SOME IDEALS REALISED
"Lausch', Kind! Das ist ein Meisterlied."--DIE
MEISTERSINGER
And now, under the guidance of a monarch to whom Wagner's art was
almost the inspiration of life, Munich, which in 1858 had rejected
"Der Fliegende Holländer" as unsuitable to the German stage, was
about to produce "Tristan und Isolde," the supreme essence of
Wagner's matured genius. In April, 1865, the composer wrote a
general letter inviting his friends everywhere to go to Munich and
attend this first of all Wagner festivals, three performances of a
work already eight years old, set down for May 15, 18, and 22. But
postponements took place, and the work was not produced until June
10. It was repeated on June 13 and 19 and July 1. Each performance
was attended by a large audience, and the applause was of the most
vigorous kind. Much of the success was due to the superb conducting
of Von Bülow, whom Wagner called his second self, and the inspired
interpretation of Tristan by Ludwig Schnorr. Wagner declared that
his ideal was fully realised by this great artist, and he bemoaned
Schnorr's subsequent untimely death as the greatest possible loss to
him and his work.[25] The composer's essay on this singer is a most
eloquent tribute from a creative to an interpretative artist, and
throw invaluable light on Wagner's theories of performance in general
and the presentation of "Tristan und Isolde" in particular.
[Footnote 25: A gentleman, who in his youth heard Schnorr sing
Tristan, has assured me that he was not the typical German
representative of the part, but that he approached in his singing
the manner of Jean de Reszke. Schnorr's voice, my informant says,
was a beautiful, sweet, lyric tenor, and his style was one in which
a fluent and touching cantabile was the most conspicuous feature.
This statement, in conjunction with Wagner's declaration that Schnorr
fulfilled his ideal, should contribute something toward a destruction
of the foolish notion that Wagner's music ought not to be beautifully
sung.]
It may easily be understood that this was a period of unalloyed
happiness for Wagner. His highest dreams were being realised, and he
was working out his artistic purposes with a free hand. But such an
Elysium could not last. His enemies were striving against him with
might and main. The newspapers were used unscrupulously to spread
all kinds of damaging reports. It was said that he was endeavouring
to substitute art for religion in the State, that he was leading the
young King into reckless extravagances which threatened the stability
of the national treasury. The King was, indeed, considering the
plan to build a special theatre for the production of the Nibelung
dramas. Such a theatre was subsequently built at Bayreuth, and Munich
might have had the honour and the profit which have since accrued to
that little city, had it not been for the determined opposition of
narrow-minded intriguers.[26]
[Footnote 26: The new Munich Wagner Theatre, opened in the summer of
1901, stands almost on the spot on which King Ludwig's was to stand.]
The story was published that the new theatre was to cost millions.
Other equally wild assertions were made. The people became aroused,
and finally police and court officials represented to the King that
Wagner's life was in danger. The composer had already answered in a
calm and dignified letter the various newspaper calumnies, but that
availed him nothing. The King besought him to leave Munich, in order
that public confidence might be restored. And accordingly, after
a stay of a year and a half in the city, he departed in December,
1865, to his favourite refuge, Switzerland. He made a short stay at
Vevay and Geneva, and then in February, 1866, settled at Triebschen,
near Lucerne, where he remained, with little interruption, till he
removed to Bayreuth in 1872. Most of the frantic opposition to the
royal support of Wagner appeared to have arisen from the project of
bringing to ideal production the Nibelung cycle, and so this was for
the time abandoned. As Wagner himself tells us, in his "Final Report"
on the preparation of these dramas (Ellis's translation, Vol. V., p.
