Part 27

=His Early Operas=.—The future master of the music drama, however, began by composing operas—operas, moreover, in which he shows originality in one feature only—that of writing their texts himself, and this remained his invariable practice. In other respects they gave no hint of the startling individuality he was to unfold so unexpectedly in his _Flying Dutchman_. His first opera was _Die Feen_ (The Fairies). It was based on a fairy tale of but slight worth, and the music was strongly reminiscent of Weber and Marschner. As the work of a youth of twenty, without reputation or influence, it is hardly surprising that he found no manager willing to produce it. He was somewhat more fortunate with his second opera, _Das Liebesverbot_ (The Love Veto), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure.” This was performed once, in 1836, at Magdeburg, where he was director of the opera, and had thus come under the influence of the French and Italian composers then popular in Germany. The music is such a palpable imitation of Adam, Auber, Donizetti, and Bellini that it has never been given since. _Die Feen_ was never produced during his lifetime, but a few years after his death received a number of representations in Munich.

=His Sojourn in Paris=.—In 1839, he determined to go to Paris. Many foreign composers had succeeded in entering the Grand Opéra, among them Meyerbeer, then in the full flush of the renown he had gained with _Les Huguenots_. What one German had done, another might attempt. Accordingly, with the utmost faith in his star and amid manifold discouragements, Wagner made his way to the French capital, where he hoped through the influence of Meyerbeer to secure the acceptance of his _Rienzi_ at the Grand Opéra. He had prepared it from Bulwer’s novel of the same name with the express intention of utilizing it as a framework for the large spectacular style demanded by the Académie de Musique. His sojourn in Paris brought him nothing but disappointment. Neither _Rienzi_ nor _Der Fliegende Holländer_ (The Flying Dutchman), which he wrote during his stay of two and a half years, was successful in winning a hearing, while he lived the greater part of the time in the most painfully straitened circumstances.

=Rienzi=.—Before long, he realized the hopelessness of his endeavor and sent _Rienzi_ to Dresden, where it was accepted and after a long delay performed in 1842. The result was a triumphant success and led to the speedy production of _The Flying Dutchman_. This, however, by no means made a similar impression. _Rienzi_ was an opera of the type made familiar by Meyerbeer, in which effect was secured by the heaping together of every device known to stagecraft. The ballet, the march of the Messengers of Peace, the final catastrophe of the burning of Rome, had as much to do with its enthusiastic reception as the music, which was noisy, showy and brilliant, as befitted a work of such calibre.

=The Flying Dutchman. Change of Style=.—_The Flying Dutchman_, however, showed Wagner in an entirely different light. With it, instead of receiving his inspiration from without, as had been the case with the preceding operas, it came from within. On his way to Paris he had made a stormy voyage of several weeks from a port on the Baltic to London. He was familiar with the myth of the Flying Dutchman, and found that the sailors on board his ship believed it implicitly. This in connection with Heine’s version of the legend, which represents the unhappy mariner as doomed to perpetual wandering on stormy seas until he finds a woman faithful unto death, made a strong impression on him, and while in Paris he wrote the poem and composed the music within seven weeks after finishing _Rienzi_. A more sudden metamorphosis of style is unknown in the history of music. The earlier work was an opera pure and simple, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, characterized by pomp, brilliancy, sonority. Its successor was conceived as a drama in which music served to emphasize the action and to intensify the emotional situations; instead of being master, it was servant; external effects were disregarded save only as they were in harmony with this conception. Not that the composer entirely achieved this ideal; _The Flying Dutchman_ displays not a few lapses into operatic conventionalities, but as a whole it was a startling and radical change which puzzled and displeased the public. They had looked for something in the style of _Rienzi_ and could make nothing of a work so contrary to the popular idea of what an opera should be. Accordingly, after a few performances, it was dropped from the repertory.

