My Life — Volume 2

by Richard Wagner

1861.—The slackness with which the rehearsals of Tannhauser were being conducted when I fell ill changed at the beginning of the new year into a more decided handling of all the details connected with the intended performance. But I could not fail to notice at the same time that the attitude of all those who took part was substantially altered. The rehearsals, which were more numerous than might be expected, gave me the impression that the management was adhering to the strict execution of a command, but were not fired by any hope of successful results. Certainly I now obtained a clearer insight into the actual state of affairs. From the press, which was entirely in the hands of Meyerbeer, I knew long ago what I had to expect. The management of the Opera, probably after repeated efforts to make the chief leaders in the press tractable, were now likewise convinced that my Tannhauser venture would only meet with a hostile reception from that quarter. This view was shared even in the highest circles, and it seemed as if an attempt was being made to discover some means whereby to win over to my side that part of the operatic public which could turn the scales. Prince Metternich sent me an invitation one day to meet the new cabinet minister, Count Walewsky. An air of ceremony pervaded the introduction, and made it particularly significant when the Count in a persuasive speech endeavoured to convince me that they entertained every wish for my good fortune and desired to help me to a brilliant success. He added in conclusion that the power to effect this was in my own hands, if I would only consent to introduce a ballet into the second act of my opera; the most celebrated ballet-dancers from St. Petersburg and London had been proposed to me, and I had only to make my selection; their engagement would be concluded as soon as I had entrusted the success of my work to their co-operation. In declining these proposals I think I was no less eloquent than he in making them. My complete failure, however, was due to the fact that I did not appear to understand the worthy minister when he informed me that the ballet in the first act counted for nothing, because those devotees of the theatre who only cared for the ballet on an opera night were accustomed, according to the new fashion, not to dine until eight o'clock, and so did not reach the theatre until ten o'clock, when about half the performance was over. I replied that I could not undertake myself to oblige these gentlemen, but might well hope duly to impress another part of the public. But with his imperturbable air of ceremony he met me with the objection that these gentlemen's support could alone be counted upon to produce a successful result, inasmuch as they were powerful enough even to defy the hostile attitude of the press. This precaution awakened no response in me, and I offered to withdraw my work altogether, whereupon I was assured with the greatest earnestness that, according to the Emperor's command, which had to be universally respected, I was master of the situation, and my wishes would be followed in everything. The Count had only thought it his duty to give me a friendly piece of advice.

The consequences of this conversation soon became evident in many ways. I threw myself enthusiastically into the work of carrying out the great dance scenes of the first act, and tried to win Petitpas, the ballet-master, to my side. I asked for unheard-of combinations quite different from those generally employed in the ballet. I drew attention to the dances of the Maenads and Bacchantes, and astounded Petitpas with the mere proposition that he would be able to accomplish something of the kind with his graceful pupils, as it was well within his powers. He explained to me that by placing my ballet at the beginning of the first act I had myself renounced all claim to the step-dancers attached to the Opera, and all he could do was to offer to engage three Hungarian dancers, who had formerly danced in the fairy scenes at the Porte St. Martin, to fill the parts of the three graces. As I was quite content to dispense with the distinguished dancers belonging to the Opera, I insisted all the more that the rank and file of the ballet should be actively coached. I wanted to know that the male staff was present in full force, but I learned that it was impossible to bring it up to my requirements, unless some tailors were engaged who, for a monthly salary of fifty francs, figured in a vague way in the wings during the performances of the solo dancers. Finally I tried to produce my effects by means of the costumes, and asked for considerable funds for that purpose, only to learn, after I had been wearied by one subterfuge after another, that the management was determined not to expend a halfpenny on my ballet, which they regarded as completely wasted. Such was the substance of what my trusty friend Truinet conveyed to me. This was the first sign out of many which soon revealed to me the fact, that even in the circles of the operatic administration itself Tannhauser was already regarded as labour lost and sheer waste of trouble.

