'RIENZI' AND 'THE FLYING DUTCHMAN'
I
Were _Rienzi_ an opera of the highest artistic importance, I suppose I
should have read ere now Bulwer Lytton's novel of that name. As it is,
I must confess my utter inability to wade through that pretentious and
dreary achievement. And it does not matter. Skimming over the novel, I
have gathered enough of the plot to see that Wagner took only the plot
and nothing else from Lytton. What else he could have taken I cannot
guess, unless it was a copious stream of high-falutin', and at this
period Wagner's own resources of the sort were ample. What he wanted
was a plot that would afford him an opportunity of planning a
spectacular opera on the largest possible scale, and this he found in
Lytton.
Two claims, or rather, a claim and a counter-claim, have been, and
constantly are, made with regard to _Rienzi_. The first is that it was
inspired by Meyerbeer and a copy of one of his works--which one I do
not know; the counter-claim is that Meyerbeer had no part in the
business, and that on the contrary he learnt more from Wagner than
Wagner could possibly have learnt from him. Now the notion, I take it,
of composing a grand work for the Paris stage was suggested by
Meyerbeer's stupendous success--of that, indeed, I cannot admit there
is the faintest shadow of a doubt. Starting from Paris, where they
were concocted together with Scribe, Meyerbeer's operas went the round
of the opera-houses of Europe, and save in one or two quarters
Meyerbeer lorded it over the opera-houses of Europe. It may be true
enough that some of his mighty works had not been played at Riga--it
may even be true that Wagner had not seen the scores. But that I feel
less sure about; and, anyhow, if he had not seen them he was bound to
have heard of them. The talk of musical Europe was not likely to be
unknown to a man who both read and wrote in the musical papers. As
soon as Wagner conceived the idea he wrote to Scribe concerning it;
and, as we know, Scribe quite naturally left his communication
unanswered. We find, then, that this, not more than this, though
certainly not less, is the extent of Wagner's indebtedness to
Meyerbeer: that Meyerbeer, by writing clap-trap for a large stage,
with showy, tawdry effects, had gained enormous popularity and
corresponding wealth, and thus unconsciously had thrown out a hint
that budded and blossomed into _Rienzi_. How little beyond this bare
hint Wagner got from Meyerbeer we shall see when we examine the music.
A word must be said about the counter-claim. In his age Wagner at
Bayreuth, although he had fine musicians as his friends, had round him
many gentry who told him--greatly daring, to his face--not only that
he owed no artistic debt to any one, but that, on the whole, most
other composers owed him a good deal. One can excuse the weary old
man, sorely battered in life's battles, lapping up a little of this
sweet flattery; but it is hard to forgive the stupidity that still
makes the great composer appear ridiculous thirty years after his
death. This legend of Meyerbeer borrowing or thieving from Wagner is
sheer rubbish; in all Wagner's music there is not a bar which could
have been of use to Meyerbeer. The most rowdy tunes in _Rienzi_ he
could easily equal: anything ever so remotely approaching the
beautiful he did not want. What! was he to run the chance of failure
by writing, or copying, one really expressive measure?
It needed the cruel disillusionment of the Paris days, it needed also
the time needful for Wagner's normal growth, before he was driven to
see that the music-drama, or something that ultimately evolved itself
into the music-drama, was the form that he needed for his deepest
utterances. _Rienzi_ is old-fashioned opera, barefaced, blatant and
unashamed. Wagner wanted effective airs, duets, trios, choruses and
marches; and no libretto-monger ever went to work in a more
deliberate, matter-of-fact and business-like way to provide
opportunities for these. Both in _Die Feen_ and in _Das Liebesverbot_
his purpose had been more definitely, more disinterestedly, artistic.
Now he set to work to manufacture for the Paris market. The subject
was eminently suitable. The personage Rienzi was intended for a great,
heroic figure and the music written for a brilliant tenor. The
indispensable love-element was provided by Irene, a soprano (though
it can well be sung by a mezzo), and Adriano, son of a patrician, a
mezzo-soprano (almost a contralto part)--which would be amazing did we
not know Wagner's aim. A woman-man carries us back to the days of
Handel and Gluck, and shows how little sincere Wagner was at the time,
how absorbingly bent he was on tickling the ears of the Parisians. The
villains of the piece, Colonna and Orsini, with their patrician
followers, are true stage-villains of melodrama in some
situations--proud, determined, unsparing; but in other situations they
whine in a very un-patrician-like way for mercy. In truth, Wagner was
determined to give all the singers a chance of showing off their
voices and their skill in every kind of music--heroic or noisy,
pathetic or whining, brave and obstreperous or feebly tender. A few
minutes' consideration of the story as Wagner lays it before us, and
the music he sets to it, will show that every character in the opera
is an unhuman chameleon. It is not worth while spending the reader's
time on an exhaustive analysis. We shall have enough to do of that
kind of thing when we come to the beginning of Wagner's riper work,
the _Dutchman_: time and space would only be wasted if we examined
_Rienzi_ very closely.
The curtain rises on a street in Rome; it is night, and in the
foreground Rienzi's house can be discerned. Orsini and his companions
run up a ladder to a window, enter, and come out carrying Irene,
Rienzi's sister. She screams for help quite in the Donna Anna manner;
Colonna and his companions come in and fall to blows--why, is not too
clear--with Orsini and his men. Adriano, Colonna's son, rescues Irene.
Crowds of the common people rush in, wildly asking one another what
the row is about; Raimondo, the pope's legate, comes on, and in the
name of holy mother church begs for peace; Rienzi, waked by this time,
sees what has occurred, and in a speech--uttered mainly in the driest
of dry recitative--taunts the patricians with their bad conduct and
their reckless readiness to break all the vows they have made. The
nobles announce their intention of going elsewhere to fight out their
quarrel to the bitter end, and they go. Rienzi beseeches the crowd to
wait their time, and he will lead them to destroy their oppressors.