=Tannhäuser=.—Nothing daunted by the lack of favor shown his change of style, Wagner carried it to a still greater extent in his next opera, _Tannhäuser_ (1845), founded on a medieval legend. The dramatic motive of this is much the same as that of _The Flying Dutchman_, one of which Wagner was particularly fond—the power of love to redeem and save from the consequences of sin and error. _Tannhäuser_ brought about his head the full storm of hostile criticism which with _The Flying Dutchman_ had only begun to lower. He was reproached for its difficulty, for its lack of pleasing melodies, for the audacious harmonies which many critics considered inexcusable dissonances. Singers objected to the broad declamation it required; they complained that it would eventually ruin their voices.

=Lohengrin=.—This almost general dissatisfaction, however, led to no concessions by the composer in his next opera, _Lohengrin_, which marked a further advance in the unpopular direction taken by its predecessors, but it interfered with its performance. Though he was conductor of the Opéra at Dresden, he could not secure permission to produce it. Baffled and discouraged in his artistic schemes, a radical in politics, he joined the insurrectionists during the revolution of 1849. The failure of the rebellion necessitated a hasty flight from Germany. He took refuge in Switzerland and remained in exile until a proclamation of amnesty in 1861 allowed him to return. In the meantime he had sent the score of _Lohengrin_ to Liszt, then conductor of the opera at Weimar, and there it was brought out in 1850.

_Lohengrin_ proved the turning-point in his fortunes. The romance of the subject, its dramatic treatment and undeniable beauty gradually reconciled the public to the novelty of its style. Before Wagner was relieved from his sentence of banishment it had become one of the most popular operas in Germany—he once ruefully remarked that he would soon be the only German who had not heard it.

QUESTIONS.

Who led in the changes in Italian Opera after Rossini?

Give an account of Donizetti and his work.

Give an account of Bellini and his work.

Give an account of Verdi and his earlier works.

What is the significance of Aïda in the history of Opera?

Tell about the changes that Wagner was to make.

Give an account of his early operas.

Why did he go to Paris?

Describe Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin.

LESSON XL.

RICHARD WAGNER’S MUSIC DRAMAS. OTHER SCHOOLS.

=Wagner’s Theory of the Music Drama=.—_Lohengrin_, like _The Flying Dutchman_, was transitional in character and led into Wagner’s third manner. It was his last opera; all his later works were known as music dramas. In these he pursued unhesitatingly the logical conclusions of the theories which he expounded at great length in his controversial writings, though he was far from being always consistent with himself. Thus he reasoned that since in the spoken drama but one speaker is heard at a time, the same practice should prevail in the music drama, which would naturally do away with all concerted music, choruses, etc. This rule he observed in _The Ring of the Nibelungen_, but he wisely abandoned it in his later works. In _Die Meistersinger_ he also failed to follow his theory that mythical and legendary subjects were the only suitable material for the music drama. Briefly stated, his ultimate conclusion was as follows: that the art-work of the future, as he called it, should consist of a synthesis of all the arts. Music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, he asserted, had exhausted all that was possible to them as separate arts; a higher plane could be reached hereafter only by a combination which should gain unity by subordination to a single principle. This principle he found in poetry. Beethoven, he argued, had felt the insufficiency of music alone to express his deepest inspiration, and for that reason had incorporated in his last and greatest symphony a choral movement to the words of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” In the music drama, therefore, the scene painter replaces the artist and the architect, the actor by plastic poses the sculptor, while the musician must allow his music no form but that dictated by the poet in his verses. He ascribed the thrilling effect of the Greek drama to such a union of the arts and this it was his aim to revive through his own works.

