by the Kellogg English Opera Company.
_Cast._
Senta Clara Louise Kellogg.
The Dutchman W.T. Carleton.
Daland Mr. Conly.
Erik Mr. Turner.
Conductor, S. Behrens.
First performed in New York in German at the Academy of Music, Mar.
12, 1877.
_Cast._
Senta Mme. Eugenia Pappenheim.
The Dutchman A. Blum.
Daland Mr. Preusser.
Erik Christian Fritsch.
Mary Miss Cooney.
Steersman Mr. Lenoir.
Conductor, A. Neuendorff.
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
"Der Fliegende Holländer" is the first of the works of Wagner
which shadow forth the style, the system, and the mastery of
lyrico-dramatic art found in his later works. All these elements
of this master's art, however, are here found in an embryonic and
experimental stage. Nothing is developed, and nothing is definite.
Wagner himself did not realise the significance or possible extent
of his movement. He was at this time wholly unconscious of the fact
that he was laying the foundations of a new method of composition in
musical drama. He was aiming only at writing an expressive score, in
which the characters of his play, their emotions and their actions,
should be drawn with all the powers of music.
The work was written at Meudon in the spring of 1841. All except
the overture was completed in seven weeks. Of the fate of the first
sketch of this lyric drama, of the hardships of the composer's life
at the time of its execution, of the first performances, the reader
has already been told. He has seen also how the stormy voyage to
London impressed upon his mind the legend of the "Flying Dutchman"
with which he had already made acquaintance. It now becomes our duty
to examine the sources from which Wagner derived the poetic materials
of this play and to ascertain how he treated them. In the "Flying
Dutchman" the poetic ability of the master was first exhibited. He
ceased to be a mere libretto-writer and became a dramatic poet. His
version of the famous old legend is a lovely one, and much of its
increased beauty is the product of his own genius. It was, as he
himself said in the oft-quoted "Communication," the "first folk-poem
that forced its way into my heart, and called on me as man and artist
to point its meaning, and mould it in a work of art."
It was while in Riga that he made his first acquaintance with the
story. "Heine takes occasion to relate it," he says, "in speaking
of the representation of a play founded thereon, which he had
witnessed--as I believe--at Amsterdam. This subject fascinated me,
and made an indelible impression upon my fancy; still it did not as
yet acquire the force needful for its rebirth within me." The story
of Heine was in "The Memoirs of Herr Schnabelewopski." It is not
certain whose play it was that Heine meant. Francis Hueffer, in his
"Richard Wagner,"[33] expresses the belief that the play was that
of Fitzball, which was running at the Adelphi Theatre in 1827, when
Heine visited London. Mr. Hueffer bases his argument largely on the
fact that two features of Fitzball's play, both additions to the old
legend, are mentioned by Heine as appearing in the drama which he
saw. These are the pictures of the Dutchman on the wall of Daland's
house, and the taking of a wife by the wandering seaman.
[Footnote 33: The Great Musicians Series, Charles Scribner's Sons.]
Mr. Hueffer adds:
"Here, however, his indebtedness ends. Fitzball knows
nothing of the beautiful idea of woman's redeeming love.
According to him the Flying Dutchman is the ally of a
monster of the deep, seeking for victims. Wagner, further
developing Heine's idea, has made the hero himself to
symbolise that feeling of unrest and ceaseless struggle
which finds its solution in death and forgetfulness alone.
The gap in Heine's story he has filled up by an interview
of Senta with Erik, her discarded lover, which the Dutchman
mistakes for a breach of faith on the part of his wife,
till Senta's voluntary death dispels his suspicion."
It should be noted that Mr. W. Ashton Ellis, whose translation
of Wagner's prose works has been so often quoted, wrote a paper
to disprove the theory of Mr. Hueffer as to the play having been
Fitzball's. The matter, after all, is not one of great importance.
Wagner got his materials from Heine's book, which contained a version
of a very old legend, and in making the text of his lyric drama, he
altered and improved that material as Mr. Hueffer has indicated.
The late Mr. John P. Jackson, formerly musical editor of _The New
York World_, in the admirable introduction to his translation of the
text of this opera, at one time used at the Metropolitan Opera House,
says that the Fitzball play was founded on a version of the legend
printed in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in May, 1821. That version runs
thus:
"She was an Amsterdam vessel and sailed from port seventy
years ago. Her master's name was Van der Decken. He was a
staunch seaman, and would have his own way in spite of the
devil. For all that, never a sailor under him had reason to
complain; though how it is on board with them nobody knows.
The story is this: that in doubling the Cape they were a
long day trying to weather the Table Bay. However, the
wind headed them, and went against them more and more, and
Van der Decken walked the deck, swearing at the wind. Just
after sunset a vessel spoke him, asking him if he did not
mean to go into the bay that night. Van der Decken replied,
'May I be eternally damned if I do, though I should beat
about here till the day of judgment.' And to be sure, he
never did go into that bay, for it is believed that he
continues to beat about in these seas still, and will do
so long enough. This vessel is never seen but with foul
weather along with her."
This is practically the original story of the "Flying Dutchman." It
is no new tale, but, like nearly all myths, a development. In the
literature of Greece we find the wanderer in the person of Ulysses,
yearning for hearth and home and the joys of domestic love. In
the early period of Christianity the myth entered and gave us the
gloomy figure of the Wandering Jew, accursed and hopeless of all
save the end in oblivion. With the Dutch the legend in the Middle
Ages was easily transferred to their own favourite element, the sea,
whereon at that time they were among the most daring and skilful.
The struggle of the Dutchman against contending winds and waves
typified their own battles with the powers of Old Ocean, and their
determination to conquer at all hazards.
Later writers than those of the dark ages endeavoured to give this
legend an end. In its original form it stands suspended with the
Dutchman a creature without hope. Captain Marryatt, in his "Phantom
Ship," releases the wanderer from his ceaseless journeyings by means
of an amulet, or religious charm. Sir Walter Scott's version of the
tale--wherever he found it--is a curiously poor one. According to
him, the vessel was laden with precious metal. A murder was committed
on board, and as a punishment for it a plague fell upon the crew.
No port would permit the ship to enter, and it was doomed to float
about aimlessly forever. There is no poetry and a total absence of
the personal tragedy in that version. The idea of the salvation of
the wanderer through the self-sacrificing love of woman, an idea to
be found in literatures much older than this, was introduced into
the story before Heine saw the play of which he wrote. It is quite
possible that Heine never saw such a play, yet the fact remains that
in the Fitzball drama the Dutchman did take a wife, only, however,
to make an offering of her to a sea monster--a grotesque and utterly
unpoetical idea.
Wagner got his beautiful ending from Heine. Mr. Hueffer has taken
the trouble to retail the story as told in "The Memoirs of Herr von
Schnabelewopski." The sentence of Van der Decken is that he shall
wander till doomsday unless he shall be released by a woman faithful
until death. The Devil does not believe in the existence of women
of that sort, and therefore allows the wanderer to go ashore once
every seven years to see if he can find such a one. (How was it that
the Devil was so often mistaken about women?) He meets with failure
after failure, till finally he falls in with a Scotch merchant,
whose daughter has already learned his story and formed a romantic
attachment for him. She has his picture in her room, and when her
father, having accepted the Dutchman's offer for her hand, brings him
home, she at once recognises him and determines to sacrifice herself
to save him. Just at this point Herr von Schnabelewopski is called
away for a short time, and when he returns he sees the Dutchman
about to sail away without his wife. He loves her and would save her
from his fate. But she, true to her vow, ascends a high rock, whence
she throws herself into the sea. The spell is broken and the united
lovers enter eternal rest. The reader will now see that it was the
void occasioned by the temporary absence of von Schnabelewopski
which Wagner filled with the interview between Senta and Erik. Except
for the introduction of this character, a tenor, necessary to afford
both dramatic and musical contrast to the story, Wagner has followed
Heine closely, as lovers of the dramatist's works will at once
perceive.
Out of this material Wagner constructed a drama which at the time
of its production was as novel as "Tristan und Isolde" was in later
years. In it we first meet with this master's remarkable power of
concentrating in each scene the emotional moods and pouring them out
to us in the music, while in those portions of the score devoted to
musical description, such as the sea music and the sailors' choruses,
we may note his ability to make dramatic atmosphere. How these
powers reveal themselves to us in the grand duo of the last scene of
Siegfried and the Waldweben! It is worth while hearing "Der Fliegende
Holländer" occasionally, if only to study the embryonic Wagner. Now
let us see how Wagner himself regarded the subject-matter of his
story.
"The figure of the Flying Dutchman," he says, "is a mythical creation
of the folk. A primal trait of human nature speaks out from it with a
heart-enthralling force. This trait, in its most universal meaning,
is the longing after rest from amid the storms of life." He traces
the older forms of the legend as seen in the stories of Ulysses and
the Wandering Jew, and then says:
"The sea in its turn became the soil of Life; yet no longer
the landlocked sea of the Grecian world, but the great
ocean that engirdles the earth. The fetters of the older
world were broken; the longing of Ulysses, back to home and
hearth and wedded wife, after feeding on the sufferings
of the 'never-dying Jew' until it became a yearning for
Death, had mounted to the craving for a new, an unknown
home, invisible as yet, but dimly boded. This vast-spread
feature fronts us in the mythos of the 'Flying Dutchman,'
that seaman's poem of the world-historical age of journeys
of discovery. Here we light upon a remarkable mixture, a
blend, effected by the spirit of the Folk, of the character
of Ulysses with that of the Wandering Jew. The Hollandic
mariner, in punishment for his temerity, is condemned by
the Devil (here obviously the element of Flood and Storm)
to do battle with the unresting waves to all eternity.
Like Ahasuerus, he yearns for his sufferings to be ended
by Death; the Dutchman, however, may gain this redemption,
denied to the undying Jew, at the hands of--a Woman who, of
very love, shall sacrifice herself for him. The yearning
for death thus spurs him on to seek this Woman; but she is
no longer the home-tending Penelope of Ulysses, as courted
in the days of old, but the quintessence of Womankind; and
yet the still unmanifest, the longed-for, the dreamt-of,
the infinitely womanly Woman--let me out with it in one
word: the _Woman of the Future_."
With this broad, poetic view of his subject-matter Wagner set out
to write a text book which should be a real drama and not a mere
libretto. "From here," he says, "begins my career as poet, and my
farewell to the mere concoctor of opera texts." In this drama are
embodied the fundamental ideas of the entire Wagnerian system. Here
they appear to us in their first stage of development, incomplete,
unformed, and scarcely recognised by their own creator. The value of
the mythologic matter, however, already forced itself upon the mind,
and the conviction of its suitability to musical embodiment, because
freed from hampering accessories, came to him at this period of his
career. I have already quoted his words as to the employment of myths
as subjects for music dramas. I may be pardoned for quoting here a
passage from my introductory essay in the Schirmer vocal score of the
drama:
"Wagner divined clearly the necessity of subordinating mere
pictorial movement to the play of emotion, and it will
easily be discerned that the three acts of 'The Flying
Dutchman' reduce themselves to a few broad emotional
episodes. In the first our attention is centred upon the
longing of the Dutchman, and in the second upon the love
of Senta. In the third we have the inevitable and hopeless
struggle of the passion of Erik against Senta's love. All
music not designed to embody these broad emotional states
is scenic, such as the storm music and choruses of the
sailors and the women. Furthermore the student will do well
to note that the chief personages of the story are types.
Van der Decken is typical of the man struggling under the
burden of his own follies, while Senta is the embodiment
of the woman-soul, which, according to Goethe, 'leadeth us
ever upward and on.'"
In the structure of this drama the reader will find that Wagner
did not abandon the old operatic forms. He employed duets, solos,
choruses, etc., as an opera composer would. He did not use the
leitmotiv system, but only hit upon its fundamental idea. He did not
use the staff-rhyme. In fact we find in this work only a perfectly
sincere attempt to make a good play and to express its feelings in
music. He says himself of this work:
"In it there is so much as yet inchoate, the joinery of the
situations is for the most part so imperfect, the verse
and diction so often bare of individual stamp, that our
modern playwrights--who construct everything according
to a prescribed formula, and, boastful of their formal
aptitude, start out to glean that matter which shall best
lend itself to handling in the lessened form--will be
the first to count my denomination of this as a 'poem' a
piece of impudence that calls for strenuous castigation.
