THE RHINE DAUGHTERS. FROM RHEINGOLD. Photographed from the stage performance
For six years he did not compose another opera, devoting his time instead to writing essays in which he tried to explain the aim of his “Artwork of the Future.” Nobody paid any attention to these essays. The consequence was that, as he wrote to Liszt, “I lead here entirely a dream life: if I awake, it is to suffer.” He suffered because, among other things, he heard from many sources that the performances of his operas given in German cities were so bad that it was hard to understand how anyone could possibly enjoy them.
A MUSICIAN’S DREAM
If these comparatively simple operas were so badly sung and played, what would happen to the more advanced and ultra-Wagnerian work which now began to ripen in his brain,—the four music dramas constituting the “Ring”? Their performance, he realized, would be impossible in the opera houses of Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic, and other cities, as managed and manned at that time. He had to fall back on his “dream-life.” And he dreamt a wonderful dream,—a dream of Bayreuth, of a specially built theater with singers and players selected by himself for their correct performance of his next work. This dream was not realized till twenty-six years later!
This next work was at first intended to be a music drama complete in itself, to be called “Siegfried’s Death.” On thinking the matter over, however, Wagner concluded that the poem was too full of matter for one play. Consequently he wrote a “Young Siegfried” to precede—and prepare for—“Siegfried’s Death” (the name of which was changed to “Götterdämmerung,” or “Dusk of the Gods”); then for the same reason he wrote “Die Walküre,” to precede “Siegfried”; and finally “Rheingold,” as a prelude to the other three.
SIEGMUND AND SIEGLINDE. FROM DIE WALKÜRE. Photographed from the stage performance
BRÜNNHILDE’S SUMMONS TO SIEGMUND
From Die Walküre