CitySolicitor
At 13, Wagner studied Greek. Two years later, he began to study harmony. By 16 he had composed two piano sonatas and a string quartet. The following year, an overture in B flat major was performed in Leipzig and he had arranged Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for piano. During these apprenticeship years, it was clear that Wagner’s idol was Beethoven. His early works made little impression and have largely been ignored. Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio (1814), inspired Wagner (he was 14 when he saw it) to realise what opera could be and, in particular, when he saw the performance given by Schroder-Devrient. As a great singing actress (the Maria Callas of her time), she remained for Wagner the yardstick of the operatic performer. He saw her a few years later in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Quite a contrast to Fidelio, but Wagner never had a bad word to say about Bellini’s music, believing that his music was used generally for dramatic ends, unlike Rossini and Donizetti.
The German operatic tradition was for Singspiel – lengthy spoken dialogue with sung drama. Wagner could not fail to be influenced by the volume of orchestral and instrumental music that manifested itself in Germany and, between his love of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Fidelio, it was no surprise that Wagner’s operas have been referred to as ‘symphonic dramas’.
Die Feen (The Fairies) was the first opera Wagner completed, in 1833. Inspired by a Carlo Gozzi theatrical fairytale, the mixture of legend and medieval manners is the first sign of Wagner’s eclectic view of opera and its possible sources. Never performed in Wagner’s lifetime, there was a successful posthumous premier in Munich in 1988. His next opera, Liebesverbot, performed in 1835 at Magdeburg, was a disaster and never performed again in Wagner’s lifetime. In the same year, Wagner married Minna Planer, an actress. His next grand opera, premiered in 1842 in Dresden, was Rienzi. He started composing the work in 1837 when he was at a low point in his relations with Minna, who had left him for a lover … twice. In 1839, Wagner, together with Minna with whom he was now reunited, took a sea voyage to London to escape from creditors and, with the help of Meyerbeer and friends in Saxony, Rienzi was accepted for performance by Dresden Royal Court Opera in 1842. His favourite soprano, Schroder-Devrient, performed the Travesti role of Adriano, Wagner conducted, and it was a great success. It was performed in 1878 in New York, and 1879 at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket. Notwithstanding this success, Rienzi sounds like Wagner trying to emulate other composers. After Rienzi, no Wagner opera could have been composed by anybody other than Wagner.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner
So, precisely where was Wagner at 29? Conducting his Flying Dutchman in Dresden, with his favourite soprano, Schroder-Devrient, in the role of Senta. The Dutchman was not a great success. Following performances in Riga, Kassel and Berlin in 1844, the opera disappeared, relying on Wagner himself to revive it in Zurich in 1852 following major revisions of the orchestration. Nonetheless, as has been noted many times, ‘here the genius of Wagner first shows itself’. Only 29, but he was still to give the world Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, The Ring, Die Meistersinger and Parsifal.
Verdi, at this age, would compose another 23 operas and the great Requiem. These operas included Traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, Don Carlos, Otello and Falstaff.
[Read about their great contribution to the wonderful world of Opera in Part II…]
The Master (far left) joined other Masters at the Worshipful Company of Butchers’ Livery Luncheon, hosted by the Master Butcher, Mark Adams (centre).
10 • City Solicitor • Issue 81
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