The atmosphere created by this conviction now weighed with increasing pressure upon everything which was undertaken for the preparation of a performance which was postponed time after time. With the beginning of the year the rehearsals had readied the stage at which the scenes were arranged and the orchestral practices begun. Everything was conducted with a care which impressed me very agreeably at the beginning, until finally I was bored by it, because I saw that the powers of the performers were being relaxed by eternal repetition, and it was now evident that I must trust to my own ability to pull the matter quickly through as I thought best. But it was not the fatigue due to this system that finally made Niemann, the main prop in my work, recoil from the task which at the start he had undertaken with an energy full of promise. He had been informed that there was a conspiracy to ruin my work. From this time forward he was a victim to a despondency to which, in his relations with me, he sought to lend a sort of diabolical character. He maintained that so far he could only see the matter in a black light, and he brought forward some arguments that sounded very sensible; he criticised the whole Opera as an institution and the public attached to it, and also our staff of singers, of whom he maintained that not a single one understood his part as I intended it; and he exposed all the disadvantages of the undertaking, which I myself could not fail to see as soon as I came to deal with the chef du chant, the regisseur, the ballet-master, the conductor of the chorus, but, particularly, with the chef d'orchestre. Above all, Niemann (who at the beginning, with a full knowledge of what it involved, had imposed upon himself the task of playing his part without curtailments of any sort) insisted upon cutting down the score. He met my expression of astonishment with the remark, that I must not suppose that the sacrifice of this or that passage mattered, but that we were in the throes of an undertaking which could not be got through too quickly.

Under circumstances from which so little encouragement could be derived, the study of Tannhauser dragged itself along to the brink of the so-called 'dress' rehearsals. From all sides the friends of my past life gathered together in Paris to be present at the apotheosis of the first performance. Among these were Otto Wesendonck, Ferdinand Prager, the unfortunate Kietz, for whom I had to pay the costs of his journey and of his stay in Paris; luckily M. Chandon from Epernay came, too, with a hamper of 'Fleur du Jardin,' the finest of all his champagne brands. This was to be drunk to the success of Tannhauser. Bulow also came, depressed and saddened by the burdens of his own life, and hoping to be able to gather courage and renewed vitality from the success of my undertaking. I did not dare to tell him in so many words of the miserable state of affairs; on the contrary, seeing him so depressed, I made the best of a bad matter. At the first rehearsal, however, at which Bulow was present, he did not fail to grasp how matters stood. I no longer concealed anything from him; and we continued to indulge in sorrowful intercourse till the night of the performance, which was again and again postponed, and it was only his untiring efforts to be of use to me that gave some life to our companionship. From whatever side we regarded our grotesque undertaking, we encountered unsuitability and incompetence. For instance, it was impossible in the whole of Paris to find the twelve French horns which in Dresden had so bravely sounded the hunting call in the first act. In connection with this matter I had to deal with the terrible man Sax, the celebrated instrument-maker. He had to help me out with all kinds of substitutes in the shape of saxophones and saxhorns; moreover, he was officially appointed to conduct the music behind the scenes. It was an impossibility ever to get this music properly played.