My dread of such prospective punishment would weigh less
with me than my own scruples as to the poetical form of
the 'Dutchman,' were it my intention to pose therewith
as a fixed and finished entity; on the contrary I find a
private relish in here showing my friends myself in the
process of 'becoming.' The form of the 'Flying Dutchman,'
however, as that of all my later poems, down even to the
minutiæ of their musical setting, was dictated to me by the
subject-matter alone, insomuch as that had become absorbed
into a definite colouring of my life, and in so far as I
had gained by practice and experience on my own adopted
path any general aptitude for artistic construction."
In the "Autobiographic Sketch" he tells us how, after disposing of
the first sketch to Pillet, he set to work to compose his own music.
"I had now to work post-haste to clothe my own subject
with German verses. In order to set about its composition
I required to hire a pianoforte; for, after nine months'
interruption of all musical production, I had to try to
surround myself with the needful preliminary of a musical
atmosphere. As soon as the piano had arrived, my heart beat
fast for very fear; I dreaded to discover that I had ceased
to be a musician. I began first with the 'Sailors' Chorus'
and the 'Spinning Song'; everything sped along as though on
wings, and I shouted for joy as I felt within me that I was
still a musician."
This statement affords sufficient evidence that nothing revolutionary
was in Wagner's mind when he sat down to compose "Der Fliegende
Holländer." No vision of the polyphonic web of "Tristan und Isolde"
rose in his brain; no conception of an operatic score in which every
melodic idea should have a direct message. He began with two purely
lyric numbers, and it was not till he reached the ballad of Senta
in the second act that the first principles of the leitmotiv system
dawned upon him, and then only in such shape as they had occurred to
others before him. The ballad as a whole is a purely lyric number,
written in a plain song form; but in it occur the two principal
typical themes of the drama. The first is that designed to represent
the Dutchman as a wanderer without rest:
[Music]
The second theme, a broad, flowing, tender melody, is designed to
typify the redeeming principle, the self-sacrificing love of the
woman.
[Music]
In the "Communication to My Friends" he says:
"In this piece I unconsciously laid the thematic germ
of the whole music of the opera: it was the picture _in
petto_ of the whole drama such as it stood before my soul;
and when I was about to betitle the finished work, I felt
strongly tempted to call it a 'dramatic ballad.' In the
eventual composition of the music the thematic picture,
thus evoked, spread itself quite instinctively over the
whole drama as one continuous tissue; I had only without
further initiative to take the various thematic germs
included in the ballad and develop them to their legitimate
conclusions, and I had all the chief moods of this poem,
quite of themselves, in definite shapes before me. I
should have had stubbornly to follow the example of the
self-willed opera-composer had I chosen to invent a fresh
motive for each recurrence of one and the same mood in
different scenes; a course whereto I naturally did not feel
the smallest inclination, since I had only in mind the most
intelligible portrayal of the subject-matter and not a mere
conglomerate of operatic numbers."
One other musical thought in this work must here be enumerated
because of a special meaning which it had for its composer. In
1866 Ferdinand Praeger was dining with Wagner in Munich, when the
conversation turned upon "the weary mariner, his yearning for land
and love, and Wagner's own longing for his fatherland at the time he
composed the 'Dutchman.'" Wagner went to the piano, and said, "The
pent-up anguish, the homesickness that then held possession of me,
were poured out in this phrase":
[Music]
"At the end of the phrase," continued Wagner, "on the diminished
seventh, in my mind I brooded over the past, the repetitions, each
higher, interpreting the increased intensity of my sufferings."
The "Flying Dutchman," then, is the product of Wagner's genius in
its embryonic stage. The grasp of tradition and operatic convention
upon his mind is not yet shaken off. The chorus of sailors in the
first finale is in a popular, rhythmical, melodic vein and might
almost have been written by a Frenchman. The opening of Act II. is
constructed on wholly operatic lines, with its gay chorus followed
by the dramatic ballad. Then follow two purely operatic scenes, the
duets of Senta and Erik and Senta and the Dutchman. In the last act
the paucity of material forced Wagner to spin his web very thin
indeed. He consumes as much time as possible with his theatrically
contrasting choruses of merry-making betrothal guests and ghostly
wanderers of the sea. The machinery of the stage creaks through the
whole scene till the entrance of Senta and Erik brings us once more
face to face with human nature. The scene is brief, and it is not to
be praised. It would have been more beautiful to make the Dutchman
depart out of sheer love for Senta and unwillingness to win salvation
through her sacrifice. But the act ends effectively. Perhaps the
most striking proof in all this curious score that Wagner had not
yet found himself is in the duet of Daland and the Dutchman in Act
I. The Dutchman asks if Daland has a daughter and on receiving an
affirmative reply, says, "Let her be my wife." Daland, "joyful yet
perplexed," exclaims:
"Wie? Hör ich recht? Meine Tochter sein Weib?
Er selbst spricht aus den Gedanken!"
And with this Wagner ushers in a very Italian duet:
[Music:
Wie? Hör' ich recht? Meine Tochter sein Weib?
Er selbst spricht aus den Gedanken.]
On the other hand, there are not a few manifestations in "Der
Fliegende Holländer" of the future Wagner. In the first place, the
overture is a splendid exemplification of his musical style and
his method of construction and it employs some of the materials of
the opera in a masterly manner. Again the solo of the steersman,
succeeded by the outburst of the storm and the appearance of the
Dutchman's ship upon the raging deep, produces an effect similar
to that of the song of the sailor followed by the passionate
utterances of Isolde in the first scene of "Tristan und Isolde."
The solo of the Dutchman in Act I., while more conventional in its
melodic manner than Wagner's later music, gives a foretaste of the
power exhibited in the second act of "Lohengrin" in expressing dark
and bitter moods. In the musical and dramatic characterisation of
Daland one may discern something of the facility which afterward
made so much of Hans Sachs. Indeed in characterisation more than in
anything else does this opera herald the coming master, for Van der
Decken, Senta and Daland are clearly and completely drawn musically
and dramatically. They are living figures in the gallery of Wagner
portraits; and while we may not deny that "Der Fliegende Holländer"
is a comparatively weak production, we would not readily part with
the dreamful, devoted, ill-fated Senta.
In the instrumentation, also, one finds evidences of the real Wagner.
The high, shrieking brass chords of the diminished seventh, heard in
the "Rienzi" overture, are here repeated; the rich use of divided
strings is found; and the beautiful employment of wide harmonies
in the wood wind leads the mind forward toward the final exit of
Elizabeth in "Tannhäuser" and the entrance of Elsa in "Lohengrin."
But, view this work as we may, we cannot regard it as standing beside
the two lyric dramas of the transition period. It is the work of an
independent and gifted mind of 28, a work of radiant promise, but not
of mature genius.
TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG
Grand Romantic Opera in Three Acts.
First performed at the Royal Saxon Court Theatre, Dresden, October
19, 1845.
_Original Cast._
Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia Dettmer.
Tannhäuser Tichatschek.
Wolfram von Eschenbach Mitterwurzer.
Walther von der Vogelweide Schloss.
Biterolf Wächter.
Heinrich der Schreiber Gurth.
Reimar von Zweter Risse.
Elizabeth, Niece of the Landgrave Fräulein Johanna Wagner.
Venus Mme. Schroeder-Devrient.
A Young Shepherd Fräulein Thiele.
Weimar, 1849; Schwerin and Breslau, Freiburg and Wiesbaden, 1852;
Königsberg, Hamburg, Darmstadt, Elbing, Cassel, Frankfort, Posen,
Leipsic, Riga, Barmen, Bremen, Bromberg, Cologne, Danzig, Düsseldorf,
Prague, and Stralsund, 1853; Wolfendbüttel, Rostock, Reval, Neisse,
Magdeburg, Glogau, Mayence, Gumbinnen, Gratz, Aix-la-Chapelle,
Augsburg, and Stettin, 1854; Strassburg, Lübeck, Coburg, Bamberg,
Munich, Mannheim, Antwerp, Zurich, Würzburg, Carlsruhe, Hanover,
1855; Berlin, 1856; Vienna, Dessau, and Sondershausen, 1857;
Stuttgart, 1859; New York, April 4, 1859; Rotterdam, 1860; Paris,
1861; Brunswick, 1861; Olmütz and Amsterdam, 1862; Munich, Paris
version, 1867; The Hague, 1870; Budapesth, 1871; Bologna, 1872;
Brussels, 1873; Lucerne, 1874; Copenhagen, 1875; London (Italian),
May 6, 1876; New York (Italian) and Moscow, 1877; Trieste, 1878;
Innspruck and Salzburg, 1880; Ghent and London (English), 1881.
First performed in America at the Stadt Theater, New York, April 4,
1859.
_Cast._
Hermann Graff.
Tannhäuser Pickaneser.
Wolfram Lehmann.
Walther Lotti.
Biterolf Urchs.
Heinrich der Schreiber Bolten.
Reimar von Zweter Brandt.
Elizabeth Mme. Siedenburg.
Venus Mme. Pickaneser.
Shepherd (Not given).
Conductor, Carl Bergmann.
TANNHÄUSER
With "Tannhäuser" we enter upon what may fairly be called the
transition period of the genius of Wagner. While in certain passages
this work is quite as much indebted to older opera as "Der Fliegende
Holländer," and in others falls into a cheap and tawdry style of
melody quite unworthy of its composer, it nevertheless contains
parts which rise to heights never before attained except perhaps in
Beethoven's "Fidelio." The book will especially repay study, for in
it we find the first complete demonstration of Wagner's powers as a
dramatist and a dramatic poet. His skilful weaving of the dramatic
web out of materials scattered and apparently unrelated places him
among the masters of theatrical writing. It will be our pleasure
first to examine the sources of the drama and the manner in which
Wagner employed them.
"Tannhäuser" was first conceived by Wagner in 1841, and the scenic
sketches, with the provisional title "Venusberg, Romantic Opera,"
were made in 1842. The poem was finished on May 22, 1843. Owing to
his being occupied with the preparations for the production of "Der
Fliegende Holländer" and with other matters, Wagner did not complete
the score till April 13, 1845. When the work was in preparation for
performance at the Paris Grand Opéra in 1861, Wagner rewrote some
portion of the score. The reader will recall that the members of
the Jockey Club demanded their usual terpsichorean titbit, but that
Wagner would not consent to write an ordinary ballet and thrust it
into his drama at a certain hour. He insisted that the ballet should
take its proper place in the dramatic scheme and that it should have
a meaning.
He accordingly wrote a new and careful elaboration of the scene in
the Venusberg at the opening of Act I. In the first, or Dresden,
version of the work the overture is a complete number, and as such
is frequently heard on the concert platform. In the Parisian version
the overture does not come to an end, but at the second appearance
of the bacchanalian music the curtain rises and the ballet begins.
It is descriptive of the revels of the realm of Venus--"a wild and
yet seductive chaos of movements and groupings, of soft delight,
of yearning and burning, carried to the most delicious pitch of
frenzied riot."[34] He then extended the dialogue between Venus and
Tannhäuser to a scene of considerable dimensions, its chief purpose
being a further revelation of the character of Venus. Undoubtedly
this Parisian version was nearer to Wagner's heart than his first
one, but its music does not well bear critical examination, for the
style of the added part is that of the "Tristan" period, while the
old "Tannhäuser" music is of a much more primitive sort.
[Footnote 34: Wagner, "On the Performing of Tannhäuser," Prose Works,
Ellis, Vol. III.]