=The Leading Motive=.—The part assigned by the Greek dramatists to the chorus who expounded and commented on the events of the play was in his scheme transferred to the orchestra. This he did by means of the _Leitmotiv_ (leading motive). A leitmotiv is a characteristic theme or harmonic progression associated with each of the _Dramatis Personæ_ and which appears with such modification of mode, rhythm, or any of its component parts as the dramatic situation demands. It is not confined to personages alone; in _The Ring of the Nibelung_, for instance, the stolen gold, the ring formed from it, the sword which plays such an important part in _Die Walküre_ and in _Siegfried_ all have their corresponding motives. It is through these motives that Wagner is able to give his orchestra an all but articulate speech and to weld the music drama into an organic whole. By their transformation and development he succeeds in indicating psychological states and changes as well as material conditions and objects. Reminiscent themes of a somewhat similar nature had been used as far back as Mozart and had been employed more freely by composers of the Romantic school, notably by Weber in _Der Freischütz_ and _Euryanthe_, but they were undeveloped and elementary in character. Berlioz in his _Fantastic Symphony_ was the first to conceive a typical theme and to alter it in logical accordance with the progression of his program, but he did not adopt the practice in his operas.

=The Unending Melody=.—Beginning with _Lohengrin_, Wagner abandoned fixed forms and substituted what he called unending melody, a practically continuous flow of tone divided alike between voices and instruments. For the most part he assigned the singer a declamation as far removed from the set aria on the one hand as it was from dry recitative of the early Italian opera on the other. Yet like the latter it was conditioned by principles of speech. Like the early composers, also, his subjects with but two exceptions were mythical or legendary. This, because the supernatural and the unreal correspond more closely with the ideal element introduced by the use of song for speech than material drawn from everyday experience or from the exact chronicles of history.

=The Ring of the Nibelung=.—In the old Teutonic folk-epic, the _Nibelungen Lied_ (Lay of the Nibelung), Wagner found the inspiration for his next and most extended work. This is the great tetralogy, _Der Ring des Nibelung_ (The Ring of the Nibelung), composed of four dramas designed for continuous representation: _Das Rheingold_ (The Rhine Gold), _Die Walküre_ (The Valkyrie), _Siegfried_, _Die Götterdämmerung_ (The Twilight of the Gods). It was begun and partially finished during his stay in Switzerland, but his discouragement over what he felt to be the hopeless task of ever securing its performance led him to abandon it and to set to work on another drama which he decided should be lighter in character and less difficult to execute, in order the more readily to find acceptance.

=Tristan and Isolde=.—The result of this resolution was _Tristan und Isolde_, but far from being a return to his earlier style, as he had planned, it was and probably still is the most intricate operatic score in existence. It was accepted by the Opera in Vienna, but after fifty-seven rehearsals the singers declared themselves unable to learn it and it was given up as impossible of execution. Three years after his return to Germany an unlooked-for change took place in his fortunes. The young king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, who had just ascended the throne, had been an ardent admirer of Wagner since as a boy of fifteen he had heard _Lohengrin_. Hardly had he taken his seat before he summoned the discouraged composer to Munich and assured him support and protection. _Tristan und Isolde_ was soon brought out (1865), and Wagner busied himself with the composition of _Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg_ (The Master Singers of Nuremberg), produced in 1868.

=Die Meistersinger=.—This is his only comic work, full of hitherto unsuspected humor and geniality. The story of the young poet endeavoring to gain admission to the jealously-guarded ranks of the master singers who, notwithstanding the beauty of his song, reject him because he has violated their hide-bound rules has a distinctly autobiographic value. Wagner had endured too much from similar pedants to be lenient with the picture he drew of their prototypes in medieval Nuremberg. As strikingly diatonic in style as _Tristan und Isolde_ is chromatic, these two works are the strongest illustrations of his versatility.

=Bayreuth and the Festival Theatre=.—Wagner had long cherished the plan of a festival theatre for the performance of his _Ring of the Nibelung_. Jealousy of his favor with the king led to various intrigues which prevented the building of such a theatre in Munich. The quiet town of Bayreuth, therefore, as being a central point, was chosen, and there in 1876 the _Festspielhaus_ was opened with the first complete performance of the Tetralogy. It made a profound impression, but the expense of the undertaking was so great that it resulted in a heavy loss and the theatre was closed for a number of years. In 1882, however, it reopened with _Parsifal_ and since then its triumphant career has been part of musical history.

