Lecture Thirteen
Nineteenth-Century German Opera and Richard Wagner
Nationalism and Experimentation
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Mark Twain
"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but some bad quarters of an hour, and awful half hours". Gioacchino Antonio Rossini
Today there will be a quiz at the end of the period. Our last lecture continues our three-lecture opera series with an examination of German opera. German opera developed rather late as compared to Italian and French opera. Genuine German opera—in terms of singing style and the nature of its pIots—developed late because it evolved from native German roots, not by imitating and adapting Italian operatic plots and singing style. First there needed to be a use of German literature and musical theater in the late eighteenth century in the hands, respectively, of Goethe and Mozart. Soon after Mozart, the first German Nationalist, Carl Maria von Weber wrote Der Freischütz.
Just as, in Italy, there were hundreds of Opera composers, the 19th century basically belonged in Germany to one man: Richard Wagner. We’ll look at the life, ideas, and music of Richard Wagner. Where Verdi was an evolutionary, Wagner was a revolutionary who sought to radically reinterpret the function and substance of music drama in the mid-nineteenth century. Wagner’s early life and his paternity, an issue of great importance to Wagner’s emotional development, affected Wagner’s ideas regarding opera, music drama, and gesarnpkunstwerke. We will study the overture and Act I of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde as an example of Wagner’s use of the orchestra, leitmotif, and the impact of the his ideas and his own vision of music drama. To end the class, I will play an explanation of Wagner’s Ring cycle, by Anna Russell.
Wagner
Outline
I. German-language opera came into being only in 1791, much later than French or Italian opera. Why did it take so long for a distinctly German operatic school to evolve?
A. The overblown and improbable nature of Italian opera seria did not resonate with the more serious and logical nature of the German artistic and intellectual community.
B. The vowel-laden Italian language defined the nature of operatic singing and drama during the Baroque era.
II. Romantic-era German opera grew out of a German musical theater tradition called singspiel—literally, sing-play or play with singing.”
A. Singspiel is a partly sung and partly spoken German theatrical genre that had its roots in popular culture.
B. Mozart elevated singspiel to the level of high art in his “The Rescue From the Harem” and “The Magic Flute.”
III. Nineteenth-century Romanticism in literature was foreshadowed by an eighteenth-century German literary movement called Sturm und Drang.
A. This movement flourished during the 1770s and early 1780s.
B. It arose as a revolt against Classical-era restraint, and it drew inspiration from Rousseau’s emphasis on emotionalism and free expression.
C. The leading Sturm und Drang author was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
1. Goethe was possibly the German language’s greatest author.
2. He was a dramatist and poet of incredible influence.
3. Through his own example, he became an advocate for the expressive and artistic possibilities of the German language.
IV. German opera had almost no Baroque-era or Classical-era antecedents.
A. Prior to I770, very little opera was written in the guttural, comparatively harsh, non-Romance German language.
B. The half sung, half spoken operatic genre of singspiel reached its climax with Mozart’s Magic Flute of 1791.
C. Due greatly to rising German nationalism and Goethe’s and Mozart’s examples, more and more composers of quality begin to write Germ~ language vocal music during the early nineteenth century.
V. The definitive work that established German Romantic-era opera was Carl Maria Von Weber’s Der Freischütz (I821).
A. The lack of a German operatic tradition meant that nineteenth-century German opera lent itself well to experimentation.
B. Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz was the definitive early-nineteenth-century German Romantic opera.
C. Der Freischütz exemplifies many characteristics of German Romantic opera.
1. Plots are drawn from medieval legend, history, and fairy tale.
2. The story involves supernatural beings and happenings.
3. They emphasize a background of nature, wild and uncontrolled.
4. Supernatural incidents are essential plot elements.
5. Human characters are intimately intertwined with supernatural ones.
6. The triumph of good over evil is often interpreted in terms of salvation or redemption.
VI. Der Freischiitz (1821) illustrates brilliantly the trends and content of pre-Wagner German Romantic opera.
A. The story features four characters: Samiel, Max, Agathe, and Kaspar.
B. Featured Music:
Weber, Der Freischütz, Finale Act II, “Wolf’s Glen Scene”
1. (Read text of scene)
2. This scene is an incredible depiction of supernatural horror. It still startles audiences today.
3. Particularly notable in this scene is melodrama—a genre of musical theater that combined spoken dialogue with background music.
