The Complete Opera Book Part 11

Meanwhile night has fallen upon the scene and the evening star glows softly above the castle. It is then that _Wolfram_, accompanying himself on his lyre, intones the wondrously tender and beautiful "Song to the Evening Star," confessing therein his love for the saintly _Elizabeth_.

[Music]

Then _Tannhauser_, dejected, footsore, and weary, appears, and in broken accents asks _Wolfram_ to show him the way back to the Venusberg. _Wolfram_ bids him stay his steps and persuades him to tell him the story of his pilgrimage. In fierce, dramatic accents, _Tannhauser_ relates all that he has suffered on his way to Rome and the terrible judgment p.r.o.nounced upon him by the Pope. This is a highly impressive episode, clearly foreshadowing Wagner's dramatic use of musical recitative in his later music-dramas. Only a singer of the highest rank can do justice to it.

_Tannhauser_ proclaims that, having lost all chance of salvation, he will once more give himself up to the delights of the Venusberg. A roseate light illumines the recesses of the mountain and the unholy company of the Venusberg again is seen, _Venus_ stretching out her arms for _Tannhauser_, to welcome him. But at last, when _Tannhauser_ seems unable to resist _Venus'_ enticing voice any longer, _Wolfram_ conjures him by the memory of the sainted _Elizabeth_. Then _Venus_ knows that all is lost. The light dies away and the magic charms of the Venusberg disappear. Amid tolling of bells and mournful voices a funeral procession comes down the mountain. Recognizing the features of _Elizabeth_, the dying _Tannhauser_ falls upon her corpse. The younger pilgrims arrive with the staff, which has again put forth leaves, and amid the hallelujahs of the pilgrims the opera closes.

Besides the character of _Elizabeth_ that of _Wolfram_ stands out for its tender, manly beauty. In love with _Elizabeth_, he is yet the means of bringing back her lover to her, and in the end saves that lover from perdition, so that they may be united in death.

LOHENGRIN

Opera in three acts, by Richard Wagner. Produced, Weimar, Germany, August 28, 1850, under the direction of Franz Liszt; London, Covent Garden, May 8, 1875; New York, Stadt Theater, in German, April 3, 1871; Academy of Music, in Italian, March 23, 1874, with Nilsson, Cary, Campanini, and Del Puente; Metropolitan Opera House, in German, November 23, 1885, with Seidl-Kraus, Brandt, Stritt, Robinson, and Fischer, American debut of Anton Seidl as conductor.

CHARACTERS

HENRY THE FOWLER, King of Germany _Ba.s.s_ LOHENGRIN _Tenor_ ELSA OF BRABANT _Soprano_ DUKE G.o.dFREY, her brother _Mute_ FREDERICK OF TELRAMUND, Count of Brabant _Baritone_ ORTRUD, his wife _Mezzo-Soprano_ THE KING'S HERALD _Ba.s.s_

Saxon, Thuringian, and Brabantian Counts and n.o.bles, Ladies of Honour, Pages, Attendants.

_Time_--First half of the Tenth Century.

_Scene_--Antwerp.

The circ.u.mstances attending the creation and first production of "Lohengrin" are most interesting.

Prior to and for more than a decade after he wrote and composed the work Wagner suffered many vicissitudes. In Paris, where he lived from hand to mouth before "Rienzi" was accepted by the Royal Opera House at Dresden, he was absolutely poverty-stricken and often at a loss how to procure the next meal.

"Rienzi" was produced at the Dresden Opera in 1842. It was brilliantly successful. "The Flying Dutchman," which followed, was less so, and "Tannhauser" seemed even less attractive to its early audiences.

Therefore it is no wonder that, although Wagner was royal conductor in Dresden, he could not succeed in having "Lohengrin" accepted there for performance. Today "Rienzi" hardly can be said to hold its own in the repertoire outside of its composer's native country. The sombre beauty of "The Flying Dutchman," though recognized by musicians and serious music lovers, has prevented its becoming popular. But "Tannhauser,"

looked at so askance at first, and "Lohengrin," absolutely rejected, are standard operas and, when well given, among the most popular works of the lyric stage. Especially is this true of "Lohengrin."

This opera, at the time of its composition so novel and so strange, yet filled with beauties of orchestration and harmony that are now quoted as leading examples in books on these subjects, was composed in less than a year. The acts were finished almost, if not quite, in reversed order. For Wagner wrote the third act first, beginning it in September, 1846, and completing it March 5, 1847. The first act occupied him from May 12th to June 8th, less than a month; the second act from June 18th to August 2d. Fresh and beautiful as "Lohengrin"

still sounds today, it is, in fact, a cla.s.sic.