They quietly disperse; Rienzi, Adriano and Irene have a scene; Rienzi
recognises in his sister's rescuer the son of his brother's murderer,
Adriano, and the latter, who has fallen in love with Irene, promises
to take Rienzi's part, and the three sing a trio as cold, undramatic
and commonplace as anything in Donizetti. There are two passages in it
which possess life: a variant of a theme from _Euryanthe_, and a theme
distinctly suggestive of the Wagner of _Tristan_. Then Rienzi goes
off, ostensibly to prepare for battle, but in reality to leave the
scene clear for Adriano and Irene to sing a rather maudlin love-duet.
A trumpet-call is heard; people rush in from all sides; Rienzi
addresses them; and after choruses, partly double-choruses, all go off
to fight the patricians. There is plenty of bustle; there is
tremendous vigour; and the scene affords chances for the stage manager
to manipulate big crowds effectively. But we must remember that the
thing had been quite as well done by Auber in _Masaniello_: even the
energy is not the true Wagnerian energy divine: it does not show
itself through the stuff of the music, but in the common rumty-tumpty
rhythms of the day, often offensively vulgar, and in the noisy
instrumentation. Any one can write for a big chorus and orchestra,
with plenty of trumpets and drums: to fill the music itself with
energy is a task that Wagner could not cope with as yet.
So far the characters have been consistent. In the second act they all
show signs of weakness. Messengers of peace enter: Rienzi has
conquered and freed the people from an unbearable yoke; he is
congratulated by the messengers who have wandered through the
country--a pilgrimage that in the fourteenth century might well have
occupied them for years--and everywhere peace prevails. The music here
has a certain charm and freshness, but no more can be said for it.
Wagner wanted a contrast to the imposing displays of the first act, so
he simply put in this unnecessary scene. The patricians enter and
whine, begging for mercy; Rienzi, now Tribune, joins the senators; and
Colonna, Orsini and the rest begin to plot his death. Adriano, amongst
them unnoticed at first, expostulates--begs them not to stain their
hands and souls with the blood of the vanquisher who has treated them
so magnanimously. They scorn him as a deserter of his own class; they
leave, and he swears to save "Irenens Bruder." He has become
sentimentalist; but some of the music of the scene has strength. Then
the people conveniently flock in; ambassadors come from all corners of
the earth to acknowledge Rienzi; Adriano warns him that mischief is
breeding, and Rienzi calmly smiles; there is a most elaborate ballet,
occupying many pages of the score and full of trumpery tunes; Orsini
stabs Rienzi, and all the patricians are seized by the guards; Rienzi
shows himself unhurt, being protected by a breastplate; the
conspirators are condemned to die and are led away. Then Adriano and
Irene plead for Colonna; at first Rienzi is obdurate; then he, too,
turns weakling and promises pardon. He pleads for his enemies with the
people; in spite of two citizens who see nothing but danger, he
prevails, and the act ends with another huge chorus. There is much
very Italian stuff in the music; but on the whole this scene is the
strongest in the opera. Of the real Wagner there is still small sign.
He had completed these two acts when he set out for Paris. Once he
realized how poor were the prospects of getting his work played there,
his ardour for bigness and noise seems to have cooled. There are no
more double choruses; everything is planned on a smaller scale. The
three remaining acts in their present form (for he afterwards
shortened the opera) can be, and often are, compressed into two, or
even one. They can be described in a few words. The people begin to
distrust Rienzi; the patricians recommence plotting; Rienzi leads the
people to victory against them, and Colonna, with the others, is
killed. Adriano again wobbles and swears vengeance; the capitol is set
on fire with Rienzi and Irene inside; at the last moment Adriano
repents and rushes in to die with them; the building falls with a
crash, destroying the three; and as the curtain falls the
patricians--such as are left--seeing the people leaderless, fall upon
and scatter them. There are pages on pages that one can scarcely
believe came from Wagner's pen; in terrific theatrical situations the
most trivial Italian tunes are poured out in copious profusion. The
war hymn is sheer rowdyism; the great broad melody which forms part of
the prayer, and on which the introduction of the overture is based,
stands out from a weltering sea of orchestral bangs, noises and
screams and skirls of the strings. But there are numberless chances
for fine voices to be heard; and at that time of day these were even
more prized than they are to-day. The sparkle, the fireworks, the
sheer noise of the choruses, carried every one away. In Dresden Wagner
became the man of the hour. He had aimed at a success of this sort,
and he attained it, though by no means so quickly as he had expected,
nor in the quarter where a success would have been profitable.
It is not needful to say much more about the music. It shows a variety
of influences; it shows also that Wagner, before he was thirty, was,
as I have already said, a perfect master of the tricks of the trade.