4. Weber had tremendous impact on later Romantic-era composers such as Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Liszt, and especially Wagner.
5. Can we imagine Berlioz’s symphonic Witches’ Sabbath without the operatic example of the “Wolfs Glen Scene”? !
VII. Rich VII. Richard Wagner (I813-83) was the outstanding composer of German opera.
A. He brought German Romantic opera to its culmination, as Verdi did for Italian Romantic opera.
B. Wagner’s doubts about his paternity created an inferiority complex that governed many of his actions as an adult.
C. His two great musical influences were Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and Weber’ s Der Freischiitz.
D. Wagner created a new form: “music drama,” a through-composed work in which voices and orchestra are completely intertwined and interdependent.
E. While in exile in Switzerland, Wagner took a six-year hiatus from composing in order to reassess his craft. By 1840 he had come to see French and Italian operas as “degenerate art forms.” He resolved to transform opera into a comprehensive art form.
F. Wagner’s projected all-inclusive art form was called gesarnpkunstwerke.
VIII. Tristan und Isolde (1859) is from Wagner’s mature style.
A. It is one of the most influential works of the nineteenth century.
B. Among the many plot elements, two stand out:
1 .Unrequited/unconsummated love.
2. The transcendence of true love over time and mortality.
C. In order to create a musical metaphor for the same sense of unsatisfied longing felt by the lead characters, Wagner relies heavily upon:
I. Areas of seemingly suspended tonality
2. Deceptive cadences
3. Areas of almost constant modulation
4. These features are all emblematic of Tristan and Isolde’ s unconsummated earthly relationship.
Featured Music:
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Overture
D. This work illustrates some of Wagner’s most important musical innovations.
1. It is continuous music: there are no breaks in the texture.
2. It features leitmotifs: motives associated with a person, object, idea or feeling. Specific leitmotifs discussed include:
a. Tristan’s honor motive
b. Drink/potion motive
c. Mutual longing motive
d. Unconsummated love motive
3. The orchestra is a full partner with the voices.
Featured Music:
Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Act I , scene V
E. Tristan und Isolde was powerfully influenced by the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer, a nineteenth-century German philosopher.
1. Schopenhauer claimed that only instrumental music could express the full range of human emotions and impressions that underlie the “phenomenal” world i.e., that lie beneath surface appearances.
2. This belief that only instrumental music can reveal ultimate truths and touch “the will” helped Wagner to shape his new concept of leitmotif and the orchestra.
IX. Here is an article, written by Prof. Sue Talley, that gives us more information on Wagner.
FROM GIGANTISM TO IMPRESSIONISM
It has been said that when certain creatures become too large for their own good, they tend to disappear. Perhaps the same could be said for music! Toward the end of the nineteenth century, largely in imitation of Richard Wagner, certain composers (such as Gustav Mahler) wrote extremely long symphonies. Wagner’s operas became musical marathons, and after his passing, this phase of so-called “heavenly length” also passed.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) posed a challenge to 19th century composers of the last half of the century in a similar way to the challenge which Beethoven had posed in the first half-century: “Composers, try not to notice, or be influenced, by my music!’ With the help of important friends such as Hans von Bülow and Franz Liszt , Wagner rose to a prominence which challenged composers in every country.
It is helpful to remember that at Wagner’s birth, Beethoven was 42 years old. Rossini was 21, Meyerbeer, 22, Berlioz, 10, Mendelssohn and Chopin were 4, Schumann was 3, and Liszt was 2 years old. This quick reference gives us an idea of Wagner’s contemporaries.