=Parsifal=.—Until 1903, when it was given in this country, _Parsifal_ was heard only in Bayreuth. Its semi-sacred character, its mingling of religious mysticism and sorcery, its unrivaled stage effects, its overwhelming power of climax, the consummate art of its thematic construction have made it the most discussed of Wagner’s works. What place it may eventually hold in respect to the others can be decided only by time. As it is, it stands alone; a second _Parsifal_ is hardly conceivable.

=Influence of Wagner=.—Unlike Weber, Wagner did not create a school—he belonged to the school which Weber founded. Like Gluck, his influence permeated all schools but to a much greater extent; none has succeeded in escaping it. Thus far in Germany it has been felt more in the development of program music, the symphonic poem, etc., than in the music drama itself. Many have attempted to follow directly in his steps, among them =August Bungert= (1846———) with a cycle of music dramas, _Die Homerische Welt_ (The World of Homer), founded upon the Iliad and the Odyssey, and =Richard Strauss= (1864———) with his _Guntram_, _Feuersnoth_ (Fire Famine) and _Salome_, but none has yet shown the power to bend the bow of Achilles. =Engelbert Humperdinck= (1854———) is the only one of Wagner’s successors to develop a new phase of the music drama. This he did by applying it to the fairy tale in his _Hänsel und Gretel_ (1893), which soon found its way to all stages, the first German opera to have such a success since the death of Wagner.

=Wagner in France=.—In France, Wagner acted at first not so much directly as indirectly, and more in his connection with the Romantic school of Weber than through his individual style as revealed in the music drama. The characteristic conservatism of the French school was shown in holding to forms which had been fixed for generations, but little by little these were filled with the new romantic spirit. This comes to the fore in =Charles Gounod= (1818-1893), whose _Faust_ (1859) has exercised a strong and lasting influence on the lyric drama in France. Though set forms are not abandoned, they are closely joined by a melodious declamation which approaches the song-speech of Wagner; the orchestration, too, is unmistakably romantic in treatment. =Georges Bizet= (1838-1875) in _Carmen_ (1875), an opéra comique notwithstanding its tragic denouement, produced a work of great individuality, which shows even more plainly the influence of modern romanticism. Had the composer’s career not been cut short by his untimely death, it is possible that the French school would have maintained a more commanding position. For Paris no longer holds her former preëminence as operatic centre; she has been distanced by Bayreuth. Of late years the works that have had the most pronounced success in the French capital have been Wagner’s music dramas. A little more than a generation ago, in the palmy days of Auber and Meyerbeer, a success at the Grand Opéra or the Opéra Comique had an international import and meant a speedy transference to foreign stages. Now the interest is largely local; but few of the modern French operas are heard outside of France. The influence of Wagner is evident in a new French school, consisting in the main of young composers whose works manifest strongly transitional features. At present this school is in its storm and stress period; it is yet too early to forecast its ultimate effect.

=Wagner in Italy=.—Italy proved more responsive to Wagner’s influence than France. The performance of _Lohengrin_ (1868), in Bologna, created much enthusiasm among the young musicians of northern Italy, but it was the septuagenarian Verdi who inaugurated the era of the music drama by his _Otello_ (1887) and _Falstaff_ (1893). Strictly speaking, he had been anticipated by =Arrigo Boïto= (1842———), who, thrown under Wagner’s influence in Germany, had followed his example in being the poet and composer alike of _Mefistofele_ (1868), a version of the Faust legend. But this was Boïto’s only opera, and though he gave the initial impulse to the movement, it was Verdi who carried it to a triumphant issue.

