He was now thirty, and although he had written two long works, one of
them a great one, they constituted the merest prelude to the gigantic
achievements of the next forty years. He was busily engaged at the
opera, but set to work at once on an endless number and variety of
projects. _Tannhäuser_ was finished by 1845, _Lohengrin_ by 1847, and
his brain was occupied with _The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (Die
Meistersinger)_ and _The Nibelung's Ring_, both to be completed long
afterwards. During this period he also composed the _Love-feast of the
Apostles_, and did a bit of mending to Gluck's _Iphigenia in Aulis_.
But, though scheming many things, he seemed by no means sure of his road
at first. With Schröder-Devrient, the singer, and others, he discussed
lengthily the question of whether he should attempt another _Rienzi_ or
go on from the _Dutchman_. If to realize his artistic dreams was dear to
Wagner, so were immediate success, fame and money. Of the last he could
never have enough, for he spent it faster than he gained it--spent it on
himself, needy artists, on any object which suggested itself to him.
However, the creative artist in him had the victory. The notion of a
second _Rienzi_ was abandoned and _Tannhäuser_ commenced. He had come
across the legend of an illicit passion and its punishment somewhere,
and he set to work on the book of words. Of course he sentimentalized
the story--it was a trick he was always given to, especially during
these, his younger, years--and, of course, he made a woman sacrifice
herself for a man. In the older form of the tale Tannhäuser lived
goodness knows how long with Venus; then he forsook her, and she vowed
to take vengeance on him. He returned to his friends, and entered for a
competition in minstrelsy. While in the middle of his song, which would
have gained him the prize, Venus visited him with sudden madness, and
throwing away all cant about pure platonic love, he chanted the praise
of foul carnal lust and the joy of living with the Goddess of Love in
the heart of the hills. Coming to himself, he went on a pilgrimage to
Rome, and asked and was refused the Pope's forgiveness. Then he returned
to Venus, and so the story ends with the eternal damnation of
Tannhäuser, just as the ancient legend of the Flying Dutchman ends with
the eternal damnation of Vanderdecken.
It need hardly be said that this did not satisfy Wagner. He did not like
to see people eternally damned; drab, hopeless tragedy was not for him.
In nearly every opera we find peace and hope at the close, or even
ecstasy in death, as in the _Dusk of the Gods (Götterdämmerung)_ and
_Tristan_. So he promptly made use of Elisabeth in _TANNHÄUSER_,
though, as we shall see, the redeeming act is not so sharply defined as
in the _Dutchman_. In the first scene Tannhäuser is sleeping in the arms
of Venus, while bacchanals indulge in riotous dances. Tannhäuser
suddenly starts from sleep: he has dreamed of his home as it was before
his fall--of the village chime, the birds, the flowers, the sweet air;
and he asks permission to return from this hot, steaming cave of vice to
the fair clean earth. Venus in vain plays upon him with all her arts and
wiles; he sings his magnificent song in praise of her and her beauty,
but insists that he must go, and ends with a frenzied appeal to the
Virgin. In a moment the illusion is broken: Venus, her luxurious cavern,
her nymphs and satyrs, all disappear. There is a minute's blackness,
then the light returns, and Tannhäuser is lying in the roadside before a
cross. The sky is blue and the trees and grass are green, and a
shepherd-boy is carolling a fresh, merry spring song. Tannhäuser remains
with his face to earth while a band of pilgrims passes on its way to
Rome. Then his old companions come up, recognise him, tell him Elisabeth
has patiently awaited his return, and so induce him to go with them.
The second act opens on the Hall of Song. Elisabeth thinks over her
grief and longing during Tannhäuser's absence, and sings her delight now
that he has come back to her. He comes in, and there follows a most
beautiful and touching scene, Elisabeth expressing her love and joy and
recounting her past sorrow, while in Tannhäuser's utterances are
mingled joy, regret, gratitude, and a sense of rapturous repose on
finding himself at peace once again, after being so long tossed on seas
of stormy passion. The tournament of song commences. Various minstrels
sing the pure pleasures of a love in which the flesh has no part;
Tannhäuser, Elisabeth approving, praises an honest, natural love. The
others oppose him, until, goaded to madness, he loses all self-control.
