LUDWIG GEYER.
Reproduction of a portrait painted by himself. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic.
“Rienzi” was produced on Oct. 20, 1842, with the following cast: Rienzi, Tichatschek; Irene, Frl. Wüst; Stefano, Dettmer; Adriano, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient; Paolo, Wachter; Raimondo, Rheinhold; Baroncelli, Vestri; Cecco, Risse; Messenger, Frl. Thiele. The opera achieved an immediate and emphatic success, which fifty years of popularity have approved. “Der Fliegende Holländer” was now hurried upon the stage, and produced at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843, with Schroeder-Devrient as Senta, and Mitterwurzer as Vanderdecken. The great change in style from “Rienzi,” the sombreness of the story, the simplicity of the action, and the originality of the music surprised and disappointed the public. Only Spohr seemed to perceive its real value. He said, “Among composers for the stage pro tem., Wagner is the most gifted.” Spohr produced the “Holländer” at Cassel on June 5, 1843, and was to the end an admirer of Wagner.
Immediately after finishing this work in Paris, Wagner cast about for new material. He read a new version of the story of “Tannhäuser,” which set him to work to trace to its source the connection of this tale with that of the Wartburg song contest. Thus he came to read “Der Wartburgkrieg,” which introduces the story of “Lohengrin,” and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”; “and thus,” as he says, “an entirely new world of poetical matter suddenly opened before me.” Before the rehearsals of “Rienzi” he began the book of “Tannhäuser.” He completed the opera (though he afterwards made some changes) on April 13, 1844. In the mean time (January, 1843) he was made court conductor at Dresden, where he served seven years, producing the masterpieces of Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Spontini, and even Palestrina in the most artistic manner. He produced “Tannhäuser” at Dresden, Oct. 19, 1845, with Tichatschek in the title rôle; Schroeder-Devrient as Venus; his niece, Johanna Wagner, as Elizabeth; and Mitterwurzer, as Wolfram. The work pleased neither the public nor the critics. The music, except the simple broad march and chorus of Act. II., was pronounced ugly. Even the mellifluous “Evening Star” song was disliked; Tannhäuser’s dramatic story of his pilgrimage was called “a pointless and empty recitation,” and Wagner was blamed for not marrying his hero and heroine. Even Spohr, though he saw much that was “new and beautiful,” was troubled. Schumann alone declared of the work: “It contains deeper, more original, and altogether an hundred-fold better things than his previous operas; at the same time, a good deal that is musically trivial.” Wagner was discouraged, but instead of losing faith in his ideals, he decided on a course of literary propagandism: “to induce the public to understand and participate in my aims as an artist.” From this resolve sprang his subsequent theoretical writings: “Art and Revolution” (1849), “The Art Work of the Future” (1850), “Opera and Drama” (1851), etc.
RICHARD WAGNER’S MOTHER.
Reproduction of a portrait painted by Ludwig Geyer. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic.
Before the production of “Tannhäuser,” he had made sketches for the books of “Lohengrin” and “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”). He finished the former work in March, 1848. In the mean time failure had brought debt and trouble upon him. Even his wife, though an admirable woman in other respects, did not comprehend his intellect, and grieved at his preference of artistic works over paying operas of the familiar sort. Restless and irritated, he plunged into the revolutionary movement and gave utterance to radical opinions, even arguing in a lecture that the king ought to proclaim Saxony a free state. In May, 1849, Dresden streets were barricaded against troops sent to disperse rioters, and in spite of assertions to the contrary, there is good evidence that Wagner was fighting on the people’s side.[[1]] The Prussian troops scattered the revolutionists, and Wagner fled to Weimar, where he was received with open arms by Franz Liszt, thenceforward his most devoted friend. The police were on his track, however, and he hastened by way of Paris to Zurich, Switzerland.
Wagner’s exile lasted from 1849 till 1861, and this period embraces the climax of his creative labors. He began his career as a citizen of Zurich by pouring forth a long series of literary works, of which those above mentioned and “Judaism in Music” may be regarded as the most important. There will be occasion to speak later of those bearing on his operatic ideas, but the “Judaism” article produced bitter comment at the time, and has remained a source of offence to many. It was published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, over the nom de plume K. Freigedank. The chief contentions of the article were that the Jews, being of no nation, but of all nations, are without national feeling; that their art work, especially in music, lacks that genuineness which is one of the products of nationality; and that an instinct for gain causes them to sacrifice pure art for the profitable fashion of the time. His examples were Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, the latter of whom he again censured in “Opera and Drama.” The authorship of the strictures on the Jews was speedily suspected, and a host of pamphlets appeared in answer to it. The principal result was that Wagner’s writings sold well. In a letter written in 1847 he declared that he esteemed Meyerbeer as a man, but as a composer viewed him as the embodiment of “all that is repellent in the incoherency and empty striving after outward effect of the operatic music of the day.” This was his only answer to the charge that he had repaid Meyerbeer’s early assistance with ingratitude.
VILLA TRIEBSCHEN.
Richard Wagner’s Residence on Lake Lucerne, where the “Meistersinger,” “Rheingold,” and “Götterdämmerung” were composed.
His opera, “Lohengrin,” was produced by Liszt at Weimar, Aug. 28, 1850, with the following cast: Lohengrin, Beck; Telramund, Milde; King Henry, Höfer; Elsa, Frl. Agthe; Ortrud, Frl. Faisstlinger. It was received very much as “Tannhäuser” had been, but it gradually won its way through Germany, being brought out at Wiesbaden in 1853, Leipzic, Schwerin, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Breslau, and Stettin, in 1854; Cologne, Hamburg, Riga, and Prague, 1855; Munich and Vienna, in 1858; Berlin and Dresden, 1859. In the mean time Wagner was laboring on the largest, if not the greatest, of his works, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“The Nibelung’s Ring”). In 1848 he had considered two subjects, the story of Frederick Barbarossa and that of Siegfried, the hero of the “Nibelungen Lied.” The latter was his choice, and he wrote an essay entitled “Der Nibelungen Mythus als Entwurf zu einem Drama” (“The Nibelung Myth as Subject for a Drama”). Immediately afterward, in the fall of 1848, he wrote “Siegfried’s Tod” (“Siegfried’s Death”) in three acts and a prologue, and even conceived some of the musical ideas for the setting. In May, 1850, he had this poem printed and read parts of it as illustrations in a lecture on the music-drama delivered at Zurich. The prospects of “Lohengrin” moved him to take it up again, and we find him writing to Liszt thus:—