In huge imposing effects he out-Meyerbeered Meyerbeer, out-Spontinied
Spontini. If his tunes have not the superficial gracefulness of
Bellini it is because Wagner, in spite of himself, was driven by his
dæmon to aim at expressiveness, and, as in the _Dutchman_ a very short
time afterwards, fell between two stools. His tunes lack the fluency
of the Italians because he did, in a half-hearted way, want to utter
genuine feeling; they are not finely, accurately and logically
expressive as they are in _Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_, because the
Italian influence, and the necessity of writing to please the gallery,
perpetually held him back. The contours of the melodies are dictated
from outside, consciously copied from alien models: in the later works
they are shaped by the inner force of his own mind, and though the
Weber idiom is prevalent, he used it unconsciously, as children in
learning to speak acquire the accent of the elders about them or the
dialect of the neighbourhood in which they are reared. I say the tunes
lack external grace, and I might go further: all the themes, all the
passages that follow (rather than grow out of) the themes, are
characterized by a certain clumsiness. This followed, as night the
day, from the attempt to copy and to be original at the same time. He
could not obey his instinct and write directly and simply: he must
needs warp and twist the obvious, and disguise, even from himself, its
essential commonplaceness. A remarkable instance is his use of the
Dresden Amen in _Rienzi_ as compared with his use of it in
_Tannhäuser_. In the latter it is plain, diatonic and immensely--in
the best sense--effective; in _Rienzi_, in spite of the vigour of its
presentation, the effect is weakened by the way in which it is bent
away to a chromatic something which is neither frankly Italian nor
honestly German. Again, he composed with an audience in his mind's eye
that could only take in one melody or theme at a time. The melody
might be in an upper part, a middle, or in the bass. In one or another
it always is, and the rest of the musical tissue is only
accompaniment. Hence a heaviness, a lumbering motion of the harmonies,
which is irritating to our ears now that we are accustomed to webs he
spun in later days when music no longer consisted to him of top parts
and bottom parts, but of a broad stream of parts, all of equal
importance, and all flowing along together, preserving each its
individuality, and each individual blending with the others to produce
the total effect. In _Rienzi_ the bass often remains the same for bars
together, while in an upper part a florid tune flourishes its tail, so
to speak, for the public amusement. An ugly trick he indulged in at
this time was giving to the voice the notes of the instrumental
bass--a remnant of the eighteenth-century way of writing for the bass
voice.
Artistically _Rienzi_ was a sin. Remembering that _Die Feen_ had been
written years before, it is useless to contend that Wagner did not
know he was aiming at something lower than the best he could produce.
He never again fell away from his highest and truest self, though he
was sorely tempted.
II
The simple, terrible old legend of the Flying Dutchman had in it no
elements of drama. The irascible mariner of ancient times, vainly
struggling to round Cape Horn (or some other cape) against a head
wind, swore in his wrath that he would succeed if he tried until the
Day of Judgment; a lightning flash in the sky proclaimed that he was
taken at his word; thenceforward his ship sailed the seas without
stopping; it never could reach any port, and release would only come
at the last day. The crew died and their ghosts worked the vessel; the
vessel rotted and the ghostly crew continued to work a phantom ship;
only Vanderdecken, the skipper, seems to have lived on in the flesh.
Other ships passed through the phantom as though it was a cloud; and
the living crews shuddered, and cursed the dead. Before this thing of
terror and mystery could form a part of any drama, adventures had to
be invented and grafted on to it. As with the legend of the Wandering
Jew, this was done in a hundred, perhaps a thousand, instances; and
never had a good piece of work been the result. Whether Heine did or
did not himself devise the form in which the legend is used in his
reminiscences of Herr von Schnabalewopski it is not worth troubling to
find out. It is enough that in Heine, Wagner found the story more or
less as he employed it. It is an odd compound--odd at this time of day
at least--of the hard old superstition with soft German sentimentality
of the Romantic period. A good Angel, thinking the Dutchman's fate
too hard, interceded for him; and though his sentence could not be
wholly remitted, a bargain was struck. Once in seven years
Vanderdecken could land and spend a certain time ashore. If during
this interval of peace he could find a maiden who would love him
faithfully to death, he would be released: his wanderings would be
o'er, and death would swallow him up. How the maiden's fidelity could
be tested does not appear.
Wagner would have it that with the _Dutchman_ he ceased to be a mere
stringer of opera verses and became the full poet. The work does not
support that view; nor is the construction of the plot one whit better
than a hundred others put together by hacks before he was born. Each
act is crammed with conventional tricks out of the hack's common
stock; in each scene, from the very first, characters come on or go
off, not because it is inherent in the action that they should do so,
but because without such helps the librettist, or "poet," could not
have got along. The curtain rises on a rocky Norwegian fiord where a
sailing-vessel has found shelter from a storm that is raging on the
open sea. Daland, the skipper, has gone ashore to survey the land and
to find out, if he can, whither his ship has been driven. He
recognizes the spot: it is Sandwike, and the tempest has blown him
"sieben Meilen" out of his course. However, he is glad enough to be
safe; and seeing signs of better weather goes into his cabin to wait,
leaving a watchman on guard. This is the first specimen of the old
stage-craft; Daland had to be got rid of, so, instead of attending to
any damage the waves may have caused the ship, he goes quietly
downstairs to take a snooze. The watchman tries to keep himself awake
by singing. But it is no use. The librettist is inexorable: the stage
is wanted for some one else; and the watchman's song merely acts as a
soporific, and at last the poor fellow snores. In the distance appears
the ship of the Flying Dutchman--"blutroth die Segel, schwarz der
Mast"--she nears rapidly, enters the fiord and casts anchor hard by
Daland's boat, and Vanderdecken comes ashore. It is the seventh year,
and he has the usual short respite in which to seek the maid who will
redeem him. He has a long soliloquy; then, in the nick of time, Daland
awakes, comes on deck, unjustly reproaches the watchman for dozing,
hails the Dutchman, and joins him on the rocks for a chat. They soon
grow friendly and strike a bargain. Daland is to take the stranger
home with him, and if his daughter Senta proves satisfactory,
Vanderdecken is to have her as his bride in return for infinite
treasure out of the hold of the strange vessel. Daland has been shown
a sample, and is overjoyed with his bargain: a distinguished-looking
husband for his daughter and the husband's wealth for himself. The
wind changes to a favourable one; Daland sets out first, leaving the
Dutchman to follow in a boat which we may well believe goes faster,
for it is driven by the devil and carries a private hurricane wherever
it goes. The convenient veering of the wind need not be taken as
forced on the stage manager by the librettist, for Daland foretells
it at the very beginning of the act.