Wagner's music, however, was so little understood at the time, that even before "Lohengrin" was produced and not a note of it had been heard, people made fun of it. A lithographer named Meser had issued Wagner's previous three scores, but the enterprise had not been a success. People said that before publishing "Rienzi," Meser had lived on the first floor. "Rienzi" had driven him to the second; "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tannhauser" to the third; and now "Lohengrin" would drive him to the garret--a prophecy that didn't come true, because he refused to publish it.

In 1849, "Lohengrin" still not having been accepted by the Dresden Opera, Wagner, as already has been stated, took part in the May revolution, which, apparently successful for a very short time, was quickly suppressed by the military. The composer of "Lohengrin" and the future composer of the "Ring of the Nibelung," "Tristan und Isolde," "Meistersinger," and "Parsifal," is said to have made his escape from Dresden in the disguise of a coachman. Occasionally there turns up in sales as a great rarity a copy of the warrant for Wagner's arrest issued by the Dresden police. As it gives a description of him at the time when he had but recently composed "Lohengrin," I will quote it:

"Wagner is thirty-seven to thirty-eight years of age, of medium stature, has brown hair, an open forehead; eyebrows, brown; eyes, greyish blue; nose and mouth, proportioned; chin, round, and wears spectacles. Special characteristics: rapid in movements and speech. Dress: coat of dark green buckskin, trousers of black cloth, velvet vest, silk neckerchief, ordinary felt hat and boots."

Much fun has been made of the expression "chin, round, and wears spectacles." Wagner got out of Dresden on the pa.s.s of a Dr. Widmann, whom he resembled. It has been suggested that he made the resemblance still closer by discontinuing the habit of wearing spectacles on his chin.

I saw Wagner several times in Bayreuth in the summer of 1882, when I attended the first performance of "Parsifal," as correspondent by cable and letter for one of the large New York dailies. Except that his hair was grey (and that he no longer wore his spectacles on his chin) the description in the warrant still held good, especially as regards his rapidity of movement and speech, to which I may add a marked vivacity of gesture. There, too, I saw the friend, who had helped him over so many rough places in his early career, Franz Liszt, his hair white with age, but framing a face as strong and keen as an eagle's. I saw them seated at a banquet, and with them Cosima, Liszt's daughter, who was Wagner's second wife, and their son, Siegfried Wagner; Cosima the image of her father, and Siegfried a miniature replica of the composer to whom we owe "Lohengrin" and the music-dramas that followed it. The following summer one of the four was missing. I have the "Parsifal" program with mourning border signifying that the performances of the work were in memory of its creator.

In April, 1850, Wagner, then an exile in Zurich, wrote to Liszt: "Bring out my 'Lohengrin!' You are the only one to whom I would put this request; to no one but you would I entrust the production of this opera; but to you I surrender it with the fullest, most joyous confidence."

Wagner himself describes the appeal and the result, by saying that at a time when he was ill, unhappy, and in despair, his eye fell on the score of "Lohengrin" which he had almost forgotten. "A pitiful feeling overcame me that these tones would never resound from the deathly-pale paper; two words I wrote to Liszt, the answer to which was nothing else than the information that, as far as the resources of the Weimar Opera permitted, the most elaborate preparations were being made for the production of 'Lohengrin.'"

Liszt's reply to which Wagner refers, and which gives some details regarding "the elaborate preparations," while testifying to his full comprehension of Wagner's genius and the importance of his new score as a work of art, may well cause us to smile today at the small scale on which things were done in 1850.

"Your 'Lohengrin,'" he wrote, "will be given under conditions that are most unusual and most favourable for its success. The direction will spend on this occasion almost 2000 thalers [about $1500]--a sum unprecedented at Weimar within memory of man ... the ba.s.s clarinet has been bought," etc. Ten times fifteen hundred dollars might well be required today for a properly elaborate production of "Lohengrin," and the opera orchestra that had to send out and buy a ba.s.s clarinet would be a curiosity. But Weimar had what no other opera house could boast of--Franz Liszt as conductor.

Under his brilliant direction "Lohengrin" had at Weimar its first performance on any stage, August 28, 1850. This was the anniversary of Goethe's birth, the date of the dedication of the Weimar monument to the poet, Herder, and, by a coincidence that does not appear to have struck either Wagner or Liszt, the third anniversary of the completion of "Lohengrin." The work was performed without cuts and before an audience which included some of the leading musical and literary men of Germany. The performance made a deep impression. The circ.u.mstance that Liszt added the charm of his personality to it and that the weight of his influence had been thrown in its favour alone gave vast importance to the event. Indeed, through Liszt's production of Wagner's early operas Weimar became, as Henry T. Finck has said in _Wagner and His Works_, a sort of preliminary Bayreuth. Occasionally special opera trains were put on for the accommodation of visitors to the Wagner performances. In January, 1853, Liszt writes to Wagner that "the public interest in 'Lohengrin' is rapidly increasing. You are already very popular at the various Weimar hotels, where it is not easy to get a room on the days when your operas are given." The Liszt production of "Lohengrin" was a turning point in his career, the determining influence that led him to throw himself heart and soul into the composition of the "Ring of the Nibelung."