He hears the voice of Venus and calls upon her; in confusion the women
rush from the hall, the men draw their swords, and in a moment the hero
would be stabbed did not Elisabeth dash between him and the infuriated
knights. She pleads for him, and at last, the voice of pilgrims being
heard in the distance, Tannhäuser's life is spared on condition that he
joins them and goes to Rome to ask forgiveness. The curtain in the last
act rises on the scene of the first, but where all was young and fresh,
now the leaves are withered and the tints of autumn are everywhere.
Elisabeth watches the pilgrims pass on their return from
Rome--Tannhäuser is not amongst them. She sings her prayer to the Virgin
and goes home, as it proves, to die. Wolfram, Tannhäuser's friend, who
also loves Elisabeth, sings his song of resignation; and then Tannhäuser
enters, to the sinister theme of the Pope's curse. He tells Wolfram how
he has been to Rome, how he has suffered, how he asked the Pope's
pardon, and how the Pope declared that he should never be forgiven until
the staff in his hand blossomed. So now he is on his way back to Venus.
Venus calls him; he struggles with Wolfram, and is about to break away
when the body of Elisabeth is carried by. Tannhäuser falls by the side
of the bier; the Pope's staff, which has burgeoned, is brought on; and
so the opera ends, Tannhäuser being redeemed.
It is necessary to rehearse in this way the dramatic bases of
_Tannhäuser_ and Wagner's succeeding operas for two reasons. First, the
drama, which played a big enough part in the _Dutchman_, now becomes
more important, more essential, than ever. Many an old Italian opera may
be heard without the hearer knowing in the least what it is about;
indeed, in many cases the less one knows of the plot, the more one
enjoys the music. But the reverse is true of Wagner. Certain portions of
_Tannhäuser_, for example, can be listened to with pleasure simply as
noble or beautiful music: the overture, Tannhäuser's Song to Venus, the
Pilgrims' Marching Chorus, Wolfram's "O Star of Eve," Elisabeth's
Prayer, and so on. On the other hand, without an acquaintance with the
story, and each stage of the story as it progresses, much of Venus's
music in the first act loses its significance; the duet of Elisabeth and
Tannhäuser in the second act loses its pathos, and the huge finale is
meaningless, even as music; and the greater portion of the third act is
simply bewildering. When we know what is being sung or done, the music
is as clear as the day. Wagner knew this better than anyone, and, as I
pointed out in commenting on the _Dutchman_, he brought his whole
theatrical experience and training to help him to make the drama as
simple and comprehensible as possible. When the Wagner battle was raging
in the seventies and eighties, the sages pointed to the necessity of
understanding the drama for the purpose of understanding the music as a
defect of the Wagner music-drama, and a proof of Wagner's inferiority as
a composer. But one would like to ask the sages how many songs are there
which do not afford a finer artistic enjoyment when the words are
understood?
A second reason for thoroughly knowing the drama of the later Wagner
operas is that without that knowledge the _leit-motif_, which now
becomes a formidable element, is likely to be wholly misunderstood and
its artistic value missed. Nine-tenths of the absurdities written and
talked about the _leit-motif_ are due to ignorance of the nature of the
dramatic situations in which it is used, and in consequence the purposes
for which it is used. The _leit-motif_ (leading theme) had very humble
beginnings. Who was the first to employ it I really don't know. It was
simply a theme which made its first appearance with one of the
personages of the opera, and afterwards was used whenever that personage
came on again or was referred to. Or it was connected with some thought,
someone's destiny, someone's plans, and either because it expressed
truly the right emotion, or because it acted by association of ideas,
whenever it sounded from the orchestra the thing desired was recalled
to one's mind. So used it was a useful father than a highly artistic
device. Wagner constantly used it so for matters which did not demand
lengthy treatment, such as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa or the curse on
the gold in the _Ring_. But while continuing to make this elementary
application of it, rather for dramatic than for musical purposes, he at
the same time developed it until it ceased to be merely a leading
motive, but became the very stuff of the music itself. Much of the music
of the later operas is spun out of what appear at first nothing more
than the old leading motives. The process by which this is done will be
discussed later; for the present let us see how far Wagner goes with it
in _Tannhäuser_.