So much for the writing of the opera. It is a curious fact that
Wagner has recorded as his sources of inspiration a book which
cannot be found and a condition which did not exist. He says that
while "Rienzi" was in preparation at Dresden, the German "Volksbuch"
of "Tannhäuser" fell into his hands. Now no one has ever been able to
find such a book, and learned authorities declare that there never
was one. But Wagner further says that he had made the acquaintance of
Tannhäuser in Tieck's narrative, which he now reread. He read also
the "Tannhäuserlied." He says: "What most irresistibly attracted
me was the connection, however loose, between Tannhäuser and the
'Singer's Tourney in the Wartburg,' which I found established in
that Folk's book." With this second subject he had already made
some acquaintance in a tale of Hoffmann, and he now decided to
read the mediæval epic, "The Sängerkrieg." There is no connection
at all between the incidents of the old Tannhäuser legend and "The
Sängerkrieg." This is a condition which Wagner himself created, and
his error in supposing that he had discovered it in the legend is an
amusing instance of the occasional inability of genius to analyse its
own workings. What Wagner did was to accept Lucas's identification of
Tannhäuser with one of the personages in the epic, thus bringing the
two stories together, as we shall presently see.
The legend of Tannhäuser is found in old folk tales, mostly in the
popular form of ballads. An English translation of one of these,
printed with the original music in Böhme's "Altdeutsches Liederbuch,"
is reproduced in Jessie Weston's excellent work, "Legends of the
Wagner Drama." The story contained in this is that Tannhäuser, a
knight, has spent much time in the cave of Venus, but has grown
weary and would depart. Venus tells him that he has sworn a solemn
oath with her "for aye to dwell." He denies that he has so sworn. She
offers him her fairest maid as wife if he will stay, but he declines,
saying,
"Nay, an I took another wife,
I here bethink me well,
My lot for all eternity
Would be the flames of hell."
Venus still pleads with him and bids him think upon her charms and
the joys of life in the Venusberg. He declares that his "life is
waxen sick and faint," and again begs for leave to go. Finally he
calls upon the Virgin to aid him. Then Venus tells him to go, but
adds that wherever he goes he shall sing her praise. He departs, and
determines to seek Pope Urban at Rome and ask absolution. The Pope,
who holds in his hand a withered staff, says:
"This staff shall bud and bloom again
Ere grace to thee be shown."
Tannhäuser in despair returns to the arms of Venus. On the third day
after his departure from Rome the staff buds and blossoms. The Pope
seeks for Tannhäuser, but it is too late; he has returned to his sin,
and for this Pope Urban's soul is to be counted lost on the Judgment
Day.
There is absolutely nothing in that story to suggest any connection
with the contest of minnesingers in the Castle of Wartburg in 1204
A.D., the year in which Wolfram von Eschenbach is known
to have been the guest of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia. This
contest is described in the poem, or collection of poems called the
"Wartburgkrieg," which dates from the 13th century and gives us an
interesting view of the Court of Hermann of Thuringia. It is not
certain that all of this poem has come down to us, nor do we know who
wrote it. Simrock, the German editor of the work, believed that its
earliest part was written about 1233. Some verses, believed to have
been by Walther von der Vogelweide, appear in the work. The latest
part of it probably dates from 1287.
The poem contains no such contest in song as that which takes place
in the second act of Wagner's drama, but it does describe a debate as
to the glories of certain princes. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Heinrich
der Schreiber, Walther von der Vogelweide, Biterolf, and Reimar von
Zweter take part in the discussion, while Wolfram von Eschenbach, the
famous author of "Parzival," is the umpire. It was in reading this
poem that Wagner's attention was called to Wolfram and his works, and
thus he discovered the legendary world of "Lohengrin" and "Parsifal."
The "Wartburgkrieg" contains other matter, but that just summarised
is all that Wagner found for his "Tannhäuser." He got from the
mediæval epic the atmosphere of Hermann's Court, for this potentate
was famous in his day as a patron of poetry and an encourager of
the art of the knightly minnesinger. He obtained also the idea of
the contest of song--which in history was rather one of poetry--and
the names of the historical minnesingers. In adopting this material
to his dramatic purpose Wagner omitted Heinrich of Ofterdingen and
substituted Tannhäuser for him. He furthermore changed the subject
of the controversy.
Whence came the lovely character, one of the noblest of all Wagner's
heroines, Elizabeth, the Landgrave's niece? She is not to be found in
the Tannhäuser legend nor in the "Wartburgkrieg." It is altogether
certain that Wagner found the suggestion for this beautiful character
in the story of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, the daughter-in-law
of Hermann of Thuringia. She was affianced in childhood to the
Landgrave's eldest son Ludwig; and when married the pair led a
rigorously monastic life and devoted themselves to holiness. Ludwig
died young and his brother Heinrich was harsh to Elizabeth. The pure
and lofty stature of this saintly princess furnished Wagner with
the personality which he needed as the element of opposition to the
baneful influence of Venus.
We have now before us the sources from which Wagner drew the
materials for this noble drama. Let us see how he utilised his
matter. In the first scene we behold Tannhäuser in the arms of Venus,
sick and weary of sensual delight and eager to return to the smell of
the green grass and the song of birds, and still more to the rhythmic
alternation of pain and pleasure which makes the song of human life.
His senses are nauseated with their own ceaseless gratification. Who,
then, is this Venus, and what is she doing in the subterranean world
of the 12th century? She is plainly the Venus of Roman mythology,
the Aphrodite of the Greeks, the Astarte of the Phoenicians. The
atmosphere which surrounds her is that of the classic Venus. She is
further identified by the pictures of Leda and the Swan and Europa
and the Bull, taken from classic fable and illustrating stratagems
of the passion over which Venus presided. Before the Romans pushed
their way into Germany, the old Teutonic mythology had its goddess
Freya, the wife of Odin, queen and leader of the Valkyrs. But the
Scandinavian myth made Frigg, or Fricka, the queen, and Freya the
second in rank. She was the goddess of love and beauty. The South
German races confounded the two and added qualities not known in the
northern mythology. They made Freya coincident on one side with Hel,
the goddess of the underworld and of the dead, and on the other with
Holda, the goddess of the spring, of budding and fructification. Thus
when the Romans carried their mythology into Germany it was not at
all extraordinary that the attributes of Freya and Venus should have
become mingled in the minds of the people.
These simple-minded people did not readily part with their poetic
mythology when Christianity mastered their hearts. The old deities
were supposed to have retired into caves or mountains, there to
dwell till recalled to activity. Venus, according to various
traditions, lived in more than one cave, but her favourite abode
was the Hörselberg in Thuringia. The propinquity of this cave to
the Castle of Wartburg naturally led Wagner to choose it as the
scene of Tannhäuser's retirement. In the drama the knight's feelings
and desires are precisely the same as those of the hero of the old
legend. Wagner adds the beautiful poetic touches of his yearning to
hear the song of birds and once more to suffer pain. Furthermore
he makes it clear to us that the Venus of his imagination was
not without womanly feeling, and that her passion for Tannhäuser
was a very real one. She scornfully gives him leave to go, but it
is finally his despairing cry to the Virgin for aid which acts as
a charm to remove the spell of enchantment. He instantly finds
himself in the valley before the Wartburg, and hears the tinkling of
sheep-bells, while a young shepherd carols a lay to the May and to
Holda, the representative of the beneficent side of the evil goddess
just left. It is in such details of fancy as these that Wagner
demonstrates his right to consider himself a poet.
With the disappearance of the red and glittering cave of Venus and
the appearance of the cool, fresh greens of the landscape--a striking
pictorial contrast, full of theatrical effectiveness, and showing
Wagner's employment of the combined arts of poetry, music, painting,
and action in the new dramatic form--we enter the domain of the
"Wartburgkrieg." The Tannhäuser of the old legend steps into the
shoes of Heinrich of Ofterdingen. The adventure which has befallen
him is not unsuited to his character, for the real Tannhäuser
was a bit of a Don Juan and had many "affairs." It seems that he
repented and became a wiser and a better man in later life. In the
ballad Venus foretold that he would sing her praises wherever he
went, but in the drama this prediction is made by Tannhäuser in the
first scene. That Wagner had a purpose in the change is shown by
Tannhäuser's outbreak in the hall of song. Efforts have been made
to prove that Heinrich of Ofterdingen and Tannhäuser were one and
the same person, for the existence of the former is problematical,
and also to prove that Tannhäuser did really visit the Court of
Hermann. Neither has been established as a fact. The matter is
of little importance to us. The personages in the song contest,
except Tannhäuser, are historical, and Wagner has been faithful in
his representation of their characters. He has chosen for dramatic
purposes to accentuate the poetic side of Wolfram's character.
Wolfram was celebrated as a champion of Christianity, and was an
ardent advocate of nobility of heart in woman in preference to merely
external beauty. In the very beginning of his "Parzival" he says:
"Many women are praised for beauty; if at heart they shall be untrue,
Then I praise them as I would praise it, the glass of a sapphire hue,
That in gold shall be set as a jewel! Tho' I hold it an evil thing,
If a man take a costly ruby, with the virtue the stone doth bring,
And set it in a worthless setting: I would liken such a costly stone
To the heart of a faithful woman, who true womanhood doth own.
I would look not upon her colour, nor the heart's roof all can see;
If the heart beateth true beneath it, true praise shall she win
from me."[35]
[Footnote 35: "Parzival," a knightly epic, by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Translation by Jessie L. Weston. London, David Nutt.]
In the hall of song the contest is on a similar theme, and Wolfram
was well chosen by Wagner to oppose the passionate ideas of the
wandering Tannhäuser. Walther von der Vogelweide has little
importance in Wagner's "Tannhäuser," but is mentioned again in
"Die Meistersinger," when young Walther von Stolzing claims him as
master. Vogelweide was a poet of renown in his day, a contemporary
of Wolfram, a Tyrolean by birth and a lyric singer. He was a man of
station and had an estate near Würzburg, where he was buried. Reimar
was also a notable poet in his day, but of Biterolf little is known
except that there was such a man.
These are the personages who greet Tannhäuser when Wagner's
wonderful transformation scene has closed, when the effect of the
beautiful pictorial change has died away, and the solemn strains
of the pilgrims' chorus, so gently beneficent after the passionate
witcheries of the wild bacchanal, have melted into the distance.
And with the advent of these historic figures there begins the
operation of the elevating principle of the drama, the influence of
Elizabeth. With their simple and yet aspiring spirits they furnish
a beautiful contrast to the carnal creatures whom we have just left
in the Hörselberg. The latter typified the gratification of the
senses, while these are an expression of the higher desires of man,
presently to be shown to us in their loftiest embodiment, the eternal
woman-soul, which "leadeth us ever upward and on."
In the experience of Tannhäuser Wagner has set before us the struggle
of the pure and the impure, the lusts and the aspirations of man's
nature. It is essentially the tragedy of the man. We may try as we
please to exalt the importance of Elizabeth as a dramatic character,
but the truth is that she is merely the embodiment of a force.
Tannhäuser is typical of his sex, beset on the one hand by the desire
of the flesh, which satiates and maddens, and courted on the other by
the undying loveliness of chaste and holy love. If ever a sermon was
preached as to the certainty with which the sins of the flesh will
find a man out it is preached in the second act of this tremendous
tragedy, when the flame of old passions sears the front of new
happiness and drives the errant out of paradise.
Here Wagner has risen far above his material. In the pomp and
circumstance of the mediæval contest of song he has displayed active
fancy, for the scene as presented is his rather than history's. In
the culmination of the catastrophe he has wrought with the craft of
genius, for in the period of which he wrote the yielding of a man to
sensual temptation would never have caused such a stir. Tannhäuser
would have been damned rather for worshipping a heathen goddess,
an enemy of the Christian Church, than for slumbering in the soft
embraces of a wanton. Hence, though struck to the heart by more than
mortal wound, Elizabeth thinks first of her lover's sin:
"Was liegt an mir? Doch er--sein Heil!
Wollt Ihr sein ewig Heil ihm rauben?"
"What matters it for me? But he--his salvation! Would you rob him
of his eternal salvation?" With this beautiful plea of the stricken
Elizabeth Wagner shows how perfectly he understood the tragic
elements of his story, for he makes the saving principle again, as in
"Der Fliegende Holländer," one of self-effacement, a love faithful
unto death.