310):
"Now that I and my usual project had been placed in broad
daylight, it really appeared as if all the ill will that
had lurked before in ambush was determined to make an open
attack in full force. Indeed, it seemed as though no single
interest, of all those represented by our press and our
society, was not stung to the quick by the composition and
plan of production of my work. To stay the disgraceful
direction taken by this feud in every circle of society,
which recklessly assailed alike protector and protected,
I could but decide to strip the scheme of that majestic
character which my patron had accorded it, and turn it into
a channel less provocative of universal wrath. Indeed, I
even tried to divert public attention from the whole affair
by spending a little hard-won rest on the completion of the
score of my 'Meistersinger,' a work with which I should not
appear to be quitting the customary groove of performances
at the theatre."
It may not be out of place to add here that calumny pursued him after
his retirement from Munich, and one of the most interesting stories
was that he had left his wife to starve. To this falsehood the
unhappy Minna replied with great dignity and a touch of pathos in a
statement published in January, 1866, a fortnight before her death.
She said:
"The malicious reports which certain Vienna and Munich
papers have been publishing for some time concerning my
husband compel me to declare that I have received from him
up to date a pension which amply suffices for my support. I
seize this opportunity with so much the more pleasure since
it enables me to destroy at least one of the many calumnies
which people are pleased to launch against my husband."
This statement is indisputable evidence that there was no harsh
feeling in the heart of the wife who had parted from him.
Mme. von Bülow with her children joined Wagner at Triebschen,
while Hans was obliged to go to Basle to teach. In his place he
left Hans Richter, who thus became intimately associated with the
creative work of Wagner. The separation between Von Bülow and his
wife proved to be final, and the daughter of Liszt imitated her
illustrious father by recognising the supremacy of the claims of
love over all other obligations. In 1866 the public feeling against
Wagner had somewhat declined, and the King decided to have model
performances of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" at Munich. Von Bülow
was made Kapellmeister and devoted himself, heart and soul, to the
preparations for these performances. In March, 1867, Wagner went to
Munich to supervise some of the rehearsals, and again he visited the
capital in May for the same purpose. A general rehearsal took place
on June 11th, and everything went to the satisfaction of the master.
To his intense surprise, the next day the King sent away Tichatschek
and Mme. Bertram-Mayer, who had been especially engaged, and
announced that their places would be taken by Heinrich Vogl and
Therese Thoma, afterward his wife. This was the result of a new
intrigue against Wagner, and he, despairing of a perfect performance
in these conditions, at once left the city. The first of these
"model" performances took place on June 16 and was successful in
spite of the sudden changes. But it was not what Wagner would have
called an ideal performance, and some of the customary cuts were
made. Despite the continued opposition to Wagner the King retained
his love for the "music of the future," and he determined that "Die
Meistersinger" should be produced in the year 1868. Public feeling
against Wagner still further diminished, and he was able to visit
Munich frequently to superintend the rehearsals, which were under the
direction of Von Bülow as conductor and Richter as chorus master. The
best obtainable artists in Germany were secured, and no pains were
spared in the preparation of the troublesome but essential details of
nuance and stage business. On June 21, 1868, the opera was produced,
and its success was most decided.
And now Wagner returned to his magnum opus, "Der Ring des
Nibelungen." But the King could not wait. He was eager to hear at
least a part of it, and so he gave orders that "Das Rheingold" should
be prepared. Again there were troubles of all kinds. The composer's
directions were so inadequately followed that the machinery for the
first scene was almost worthless. Richter, who had succeeded Von
Bülow as Kapellmeister, was so displeased with the preparations
that he refused to conduct, and finally Franz Wüllner was secured
in his place. After several postponements the work was produced in
a bungling style on Sept. 22, 1869. Wagner made a feeble effort to
save the performance from disaster, but the result was practically a
fiasco. The King, however, was bound to hear more of the trilogy, and
accordingly, on June 26, 1870, "Die Walküre" was performed, the Vogls
appearing as the lovers. The audience was somewhat better pleased
with this work than with the "Rheingold," but the production could
not be called a success. These performances were premature, and they
may be said to have flashed in the pan.