Richard Wagner, the son of a clerk to the city police-court at Leipzig, was one of nine children. When his father, who loved to act, enjoyed poetry, and was a linguist, died, the family was left in poverty. His mother married again, to a man named Ludwig Geyer, who was an actor, playwright, and amateur portrait-painter. So Richard may not have been wealthy, but he had a rich heritage of the arts left him by both parents. Before he died, Geyer was heard to ask his mother, “Do you think (Richard) might have a gift for music?” Richard was a brilliant student; he translated the first twelve books of the Odyssey out of school hours, and soon became “bent on becoming a poet.” [Grove, p. 389] Shakespeare was very popular in Germany just then and Wagner decided to write a great tragedy. His boyish effort was rather funny; “it was made up of Hamlet and Lear, forty-two men died in the course of it, and some of them had to return as ghosts so as to keep the fifth act going.” [Grove, p. 389]
Wagner started composing at a rather early age, and began to develop the theory that opera was the most complete form of art, because it involves all the arts. For his age, he was the multi-media man par excellence! His work is noted for two particular specialties: the leitmotiv and singspiel. The leitmotiv, not exclusively his idea but developed by him to a great degree, is the motif or theme which follows each character through the opera. When a certain person appears in the opera, their theme is heard. This feature is a unifying factor in opera and it also helps keep the characters straight! Singspiel is the term used for his particular kind of dialogue, or recitative—the word translates “sung speech.” The characters in his operas can go on for hours in this fashion, and quite frankly, I think he overdid it a bit.
Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow were, in fact, related to Wagner through the same woman, Cosima, who was Liszt’s daughter (out of wedlock) and von Bülow’s former wife. Cosima was described as a fascinating woman, if not beautiful. Her attraction to Wagner came because both Liszt and her husband believed in him, introducing and performing his music everywhere, writing papers in his behalf, transcribing his operas for piano, and so on. She simply began to love “the Maestro,” as he was called, and before she knew it, her admiration had turned into irresistible physical attraction for the rather insignificant-looking, much older Wagner. Von Bülow, truly an admirer of Wagner until that time, became something of an enemy after the elopement, as one might imagine.
One of the most offensive things about Wagner was his persistent belief that an artist of his caliber is above reproach morally. This attitude unfortunately not only overtook him, but many of the great composers, conductors, and performers who would follow him. Quite frankly, his approach to life seems to have been that “superior” beings such as himself deserved to do whatever they pleased. Not unusual for his times, but particularly obnoxious in one so prominent, was his unpleasant anti-semitism, so that even to this day, his operas are unpopular among the Jewish people. This may have derived from the fact that two very prominent composers of Hebrew origin, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, did very little to further his career; Wagner had a falling-out with Meyerbeer after quite frankly stating that the latter’s music was trivial, and it may be remembered that Mendelssohn had not even commented on Wagner’s score, thus relegating it to obscurity. However, now that we have dispensed with his personal weakness, his contribution to music very much deserves our consideration.
When he was 18, Wagner was so familiar with the music of Beethoven that he transcribed the Ninth Symphony for piano. “I doubt whether there ever was a young musician who knew Beethoven’s works more thoroughly than Wagner in his 18th year,” a professor related [Grove, p. 390]. At about that time, Wagner had the fortune to meet Mendelssohn and force upon him a symphony he had written; Mendelssohn apparently was unimpressed. By 1830, Wagner’s brother, Albert, was hired as an actor, singer, and stage-manager in a theater, and this exposure to the theater helped Richard understand the difficulties and challenges of composing musical theater productions. He first attempted to combine the merits of other composers’ works (specifically, Bellini’s and Auber’s), but his first attempt, a concoction based upon Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, was not a success, and there was not only a fast-emptying theater, but a fight going on behind the scenes!