I do not wish to treat so noble a work as the _Flying Dutchman_ with
any irreverence; but if it is worth understanding Wagner's art, and
the slow processes of its transition from the baldness and
ultra-conventionality of _Rienzi_ to the richness and simplicity and
directness of _Tristan_, we must realize clearly that in its present
stage the craftsmanship was little in advance of Scribe's. In some
respects he was very far in advance of Scribe. The whole thing springs
from and swings round a central idea, the idea of the lonely outcast
doomed to sail a stormy sea for ever without even the prospect of hell
as a refuge, always seeking one to redeem him and free him from his
torments, and at last finding her. But Wagner had not yet evolved or
invented the technique which would enable him to present his idea in
the theatre without resorting to those crude conventionalities which
seemed harmless and even reasonable enough at the time, though now
they compel us to smile. He could no more have constructed the
framework of the _Dutchman_ without shoving on and pulling off his
puppets as seemed desirable than he could have written the music
without using the set forms, airs, duets, etc., of a type of opera
which, in intention, he had already gone far beyond. The
conventionality shows itself in one rather surprising way. Throughout
the opera it is made plain that the whole world knows the Dutchman
story: mariners shiver when they think of meeting him; children are
scared when they are told of him. Yet when the very ship described in
the "old ballad," sung in the second act, sails into the fiord with
its blood-red sails and black masts, no one evinces the faintest
astonishment. Daland has the Dutchman's picture at home; he sees the
ship before his eyes; but in a matter-of-fact manner he asks him who
he is. Daland's sailors are called on deck to set sail, and pay no
attention to so weird a craft.
In the next act we have a room in Daland's house. A number of girls
are spinning; Senta alone is idle, absorbed in a portrait that hangs
on the wall--that of Vanderdecken. From earliest girlhood she has
heard his tale and brooded over it; and self-sacrifice being her
hobby, she has evidently worked herself up into a morbid state of mind
and resolved to "redeem" the unfortunate man should the opportunity
occur. This is honest work, not Scribe make-believe. Cases in which
men and women have wrought themselves into an exalted mood and planned
and achieved deeds, great or small, noble or ignoble, but always more
or less mad, are common enough in history to justify a dramatist in
taking a specimen as one of the persons of his drama. Besides, Senta,
from the moment she is seen, stands out as the principal figure. The
Dutchman is there to give character and atmosphere to the piece, but
dramatically he is nothing more than Senta's opportunity personified.
The girls spin on; a kind of forewoman, Mary, upbraids Senta with
idling and staring at the picture and dreaming away her life--for the
girl is quite open about her sympathy with the accursed seafaring
man. She wants Mary to sing the _Flying Dutchman_ ballad; Mary curtly
refuses; "Then," rejoins Senta, for all the world like a leading lady
in a melodrama giving the cue for the band to begin the royalty-song,
"I'll sing it myself"; and, despite protests, she does. It recounts,
of course, the story of the Dutchman prior to his meeting with Daland.
At the end she announces her intention of saving him; and while the
women are expostulating, Eric rushes in to add his voice to theirs. He
tells them Daland's ship is in sight; and all save he and Senta scurry
off to make preparations. Eric wishes to marry her, and pleads his
cause; she asks him what his griefs are compared with those of the
doomed man whose picture hangs on the wall. He (rightly) thinks her
semi-demented, and tells a dream he had: of the Dutchman entering, of
Senta at once giving herself to him, and then sailing away. His story
has a result precisely contrary to what he intended and hoped: her
ecstasy becomes more violent than ever; he (the Dutchman) seeks her
and she will share his grief with him. Eric rushes off in despair and
horror; Senta subsides; she prays that the Dutchman may be able to
find her--and her father and Vanderdecken enter.
She stands mazed, not greeting her father nor uttering a word, gazing
at the stranger. Now Daland, I have already remarked, has noticed no
resemblance between this man and the picture, and he cannot understand
his daughter's silence. Finally she salutes him and asks about
Vanderdecken; and Daland, in haste, discloses his plan. Neither
Vanderdecken nor Senta speaks; so, with a stroke of the old-fashioned
opera trickery, Wagner makes Daland feel himself _de trop_ and go
away. Vanderdecken at once begins his story, and the pair sing a duet,
which I will deal with shortly; for the moment I need only remind the
reader that Senta's mind was made up in advance. When the Dutchman,
almost warningly, reminds her that it is nothing less than a life's
devotion he demands, she proudly answers, "Whoever you are, whatever
the curse on you, I will share your life and your doom." The
librettist now having need of his services for the finale, Daland
enters, and the act winds up with a showy trio.
No further comment is needed on this act: in structure, like the
first, it is only old-fashioned opera. It is in the third act that the
inherent weakness of the story for operatic purposes shows with almost
disastrous results. Only the sheer force of the music averts a
complete breakdown. The problem was to show Senta literally faithful
unto death. Evidently it was impossible for Vanderdecken to claim and
carry off his bride forthwith. Had that been possible the work might
have terminated with a short scene to form the real finale of the
second act. But Vanderdecken had asked for a wife, and Daland would
not have dreamed of letting his daughter go until the proper ceremony
had taken place. Besides, Wagner was writing an opera with the very
practical view of a performance in the theatre; and in those days of
lengthy operas (_Rienzi_ at first played five and a half hours) the
public would have grumbled if they did not get enough for their
money. No manager would have looked at a work no longer than the first
and second acts of the _Dutchman_. The final scene could not be made
very lengthy; so the composer determined to pad out the act with pure
irrelevant music, and the librettist had to find him words. In a piano
score now before me the essential part of the act, the scene in which
Senta redeems the Dutchman, occupies twenty-four pages; and these are
preceded by fifty pages of choruses of sailors, maidens and ghosts.
Allowing for the larger space occupied by choruses on the printed
page, we are half-way through the act before serious business begins.
