the wood-wind and brass. At the next repeat—an octave higher again—the melody is given out by piccolo, flutes, oboes, clarinets and violins in octaves, while trombones are added to the harmony. All the while the tone is growing louder and louder, with a crescendo roll in the tympani. One has to listen, whether one wants to or not; and it is impossible to keep the blood from tingling under the whip. The whole overture is very effective in this noisy, rather empty way; there is much use of castagnets, tambourine, triangle and cymbals. The general style of the writing may be gathered from a couple of examples—