Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas / A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work

by W. J. Henderson

RIENZI

The first of the series of great musical works by which the fame of Wagner was made does not call for extended discussion. Its source is familiar to every reader of English literature, and its method of construction and style of composition are those employed in the operas of the Meyerbeerian school. In the fact that Wagner wrote his own libretto, which awakened the interest even of Hector Berlioz, and in the immense vigour and wonderful colour of the score, lie the chief indications of the Wagner of the future. The reader has already learned how Wagner undertook this work with the deliberate purpose of making it a lever to pry open the doors of the Paris Grand Opéra. With that idea in mind it is not at all astonishing that he should have followed the model of Meyerbeer, who was in Wagner's early days the master spirit of the world of French music.

Wagner in subsequent years was extremely particular to keep before the minds of his friends the fact that it was not simply pecuniary success that he sought. He was eager to shine as an artist. That we must concede. He was, indeed, ambitious, and had a profound conviction of his own genius. But in these early days, when the inner artistic struggle found its companion piece in the outward fight for existence, Wagner had not reached the æsthetic convictions which afterward came to him. Therefore his conception of Bulwer's "Rienzi" was wholly as material for the libretto of a grand opera of the Meyerbeerian school. We have seen how his first attempt to enter Paris was with the scenario of "Die Hohe Braut," which was sent to Scribe, but lost in the mail for want of proper prepayment of the postal charges. We then find that Wagner wrote in 1837 to his Leipsic friend Lewald, who had some acquaintance in Paris, telling him that he had in his mind the book of "Rienzi."

"I intend," he said, "to compose it in the German language, to make an attempt whether there is a possibility of getting it performed in Berlin in the course of fifty years, if God grant me so long a life. Perhaps Scribe will like it, in which case Rienzi will learn to sing French in a moment; or else this might be a way to goad Berliners into accepting the opera if they were told that Paris was ready to bring it out, but that preference was for once to be given to Berlin; for a stage like that of Berlin or Paris is absolutely necessary to bring out such a work properly."

Nothing came of this correspondence, and Wagner's "Rienzi" was not permitted to astonish the Parisians. Nevertheless he began himself to write the libretto at Riga in the summer of 1838. In the spring of 1839 he had composed the music of the first two acts, and with this uncompleted score he set out from Riga on the voyage which ultimately landed him in Paris. Of his meeting with Meyerbeer at Boulogne, his exhibition of his manuscript to the great dictator, his completion of the work in the days of his hardship in Paris (in 1841), and the sending of the bulky score to Dresden the story has been told in the biographical part of this book. It need not now be repeated. Of the instantaneous success of the opera at Dresden there is plentiful evidence. It was in the style which the public of the time admired and it heaped up effects enough to dazzle the crowd. But it must be said for Wagner that he had some dim thought when he began this work of producing something really artistic. He was simply mistaken as to the method. At this point I must ask the reader to accept Wagner's own words as a better exposition of himself and his purposes than anything which I can invent. In the "Autobiographic Sketch" he says:

"Since I was so completely bare of Paris prospects, I took up once more the composition of my 'Rienzi.' I now destined it for Dresden: in the first place, because I knew that this theatre possessed the very best material—Devrient, Tichatschek, etc.; secondly, because I could more reasonably hope for an entrée there, relying upon the support of my earliest acquaintances. My 'Liebesverbot' I now gave up almost completely; I felt that I could no longer regard myself as its composer. With all the greater freedom I followed now my true artistic creed in the prosecution of the music to my 'Rienzi.'"

Further, let the reader note well these passages from "A Communication to My Friends":

"My home troubles increased; the desire to wrest myself from a humiliating plight now grew into an eager longing to begin something on a grand and inspiring scale, even though it should involve the temporary abandonment of any practical aim. This mood was fed and fostered by my reading Bulwer's 'Rienzi.' From the misery of modern private life, whence I could nowhere glean the scantiest stuff for artistic treatment, I was borne away by the picture of a great historico-political event, in lingering on which I needs must find a salutary distraction from the cares and conditions that appeared to me as nothing else than absolutely fatal to art. In accordance with my particular artistic bent, however, I still kept more or less to the purely musical, or rather, operatic standpoint. This Rienzi with great thoughts in his head, great feelings in his heart, amid an entourage of coarseness and vulgarity, set all my nerves a-quivering with sympathy and love; yet my plan for an art-work based thereon sprang first from the perception of a purely lyric element in the hero's atmosphere. The 'Messengers of Peace,' the Church's summons to awake, the Battle hymns—these were what impelled me to an opera: 'Rienzi.'"...

"To write an opera for whose production only the most exceptional means should suffice—a work, therefore, which I should never feel tempted to bring before the public amid such cramping relations as those which then oppressed me, and the hope of whose eventual production should thus incite me to make every sacrifice in order to extricate myself from those relations,—this is what resolved me to resume and carry out with all my might my former plan for 'Rienzi.' In the preparation of this text also I took no thought for anything but the writing of an effective operatic libretto. The 'Grand Opéra' with all its scenic and musical display, its sensationalism and massive vehemence, loomed large before me; and not merely to copy it, but with reckless extravagance to outbid it in its every detail became the object of my artistic ambition. However, I should be unjust to myself did I represent this ambition as my only motive for the conception and execution of my 'Rienzi.' The stuff really aroused my enthusiasm, and I put nothing into my sketch which had not a direct bearing on the grounds of this enthusiasm. My chief concern was my Rienzi himself; and only when I felt quite contented with him did I give rein to the notion of a 'grand opera.' Nevertheless from a purely artistic point of view this 'grand opera' was the pair of spectacles through which I unconsciously regarded my Rienzi-stuff; nothing in that stuff did I find enthrall me but what could be looked at through these spectacles. True, that I always fixed my gaze upon the stuff itself, and did not keep one eye open for certain ready-made musical effects which I might wish to father on it by hook or crook; only, I saw it in no other light than that of a 'five-act-opera,' with five brilliant 'finales,' and filled with hymns, processions, and the musical clash of arms. Thus I bestowed no greater care upon the verse and diction than seemed needful for turning out a good and not trivial opera-text. I did not set out with the object of writing duets, trios, &c., but they found their own way in here and there because I looked upon my subject exclusively through the medium of 'Opera.' For instance, I by no means hunted about in my stuff for a pretext for a ballet; but with the eyes of the opera-composer I perceived in it a self-evident festival that Rienzi must give to the People, and at which he would have to exhibit to them in dumb show a drastic scene from their ancient history: this scene being the story of Lucretia and the consequent expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. Thus in every department of my plan I was certainly ruled by the stuff alone; but, on the other hand, I ruled this stuff according to my only chosen pattern, the form of the Grand Opera. My artistic individuality, in its dealings with the impressions of life, was still entirely under the influence of purely artistic, or rather art-formalistic, mechanically operating impressions."[32]

The reader will now understand the artistic ideas which governed Wagner in the production of his only "grand opera." He was, as he himself declares, true to the artistic creed which he cherished at that time, but that creed was opposed to the one afterward formulated in his mind. His first artistic beliefs were founded on the theory that not the ground-plan, but the external treatment, of the grand opera was at fault. He fancied that he could preserve the element which he has called "art-formalistic" and yet reach dramatic verity. He aimed at a consistent embodiment of character in his hero; he sought to give to all the factors of the opera, even such accessories as the ballet, a direct and powerful dramatic significance; but it had not yet come to him that he must, in order to make a consistent drama in music, sacrifice form to content, and get rid of the whole mechanical apparatus of the spectacular opera. Here, then, let me quote the most significant passage of all, one from the "Autobiographic Sketch":