It must be owned that Wagner has done his work superbly, even making
use of it to a certain extent. Girls bring provisions and drinks for
Daland's crew, and there is a lot of chorus and counter-chorus and
dancing. Then both men and girls call upon the Dutch crew. There is no
response. The ship lies wrapt in gloom; and, half afraid, the girls
and Daland's men taunt them with being dead. But suddenly the hour
arrives for the Dutchman to sail. With perfect calm all around, a
hurricane shakes her sails and shrieks and pipes in the rigging, and
the waters roar and foam; the crew come to life and call for their
captain in a series of unearthly choruses. Daland's men,
horror-struck, make the sign of the cross; the spectres give a
"taunting laugh" and subside; once again all is peace, and the
sinister vessel lies there, the air seeming to thicken and grow
blacker about her.
The women have gone off; the sailors occupy themselves with eating
and drinking; and Senta, pursued by Eric, comes on. He has heard of
the intended marriage, and begs passionately that she shall not
sacrifice herself, ending with a cavatina--a cavatina by Richard
Wagner!--in vain. But Vanderdecken has heard all from the
wings--another bit of old-fashioned stage trickery, like the
"asides"--and resolves that Senta shall not sacrifice herself. "For
ever lost," he cries, realizing that he is renouncing his last chance.
Senta declares her determination to follow him--she will redeem him
whether he wishes it or not; in a regular set trio she, he and Eric
thrash the matter out; she is not to be shaken; Eric gives a
despairing cry which brings on the women folk and the sailors. The
Dutchman says farewell, pipes up his spectral crew, who heave the
anchor, and he goes on board. As the ship moves off Senta throws
herself into the water; the ship falls to pieces; the sun rises, and
in its beams the "glorified forms" of the pair are seen mounting the
skies. Senta has had her way: she has worked out her destiny and
"saved" the wanderer. The curtain falls.
This is the first of the genuine Wagner dramas, the first, therefore,
from which the Wagnerians have drawn, or into which they have read,
"lessons." As we get on I shall try to show that no moral can be
tacked on to any of Wagner's works. But supposing that he did wish to
teach us something in the _Dutchman_, what on earth can it be? Not,
surely, that one should not swear rash oaths in a temper? We have all
done that and needed no redeemer. There is no touch of essential
veracity in the old legend, a bit of puerile medieval fantasy; there
is no sort of proportion between the trivial offence and the appalling
punishment; even in an age which thought to oppose the will of the
Almighty the rankest blasphemy it can never have been considered
eternally just that a righteous and merciful Creator should deal out
such a punishment. Besides, in the ancient legend, as in Wagner's
book, the Almighty has little to do with the matter: it is the foul
fiend who snaps up Vanderdecken in his momentary lapse. Again, after
the first act Vanderdecken is second to Senta. Even the belated
attempt to show him heroic in his determination to sail off alone to
his doom has no dramatic point; it has no bearing on his salvation,
for nothing happens until Senta jumps into the sea, and we feel sure
nothing would have happened if she had not jumped. _That_ lesson, at
any rate--a childish, inept, inane, insane one at best--is not set
forth in the _Dutchman_. The only other possible one is that
self-sacrifice is a worthy and beautiful thing in itself. In itself, I
say, for Senta's self-sacrifice is purely a fad: she knows nothing of
Vanderdecken save a rumour shaped into a primitive ballad. Such
self-sacrifice is not worthy, not beautiful; but, on the contrary, a
very ugly and detestable form of lunacy. In truth, not only is there
no lesson in the _Dutchman_, but the whole idea is so absurd that only
the power of the music enables us to swallow it at all. The condition
on which the Dutchman can be saved is purely arbitrary; what
difference ought it to make to him that some one, for the sake of an
idea, sacrifices herself? The "good angel" who proposed it must have
been temporarily out of her senses, and the Creator when he agreed
must have been nodding. And the whole business is smeared over with
German mawkish sentimentality--this business, I mean, of Senta
_loving_ the Dutchman. Had he seen and loved her, and resolutely
sailed off without her, and found his salvation in that, there would
be some semblance of reason; but the fumbling attempt to make
something of the man at the last moment is futile, and we are left
with nothing but sentimental sickliness, nauseating and revolting. In
a word, then, we must take the _Dutchman_ libretto as it is,
unreasonable, false: only a series of occasions for writing some fine
music. That it is nothing more than such a series I have endeavoured
to establish at all this length; because if it is worth understanding
Wagner at all, and if we wish to understand him, we must realise the
point he started from in his half-conscious groping after the opera
form which he only found in its full perfection in his _Tristan_
period.
III
In the music the head and shoulders of the real Wagner emerge boldly
from the ruck of commonplace which constitutes the bulk of the
operatic music of the time. How any one could have failed to see the
strength and beauty of much of the _Dutchman_ is one of those things
almost impossible to understand to-day. Of the tawdry vulgarity, the
blatant clamour, of _Rienzi_ there is not a hint. The opera is by no
means all on the highest level, but a good third of it is, and there
are pages which Richard never afterwards surpassed. A dozen passages
are prophetic of the Wagner of _Tristan_ and the _Ring_. Let me begin
by quoting a few of these. The phrase (_a_, page 118) immediately
suggests _Tristan_, as it screams higher and higher with
ever-increasing intensity of passion; a variant of it (_b_) is charged
with the same feeling, and is used in the same way. The feeling is not
the same as in _Tristan_; both are used when Eric makes his last
despairing appeals to Senta. But look at (_c_). Compare it with one of
the themes (_d_) expressive of Wotan's anguish, and then recollect
that (_c_) is used when Vanderdecken, in veiled speech, tells Daland
of his woes. When Vanderdecken is yearning for Senta's love, and
trembling lest by telling the truth he should frighten her, we get
(_e_), afterwards developed with such poignant effect in the first and
last acts of _Tristan_. Vanderdecken enters with Daland, and Senta,
almost stunned, sets eyes on him for the first time. The musical
phrase is (_f_), which, simplified and more direct in its appeal, was
to be used when Siegmund and Sieglinda first gaze on one another. Then
the passage (_g_) is one which the reader will find mentioned in my
chapter on _Tristan_ (p. 263) as standing for quite a multitude of
things in the _Ring_. A curious case is the little phrase (_h_) which
occurs in the middle of the watchman's song. Of no significance here,
of what tremendous import it is in the first act of _Tristan_.