It was at this period that an event occurred which Wagner's friends
had for some time expected. The marriage of Cosima Liszt and Hans
von Bülow had not been happy, and the estrangement between them was
accelerated by the woman's quick conception of a passion for Wagner.
When Von Bülow went to Basle to teach, the beginning of the end had
come, and it was not long after that when the relations between
Wagner and Mme. von Bülow could no longer be kept secret. "If it were
only someone whom I could kill," said Von Bülow, "he would have been
dead before this." The great conductor could not think of slaying the
great master. In the autumn of 1869 the Von Bülows were divorced. In
July, 1870 Wagner wrote to Praeger:
"My dear Ferdinand, you will no doubt be angry with me when
you hear that I am soon to marry Bülow's wife, who has
become a convert in order to be divorced."
A little later Praeger received the wedding cards announcing that
they had been married on Aug. 25 at the Protestant Church of Lucerne.
The attitude of Liszt toward this union may be understood from
Wagner's statement that he was more annoyed by his daughter's change
of religion than by her divorce. That the divorce and the marriage
had to come about, however, may be inferred from the fact that in
the summer of 1869 Mme. von Bülow had borne to Wagner a son.[27] The
existence of this child was first definitely mentioned by Wagner
in a letter to the Zurich friend, Mme. Wille, dated June 25, 1870,
accepting an invitation to visit her, but deferring the date till he
and Mme. von Bülow could go as man and wife. In November of the same
year Wagner wrote to Praeger, and closed the letter with these words:
"Often do I now think of you because of your love for
children. My house, too, is full of children, the children
of my wife, but beside there blooms for me a splendid son,
strong and beautiful, whom I dare call Siegfried Richard
Wagner. Now think what I must feel that this at last has
fallen to my share. I am fifty-seven years old."
[Footnote 27: The date of Siegfried Wagner's birth has never been
made known by the Wagner family. In his chronological table of the
incidents of Wagner's life, Houston Stewart Chamberlain notes, in
the year 1869, "Siegfried Wagner born on June 6 of the marriage with
Cosima Liszt." In spite of the direct and the indirect falsehoods
contained in this note, I have reason to believe that the date is
correct.]
Cosima Wagner was twenty-nine years old at the time of her marriage
to the composer. Many foolish stories have been told of her coming
between him and his first wife. The reader of this volume can see for
himself that there is not the slightest foundation for these tales.
The facts of the divorce and marriage may be permitted to stand
without comment. But it should be said that Cosima Wagner gave to
her husband a loyalty, a devotion, and a sympathetic comprehension
which made him a wholly happy man in his domestic life. In 1871
Wagner composed, in honour of the child and to celebrate his wife's
birthday, the popular "Siegfried Idyll." Richter gathered the
necessary musicians at Lucerne and rehearsed the piece, and at the
proper time performed it on the stairs of the villa at Triebschen,
to the surprise and joy of Mme. Wagner. The leading themes of the
composition are taken from "Siegfried" and are combined with an old
German cradle-song.
In 1870 Wagner published two important prose works, "On Conducting"
and "Beethoven." The former arraigns the mechanical Kapellmeisters of
Germany in good round terms, and sets forth Wagner's ideas as to the
proper manner of directing the performance of the classic orchestral
works. It is an eloquent and instructive little book, and should be
read by all music-lovers. The study of Beethoven is less clear in
style and dips into metaphysical discussion, but it contains artistic
views of high dignity. In 1871 the composer wrote the familiar
"Kaisermarsch," intending it as a musical celebration of Germany's
triumph in the conflict with France. It may be noted that the Emperor
accorded to this attention the very scantest courtesy. We have now
reached the period when Wagner left Munich for Bayreuth. The time
was approaching when the great Nibelung drama must be launched in its
entirety. The plan to build a theatre for it in Munich had, as we
have seen, fallen through. A new site had to be found and new plans
to be adopted for bringing to a successful issue the most formidable
theatrical project of the century.