In the final act Elizabeth, her last hope of the return of Tannhäuser
gone, consecrates her soul to heaven, relinquishes the desire of
life, and ascends to her last home. Wolfram, who has loved her, and
who thus becomes, in his self-sacrifice, a foil to the passionate
and self-gratifying Tannhäuser, sits at the foot of the Hörselberg
and philosophises to the evening star. Tannhäuser returns, cursed by
Rome, and plunged in despair. His narrative is the climax of power
in the opera, one of the most intensely tragic pieces of writing in
all dramatic literature. His senses reel; the old world of lusts
and passions opens the portals of its rosy dreamland, and the songs
of its sirens again lure him back to the arms of Venus and bury the
newly awakened soul in the depths of sensual debauchery. But no; the
eternal feminine still strives to save. The sainted Elizabeth, dead,
is yet the guardian angel of this poor wanderer, and as her funeral
bier is laid before him he sinks beside it with the last unutterably
pathetic supplication of a still repentant spirit:
"Heilige Elizabeth, bitte für mich!"
"Holy Elizabeth, pray for me." And Wolfram pronounces the benediction
in the words, "Er ist erlöst" ("he is redeemed"). The sprouting staff
of the Pope, which has followed him from Rome, is laid upon his dead
body, and the solemn chorus of the pilgrims chant the entrance of his
purified spirit into its eternal rest. Thus did Wagner, out of the
simple and unrelated materials of the old Tannhäuser myth and the
"Wartburgkrieg," fashion the tragedy of a man's soul. Women never
find in "Tannhäuser" all that a man finds there. The experience of
the story lies beyond the pale of the feminine nature, but every
man must bow his head in reverence to the genius which thus made
quick the battle of passion against purity for the possession of the
masculine soul. Wagner wrote no mightier tragedy than this.[36]
[Footnote 36: It is worthy of note that in 1863 there was printed in
Mobile, Ala., a long blank-verse poem, entitled "Tannhäuser; or, The
Battle of the Bards," by Neville Temple and Edward Trevor. This was
a paraphrase--and in some places a translation--of Wagner's opera
book. It was written by two young men in the English civil service
in Germany and sent over to America by a friend. It transpired that
"Edward Trevor" was no less a personage than Robert, Lord Lytton,
better known as Owen Meredith, author of "Lucile."]
The music of "Tannhäuser" commands less admiration than the book.
Some of it is worthy of the mature Wagner, but much is trivial and
some is positively weak and puerile. Wagner had not yet grasped a
new conception of the lyric drama; he had thus far only enlarged
and extended the old one. He was not yet ready to set aside all the
old formulæ; but he was striving to give them a new significance.
Hence in "Tannhäuser" there are passages of a familiar operatic cut,
such as the scene of Tannhäuser and the courtiers in the first act,
ending with the finale of that act, the duet between Tannhäuser and
Elizabeth in Act II., and Wolfram's address to the evening star in
Act III. On the other hand, most of the score shows wide departures
from the older operatic manner. There is a sincere attempt to make
the musical forms follow the poem. There is an abundance of real
dialogue, in which the setting of the text is constructed on the
purest dramatic lines. This is especially true of the scene between
Tannhäuser and Venus, the debate in the hall of song, and the
narrative of Tannhäuser. But such admirable pieces of writing as
the address of the Landgrave to the contestants and the pathetic
prayer of Elizabeth have also a large dramatic value because of their
perfect embodiment of the feeling of the scene.
The leitmotiv is not employed in "Tannhäuser." Arthur Smolian wrote
a pamphlet on the music of this opera. It was prepared for the
_Bayreuther Taschenbuch_ of 1891 and translated into English by the
indefatigable Ashton Ellis. It professes to name and catalogue the
leading motives of "Tannhäuser," but what it really does is to prove
that there are none. The author quotes Wagner: "The essential feature
of Tannhäuser's character is his instant and complete saturation
with the emotions called up by the passing incident, and the lively
contrasts which the sudden changes of situation produce in his
utterance of this fulness of feeling. Tannhäuser is never a 'little'
anything, but each thing fully and completely." Mr. Smolian says:
"With the foregoing words, in which Wagner defines the nature of his
hero, we might also most fittingly describe the individuality of the
'Tannhäuser' music." Here, then, he should have stopped, for he had
spoken the truth, and his thematic catalogue is misleading. The music
of "Tannhäuser" is nearly all written freely for the investiture
of the passing mood, and those portions which are accorded special
meaning and are used for repetition may speedily be enumerated and
dismissed.
These divide themselves naturally into two classes, representing
respectively the good and the evil principle of the action. These
themes, which have such significance that they are repeated in the
exposition of the drama, are first heard and most easily identified
in the magnificent overture. This opens with a serene statement of
the theme typifying the holy thought, the religious mood of the good
characters in the play. This thought is employed as the melody of a
chorus of pilgrims, and it reappears in a triumphant proclamation at
the end of the drama when the good principle emerges victorious from
the battle against the evil:
[Music]
The intoning of this solemn melody is interrupted in the overture by
the intrusion of the music of the bacchanalian orgies in the cave of
Venus, which begins with this phrase, given out by the violas:
[Music]
Tannhäuser's hymn in praise of Venus appears in the overture and
is, of course, again heard in the first scene of the drama. It is
repeated with immense significance, but not at all in the manner of a
leitmotiv, in the scene of the hall of song.
[Music:
Dir töne Lob! Die Wunder sei'n gepriesen.]
In the overture the listener will hear after one of the passages of
turbulence this theme intoned by a clarinet.
[Music:
Geliebter, komm! Sieh dort die Grotte,
von ros'gen Düften mild durchwallt!]
Later he will recognise its significance, when in the first scene he
hears it sung by Venus with the words of pleading. The reader is now
in possession of all the thematic ideas of the score of "Tannhäuser"
which approach in their nature the musical phrases employed by Wagner
in later works. And yet it is only an approach. In the second act,
when Wolfram is preaching the beauties of ideal love, thoughts of the
unbridled gratifications of the Hörselberg flash through Tannhäuser's
mind and we are informed of it by the repetition of the bacchanale
motive. And when at length, taunted into recklessness by the words of
his opponents, Tannhäuser launches into the praise of sensual love,
he naturally does so in the hymn to Venus from the first scene.
And that is the extent of the repetition of primary material in the
second act.
In the third act, when Tannhäuser in his despair calls upon Venus,
we are informed of her appearance before his fancy by the return of
the bacchanalian music. We also see her revealed in the rosy light of
her cavern, but this is a complete concession to the public want of
imagination. Wagner's original intention was to let the music tell
the story of her nearness, but he came to the conclusion that he
would not be understood, and so he placed Venus and her court before
our eyes. With the return of the pilgrims' chorus at the end of the
drama we meet the last repetition of a thematic idea. In none of
these repetitions is the leitmotiv method employed. They are simply
such repetitions as Gounod makes in "Faust" when the mad Marguerite
imagines she hears again the first salutation of Faust, or in "Roméo
et Juliette," when the dying Romeo's disordered mind carries him back
to the chamber scene and "Non, ce n'est pas le jour."
The dramatic power of "Tannhäuser" is not to be sought in evidences
of the development of the future Wagnerian system except in the
fidelity of the music to the underlying thought, and of the masterful
employment of operatic materials hitherto used wholly with a view to
musical effectiveness. In characterisation, too, this score shows
an advance over that of "Der Fliegende Holländer," which itself was
far ahead of its contemporaries. Wagner himself lays stress upon
the deep significance of passages of free composition. For example,
he says that in the stanza which Tannhäuser sings in the finale of
the second act ("Zum Heil den Sündigen zu Führen")--a stanza which
is usually buried by the ensemble--"lies the whole significance
of the catastrophe of Tannhäuser, and indeed the whole essence
of Tannhäuser; all that to me makes him a touching phenomenon is
expressed here alone." And various remarks in his long and--for the
theatre--important essay on the performing of "Tannhäuser" show how
far from his mind in the preparation of this work was the fully
developed Wagnerian system of "Tristan und Isolde." The union of
the arts tributary to the drama in the "art work of the future" had
already been conceived by him, and the greatness of "Tannhäuser,"
together with the causes of its radical difference from the typical
opera of its time, must be sought in the evidences of Wagner's
successful employment of this union. Neither verse nor music had
yet disclosed the complete Wagner; but here we find the master in
his transitional stage. The puissant eloquence of the vital scenes
of "Tannhäuser" will long keep it before the public in spite of its
inherent weaknesses.
LOHENGRIN
Romantic Opera in Three Acts.
First performed at the Court Theatre, Weimar, August 28, 1850.
_Original Cast._
Lohengrin Beck.
Telramund Milde.
King Henry Höfer.
Herald Pätsch.
Ortrud Fräulein Fastlinger.
Elsa Fräulein Agthe.
Wiesbaden, 1853; Stettin, Breslau, Frankfort, Schwerin, Leipsic,
1854; Hanover, Darmstadt, Riga, Prague, Hamburg, Cologne, 1855;
Würzburg, Mayence, Carlsruhe, 1856; Munich, Sondershausen, Vienna,
1857; Dresden, Berlin, Mannheim, 1859; Danzig, Königsberg, 1860;
Rotterdam, 1862; Gratz, 1863; Budapesth, 1866; Dessau, 1867; Milan,
Cassel, Baden, St. Petersburg, 1868; Olmütz, Stuttgart, Gotha, 1869;
Brussels, Brunswick, Magdeburg, The Hague, Copenhagen, 1870; Bologna,
New York, 1871; Nuremberg, Florence, 1872; Lübeck, 1873; Stockholm,
Strassburg, 1874; Boston, 1875; London, Covent Garden, May 8, 1875;
Dublin, 1875; Basle, Trieste, 1876; San Francisco, Philadelphia,
Chemnitz, Crefeld, Temesvar, Salzburg, Melbourne, Lemburg, 1877;
Görlitz, Barmen, Regensburg, Rome, 1878; Altona, Liegnitz, 1879;
London (English), Genoa, 1880; Liverpool, Antwerp, Venice, Nice,
Naples, Moscow, Madrid, Münster, 1881; Innspruck, Barcelona, 1882.
First performed in America in German at the Stadt Theater, New York,
April 3, 1871, under Adolf Neuendorff.
_Cast._
Lohengrin Theodore Habelmann.
Telramund Herr Vierling.
King Henry Herr Franosch.
Herald W. Formes.
Ortrud Mme. Frederici.
Elsa Mme. Louise Lichtmay.
First performance in Italian, Academy of Music, March 23, 1874.
_Cast._
Lohengrin Italo Campanini.
Telramund Giuseppe del Puente.
King Henry Giovanni Nannetti.
Herald A. Blum.
Ortrud Annie Louise Cary.
Elsa Christine Nilsson.
LOHENGRIN
I.--The Book
When he was collecting the materials for "Tannhäuser," Wagner, as we
have seen, read the "Parzival" of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The last
one hundred lines of that poem contains one of the versions of the
story of Lohengrin. It is an insufficient story, however, and would
not in itself have provided the foundation of Wagner's most popular
work. As I have said in my introduction to the Schirmer edition
of the vocal score of "Lohengrin," "Wagner's method of literary
composition was to gather all the versions of a national mythological
legend, and select the incidents and characters which fitted into
his plan." This plan, of course, grows out of his perception of the
dramatic possibilities of the story. The sources of Wagner's poem,
then, in addition to "Parzival," were "Der Jüngere Titurel," a poem
by Albrecht von Scharffenberg, giving a full account of the Holy
Grail and its guardians, and also recounting the life and death of
Lohengrin after leaving Brabant; _Der Schwanen-Ritter_, by Konrad
von Würzburg, a poem dating from the latter half of the thirteenth
century; "Lohengrin," a poem by an unknown Bavarian poet, and the
popular form of the legend as given by the Grimm Brothers in the
"Deutsche Sagen."
At Marienbad in the summer of 1845 he laid down the outlines of his
plan, and in the winter ensuing he wrote the book and invented some
of the melodic ideas. He began the actual composition of the opera
with the narrative of Lohengrin in the final scene, because, like
the ballad of Senta, that monologue contained the most significant
musical germs in the whole score. While living at Grossgraufen, near
Pilnitz, he wrote the music of the third act between September 9,
1846, and March 5, 1847. The first act was composed between May 12
and June 8, 1847, and the second act between June 18th and August 2d
of the same year. The prelude was finished on August 28, 1847, and
the instrumentation was made during the following winter and spring.