None of these phrases or passages is developed with the power and
resource characteristic of Wagner's later work; but it is astonishing
that after the baldness and noise of _Rienzi_ he should have gone
straight on to invent such music at all. He was still groping his way,
and had to trust to the conventional framework of opera construction
to a large extent; that is, each act is divided into set numbers, even
when the numbers are based on music which has been heard before and to
which, therefore, a definite meaning has become attached. He could not
yet trust himself in an open sea of music, as he did in _Tristan_;
rather, we have a chain of lakes, the music sometimes overflowing out
of one into another. The marvellous continual development of themes
with intricate interweavings and incessant transmogrifications--all
this was part of the technique of the _Tristan_ period. Neither in the
_Dutchman_ nor in _Tannhäuser_ nor in _Lohengrin_ is there any sign of
it. Of what may be called leitmotivs there are only three, the
Dutchman (_i_) and Senta (_j_), while a portion of the second (_k_)
may be regarded as a third, for it is used by itself, independently.
One little group of notes (_l_) I have seen described as a leitmotiv;
and if it is one, I should like to know what it stands for. As can be
seen, it is a bit of the Senta theme (fourth bar of _j_); and in the
overture a long connecting passage is built on it. But it also forms
part of the chorus of sailors in the first act, part of the watchman's
song in a varied form, part of another sailors' chorus (_m_); it is
the very backbone of the spinning chorus; and lastly, a large portion
of the spectral sailors' chorus is made up of it. I have no
explanation to offer--unless it be that Wagner, bent on suggesting the
sea throughout the opera, felt that this phrase helped him to sustain
the atmosphere. The sea, indeed, throughout the _Dutchman_, is the
background, foreground, the whole environment of the drama; in this
wild legend which came out of the sea, every action is related to the
sea, and one might say that the sea's voice is echoed in every one's
speech. The sea music, therefore, based on Senta's ballad--apart from
the leitmotivs which that contains--is of the very first importance.
The easiest way to get a firm grasp of the _Dutchman_ is to analyse
this ballad. Then in passing rapidly over the score afterwards we
shall see at a glance the structure of the whole, and how the new
thematic matter is either welded into this sea music or stodgily
interpolated. The song is too long to be transcribed here; but every
reader must have in his possession a copy at this time of day. There
are ten bars of introduction: in the eleventh, to the Dutchman theme,
Senta sings the "Yo-ho-ho"; at the fifteenth, with a glorious swing
and rush she dashes into the ballad--
"Traft ihr das Schiff im Meere an,
Blutroth die Segel, schwarz der Mast?
Auf hohem Bord der bleiche Mann,
Des Schilfes Herr, wacht ohne Rast."
This consists of eight bars--a four-bar section repeated. Then we get
the storm music, four bars of which I quote (_n_), and this is freely
employed throughout the opera. The storm subsides, and at bar
thirty-nine Senta sings to her own theme--
"Doch kann dem bleichen Manne Erlösung einstens noch werden,
Fänd' er ein Weib, das bis in den Tod getreu ihm auf Erden."
leading into the second part (_k_) to the words--
"Ach! Wann wirst du, bleicher Seemann, sie finden?
Betet zum Himmel dass bald
Ein Weib Treue ihm halt'!"
The three themes are of very unequal power. The first is one of the
landmarks in musical history; neither Wagner himself nor any of the
other great masters ever hit upon a more gigantic theme, terrible in
its direct force at its announcement, still more terrible as it is
used in the overture and later in the drama. The second, Senta, is a
piece of sloppy German sentimentality: this is not a heroine who will
(rightly or wrongly) sacrifice herself for an idea, but a hausfrau who
will always have her husband's supper ready and his slippers laid to
warm on the stove shelf. It is significant that Senta herself in her
moment of highest exaltation does not refer to it: Wagner often
calculated wrong, but he never felt wrong. The third, the grief and
anguish of the condemned sailor, and pity for him, is one of the most
wonderful things in music; for blent with its pathos is the feeling of
a remoter time, the feeling that it all happened in ages that are
past, the feeling for "old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long
ago." This sense of the past, the historic sense--call it what you
will--was thus strong in Wagner at this early period, and it grew even
stronger later on, finding its most passionate expression in _Tristan_
and its loveliest expression in the _Mastersingers_. The faculty to
shape pregnant musical themes is the stamp of the great master. The
early men are supposed to have "taken church melodies" and worked them
up into masses: what they did was to take meaningless strings of
notes, bare suggestions, and give them form and meaning by means of
rhythm (for only boobies talk of the old church music not possessing
rhythm). The later composers sometimes followed the same
procedure--which is equivalent to a sculptor "taking" a block of
marble and hewing out a statue; but more and more they trusted to
their own imaginations. In either case the "mighty line" results; and
there is not a great composition in the world which has not great
themes; and, _vice versa_, when the themes are trivial the work
evolved from them is invariably trivial. I see modern works full of
cleverness and colour: I do not waste much time on them; there cannot
be anything in them, and they will not survive. Along with some weak
motives--or, to be more accurate, motives which are musically weak but
dramatically a help--Wagner has a huge list of tremendous ones, each a
landmark. However, this by way of digression.