The first successful opera Wagner produced had an Italian name, Rienzi. After its writing, Wagner met the composer of grand opera, Meyerbeer, and stayed with him for four weeks, meeting many other important musicians through Meyerbeer’s kindness. However, when Wagner and his long-suffering wife moved to Paris in the hope of furthering his career, Wagner found that Meyerbeer’s name was no help to him. He and his wife actually suffered from the cold and hunger during his less than delightful days in Paris. Though he met Franz Liszt, the latter did not find him particularly amicable at that time. Even Wagner’s dog was stolen during those miserable days. “I looked forward to my deliverance,” he wrote. [Grove, p. 396] He finished the Flying Dutchman but it did not find acceptance even with the Germans he trusted.
It was not until 1844 that Wagner had true success, and he suffered bitterly in the meantime, with rejection after rejection. Perhaps that accounts for the tremendous ego that he developed, for self-protection. The amount of work he did as a music copyist and jack-of-all-trades staggers the imagination; in the meantime, however, he was writing and learning. When he received a modest artistic appointment at Dresden, his duties included performances every evening all year round, at least three plays, and three or four operas per week, besides the music of the Church and at Court. All the while, he was composing his opera, “Tannhauser.”
Even this opera, so well known as a part of the standard repertoire today, was considered a bore by some and an irritant by others. Poor Wagner! Even the ending was criticized as being too sad. “A feeling of complete isolation overcame me,” writes Wagner.
Wagner came close to stealing the thunder of the original creators of opera, the Italians. Giuseppe Verdi, the ever-popular statesman and consummate composer of opera, was almost overshadowed by the creative genius of this German composer, even though his operas are as fine, in their way, as anything in the theater. Wagner’s operas used many folk-tales and myths for their central themes.
The Norse myths formed the basis for his “Ring of the Niebelungen” cycle, and a horrible experience on a sailing-vessel reinforced the legend of the “Flying Dutchman,” which he incorporated into an early opera.
Wagner’s stated purpose was to carry on in the tradition of Beethoven, and to make opera rise to the level of Greek tragedy, thus becoming a universal art. His secret of success was to win over people, and forget about the critics. If it were up to his critics, Wagner’s music would never have been heard! When finally “Tannhauser” did appear, for example, it was criticized for being “too epic.” [Grove, p. 399]. The epic grandeur of his music sprang from the wide variety of reading he did. A chief critic in Dresden, who was very influential in Europe, complained that Wagner’s music was not “classical” enough, and publishers would often return scores to the Maestro, unopened! As for “Rienzi,” Wagner had used too many words about freedom and democracy and was in disgrace with the court, so it was not performed until the court was out of town. Nevertheless, even as “Rienzi” caused him to go into exile in Switzerland, to get away from those who felt that he was a republican sympathizer, with extreme persistence, Wagner wrote “Lohengrin,” and even considered the subject, “Jesus of Nazareth,” although it proved to be beyond his scope. What was ideal for his consideration and temperament was the epic “Ring of the Nibelungen” Trilogy, which included the “Ring,” “Siegfried’s Death,” and “Twilight of the Gods”—all Norse tales. The “Ring” Trilogy takes a full day to complete and is usually presented on three successive evenings.
For further study of opera I will list arias after each of the three Opera lectures. A CD in MP3 format will be placed in the listening lab.
19th Century German Opera Arias:
1) Dvorak Rusalka 0 Silver Moon (Often done in German)
2) Flotow – Mappari (Italian by a German)
3) Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice Che farô senza Euridice (Italian by a German)
4) Strauss Die Fledermaus Mein Herr
5) Strauss Die Fledermaus (The Bat) Czardas
6) Strauss Die Frau ohne Shatten Act 2
7) Strauss Elektra Ich will Nichts
8) Strauss Fledermaus Ich lade Gem
9) Strauss Ich will Nichts (Elektra)
10) Wagner Mild und liese
11) Wagner Lohengrin In fernem Land
12) Wagner Tannhäuser- Pilgrims Chorus
13) Wagner Walkure Ride of the Valkeries
14) Wagner Walkure So ist es denn
15) Weber Der Freischutz- Huntsmens Chorus