The score of the opera was not published for several years, because
Meser, who had printed the previous works of the composer, had lost
money by the ventures. Breitkopf & Härtel subsequently secured the
score at a small price, not because they were niggardly in offering,
but because Wagner's works had no large market value at the time, and
he was anxious to sell, being in his chronic condition of financial
embarrassment.
The Lohengrin poem gives the story thus: Elsa, daughter of the Duke
of Brabant, is left in care of Frederic of Telramund. He aspires to
her hand, but she refuses him. He then accuses her before the Emperor
of having promised to be his wife and having broken the promise. The
Emperor declares that the case must be tried by the ordeal of battle.
A passing falcon falls at Elsa's feet with a bell tied to its leg.
In her agitation she rings the bell. The sound reaches Monsalvat,
where it acts as a summons to Lohengrin, the son of Parzival. A
swan appears on the river and Lohengrin knows that he is ordered
to go with it. On arriving at Antwerp, five days later, Lohengrin
is received with honour, and with Elsa sets out for the court of
the Emperor at Mayence. There the combat is fought and Telramund
defeated. Lohengrin marries Elsa, having extracted from her the
promise not to ask his name or country. They live together two years.
Then in a joust Lohengrin conquers the Duke of Cleves and breaks his
arm. The Duchess of Cleves sneers at Lohengrin because no one knows
who he is. This preys on the mind of Elsa till she asks the fatal
question. Then Lohengrin, in the presence of the Emperor and the
Court, tells his story, steps into the swan-boat and vanishes.
The story of the "Chevalier au Cygne," as found in the Grimm version
also, is evidently a combination of two legends. The first deals
entirely with the transformation of human beings into swans, and
the second with the Swan-Knight. The mother-in-law of a queen, out
of hatred, endeavours to make away with her seven children, each
of whom was born with a silver chain about its neck, and to throw
suspicion on the queen. She gives them to a knight to slay, but he
contents himself with leaving them in a wood, where they are found
and cared for by a hermit. The king's mother subsequently learns that
the children are still alive, and sends a servant to kill them and
bring the chains as evidence. He finds six children, one having gone
on a short journey with the hermit, and when he takes the chains off
their necks they turn into swans and fly away. The king's mother now
brings the false accusation against the queen, and the king declares
that, unless a champion can be found to establish her innocence, she
must die. An angel goes to Helyas, the son who was not found by the
servant, and tells him who he is and of his mother's danger. Helyas
goes to Court, declares himself, fights for his mother, and conquers.
The chains are brought forth, the six swans fly in, Helyas puts the
chains around their necks, and they resume their human forms.
Subsequently Helyas sees a swan appear, drawing a boat, and knows
that he is summoned. At Nimwegen he finds that before the Emperor
Otto the Duchess of Bouillon has been accused by her brother-in-law
of poisoning her husband. The Emperor has ordered the settlement
of the case by the ordeal of combat. Helyas defends the Duchess,
overthrows her accuser, marries her daughter, and becomes the father
of Godfrey of Bouillon. After seven years the Duchess asks the fatal
question, and Helyas, without answering it, goes away forever in
his swan-boat. The reader will easily discover in the latter part
of this story how the Lohengrin legend has been used to manufacture
a supernatural father for Godfrey of Bouillon. It was not at all
uncommon for the poets of the mediæval period thus to celebrate the
mighty.
We have now before us the chief materials out of which Wagner made
his beautiful dramatic poem, for the story of Wolfram's "Parzival"
served principally to set him on the track, and to make suggestions
as to the character of Elsa. That story tells simply that the Duchess
of Brabant refused to be the wife of any man save him whom God should
send her, and so Lohengrin came and the marriage took place, with
the stipulation that he should not be asked his name or race. After
some years she asked the fatal question and he returned to Monsalvat.
The Elsa of Wolfram was evidently inclined to become a nun, but in
two lines of the "Parzival" Wagner found a suggestion as to her
nature of which he made eloquent use in his first act:
"In God was her trust, whatever men might in their anger speak,
And, guiltless, she bare the vengeance her folks on her head
would wreak."
The absolute confidence of Wagner's Elsa in the readiness of
Providence to send her the knight of whom she had dreamed and her
unresisting attitude in the presence of her accuser and her king were
certainly drawn from these lines of Wolfram's.
From the story of the Swan-Knight he gathered the idea of the
transformation of a human being into a swan by a malignant woman, and
his tremendously dramatic development of this idea is seen in the
plot of his opera. The accusation of Telramund is increased by the
assertion that Elsa has murdered her brother, a suggestion drawn, of
course, from the accusation against the queen in the "Chevalier au
Cygne." He has in reality been transformed into a swan by Ortrud, the
wife of Telramund, a character wholly invented by Wagner. It is she
who performs the office attributed in the old story to the Duchess of
Cleves, that of inspiring distrust and questionings in the mind of
Elsa. The character of Telramund is the merest sketch in the sources
of the drama and its individuality is entirely the result of Wagner's
dramatic skill.
The scene is laid at Antwerp, as it is in the Bavarian poet's
version, but is retained there instead of being shifted to Mayence.
The heroine is the Duchess of Brabant. The monarch, however, is not
Otto, but Henry I., who reigned from 918 to 936. In his treatment
of this character Wagner adheres to historic truth. Henry was a
progressive and an aggressive monarch, and he not only led his
people in successful wars against the Huns, but brought order out of
political chaos at home. It is to these historical matters that the
King refers in the speeches of the opening scene of the opera.
In the old stories the Knight has several days in which to reach the
woman in distress and fight for her. Wagner has made this episode far
more dramatic by requiring the immediate presence of the champion, by
the ingenious plan of having the first call unanswered, and by making
the fight for Elsa's life and honour take place at once. The arrival
of Lohengrin is one of the most theatrically effective scenes in all
opera, and the sweet and gentle farewell to the swan, following the
hubbub of excitement, affords one of those splendid musical contrasts
which are to be found in all Wagner's works and which are, as in this
case, entirely his own. The first act of the opera leans heavily on
the sources of the story, but the reader can have no difficulty in
seeing how ingeniously Wagner has utilised his materials. At the end
of the combat it has in recent years been the custom to employ a
piece of stage business, authorised by the Bayreuth management, which
is destructive of much of the effect of the scene, and obviously
contrary to Wagner's original conception. Lohengrin does not fell
Telramund "with one mighty stroke," as the stage direction in the
score says he should, but holds his sword on high, while Frederic,
without being struck at all, falls, overcome by the mysterious
power which emanates from it. Of course this belittles the knightly
character of Lohengrin, who conquers not by his prowess, but by the
intervention of supernatural power, and furthermore it is opposed to
the text. The Herald in his address to the combatants just before the
King's prayer says:
"Durch bösen Zaubers List und Trug
Stört nicht des Urtheils Eigenschaft."
"By evil magic's cunning and deceit distort not the nature of the
judgment." The meaning of that speech is certainly a prohibition
of the exercise of supernatural power by Lohengrin. And in the old
stories it is always related that he defeated his opponent in equal
combat. The supernatural element is sufficiently to the fore in
this first scene in the appearance of the Swan-Knight in answer to
the prayer and in reward of the faith of the innocent maiden under
accusation. The love of Lohengrin for Elsa is in accordance with
the old stories, and so is Elsa's offer of her crown, her domain,
and herself. To the fall of the curtain at the end of Act I. Wagner
followed the sources of his story closely, the changes being such as
I have pointed out, and chiefly of a kind demanded by the technics of
dramatic construction.
But with the second act we enter a chapter more fully the product of
Wagner's genius. The original sources give only suggestions of it.
The scene between Telramund and Ortrud at the beginning of this act,
so much disliked by those to whom only the saccharine melodies of
love and mystic knighthood are pleasing, is one of the most important
in the drama. Telramund, robbed of sword and fame, reproaches Ortrud
for inducing him to make the accusation against Elsa. He recognises
the sacred character of Lohengrin, but Ortrud scoffs at it. She
calls her husband's attention to the condition imposed upon Elsa by
Lohengrin, that she must ask neither his name nor the place whence
he came. Ortrud reveals the fact that if he is forced to answer
this question his power is at an end. But Ortrud further counsels
her husband to proclaim that the victory was won by magic, thus
breaking the law of the sacred ordeal. Still further she says that,
if Lohengrin can only be wounded in the slightest way, his power will
vanish. To Telramund she entrusts this part of the task, while for
herself she reserves the business of inspiring distrust in the mind
of Elsa.
She addresses the maiden on her balcony in the accents of despair.
Elsa in pity descends to lead her into the house. Then Wagner makes
use of the mediæval belief that the old pagan gods had not ceased
to exist, but were temporarily in retirement from the assaults of
Christianity. Ortrud, who is a pagan at heart, calls on the old Norse
gods to aid her in overthrowing these Christian enemies of theirs.
When Elsa appears, this dark woman at once expresses her fear that a
knight who appeared by magic may disappear. Elsa's trust is not yet
to be shaken, and Ortrud follows her into the house. When Elsa and
her train are moving toward the church, Ortrud claims the right of
precedence and, like the Duchess of Cleves in the old tale, flings
the taunt of Lohengrin's namelessness at Elsa. Again the maiden
defends her spouse elect. Lohengrin and the King appear. Telramund,
carrying out his part of the task, comes forward and declares that
Lohengrin conquered him by the aid of magic. The King and the nobles,
with full faith in the nature of the judgment, refuse to listen to
him. He then whispers to Elsa that if she will admit him to the
chamber that night he will clear all doubt. Lohengrin orders him away
and leads Elsa into the minster.
Throughout this act the immense dramatic skill of Wagner is
manifested. With only a few meagre suggestions from the old
legends,--basic ideas, indeed, but undeveloped,--he built up an
act of extraordinary dramatic power and musical fecundity. In its
construction this act equals anything in the entire range of opera.
The effective series of pictures, ranging from the dismal pair on the
cathedral steps in the gloom, through that of Elsa apostrophising
her lover on the moonlit balcony, the entrance into the house of the
two women in the glimmer of the torches, the break of day, and the
growing glitter of the festal morning with its pageant, up to the
splendid climax of the scene in the denouncement of Frederic and the
final entry into the church, are as ingeniously arranged as anything
in the Meyerbeerian operas; but these scenes succeed one another
in a perfectly natural and poetical sequence, and without forcing
theatrical craft upon our attention. And in this act Wagner develops
with transcendent power the characters of Ortrud and Telramund. Of
the malignant pagan sorceress his own words are the best description.
In one of the letters to Liszt he says:
"Ortrud is a woman who does not know love. By this
everything most terrible is expressed. Politics are her
essence. A political man is repulsive, but a political
woman is horrible. This horror I had to represent.
There is a kind of love in this woman, the love of the
past, of dead generations, the terribly insane love of
ancestral pride which finds its expression in the hatred
of everything living and actually existing. In man this
love is ludicrous, but in woman it is terrible, because a
woman, with her strong natural desire for love, must love
something; and ancestral pride, the longing after the past,
turns in consequence to murderous fanaticism. In history
there are no more cruel phenomena than political women. It
is not therefore jealousy of Elsa, perhaps for the sake of
Frederic, which inspires Ortrud, but her whole passion is
revealed only in the scene of the second act, where, after
Elsa's disappearance from the balcony, she rises from the
steps of the minster and invokes her old, long-forgotten
gods. She is a reactionary person, who thinks only of the
old and hates everything new in the most ferocious meaning
of the word; she would exterminate the world and nature to
give new life to her decayed gods. But this is not merely
an obstinate, morbid mood in Ortrud; her passion holds
her with the full weight of a misguided, undeveloped,
objectless feminine desire for love; for that reason she is
terribly grand."
This Ortrud of Wagner's touches hands with the Lady Macbeth of
Shakespeare. The same ambition, the same political, unsexed
womanhood, the same desperate daring, and the same brazen resolve
appear in both. Both seek a throne by foul means. Both are labouring
for their husbands, and both fear the weakness of the spouse. Ortrud
might fairly take from the lips of Lady Macbeth her invocation:
"Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make my thick blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my purpose, nor keep peace between
Th' affect and it!"
Telramund, "infirm of purpose," like Macbeth, is swayed and mastered
by the superior force of his wife's indomitable will and insatiable
ambition. Fate follows his footsteps as relentlessly as it does
those of the Thane of Cawdor, and when he falls a victim to vaulting
ambition, which overleaps itself, he falls a victim of Nemesis.