On May 15, 1861, when, through the intervention of Princess Metternich, he had been permitted to return to Germany, fourteen years after he had finished "Lohengrin" and eleven years after its production at Weimar, he himself heard it for the first time at Vienna. A tragedy of fourteen years--to create a masterpiece of the lyric stage, and be forced to wait that long to hear it!

Before proceeding to a complete descriptive account of the "Lohengrin"

story and music I will give a brief summary of the plot and a similar characterization of the score.

Wagner appears to have become so saturated with the subject of his dramas that he transported himself in mind and temperament to the very time in which his scenes are laid. So vividly does he portray the mythological occurrences told in "Lohengrin" that one can almost imagine he had been an eye-witness of them. This capacity of artistic reproduction of a remote period would alone ent.i.tle him to rank as a great dramatist. But he has done much more; he has taken unpromising material, which in the original is strung out over a period of years, and, by condensing the action to two days, has converted it into a swiftly moving drama.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright photo by Mishkin

Sembach as Lohengrin]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright photo by Dupont

Schumann-Heink as Ortrud in "Lohengrin"]

The story of "Lohengrin" is briefly as follows: The Hungarians have invaded Germany, and _King Henry I._ visits Antwerp for the purpose of raising a force to combat them. He finds the country in a condition of anarchy. The dukedom is claimed by _Frederick_, who has married _Ortrud_, a daughter of the Prince of Friesland. The legitimate heir, _G.o.dfrey_, has mysteriously disappeared, and his sister, _Elsa_, is charged by _Frederick_ and _Ortrud_ with having done away with him in order that she might obtain the sovereignty. The _King_ summons her before him so that the cause may be tried by the ordeal of single combat between _Frederick_ and a champion who may be willing to appear for _Elsa_. None of the knights will defend her cause. She then describes a champion whose form has appeared to her in a vision, and she proclaims that he shall be her champion. Her pretence is derided by _Frederick_ and his followers, who think that she is out of her mind; but after a triple summons by the _Herald_, there is seen in the distance on the river, a boat drawn by a swan, and in it a knight clad in silver armour. He comes to champion _Elsa's_ cause, and before the combat betroths himself to her, but makes a strict condition that she shall never question him as to his name or birthplace, for should she, he would be obliged to depart. She a.s.sents to the conditions, and the combat which ensues results in _Frederick's_ ignominious defeat.

Judgment of exile is p.r.o.nounced on him.

Instead, however, of leaving the country he lingers in the neighbourhood of Brabant, plotting with _Ortrud_ how they may compa.s.s the ruin of _Lohengrin_ and _Elsa_. _Ortrud_ by her entreaties moves _Elsa_ to pity, and persuades her to seek a reprieve for _Frederick_, at the same time, however, using every opportunity to instil doubts in _Elsa's_ mind regarding her champion, and rousing her to such a pitch of nervous curiosity that she is on the point of asking him the forbidden question. After the bridal ceremonies, and in the bridal chamber, the distrust which _Ortrud_ and _Frederick_ have engendered in _Elsa's_ mind so overcomes her faith that she vehemently puts the forbidden question to her champion. Almost at the same moment _Frederick_ and four of his followers force their way into the apartment, intending to take the knight's life. A single blow of his sword, however, stretches _Frederick_ lifeless, and his followers bear his corpse away. Placing _Elsa_ in the charge of her ladies-in-waiting, and ordering them to take her to the presence of the _King_, he repairs thither himself.

The Brabantian hosts are gathering, and he is expected to lead them to battle, but owing to _Elsa's_ question he is now obliged to disclose who he is and to take his departure. He proclaims that he is _Lohengrin_, son of Parsifal, Knight of the Holy Grail, and that he can linger no longer in Brabant, but must return to the place of his coming. The swan has once more appeared, drawing the boat down the river, and bidding _Elsa_ farewell he steps into the little sh.e.l.l-like craft. Then _Ortrud_, with malicious glee, declares that the swan is none other than _Elsa's_ brother, whom she (_Ortrud_) bewitched into this form, and that he would have been changed back again to his human shape had it not been for _Elsa's_ rashness. But _Lohengrin_, through his supernatural powers, is able to undo _Ortrud's_ work, and at a word from him the swan disappears and _G.o.dfrey_ stands in its place. A dove now descends, and, hovering in front of the boat, draws it away with _Lohengrin_, while _Elsa_ expires in her brother's arms.