The main grievance, however, lay in the incompetence of M. Dietzsch, the conductor, which had now reached a pitch hitherto unsuspected. In the numerous orchestral rehearsals which had been held hitherto, I had accustomed myself to use this man like a machine. From my habitual position on the stage near his desk I had conducted both conductor and orchestra. In this way I had maintained my tempi in such a way that I felt no doubt that on my removal all my points would remain firmly established. I found, on the contrary, that no sooner was Dietzsch left to his own resources than everything began to waver; not one tempo, not one nuance was conscientiously and strictly preserved. I then realised the extreme danger in which we were placed. Granted that no one singer was suited to his task, or qualified to achieve it so as to produce a genuine effect; granted that the ballet, and even the sumptuous mounting and vitality of the Parisian performances of the day, could contribute nothing on this occasion, or at most but little; granted that the whole spirit of the libretto, and that indefinable SOMETHING which even in the worst performances of Tannhauser in Germany roused a feeling of home, was likely here to strike an alien or at best an unfamiliar note; yet in spite of all this the character of the orchestral music, which if rendered with emphasis was full of suggestive expression, led one to hope that it would make an impression even upon a Parisian audience. But it was precisely in this particular that I saw everything submerged in a colourless chaos, with every line of the drawing obliterated; moreover, the singers became more and more uncertain in their work; even the poor ballet-girls were no longer able to keep time in their trivial steps; so that at last I thought myself obliged to interpose with the declaration that the opera required a different conductor, and that in case of necessity I myself was ready to take his place. This declaration brought to a climax the confusion that had grown up around me. Even the members of the orchestra, who had long recognised and openly ridiculed their conductor's incompetence, took sides against me now that the matter concerned their notorious chief. The press lashed itself into fury over my 'arrogance,' and in the face of all the agitation caused by the affair, Napoleon III. could send me no better advice than to forgo my requests, as in adhering to them I should only be exposing the chances of my work to the greatest risks. On the other hand, I was allowed to start fresh rehearsals and have them repeated until I was satisfied.

This way out of the difficulty could lead to nothing but an increase of fatigue for me and for the whole staff actively engaged in the undertaking, and the fact still remained that M. Dietzsch could not be depended upon for the tempo. Finally, by sheer force of will rather than of conviction, I tried to imagine I was doing a service by holding out for the correct interpretation of a performance which, after all, had to be got through; whereupon for the first time the impetuous musicians broke out into rebellion against the excessive rehearsals. At this stage I noticed that the guarantee of my practical control given by the general management was not altogether made in good faith, and in the face of the growing complaint on all sides against being overfatigued I decided 'to demand the return of my score' as they called it; that is to say, to dispense with the production of the opera. I addressed an express request to this effect to the cabinet minister Walewsky, but received the answer that it was impossible to comply with my wishes, more particularly on account of the heavy expenses which had already been incurred in its preparation. I refused to abide by his decision, and called a conference of those friends of mine who were more closely interested in me, among whom were Count Hatzfeld and Emil Erlanger. I took counsel with them as to the means at my disposal for forbidding Tannhauser to be performed at the Opera House. It happened that Otto Wesendonck was present at this conference; he was still waiting in Paris hoping to have the pleasure of attending the first performance, but he was now thoroughly convinced that the situation was hopeless, and promptly fled back to Zurich. Prager had already done likewise. Kietz alone held out faithfully, and he busied himself in trying to make some money in Paris to provide for his future, in which attempt he was hampered by many difficulties that stood in the way of his desire. This conference resulted in fresh representations being made to the Emperor Napoleon, which, however, met with the same gracious reply as before, and I was authorised to institute a fresh course of rehearsals. At last, weary to the depths of my soul, completely disillusioned, and absolutely decided in my pessimistic view of the matter, I determined to abandon it to its fate.

Having at last, in this frame of mind, given my consent to fix the date of the first performance of my opera, I was now plagued in another direction in the most astonishing way. Every one of my friends and partisans demanded a good seat for the first night; but the management pointed out that the occupation of the house on such occasions was entirely in the hands of the court and those dependent on it, and I was soon to realise clearly enough to whom these seats were to be allotted. At present I had to suffer the annoyance of being unable to serve many of my friends as I should have liked. Some of them were very quick to resent what they supposed to be my neglect of them. Champfleury in a letter complained of this flagrant breach of friendship; Gasperini started an open quarrel because I had not reserved one of the best boxes for his patron and my creditor Lucy, the Receiver-General of Marseilles. Even Blandine, who had been filled with the most generous enthusiasm for my work at the rehearsals she had attended, could not suppress a suspicion that I was guilty of neglecting my best friends when I was unable to offer her and her husband Ollivier anything better than a couple of stalls. It needed all Emil's sang-froid to obtain from this deeply offended friend a just appreciation of the honest assurance that I was in an impossible position, in which I was exposed to betrayal on all sides. Poor Bulow alone understood everything; he suffered with me, and shirked no trouble to be of use to me in all these difficulties. The first performance on the 13th of March put an end to all these complications; my friends now understood that it was to no celebration of my triumphs, as they supposed, to which they should have been invited.