The last act places before us several salient features of the
original material. Elsa, not after years of married bliss, but on
the bridal night, asks the fatal question. Here Wagner shows a deep
appreciation of the poetic possibilities of the theme, undoubtedly
suggested to him by the resemblance of the situation to that of
Zeus and Semele in classic fable. Elsa never could have grasped the
essential nature of this sacred messenger, and so Wagner cuts the
knot by ending the marriage at its very outset, before the final
surrender of the heroine's womanhood. Lohengrin was never hers; she
was never his. Frederic's last attempt follows the utterance of the
question, and then before the assembled court, on the river bank
where first he appeared, Lohengrin tells the marvellous, thrilling
tale of Monsalvat, the Holy Grail and his origin, opening to us for a
few moments the cathedral vistas of Wagner's "Te Deum,"--"Parsifal."
Ortrud prematurely triumphs and announces that the swan is the
missing brother: she herself placed the chain about his neck.
Lohengrin calls upon God, and the spell is broken. The rightful heir
of Brabant is restored to his sister's arms, and the Swan-Knight
floats away in his shallop, this time drawn by a dove, the messenger
of heaven. The reader will have no difficulty now in recognising
the sources of these incidents, except, perhaps, in the death of
Telramund, which was suggested to Wagner, as was the idea of robbing
Lohengrin of his saintly power by wounding him, by passages in
"Der Jüngere Titurel." The narrative of Lohengrin is suggested by
Wolfram's "Parzival."
One more note must be made before we pass to a brief examination
of the music of Wagner's most popular work. There is a strange
resemblance between some of the fundamental features of the story of
"Lohengrin" and those of "Der Fliegende Holländer." Senta and Elsa
are both dream-haunted maidens. Both dream of lovers. About each of
the lovers there is something mystic or supernatural. Each of the
lovers is to come to the maiden from the water. In each case the
maiden is called upon to submit to a certain ordeal, and her failure
is to result in the return of the lover to the element from which
he came. And in one element of the story the fact is similar, but
the relations of the personages changed. In one a maiden is to save
the lover; in the other, the lover comes as a champion and saviour.
Is it not possible that the origin of the two legends is the same,
the story of Skeaf, the mysterious king of the Angles, who drifted
to their shores in a rudderless shallop when a babe, and grew to be
a good and great monarch? When he died, they laid his body in the
shallop and the little vessel floated away into the unknown, whence
it came.
II.--The Music
And now let us look at the music of this opera, music which
is usually listened to with complacent admiration for its
mellifluous melody, but too seldom considered in respect of its
dramatic significance. "Lohengrin" is musically far in advance of
"Tannhäuser." True, there is not in this opera any piece of writing
so puissant in its revelation of a human heart as the narrative of
the returned pilgrim, but the score in its entirety is more closely
knit, more coherent in style, more certain in its characterisations,
more dramatic in its development of emotional climaxes and its
explication of the scenes. In "Lohengrin" we find the grasp of his
material much firmer in Wagner's hands. The organism is higher; the
unity of word, action, and tone nearer to that for which the author
constantly sought.
"Tannhäuser" is a hybrid. Old forms jostle the new; thin melodic
strophes in conventional song-patterns lower the potency of some
scenes to the level of Italian opera. But in "Lohengrin" the song
form disappears forever from the Wagnerian scheme. The music is
the utterance of speech; the melody, the spontaneous embodiment
of feeling. There is no longer any recitative. There is only
musical dialogue. And the leitmotiv, temporarily laid aside in the
composition of "Tannhäuser," returns with wider and deeper and more
varied meaning. We are at the culmination of the transition period of
Wagner's genius, standing at the outer gates of "Tristan" and "Die
Meistersinger."
Wagner himself recognised the nature and the limits of the advance
made in this opera. He declares in the "Communication" that he
was here seeking to free himself from the tyranny of the final
cadence--that which tells the ear of the completion of a melodic
form--and to make the music the outgrowth of the speech. But he saw
in later years that he was still under the domination of melodic
fashion in "Lohengrin"; and it is precisely his subservience to this
fashion, with which the easy-going public from long use has become
familiar, that makes "Lohengrin" the favourite of opera-goers the
world over. We find the most potent evidences of the domination of
the closing cadence in Elsa's narrative, in the duet of Ortrud and
Telramund in the second act, and in the passages of the duet in the
chamber scene. On the other hand, there is a close approach in the
score of "Lohengrin" to the endless melody of the later dramas, and
we are not surprised by the recollection that the Nibelungen trilogy
was the next work to which Wagner turned.
The prelude to "Lohengrin" may be described as an instrumental
representation of the vision of the Holy Grail. The motive on
which it is built is that which throughout the opera typifies the
sacredness of Lohengrin and his identity as a messenger of the Grail.
[Music: THE GRAIL.]
This theme is heard at the beginning of the prelude in its first
form. It is heard again when Lohengrin prepares to bid farewell to
the swan which is to return to Monsalvat, the palace of the Grail,
thus announcing the identity of the knight as a messenger of the
Grail. It is not heard again till the third act, except for a passing
moment in Act II., where the Herald's delivery of Lohengrin's
message to the nobles is preceded by the Grail motive, the first
half intoned by the trumpets on the stage and the second half by the
orchestra. It then disappears till the final scene of the opera, when
it sounds forth as the warp and woof of that marvellously lovely
piece of writing, the narrative of Lohengrin's origin. Next to the
Grail motive stands that which is indicative of the knightly nature
of Lohengrin.
[Music: LOHENGRIN THE KNIGHT.]
This motive immediately follows the first appearance of the Grail
motive in the first act and becomes the instrumental background to
Elsa's "In lichter Waffen Scheine ein Ritter nahte da" ("I saw in
splendour shining a knight of glorious mien"). It is heard again when
Lohengrin appears in the distance coming down the Scheldt in answer
to Elsa's prayer, and at the end of the first act, when the triumph
is complete, it peals forth fortissimo. It announces Lohengrin's
entrance in Act II. and again in the final scene of the opera. At the
end of all Wagner shows us that the knightly character of Lohengrin
is intimately associated with his position as guardian of Brabant,
for the knighthood motive is transferred in all its splendour to the
rescued Gottfried, while, as Lohengrin disappears in the distance, it
is heard for the first time in the minor mode. Another motive, which
is a companion of Lohengrin's, is the swan motive.
[Music: THE SWAN.]
This is heard as the accompaniment to the closing words of
Lohengrin's farewell to the swan in Act I.; again in Act III., when
the half-hysterical Elsa fancies she sees the swan coming to take
Lohengrin away, and finally when the Knight is about to address
the swan preparatory to his departure in the last scene. A part of
the melody which accompanies the entrance of Elsa in the first act
is also evidently designed to act as a leading motive. This may be
called the motive of Elsa's faith.
[Music: ELSA'S FAITH.]
It is repeated immediately after the entrance of the maid, when the
King asks her if she will be judged by him, and the stage direction
bids her make a gesture expressive of her complete trust. In the
last scene, when Elsa enters dejected after having broken her vow,
the King asks her the cause of her sadness, and she tries to look him
in the face but cannot. Then we hear the broken faith motive:
[Music: ELSA'S FAITH BROKEN.]
Two themes are employed to signify the evil elements of the drama.
The first of these is the prohibition motive:
[Music: THE PROHIBITION.
Nie sollst du mich befragen.]
The ban of secrecy imposed by Lohengrin becomes a potent weapon
for evil in the hands of Ortrud. It is heard ominously in the
introductory measures of the second act, and with portentous meaning
when Ortrud begins to unfold her plan to Frederic. When Ortrud in
the scene with Elsa says, "May he never leave thee who was by magic
hither brought," the prohibition motive is given out adagio by the
wind; and at the end of act, as Ortrud expresses by face and gesture
her triumph over Elsa entering the cathedral, this motive is pealed
forth at full power by the trumpets and trombones. It recurs in most
mournful instrumental colour at the end of the chamber scene in
Act III., when Elsa has asked the fatal question. The other theme
significant of evil is the motive of Ortrud's influence:
[Music: ORTRUD.]
This is first heard in the introduction to Act II. It reappears when
Ortrud begins to reveal her ideas to Frederic, and accompanies each
of her suggestions for the overthrow of Lohengrin and destruction of
Elsa. It is heard again in the accompaniment to the short ensemble
which succeeds Lohengrin's appeal to Elsa in the finale of Act II.,
when to his dismay he sees that she is wavering. Again it sounds
when Frederic whispers to Elsa in the same scene, and when the maid
declares her doubts in the chamber scene it is repeated to show that
she is acting under the influence of Ortrud. This is a very close
approach to the fully developed employment of the leitmotiv, for in
the later dramas we find these themes frequently used to connect
the passing action with the influences which have led to it or to
associate it with an absent personality.
A less important motive, but one whose treatment foreshadows Wagner's
later musical method, is that of the ordeal:
[Music: THE ORDEAL.]
This makes its appearance in Act I. after the nobles shout "Zum
Gottesgericht!" ("a judgment of God!"), and immediately before the
King addresses Telramund asking him if he will do battle. In the
major mode it is sounded by the trumpets on the stage as the summons
to Elsa's champion to appear, and its fundamental rhythm becomes that
of the music to which the six nobles pace off the measurement of the
ground. In the fight itself this motive is worked out orchestrally
as an accompaniment to the action. It belongs strictly to the music
of the scene, yet it is treated thematically and developed as far as
needed.
These are all the leading motives of "Lohengrin." The rest of the
music is freely composed, but the attentive hearer will note that
while ethereal string harmonies intone the Grail motive, Lohengrin's
knighthood is announced by the brass, and to the wood wind choir is
allotted Elsa's music. For the rest the lover of this opera must
seek his intellectual enjoyment in the general fidelity of the score
to the thought of the text, to the increasing freedom from the
shackles of formularies, and to the flexible, changeful, constantly
significant harmonic plan.
The enormous variety of the rhythmic effects is obtained without
frequent changes of time. The first act, for example, is all in
common time up to the beginning of the King's prayer, which is in
three-fourths measure. At the beginning of the combat the common
time returns and is continued till the end of the act. The entire
second act is in common time. In the third act two-fourths time is
used for the "Bridal Chorus" and then the composer returns to common
time and retains it to the end. These facts are alone sufficient to
show the wide gulf which separates the Wagner score from that of the
old-fashioned Italian opera, wherein the elementary dance rhythms
are all used with as much variety as possible. Wagner attains an
infinitely greater variety of styles and expression with only two
interruptions of his original time signature.
Yet the one thing which Wagner felt most keenly in the composition of
this opera was his subserviency to rhythm--not musical, but poetical.
He admits that he had not yet freed himself from old melodic ideas
and that the dominance of the cadence was still felt in his work, but
his real difficulty was the inflexibility of verse written in modern
metre, which makes such rigorous demands for imitation in the form of
the musical setting. He was in later works to find the solution of
that problem and enter the kingdom of perfect freedom from textual
rule. The music of "Lohengrin," then, must be regarded as standing
midway between the style of "Der Fliegende Holländer" and that of
"Die Meistersinger." Its extraordinary popularity is due to the
external and sensuous charms of its melody, which make their appeal
to the aural palate of those incapable of comprehending a dramatic
scheme such as Wagner's. This outward attractiveness of the music
Wagner himself would have been the first to blame, and he always felt
that his own beautiful conception of the character of Lohengrin was
not revealed to the public.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Action in Three Acts.
First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, Munich, June 10, 1865.
_Original Cast._
Tristan Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld.
Kurvenal Mitterwurzer.
Melot Heinrich.
Marke Zottmayer.
Isolde Mme. Schnorr von Carolsfeld.
Brangäne Mlle. Deinet.
Weimar, 1874; Berlin, 1876; Königsberg, Leipsic, 1881; Hamburg, 1882;
London, June 20, 1882.
First performed in America at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York,
on December 1, 1886.
_Cast._
Tristan Albert Niemann.
Kurvenal Adolph Robinson.
Melot Rudolph von Milde.
Marke Emil Fischer.
Isolde Lilli Lehmann.