Music evolved from this ballad forms, as I have said, the structural
outline of the opera. The overture is almost entirely shaped out of
it, being one of that sort which is supposed to foreshadow the opera,
to tell the tale in music before we see it enacted on the stage. From
the _Dutchman_ onward Wagner nearly always constructed his
introductions--whether to whole operas or to single acts or even
scenes--on this plan, largely discarding the purely architectural
forms. Here, for example, we have at the outset the blind fury of the
tempest, taken and developed from (_n_), with the Dutchman theme. The
storm reaches its height, and there is a brief lull, and Vanderdecken
seems to dream of a possible redeemer; the elements immediately rage
again, with the wind screaming fiercely through sails and ropes, and
waves crashing against the ship's sides; he yearns for rest (_k_),
seems to implore the Almighty to send the Day of Judgment; and at
length the Senta motive enters triumphantly, and with the redemption
of the wanderer the thing ends. That, one can see, is the chain of
incidents Wagner has translated into tones, or illustrated with tones;
but as a prelude to the opera, it is the atmosphere of the sea that
counts: the roar of the billows, the "_hui!_" of the wind, the dashing
and plunging. When the curtain rises the storm goes on while Daland's
men, with their hoarse "Yo-ho-ho," add even more colour. The motion of
the sea is kept up, partly with fresh musical material, until at last
it all but ceases; the watchman sings his song of the soft south wind
and falls asleep. Then the sky darkens, the Flying Dutchman comes in,
and the storm music rages once more. It is woven into Vanderdecken's
magnificent scena (surely the greatest opera scena written up to
the year 1842); and then disappears. In its place we get pages of
(for Wagner) wearisome twaddle. The reason is obvious. For the purpose
of explaining the subsequent movement of the drama there is a lot of
conversation which Weber, in the Singspiel, would have left to be
spoken, and Mozart would have set to dry recitative. Wagner was
determined that his music should flow on; but the inspiration of the
sea was gone, and he could only fill up with uninspired stuff. He had
not yet mastered his new musico-dramatic art; indeed, I much doubt
whether he realized its possibilities. In his _Tristan_ days he knew
how to avoid explanations on the stage; nothing in _Tristan_ needs
explanation; in the _Mastersingers_ and the _Ring_ his resources--his
inventiveness and technical mastery of music--were unbounded, and an
intractable incident he simply smothered in splendid music. Here, the
bargaining of Daland and Vanderdecken is a very intractable incident,
and in trying to make the best of it he made the worst. That is, he
would have saved us an appalling _longueur_ had he given us two
minutes of frank recitative in place of twenty minutes of make-believe
music--music in the very finest kapellmeister style of the period.
Even the passage quoted (_c_) is made nothing of. There are one or two
fine dramatic touches, as, for instance, when Daland asks if his ship
is any the worse: "Mein Schiff ist fest, es leidet keinen Schaden,"
with its bitter double meaning; but on the whole things are very
dreary and dispiriting until the south wind blows up and stirs the
composer's imagination. The sweet wind carries off the mariners to
their home; the water ripples and plashes gently; and to the last bar
of the act all is peace and beauty. The music has not, perhaps, the
point of, say, the quieter bits of Mendelssohn's _Hebrides_, but it
runs delicately along, and it more than serves.
The figure (_l_), which has been so prominent in the overture and
sailors' choruses, is equally noticeable in the next act. The spinning
chorus, in fact, may be said to grow out of it. There is no break
between the two acts (Wagner's first intention was to go straight on,
making the _Dutchman_ an opera in one long act); the introduction to
the second is a continuation of the conclusion of the first. The
figure is repeated several times in a long diminuendo, changing the
key from B flat to A major, so we never cease to feel the presence of
the eternal sea. Inside the skipper's old-world house one is conscious
that the waves are plashing not far from the walls, and that the air
is salt and fresh there. There is a pervading dreamy atmosphere: again
we are carried away into far-off times; the scene has the unreality of
a dream, a dream of the sea. Mlle. Senta quickly shatters that
illusion with her passion and living young blood; but in memory one
always has this cottage, where women pass the days in singing, where
there are no clocks, and time can only be measured by the waves as
they break on the shore. The maiden's spinning song is small scale
music; nothing ambitious is wanted, and nothing ambitious is
attempted. As a bit of music it is infinitely superior to the clumsy
wooden bridal chorus in _Lohengrin_; the touch is light, the melodies
fresh and dainty, and the subdued hum of the wheels and the bustle are
suggested throughout without becoming monotonous. Not for a musical,
but for a purely theatrical, reason we get a snatch of (_k_); Senta is
not spinning; she is engaged in staring at the picture. After much
chattering she sings the ballad, and at the end declaims her intention
of saving the Dutchman to the music which is employed when she
actually accomplishes that feat. When Eric rushes in, the orchestra
has the usual operatic storm-in-a-teacup sort of stuff; the chattering
chorus of women getting ready for Daland's reception is neither here
nor there; Eric's expostulations are insignificant, and the air he
sings--with interruptions on the part of Senta--is by no means equal
to the better parts of the opera. Here Wagner has again been faced by
the difficulty he met in the first act: a prosaic scene had to be set
to poetic music, and the task was beyond him. Eric is one of the most
frightfully conventional personages in opera; he bores and exasperates
one to madness. He warbles away in the approved Italian tenor fashion
while one's enthusiasm is growing cold and one's interest waning. His
dream, however, in which he sees Senta meet the Dutchman, embrace him
and sail away with him, has a genuine ring. The atmosphere is strange,
almost nightmareish, with the Dutchman theme sounding up at intervals,
dreamlike. With the exception of the mere mention of this motive in
the score, the music is new, is not evolved out of previous passages;
but when Eric has finished we hear the Senta theme, both sections.
The Dutchman and Daland enter, and we hear (_f_) three times in all;
but there is no development of it. Daland's air is entirely fresh
matter; as is the opening of the big duet between the Dutchman and
Senta.
