FROM now begins a new epoch in Wagner’s life. The call he had received from Dresden filled him with delirious joy. The world was not large enough to hold him. He trod on air. That Dresden, the hallowed scene of Weber’s labours, possessing the then first theatre in Germany, famed alike for its productions, style, and artists, should accept his work, and request his presence to supervise the rehearsals, was an acknowledgment which transformed, as by magic, a sombre, cruel outlook into a gloriously bright and warm future.
He was very sanguine of succeeding with “Rienzi.” It was completely in the style of the foreign operas then in vogue among his countrymen. Germany had no opera of her own. Mozart and Gluck both composed in the French and Italian style, and Meyerbeer, the then ruler of the German operatic stage, fashioned his popular works on the spectacular style of the grand French opera. “Rienzi” was spectacular, with plenty of the same description of material as “Les Huguenots.” So Wagner’s hopes ran high, and a vista of happiness spread itself before him as an enchanted fairy-land.
THE CHOSEN OF DRESDEN.
With joy he took leave of Schlesinger and his few Parisian intimates, and set out for Germany, his fatherland. His fatherland! what a sea of tumultuous feelings did that thought of returning home produce in him. He was going back a conqueror. The creative artist was at last recognized; he was rescued from desperate distress at the very moment it seemed as if he were going to succumb to the conflict. It is difficult to at all thoroughly understand what Wagner went through after he had been summoned to Germany. The transformation scene in his life’s drama was taking place. Again and again has he expatiated upon it with an honesty characteristic of him, and with a volubility that laid bare all his heart’s hopes and emotions at the time.
Paris had not accepted him. He came, he saw, but had not conquered. His soul had swelled with artistic ambition; he was enthusiastic, desiring a platform from which to expound his cherished tenets; and Paris ignored him, treated his projects and himself as nought, and for all it cared, he might have perished unheeded, with none but his dog to mourn his loss. And now, from an unacknowledged artist, he was the chosen of celebrated Dresden, still warm with the inspired accents of his “beloved” Weber. Well might he become delirious with joy.
His homeward journey was full of happy incident and profit. He heard his native language again as the common tongue. Of German as a language Wagner was always enamoured. He possessed a large vocabulary himself, was a poet of no mean rank, and had always a wealth of illustration ready at command. Now to hear German spoken about him was delight. He was in a happy frame, ready to be touched with whatever he saw. The Rhine unusually excited him. In later years, when writing of the period, he tells us that at sight of the Rhine he vowed eternal fidelity to his country. He remarked to me, in his poetic language, that its eddying wavelets seemed to be telling him its legends, and dolefully inquiring, Why did you leave us? He was happy to come home. His escape from feverish, sensuous Paris, to his healthy, honest fatherland, was, to use his own graphic analogy, as Tannhäuser emerging from the Venus grotto to breathe the invigorating, bracing atmosphere of the German mountains. It was the awakening from an oppressive nightmare. The unvarnished straightforwardness of the German character welcomed him with the affection of fond parents. With all its rude plainness and stolidity, he loved the German mind. It was sincere, true, and made the French courteous polish, which he had just quitted, seem as a thing unreal, a lacquer, an affection that became offensive.
The return of Wagner and his wife to Dresden was particularly agreeable to the latter. In Dresden, she had a reputation as an actress, though not in the first rank, yet she was somebody, and would be so recognized. Besides, there she could have the respect paid to her due to the wife of the composer of “Rienzi.” Poor Minna! what a patient and gentle woman she was. To hear her unaffected talk of the change in her own position, on their coming to live in Dresden, was touching, indeed. In Paris she had been a drudge, and no one knew but Wagner the half of her heroism, self-denial, and suffering. Now for her, too, the horizon was clearing, and it was with difficulty that she endeavoured to restrain the overflowing hopefulness of Richard. But he would not be repressed, and on nearing Dresden the two who had suffered together consoled and encouraged each other with visions of prospective prosperity.
A VISIT TO REISSIGER.
A change of scene was always conducive to happiness in Wagner. For the first few days he visited well-remembered spots. He had a veritable passion for at once setting off to see familiar places. The joy of Dresden homely life contrasted with the Paris mode of living, acted like a charm on him. His spirits were at their best, his health good, and the kindly greetings he met everywhere worked together to make him thoroughly enjoy life. His sister Rosalie, the actress, was dead, so that all that was really known of him when he came to Dresden was that he was born at Leipzic, had been educated at the Dresden Schule, and had wholly written and composed two operas, and was the brother of the late Rosalie Wagner.
One of his first visits was to Reissiger, chief conductor at the Royal Opera (where Wagner’s “Rienzi” was to be performed), and of the Royal Chapel. Reissiger was some fifteen years older than Richard Wagner. He had been trained in the school of strict fugue and counterpoint at Leipzic, and as a musician was prolific and clever, but lacked poetical inspiration and intellectual power. He was eminently a professor. He received Wagner politely, praised the “Rienzi,” the score of which he knew, but with it all maintained an attitude of reserve. Wagner, who was on the best terms with himself and the world, ready to embrace everybody, was cooled by his reception, and felt that he could never be intimate with Reissiger, who occupied the greater part of their first interview with complaints about his own non-success on the operatic stage, all of which he peevishly attributed to the shortcomings of the libretti.