Brangäne Marianne Brandt.
Ein Hirt Otto Kemlitz.
Steuermann Emil Saenger.
Seemann Max Alvary.
Conductor, Anton Seidl.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
I.--Sources of the Story
From the dramatic and musical style of "Lohengrin" to that of
"Tristan und Isolde" is a far cry, and the reader must brace his
intellectual forces to assault a new world. It would be easier for
some reasons to take up the consideration of this work after that
of the "Meistersinger" and "Der Ring," but such a proceeding would
lead to a confusion of historical facts in the mind of the reader,
and therefore we shall take it up in the order of its production. We
must bear in mind that before writing the score of this work Wagner
wrote those of "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre," and that therefore
he had entered into his fully developed style. Further than that we
shall see that he went beyond his own conceptions of his theories,
and that in this work he gave us the fullest, freest, and most potent
demonstration of the vitality and justice of his methods and his
style.
In an undated letter to Liszt, written in the latter part of 1854,
Wagner says: "I have in my head 'Tristan und Isolde,' the simplest
but most full-blooded musical conception: with the 'black flag' which
floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die." But in the
meantime, as we have seen, he was working on the first parts of the
"Ring" series. When he had about half written "Siegfried" there came
upon him a period of depression. He felt that he was writing works
which he would not live to see produced. He hungered for a closer,
an active connection with the stage, and he needed money, and so he
regretfully laid aside the "Ring" scores and set to work on the poem
of "Tristan und Isolde." This was written at Zurich in 1857. The
music was begun in the same year, and the score of the first act was
finished at Zurich on December 31st. The second act was finished at
Venice in March, 1859, and the third at Lucerne in August of the same
year.
Many persons labour under the delusion that "Tristan und Isolde" is a
new fancy of Wagner's; they do not know that the tale is one of the
famous old legends of the Arthurian cycle and that it ranks as one of
the great epics of mediæval Europe. First of all, however, this story
belonged to the great English cycle of legends, which have supplied
material to so many poets down to Tennyson and Swinburne. The latter
wrote a version of this very tale under the title of "Tristram of
Lyonnesse," which is only a modern adaptation of the earliest known
title, "Tristam de Leonois," a poem dating from 1190.
The story is of Celtic origin, yet we find that it first took
definite poetic shape in France. The Arthurian cycle consists of the
"Romance of the Holy Grail," "Merlin," "Launcelot," "The Quest of
the Saint Graal," and "The Mort Artus." From the last was drawn the
beautiful "Morte d'Arthur" of Sir Thomas Mallory, a story of which
about one-third is devoted to the life and adventures of Tristram,
not properly told in this version. How was it that the French
romantic poets were engaged in celebrating the doings of English
heroes? In the heart of the Midi the forerunners of the Troubadours
sang the deeds of Arthur and Launcelot and Merlin, just as Tennyson
did in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As far as we can
ascertain at this time, the exploits of Arthur, which had been
narrated in scattered song and story for many a long year through all
the vales of England, were compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth. He died
in 1154, the year in which Henry II. ascended the throne of England.
Henry was of the house of Anjou, and united the crowns of England and
Normandy under his sceptre. At about the same period, according to
Professor Morley, Walter Map, an Archdeacon of Oxford (1154-89), is
believed to have introduced the Holy Grail into the romances which
existed before his time.
The conditions were now precisely right for the introduction of the
Arthurian legends and the Grail into the romantic literature of
France. The Norman Court took great delight in the English tales.
The French poets were only too glad to find new material which was
sure of favour in high places. And their own blood was not averse
to the nature of the poetry. The French of the Middle Ages were a
wonderfully cosmopolitan people. Near Tours, far to the north of the
sunny land of the Troubadour, Charles Martel crushed and scattered
the army of the Prophet, and for centuries after that the Saracen
trod the valleys of the Midi. Long before that the Greeks had sent
settlers into the region, and the old nature-loving Hellenic spirit
found its expression and its means of preservation in the folk songs
and dances of the people. But the inhabitants of the Midi were,
nevertheless, Celts. Matthew Arnold says: "Gaul was Latinised in
language, manners, and laws, and yet her people remained essentially
Celtic." And so we need not be astonished at finding the Celtic
Arthurian legends taking root in the literature of mediæval France.
Robert de Borron, a Trouvère, born near Meaux, wrote about 1170 or
1180 the Provençal version of the Grail legend. Chrétien de Troyes,
another of the French romanticists, wrote a version of the Grail
legend about the same time as Borron.
Of the oldest French versions of the Tristram tale, two are known.
M. Gaston Paris and Dr. Golther have put forth in their books on
the Tristram legend studies of what is called the minstrel version
of the story. The first was made by Beroul in England out of the
scattered traditions relating to Tristan. It dates from 1150 and
only a fragment of it remains. There was also a very early German
version by Eilhart von Oberge, and from this indirectly originated
the unsatisfactory version given by Mallory. The other old French one
was that of Thomas of Brittany, an Anglo-Norman. This poem was the
previously mentioned "Tristam de Leonois," and from it, about 1210,
Gottfried of Strassburg, a German, drew the great mediæval Teutonic
form of the tale, the direct source of Wagner's work.
The story as told by Gottfried is briefly as follows: Morold, an
Irish warrior, brother of Ireland's Queen, holds Cornwall in fear,
and demands a tribute to his King and master. Tristan, nephew of
King Mark of Cornwall, challenges him to mortal combat. Morold
wounds Tristan, and declares that, as his sword was poisoned, only
his sister, Queen Isolt of Ireland, can heal the wound. Tristan
smites Morold's head off, but a piece of the sword remains in
the skull. Tristan's wound will not heal, so in company with his
servitor Kurvenal and several other attendants he sails for Ireland
to seek aid of Queen Isolt. Morold's body and head are taken back
to Ireland. Tristan appears before the Queen disguised as a harper,
calling himself Tantris. The Queen, pleased with his music, agrees
to heal him if he will teach music to her daughter, also named
Isolt. He consents, is healed, and returns to Cornwall. There he
sings the praises of the Queen's daughter, the younger Isolt, and
offers to return to Ireland and ask for her hand for his uncle, King
Mark. He goes, and, on his arrival, finding the land devastated by
a dragon, slays the monster and cuts out its tongue. Being overcome
by the creature's foul breath, he sinks unconscious, and the Queen's
steward, who has heard the sound of the conflict, comes and cuts off
the dragon's head to show as evidence that he slew the beast. The
steward claims the hand of the Princess, which has been promised
to the slayer of the dragon, but the Queen Mother by her magic
discovers that another did the deed, and going forth at dawn finds
the unconscious Tristan.
It is now decided that the question between Tristan and the steward
shall be settled by combat, and the Princess orders Tristan's armour
to be made ready. In looking at the sword she discovers the nick in
the blade, and finds that the splinter from Morold's head, which has
been preserved, fits it. It also dawns upon her that "Tantris" is
"Tristan" reversed. She would slay Tristan, but the Queen desires to
know what matter of great import brought him again to Ireland. He
makes known his mission, and as the Queen professes herself ready to
forgive Tristan for killing Morold, her brother, the compact is made.
Princess Isolt goes with Tristan. As they depart for Cornwall, the
Queen confides to Brangäne, the Princess's kinswoman and companion,
a love potion, to be given to King Mark and the Princess on the
marriage night that they may ever afterward love each other. The
Princess is loath to leave her own people, and she hates Tristan for
having slain her Uncle Morold.
On the way to Cornwall a serving-maid, who is asked for a drink for
Tristan and Isolt, ignorantly gives them the love potion, and they
love one another. The poem narrates many incidents in the course of
deceit pursued by the lovers, but they need not be recapitulated
here. The King's steward, Majordo, aided by the dwarf, Melot, watches
the lovers and informs the King of their infidelity. But with the
help of Brangäne's cunning, they several times avoid detection. The
King even banishes them from Court, but, finding them asleep in a
forest retreat with a naked sword between them, takes them back,
though he orders them to remain apart. Finally he surprises them in
the garden, and then Tristan is forced to flee from Cornwall. He
finds a refuge in Arundel, the land of Duke Jovelin, whose daughter,
Isolt of the White Hand, falls in love with him. As he is always
singing of his lost Isolt, she thinks that he loves her. He, hearing
nothing from the old Isolt, deems himself forgotten, and concludes
that it would be as well to marry Isolt of the White Hand.
Gottfried's poem ends here. In the other versions, however, the
tale is completed. Tristan does marry the second Isolt. He receives
a poisoned wound while aiding a friend to meet clandestinely
another man's wife. Knowing that none save his first Isolt can heal
the wound, he sends Kurvenal to bring her, telling him that if he
succeeds in getting her he must hoist a white sail when entering port
on his return, but if he fails he is to hoist a black one. Isolt
of the White Hand hears this, and when the ship is sighted bearing
a white sail, she tells her husband that it is black, whereupon he
turns his face to the wall and dies. Tristan's Isolt arrives to
find him dead. She lays herself on the bier beside him and expires.
King Mark, having learned the story of the love potion, has the two
buried in the same chapel, on opposite sides. A rose tree grows from
Tristan's tomb and a vine from Isolt's, and the branches reach across
the chapel and intertwine.
II.--Wagner's Dramatic Poem
The falsehood of the second Isolt has greatly annoyed some of the
modern writers. Bayard Taylor simply declined to believe that such
a thing happened. Matthew Arnold made the second Isolt faithful to
her love. She nursed her dying husband tenderly even while waiting
for the first Isolt to arrive. But Wagner wisely ignored this part
of the legend. We hear nothing of any second Isolt. As is invariably
the case, his treatment of the story draws together all the beauties
of the original material and moulds them into a compact, consistent
whole, instinct with dramatic force and poetic beauty. In attempting
to set forth the Wagnerian arrangement of the materials, I find it
difficult to proceed coolly and systematically. There is a witchery
in this marvellous drama of fatal love that masters my mind. If the
reader finds me wanting in the calm of judicial equipoise, let him
forgive me, for I am dealing with that which lies next to my heart.
As Louis Ehlert says:
"When in the second act Isolde is awaiting her lover, when
the orchestra throbs with a thousand pulses and every
nerve becomes a sounding tone, I am no longer the man I am
through the rest of the year, nor am I artistically and
morally a responsible being: I am a Wagnerian."
For the perfect understanding of the story the first act of the drama
is the most important. It is also that which the fewest persons
closely study. Edward Schuré, in "Le Drame Musicale," says:
"The fundamental idea of the legend is that of the
love-philtre, fatal, irresistible, overpowering and
uniting two human beings; of love vanquishing everything,
honour, family, society, life and death, but which is
itself ennobled by its very grandeur and fidelity. For
it bears within itself its own punishment as well as its
justification, its religion and its world, its hell and its
heaven, supreme sorrow and supreme consolation."
While this may be a correct view of the old legend, it is not true of
Wagner's drama. In the latter the philtre performs the office of Fate
in the ancient Greek tragedy. In the plays of Sophocles and Æschylus
mortals fulfil their manifest destinies, but Fate is the secret
agency which hurries them forward to their ends. So, in this drama of
Wagner's, Tristan and Isolde are the victims of a fatal love before
the action begins, and the philtre is only the instrument through
which all restraints are removed and the unhappy pair hurled into the
vortex of their own passion, helpless victims of cruel Destiny.
Upon the deck of the ship bound for Cornwall Isolde lies silent on
her couch. From aloft floats down the song of a sailor, crooning of
his absent Irish love. Isolde, starting up, demands to know where she
is. Before night, Brangäne tells her, the ship will reach Cornwall.
"Nevermore! To-night nor to-morrow," exclaims Isolde, a dread purpose
in her mind. And then she bursts into rage, she who has hitherto been
silent and even has refused food. Brangäne begs her to free her mind.
"Air!" cries Isolde. The curtain is thrown back, showing the stern of
the ship and Tristan at the helm. Isolde gazes at him and murmurs:
"To me given;
From me riven;
Leal and trusted,
True and trait--
Death-devoted head!
Death-devoted heart!"