Owing to the lyric character of the story upon which "Lohengrin" is based, the opera, while not at all lacking in strong dramatic situations is characterized by a subtler and more subdued melodiousness than "Tannhauser," is more exquisitely lyrical in fact than any Wagnerian work except "Parsifal."

There are typical themes in the score, but they are hardly handled with the varied effect that ent.i.tles them to be called leading motives. On the other hand there are fascinating details of orchestration. These are important because the composer has given significant clang-tints to the music that is heard in connection with the different characters in the story. He uses the bra.s.s chiefly to accompany the _King_, and, of course, the martial choruses; the plaintive, yet spiritual high wood-wind for _Elsa_; the English horn and sombre ba.s.s clarinet--the instrument that had to be bought--for _Ortrud_; the violins, especially in high harmonic positions, to indicate the Grail and its representative, for _Lohengrin_ is a Knight of the Holy Grail. Even the keys employed are distinctive. The _Herald's_ trumpeters blow in C and greet the _King's_ arrival in that bright key. F-sharp minor is the dark, threatful key that indicates _Ortrud's_ appearance. The key of A, which is the purest for strings and the most ethereal in effect, on account of the greater ease of using "harmonics," announces the approach of _Lohengrin_ and the subtle influence of the Grail.

Moreover Wagner was the first composer to discover that celestial effects of tone colour are produced by the prolonged notes of the combined violins and wood-wind in the highest positions more truly than by the harp. It is the a.s.sociation of ideas with the Scriptures, wherein the harp frequently is mentioned, because it was the most perfected instrument of the period, that has led other composers to employ it for celestial tone-painting. But while no one appreciated the beauty of the harp more than Wagner, or has employed it with finer effect than he, his celestial tone-pictures with high-violins and wood-wind are distinctly more ecstatic than those of other composers.

The music clothes the drama most admirably. The Vorspiel or Prelude immediately places the listener in the proper mood for the story which is to unfold itself, and for the score, vocal and instrumental, whose strains are to fall upon his ear.

The Prelude is based entirely upon one theme, a beautiful one and expressive of the sanct.i.ty of the Grail, of which _Lohengrin_ is one of the knights. Violins and flutes with long-drawn-out, ethereal chords open the Prelude. Then is heard on the violins, so divided as to heighten the delicacy of the effect, the Motive of the Grail, the cup in which the Saviour's blood is supposed to have been caught as it flowed from the wound in His side, while he was on the Cross. No modern book on orchestration is considered complete unless it quotes this pa.s.sage from the score, which is at once the earliest and, after seventy years, still the most perfect example of the effect of celestial harmony produced on the high notes of the divided violin choir. This interesting pa.s.sage in the score is as follows:

[Music]

Although this is the only motive that occurs in the Prelude, the ear never wearies of it. Its effectiveness is due to the wonderful skill with which Wagner handles the theme, working it up through a superb crescendo to a magnificent climax, with all the splendours of Wagnerian orchestration, after which it dies away again to the ethereal harmonies with which it first greeted the listener.

Act I. The curtain, on rising, discloses a scene of unwonted life on the plain near the River Scheldt, where the stream winds toward Antwerp. On an elevated seat under a huge oak sits _King Henry I._ On either side are his Saxon and Thuringian n.o.bles. Facing him with the knights of Brabant are _Count Frederick of Telramund_ and his wife, _Ortrud_, daughter of the Prince of Friesland, of dark, almost forbidding beauty, and with a treacherous mingling of haughtiness and humility in her carriage.

It is a strange tale the _King_ has just heard fall from _Frederick of Telramund's_ lips. _Henry_ has a.s.sembled the Brabantians on the plain by the Scheldt in order to summon them to join his army and aid in checking the threatened invasion of Germany by the Hungarians. But he has found the Brabantians themselves torn by factional strife, some supporting, others opposing _Frederick_ in his claim to the ducal succession of Brabant.

"Sire," says _Frederick_, when called upon by the _King_ to explain the cause of the discord that has come upon the land, "the late Duke of Brabant upon his death-bed confided to me, his kinsman, the care of his two children, _Elsa_ and her young brother _G.o.dfrey_, with the right to claim the maid as my wife. But one day _Elsa_ led the boy into the forest and returned alone. From her pale face and faltering lips I judged only too well of what had happened, and I now publicly accuse _Elsa_ of having made away with her brother that she might be sole heir to Brabant and reject my right to her hand. Her hand!

Horrified, I shrank from her and took a wife whom I could truly love.

Now as nearest kinsman of the duke I claim this land as my own, my wife, too, being of the race that once gave a line of princes to Brabant."