=Verdi’s Latest Style=.—_Aïda_ had been a grand opera with strong musico-dramatic tendencies. In _Otello_ and _Falstaff_, Verdi made a definite entrance into the music drama. The latter in particular, founded on Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” is an astonishing _tour de force_ for a man of four-score years. Full of the sparkle and freshness of youth, yet in every measure revealing the ripeness of matured genius, it is one of an immortal trio of lyric comedies of which the others are Mozart’s _Figaro_ and Wagner’s _Meistersinger_. The set and traditional forms of the opera here disappear entirely; the music is conditioned by the text and its dramatic requirements; the orchestra supports the voices in a full, melodious, and comprehensive flow, but never overpowers them. Hardly anything can be detached from its context without losing significance and interest; and this, by the way, is one of the most distinctive peculiarities of the music drama and more than anything else points the radical difference between it and the opera. Yet though this change of manner is undoubtedly due to Wagner, Verdi is in no sense an imitator. The style remains his own and is essentially Italian in character—that is, it is based upon vocal rather than instrumental capabilities.

=The New Italian School=.—The latest development of the music drama in Italy has been in the direction of so-called naturalism. This consists in the choice of brutal phases of life for illustration, told in short, concise forms which concentrate and hasten the dramatic action. A greater contrast to the inordinately long and heroic operas of Meyerbeer and Wagner can hardly be imagined; it is more than probable, indeed, that the reaction against the excessive length of the music drama led to the great and sudden vogue of this school. The first impulse to naturalism was given by =Pietro Mascagni= (1863———) in his two-act opera, _Cavalleria Rusticana_ (Rustic Chivalry), in 1890. This is a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge told in music admirably adapted to the vivid, crude representation of elemental passions. Two years later followed _I Pagliacci_ (The Clowns) by =Ruggiero Leoncavallo= (1858———), a work of precisely the same character. Though many others have essayed the same style, these two thus far remain the most representative of their class. Their popularity has been approached only by =Giacomo Puccini= (1858———) in _La Bohême_ (The Bohemians), produced in 1896. Four years later his _Tosca_ appeared and did much to strengthen the impression given by its predecessor—that in Puccini Italy possesses her most promising dramatic composer.

=Schools Compared=.—Thus at the beginning of the 20th century we find the principles of the music drama as enunciated by Wagner influencing all the three great schools of dramatic composition. It is worthy of note, however, that these schools, though thus approaching in artistic ideals, still retain the characteristics which distinguished them from the very beginning: the Italian, melody and beauty of tone; the French, clearness of form and logical dramatic development; the German, elevation of subject and harmonic richness.

=Younger Schools=.—Younger schools having a strongly national character exist in Russia and Bohemia, but as yet they possess only local signification and have produced no practical effect outside of their respective countries. =Michael Glinka= (1803-1857) with his patriotic opera, _Life for the Czar_, founded the Russian opera in 1836. The Bohemian opera is of more recent origin and is associated principally with the names of =Friedrich Smetana= (1824-1884) and =Antonin Dvořák= (1841-1904).

=Resumé=.—From its dual nature, the opera is necessarily a compromise. Composed of two elements, the musical and the dramatic, it is peculiarly susceptible to disintegration; its history is a record of almost continuous veering from one to the other of these two phases. We have seen how the immense proportions of the ancient amphitheatres led to the musical declamation on which the opera is founded, from the fact that the tones of the singing voice are far more reaching than those of the voice in speaking. The Florentine experimenters, in seeking to restore this declamation, soon discovered the capabilities for emotional expression latent in the varying timbres and vastly extended range of the former. As for its musical possibilities, these were entirely beyond their ken. The steps taken in that direction they regarded with disfavor as indicating a deviation from the oratorical standards which were their sole aim. After Carissimi and Scarlatti had developed the elements of symmetrical form and melody, music emerged from this dependent condition and dictated to the drama, which sank to an almost negligible factor. The reaction led by Gluck served to restore the balance for a time, but through Rossini and his followers the pendulum again swung in the other direction. The Romantic movement then brought the drama again to the fore; the spirit of the age was behind it and all schools felt its influence, though each manifested it in characteristic fashion.