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Wagner’s Early Operas Shouldn’t Be Mere Curiosities

How quickly did Leipzig-Richard Wagner, Germany, change his mind about his first successful opera, “Rienzi”?

Wagner resembles the opening night of 1842 as his artistic adult deification in “My Life,” a self-expanding memoir dictated by his wife Kojima, gathered at the request of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. I explained it as something like that. “I have no experience after that,” he said.

Indeed, it was written before the greater achievements. He opened the Bayreuth Festival Theater in 1876 with his first “ring” cycle, or premiered his last work, “Parsifal,” six years later. But nevertheless, Wagner lovingly regarded “re-engineering”.

Affection and indifference. By the mid-1840s when he was working on “Lohengrin”, “Rienji” had become “a work that was no longer of interest to me.” This is a welcome and coveted source of income, but not a reflection. Poetry, mystery, and a peculiar musical language that came to define his mature opera.

So, after her husband died in 1883, when Koshima slowly introduced works other than “Rings” and “Parsifal” to the Bayreuth stage, she stopped in front of “Der Fliegende” and was her successor. It goes back to a certain “Wandering Dutchman”. “Fliegen de Holländer” and the 10 canonical operas that continue to be performed at the festival today.

Destined for exclusion and ambiguity were his three early efforts. In addition to “Rienzi”, it includes “Fairy”, a work never played in Wagner’s life, and “Das Liebesver” in 1836. They remain curious.

Should they be? A survey of the output of his entire stage at Wagner’s hometown of the Leipzig Diva — A festival called Wagner 22Will continue until July 14th — offering a new opportunity to evaluate his early work in chronological order alongside their legitimate siblings.

The trio of shortage reveals an impressive composer who knew how to take advantage of what he admired before finding his own voice. And before pioneering the dramaturgy reading style of opera, he rapidly developed a keen sense of theatrical storytelling and a grasp of the fashion of his time. In a sense, he was himself from the beginning, a profound exploration in the tradition of Mozart’s collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, such as “Don Giovanni”, and in Beethoven’s fierce political “Fidelio” tradition. I’m writing in a mode of entertainment rather than.

Mozart is particularly close to the “fairy” composed when Wagner was 20 years old.It came after he abandoned his previous work “Die Hochzeit” and after he rejected the proposal to compose an opera about the life of a Polish national hero. Tadeusz Kosciusko.. Inspired by Carlo Gozzi’s “La Donna Serpente,” he wrote his own script and set a precedent for all his work.

“I really wanted to be a’musician’and a’composer’and write a decent script,” he later recalled. It is itself and cannot be easily taken away by poets and literary figures. “

“Fairy” was not premiered until 1888, five years after Wagner’s death. So he escaped the pain of the public reception it might have had when he was young. It’s impossible to say what it was, but from a 2022 perspective, opera is frankly not very good. And it’s not Oper Leipzig’s fault. This reminds us that performing arts continue to be cautious under the threat of Covid-19, and last week began production with two major roles, as well as last-minute shifts. Also the conductor.

If anything, the staging by Renault Dusset is helped by the clear and gorgeous sounds of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the pits every time, helping to orient the viewer with perhaps unknown works. Doucet’s work is now the home of a man who listens to opera radio broadcasts, offering context-sensitive referrals. Dreamy behavior begins to invade reality. Tonight is about discovering a “fairy” and doing it.

The script features a subplot of Mozart’s comedy and the romanticism of Carl Maria von Weber, who formed the “Der Freischütz” for young Wagner. Stylistically, music is also taken care of by them. These arias are designed to open up the character’s inner thoughts without the elegance of Hans Sachs’ accidental rumination or Tristan’s delirium.

“Fairy” is a number opera, far from the “infinite melody” that Wagner describes in his 1860s essay “Music of the Future.” And it’s clumsy, trying to weave Aria’s pause into a tremendous pace and a sudden Orpheus turn in Act 3. There is no need to remove it from the antique cabinet, except for occasional dusting, as in Wagner’s instrumental work of the time.

A similar fate should not fall on Wagner’s first stage opera, “Das Ribes Verbot”. It was a rough adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, and was almost shrugged at the premiere. However, even though it is a world from a mature work, it is a skillfully and interestingly told story, with depth and resonance.

The Italian overture, which begins with a ringing tambourine and festive percussion, is not recognizable as Wagner. But the substance of opera is. His script was like a sub-tweet. That’s why critic Eduard Hanslick chilled him after reading the text of “Meister Singer in Nuremberg,” a critic who opposes the artistic gatekeeper, Wagner believed. Here, Wagner’s goal is chastity-obsessed conservatism and the bad behavior it produces.

He later wrestled with socially unacceptable sensuality in “Tannhäuser” and “Tristan und Isolde”, not without an element of autobiography. However, neither of these works is as thorny as “Das Liebesverbot”. This skewers the criminal and punishing hypocrisy of the #MeToo era, claiming that morality is a flexible one that we can only force rigidity into.

For close listeners, there is a future Wagner flash. And a coincidence. The line “Esistein Mann” is reminiscent of the opposite, “Das ist kein Mann!”. This shouts when Siegfried discovers Brynhildr sleeping in the “ring”. Early on, when the heroine, beginner Isabella, was introduced in prayer, the music seems to foresee “Parsifal.”

Much closer to mature Wagner is the vast five acts of Edward Bulwer-Litton’s novel on Cola di Rienzo, a 14th-century tragic figure in Italian politics that took on new importance in the 1800s nationalist movement. It is an adaptation “Rienzi”. If another transitional piece, Tannhäuser, is in a stylistically uncertain position, then Rienzi is even more so. While answering Giacomo Meyerbeer’s grand opera, it also competes with the new musical language formed by “Holander”. “

In Leipzig, of course, the “Rienji” had a big cut. The original version ran for over 6 hours, adopting the necessary elements of a grand opera like ballet to thwart plots. It was so long that it was later divided into two nights, “The Greatness of Reenji” and “The Fall of Reenji”, but returned to one after the audience responded negatively to the payment of multiple tickets. rice field.

Even after the cut, the Leipzig song “Rienji” continued for over four hours and was developed on a vast scale despite the loss of 21 chorus members in Covid-19. This work is best known today for its overtures, concert hall classics, and the easiest way to share music. Otherwise, huge casts and productions require a large investment, and some tenors can withstand penalties. At the level of Siegfried and Tristan. (Here, Reenji was sung fearlessly by veteran Siegfried Stephen Finke.)

“Rienji” speaks of the present as much as its own time, not just because it includes a scene where a mob attacks the Capitol. Like “Lohengrin,” Wagner investigates the limits of charisma and the burden of leadership and begins to address the ambiguities and complexity that will go through his normative work. And he does so in an increasingly read-aloud mode, rather than in a melodic mode, than in Rienzi’s Act 5 prayer “All mächt’ger Vater”.

The work was a hit when it premiered in Dresden and was praised by colleagues and the audience. Not very well received was the “Wandering Dutchman,” who made his debut in the same theater about two and a half months later, demonstrating a whole new direction for Wagner. He called the script “poetry” and showed its direction. He set out his vision of “future artwork”.

“Management was forced to prevent my reputation from being damaged by returning’Reenge’to the board in a short period of time,” Wagner said in “My Life.” “And now I had to think about the success of this opera and the failure of other operas.”

“Holländer” has won, as we know it. Still, Wagner’s work is now widely accepted, so there is probably no need to classify his opera as a success or failure, except for the “fairy”. The Bayreuth door has long been closed to its founder’s early valuable works. It’s time to open them.

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