I have already said enough elsewhere of the way in which this evening passed off. I was justified in flattering myself that in the end a favourable view of my opera prevailed, inasmuch as the intention of my opponents had been to break up this performance completely, and this they had found it impossible to do. But I was grieved the next day to receive nothing but reproaches from my friends, with Gasperini at the head of them, because I had allowed the occupation of the house at the first performance to be completely wrested out of my hands. Meyerbeer, they urged, knew how to work such things differently; had he not, ever since he first appeared in Paris, refused to allow the production of a single one of his operas to take place without a guarantee that he himself should fill the auditorium, to the remotest corner? As I had not looked after my best friends, such as M. Lucy, was not the ill-success of that evening to be ascribed to my own conduct? Confronted with these and similar arguments, I had to spend the whole day in writing letters and in devoting myself to the most urgent efforts at propitiation. Above all, I was besieged with advice as to how I might recover the lost ground at the subsequent performances. As the management placed a very small number of free seats at my disposal, money had to be found for the purchase of tickets. In the pursuit of this object, which my friends were so warmly advocating and which involved much that was disagreeable, I shrank from approaching Emil Erlanger or anybody else. Giacomelli, however, had found out that Aufmordt, the merchant, a business friend of Wesendonck, had offered to help to the extent of five hundred francs. I now allowed these champions of my welfare to act according to their own ideas, and was curious to see what assistance I should derive from these resources which I had previously neglected and now utilised.

The second performance took place on the 18th of March, and, indeed, the first act promised well. The overture was loudly applauded without a note of opposition. Mme. Tedesco, who had eventually been completely won over to her part of Venus by a wig powdered with gold dust, called out triumphantly to me in the manager's box, when the 'septuor' of the finale of the first act was again vigorously applauded, that everything was now all right and that we had won the victory. But when shrill whistling was suddenly heard in the second act, Royer the manager turned to me with an air of complete resignation and said, 'Ce sont les Jockeys; nous sommes perdus.' Apparently at the bidding of the Emperor, extensive negotiations had been entered into with these members of the Jockey Club as to the fate of my opera. They had been requested to allow three performances to take place, after which they had been promised that it should be so curtailed as to admit of its presentation only as a curtain-raiser to introduce a ballet which was to follow. But these gentlemen had not agreed to the terms. In the first place, my attitude during the first performance (which had been such a bone of contention) had been observed to be utterly unlike that of a man who would consent to the proposed line of conduct; this being so, it was to be feared that if two more performances were allowed to take place without interruption, we might hope to win so many adherents that the friends of the ballet would be treated to repetitions of this work thirty times running. To guard against this they determined to protest in time. The fact that these gentlemen meant business was now realised by the excellent M. Royer; and from that time he gave up all attempt to resist them, in spite of the support granted to our party by the Emperor and his Consort, who stoically kept their seats through the uproars of their own courtiers.

The impression made by this scene had a disastrous effect upon my friends. After the performance Bulow broke out into sobs as he embraced Minna, who had not been spared the insults of those next to her when they recognised her as the wife of the composer. Our trusty servant Therese, a Swabian girl, had been sneered at by a crazy hooligan, but when she realised that he understood German, she succeeded in quieting him for a time by calling him Schweinhund at the top of her voice. Poor Kietz was struck dumb with disappointment, and Chandon's 'Fleur du Jardin' was growing sour in the storeroom.