We are now approaching the supreme moment of the drama. The Dutchman's
recitative-like beginning--declamation of the same type, and with the
same accent, as some recitative in the song-tournament in
_Tannhäuser_--is noble in the highest degree; we have a recurrence of
the dream-atmosphere at Senta's words, "Versank ich jetzt in
wunderbares Träumen?"--for though her fanaticism is all too real, when
her opportunity comes she is for the moment incredulous. It hardly
does to consider the moral aspect of the play at this juncture.
Vanderdecken is merely a greedy, selfish skipper who, having got into
some trouble, is anxious that a pure young maiden should throw away
her life that he may be comfortable. Not any casuistry or splitting of
hairs can alter the plain fact--
"Wirst du des Vaters Wahl nicht schelten?
Was er versprach, wie?--dürft' es gelten?"
However, he has the honesty to warn her of her probable fate. She
rises to the occasion. She may be as mad as a hatter, but in the music
she is given to "Der du auch sei'st," her lunacy becomes sublimity. Up
to the moment of writing this white-hot glowing passage Wagner had
never reached the sublime: now for a few minutes he sustains it.
Again the breath of the sea is brought in when the Dutchman a second
time warns her, and the sea music roars as a sinister accompaniment.
Senta only becomes the more exalted. "Wohl kenn' ich Weibes heil'ge
Pflichten," she sings to music which is absolutely the finest page in
the opera. The pure white flame of a deathless devotion is here. I
doubt whether Wagner ever again in his life had such an ethereal
moment: it is sheer fervour and sweetness, unmixed with the hot human
passion of _Tristan_ or the smoky philosophies of the _Ring_. To wish
Senta had a reasonable cause for her ecstasy of self-immolation is, of
course, to wish the _Dutchman_ were not the _Dutchman_. In truth, we
must take the scenes as they come without inquiring too curiously; the
storm music which goes with the wanderer, and the moments of glorious
splendour that come to the redeeming woman, are things worth living to
have written and worth living to hear.
The music of the last act I shall pass quickly over. The seamen's and
women's choruses are not particularly striking; the spectral choruses
certainly are. The sea music is here turned into something unearthly,
frightful; these damned souls have no hope of being saved, and in
their misery they scoff and mock and laugh hideously. More new musical
matter, some of it of a very fine quality, is introduced when Eric
again appeals to Senta; and the figure (_a_) is developed with
stupendous effect. In the final scene, when the Dutchman goes off,
Senta can say nothing more after her declarations in the
second--nothing, that is, of any musical value; and Wagner has wisely
confined her to recitative.
The _Flying Dutchman_, then, has many weaknesses. The libretto is a
manufacture, not, like _Tristan_, a growth. Much of the music does not
rise above the level of Spontini or Marschner; there are wearisome
pages, there are heavy chords repeated again and again with violin
figurations on top, there are lines of the verse repeated to fit in
with the conventional melodies in four-bar lengths. It was only a few
years before that Wagner, at Riga, had written enthusiastically about
Bellini and his melody, a type of melody he felt to be fresh and
expressive compared with the dry-as-dust mixture of Viennese melody
(_i.e._ the Haydn and Mozart type) and stodgy German counterpoint
which formed the bulk of Marschner's and Spontini's music; and here we
see him in the very deed of trying his hand at it. Very often the
result, it must be admitted, is lamentable. There was no Italian
suppleness and grace in Wagner's nature: when he was in deadly
earnest, and striving to express himself without thinking of models,
he wrote gorgeous stuff; when the inspiration waned, or when he
deluded himself with the belief that what he supposed to be
Bellini-like tunes really expressed the feeling of the moment, then he
gave us pages as dry and dreary as Spontini and Marschner at their
worst. Besides those I have already mentioned there are in the love
duet--if it can be called a love duet--mere figurations over bar on
bar on leaden-footed, heavy chords; and these figurations are not true
melody. These tunes in regular four-bar lengths are melody of an
amorphous sort; only when they were tightened up, made truer, more
pregnant--in a word, when they were so shaped as to stand really and
truly for the thought and feeling in the composer--did they become the
beautiful things we find in _Lohengrin_, foretelling the sublime
things we find in _Tristan_. Eric's tunes are as colourless as
Donizetti's. All this we may joyfully admit, knowing how much there is
to be said on the other side, and seeing in the _Dutchman_ only a
foretaste of Wagner's greatest work. A really great work it assuredly
is. We have the magnificent sea-music, and, in spite of outer
incoherences, the smell and atmosphere of the sea maintained to the
last bar of the opera. In his music at least Vanderdecken is a deeply
tragic figure. There is the ballad, by very far the finest in music;
there is Senta's declaration of faith. Whenever it was possible for
the composer to be inspired he instantly responded. Had he not lived
to write another note his memory would live by the _Dutchman_. It is
an enormous leap from _Rienzi_. There brilliancy is attained by huge
choruses and vigorous orchestration and rhythms that continually verge
on the vulgar. In the _Dutchman_ it is the stuff and texture of the
music that make the effect. Play _Rienzi_ on a piano, and you have
nothing; play the _Dutchman_, and you have immediately the roar of the
sea, the Dutchman's loneliness and sadness, Senta's exaltation. I have
spoken of Wagner having finished his apprenticeship when he went to
Magdeburg, and in a sense he had; but perhaps in the fuller sense he
finished it only with the _Dutchman_. He made mistakes, and thanks
largely to them, so mastered his own personal art that he was prepared
to take another and a vaster leap--from the _Dutchman_ to
_Tannhäuser_. He cast the slough of the old Italian opera form.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Some characteristics of his harmony and instrumentation will most
conveniently be considered later. For the present I wish to draw my
reader's attention rather to Wagner the musico-dramatist than to
Wagner the technical musician.