In these lines we hear a revelation of Isolde's heart. Tristan was
hers; he is not. Both must die. She sends Brangäne to summon him to
her presence. He offers excuses. Why? Later he tells Isolde, when she
asks him why he has avoided her during the voyage, that it was not
meet that he who escorted a bride across seas should go near her. She
derides the excuse, knowing its shallowness. The man was afraid of
himself. He had once wooed this woman and now in her presence he felt
the old fascination. He dared not trust his heart.
Brangäne's persistence arouses the squire Kurvenal, who rebuffs her
by singing a popular song about Tristan's victory over Morold. Then
Isolde in her rage tells the whole story to Brangäne. She tells how
the wounded Tristan, calling himself "Tantris," came to Ireland that
she might nurse him when he was suffering from a poisoned wound.
She tells how she found the nick in his sword and fitted to it the
splinter, taken from the head of Morold, not her uncle, as in the
old poem, but her lover--making her wrong a much deeper one. She
tells how she stood ready to slay him with that sword, but he fixed
his melancholy gaze upon her. "Not on the sword, not on my arm; full
to my eyes went his look. His misery pleaded straight to my heart."
This look was her undoing, and Wagner made its musical symbol one
of the salient themes of his score. Tristan swore truth and thanks
eternal, yet no sooner had he returned to Cornwall than he suggested
the expedition to Ireland to get Isolde as a bride for King Mark, his
uncle. It is this for which Isolde craves vengeance. Tristan, having
lightly won her love, would present her as a gift to another. She
curses him in her rage, and cries, "Vengeance! Death! Death to the
two!" Brangäne vainly strives to soothe her. Staring vacantly into
space she murmurs: "Unloved by the noblest of men, must I stand near
and see him? How can I endure the anguish?" That is the future she
dare not, will not face.
What a vast difference already between the original legend and this
wonderful dramatisation of it by Richard Wagner! Brangäne says it is
foolish for Isolde to fancy that she can remain unloved. Does she
forget her mother's magic art, which has provided her with potions of
strange power? No, Isolde has not forgotten. She asks for the casket,
and when Brangäne shows her the love potion she brushes it aside and
declares that the drink of death is for her. Reader, keep this death
thought always in mind. It is the basic underthought of the entire
drama. In the first act it appears first in the mind of Isolde. She
will renounce life, for there is nothing in it for her but misery. In
the second act both she and Tristan feed upon the dream of death; and
in the third act death unites them.
At last Tristan and Isolde are face to face. She demands revenge for
Morold. Tristan offers his sword and bids her slay him. She refuses
on the ground that she cannot go before Mark as the slayer of his
favourite knight. She invites Tristan to drink atonement with her.
He understands, and is ready with her to seek oblivion. Brangäne,
bidden to bring the drink of death, hastily substitutes for it the
love potion. She will do anything rather than slay her mistress; she
condemns her to live and suffer. The words of Tristan as he stands
with the cup in hand ready to drink show that he comprehends the
situation. He has discovered that Isolde loves him; he knows that he
loves her. He prefers death to a life of renunciation or dishonour.
He drinks. She seizes the cup and shares the draught. It was not the
drink of death. It was for them the drink of hell. Hurled now by the
unrestrained passion within them into one another's arms, the man
wonders what dream of honour it was that troubled him but a moment
ago, and the woman marvels that she trembled at the thought of shame.
_Tristan._--"Was träumte mir,
von Tristan's Ehre?"
_Isolde._--"Was träumte mir
von Isolde's Schmach?"
"What dreamed I of Tristan's honour?" "What dreamed I of Isolde's
shame?" I have purposely dwelt at length on the incidents and
dialogue of this wonderful first act, because they furnish the key to
the entire drama, and because so many persons, even professed lovers
of Wagner, misconstrue the meaning of the action. The ill-fated pair
are lovers before the drama begins, but both are labouring under a
misunderstanding. She thinks that he does not love her because he
has come to carry her home as a bride for his uncle. He thinks that
she is athirst for vengeance for the death of Morold. She desires to
die rather than face her future. He is ready to die when he divines
the true cause of her rage. Better oblivion than a life of misery.
Brangäne's unwillingness to be a party to the suicide of her mistress
is the motive for the administration of the potion, which simply
bursts the bonds of restraint and shows the two hearts to one another
free of all disguise.
The rest is simple. In the second act Isolde awaits her lover in the
garden. Brangäne warns her of Melot, but she refuses to accept the
warning. Is not Melot Tristan's friend? Put out the torch! That is
the signal. The burning woman cannot put out the flame of her own
passion, but she can and does turn down the torch. What a portentous
signal! The turning down of the spear and the torch from time
immemorial have meant that death was present. And so Wagner turns
down this torch with the awful music of the death motive. Tristan
rushes to her arms. They sing to one another in ecstatic accents and
in "wrought riddles of the night and day." The torch was the day; it
kept them asunder. Its extinction brought night, the only time when
they may be together. And so in ever-ascending polyphonic utterances
of metaphor, they arrive at last at a naked truth. For them the day
is all separation and lies. Only night eternal, the night of death,
can make them free. Isolde sings:
"Dem Licht des Tages
wollt' ich entfliehn,
dorthin in die Nacht
dich mit mir ziehn,
wo der Täuschung ende
mein Herz mir verhiess,
wo des Trug's geahnter
Wahn zerinne:
dort dir zu trinken
ew'ge Minne,
mit mir--dich im Verein
wollt' ich dem Tode weih'n."
Mr. John P. Jackson makes this read in English thus:
"Day would I flee,
Away to the Night
Take me with thee
To end the deception
For me and for thee!
Where end should all lies
That our hearts could sever,
Where together we'd drink
Of rapture forever--
And in love united there
Death all-everlasting share!"
Tristan responds that he drank eagerly what he thought was the
draught of death. Isolde complains that the draught was deceitful,
for instead of sweeping them both into night, it left them in the
cold glare of day, where was only separation for them. Tristan
answers that with honour and fame both destroyed in the glare of day,
their hearts can have but one vast yearning, the yearning for night.
Then he leads her to the embowered seat, and there they sing together
that marvellous duet beginning:
"O sink' hernieder
Nacht der Liebe,
gieb Vergessen
dass ich lebe."
"O sink around us, night of love; grant forgetfulness that I live."
From the tower floats down the warning of Brangäne. The lovers heed
it not. Wrapped in each other's arms, they prate of odious day and
love-giving night, the night of eternity. Then comes the awakening.
Mark, led by Melot, surprises them. Tristan murmurs: "Der öde Tag
zum letzten Mal" ("The hated day for the last time"). A moment
later he raves at Mark and his courtiers as "Daylight's phantoms,
morning's dreams." When the King has finished his long and pathetic
address, Tristan turns to Isolde and asks her whether she is willing
to follow him to the land where the sun never shines, the wondrous
abode of night. Well she knows his meaning, and as he hesitated not
on the ship, so she hesitates not now. Melot's sword is ready, and
Tristan hurls himself upon it. The wound becomes a consecration,
a deed of expiation and release. It takes the solemnity of the
loftiest tragedy, leaving, a comet-flight below its elevation, the
melodramatic wound of the legend whence Wagner drew his materials.
This is the wound that will not heal without the aid of Isolde's
art. There is no jarring note in the Wagnerian version, no libertine
Tristan aiding another in a rude liaison, no Isolde of the White
Hand. There is only the one master passion. There is only one
tragedy. In the third act we find the wounded, wasting, visionary
man lying under a linden tree in the courtyard of his own castle at
Kareol in Brittany, whither the faithful Kurvenal has borne him. A
shepherd draws a melancholy wail from his pipe, and, in answer to
Kurvenal's anxious question sighs, "Lone and bare is the sea." For
these two are watching for the ship which shall bear the healer,
Isolde, to the side of the stricken man. Kurvenal whispers words
of encouragement to his lord, but Tristan shakes his head. He has
awakened once more to the glare of sunlit noon, and once more the old
fantasies of day and night rush through his brain.
When will the blazing of the torch cease to keep him sundered from
Isolde? When shall it be night for these two? Kurvenal reveals that
he has sent a ship to bring Isolde. The thought is new strength to
Tristan. He bursts into a delirium of joy. He sees the ship, the
flag waving at the mast. "Kurvenal, siehst du es nicht?" ("Kurvenal,
seest thou it not?") Kurvenal sees no sail upon the sea. Again the
weary man sinks back upon his rude couch. He relives the story of his
love. He raves again as he curses the magic draught, which was not
the drink of death. He faints, and for the moment Kurvenal thinks
him dead. But no, he revives. He asks again if the ship is in
sight. Kurvenal says to-day it must surely come. "And on it Isolde!"
cries Tristan. Once more the waning spirit mounts a mighty billow of
emotion. "Isolde, how holy and fair art thou! Kurvenal, man, art thou
blind? Dost thou not see what I see? The ship! The ship! Isolde's
ship! Seest thou it not?"
A new tune peals from the shepherd's pipe. The ship is sighted! The
flag of good tidings streams from the mast, the flag which means that
Isolde is on board. Fly thou, Kurvenal, to the strand to help her.
To-day shall the lovers be united. Frenzy for the last time seizes
Tristan. Once, wounded and bleeding, well-nigh slain by Morold,
Isolde found him and nursed him back to life. Again shall she find
him so. Off, then, foolish bandages. Let the red blood flow merrily.
Isolde comes! He hears her calling. What is this? "Do I hear the
light? The torch! The signal! It is extinguished! To her! To her!"
And so the hero sinks dying in her arms, and for him at last the
longed-for night of total oblivion has come. Isolde prostrates
herself upon his body. A second ship is sighted, bearing Mark.
Kurvenal, misunderstanding the purpose of the King, resists the
entrance of his guard and is slain, after himself giving a fatal
wound to the false Melot. Mark has learned the secret of the potion.
He recognises the truth that the unhappy pair have been the victims
of Fate, and he has come to unite them. Alas, too late! The mightiest
of monarchs, Death, has come before him. Isolde, her soul spreading
its wings for flight, sings out her apostrophe to her dead hero, a
marvellous pæan of praise, the echo of the duet of love, and sinks
lifeless on his insensate form. Night and eternal oblivion have come
for both. The tragedy is over.
That is the marvellous poem which Wagner made of the old story of
Godfrey, a poem in itself worthy, despite its rugged diction, to
stand beside the best dramatic literature of Germany, and never once
to be thought of as an opera libretto. I have briefly noted some of
the points at which Wagner has separated himself from the sources of
his story. The manner in which he has in all his poems utilised the
original suggestions stamps him as a dramatist of the highest rank,
a poet of lofty gifts. In none is this more beautifully demonstrated
than in "Tristan und Isolde." It is true that in some of the later
versions of the old poem, when possibly the early faith in love
philtres was fading, the idea exists that Tristan and Isolde loved
one another from their first meeting; but, as Miss Weston properly
notes, "there is little doubt that the Minstrel held the fatal
passion of the two lovers to be due to the Minnetranc alone." The
frequent appearance of magic drinks in old legends is familiar to all
students of folk-tales and sagas. Wagner himself gives us another
instance of it in the drinks administered to Siegfried by Hagen, an
idea which he obtained from the old tales. In his "Studies in the
Wagnerian Drama" (which I have been forced to parallel in rehearsing
some parts of the story of "Tristan und Isolde") H.E. Krehbiel calls
attention to the fact that the existence of the love before the
incident of the potion provides that element of guilt which all the
ancient dramatists required in order that too much sympathy might not
be excited by the sufferings of the hero or heroine. On the whole,
then, Wagner's treatment of this much-discussed drink is perfectly
clear. There is no excuse for misunderstanding it. And it raises the
tragic element of the drama far beyond the level of the early poems.
Another element of the classic tragedy preserved in this work is that
of the inevitable doom of the unhappy pair. They are victims of Fate
from the outset, and Wagner has kept the prophecy of death constantly
before our minds by making it appear to the lovers themselves as
the only avenue of escape from their misfortunes. Furthermore, this
forethought of death develops in the second act into a conviction
and a passionate desire. The exclamations "Let me die" ("Lass' mich
sterben") of the lovers are not mere bursts of sensual rhapsodising,
but are expressions of their souls' yearning for the plunge into
oblivion at the moment of perfect ecstasy. For both dread the turning
of the light of day upon them; both foresee a future of separation
and misery.