94937 Wagner overtures_BL2 v6_. 04/12/2015 09:38 Page 2
A journey through the operas of Richard Wagner Wagner’s development – from Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot to Parsifal – represents a transformation of musical language unparalleled in operatic history. The composer’s first two operas were Die Feen (completed in 1834 but premiered only in 1888) and Das Liebesverbot (completed and premiered in 1836). Die Feen, adapted by Wagner – who wrote his own texts even for these early operas – from Gozzi’s La donna serpente, is a Grand Romantic opera in the German Romantic tradition of Weber and Marschner. The brio of its overture compensates for the shortage of melodic individuality. Das Liebesverbot is adapted from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, but with its plot severely modified and its setting moved from Vienna to Sicily. In this Grand Comic opera, Wagner emulates the sparkling style of Italian opera buffa while including elements of French opera. The chirpily exuberant overture begins with a melody that could almost pass for one of Sullivan’s patter-songs, but also has a lyrical melody of considerable sweep. Many years later Wagner described the opera as ‘this sin of my youth’. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Rienzi provided Wagner with his next dramatic inspiration, resulting in a highly extended, five-act tragic opera composed between 1838 and 1840. The only part regularly performed nowadays is the splendid overture, which incorporates several of the work’s most memorable themes and opens with the trumpet signal that summons the Roman citizens, and it was instead Der fliegende Holländer (composed during 1840–41 and premiered in Dresden in January 1843) that was the first of the composer’s operas to establish a secure place in the repertoire. Adapted from Heinrich Heine’s version of this old legend, entitled Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski, it is amazing to think that this totally convincing opera overlapped with that of the much less successful Rienzi. Here for the first time appears a theme that was to become one of Wagner’s preoccupations: that of the outcast, or outsider-figure. Other themes of redemption, love and death – closely bound 2
together – recur regularly throughout the work. Although Wagner used the leitmotif device to identify different characters, emotions etc. in his earliest operas, Der fliegende Holländer marks a significant development of this technique, though we are still far from the proliferation found in his later dramas. The thrillingly elemental overture, one of the most vivid of musical seascapes, is unusual for the composer in that it includes all the principal themes of the opera; these are not presented in merely potpourri fashion, but within a thoroughly organised, cohesive structure. Tannhäuser (the complete title is Tannhäuser and the Singers’ Contest at Wartburg), Wagner’s conflation of two different legends of a crusading knight and a song-contest, was completed in 1845 and premiered in Dresden that year. The composer’s words ‘I still owe the world a Tannhäuser’, made shortly before his death, reveal his persistent dissatisfaction with the work, part of the problem being that his rewritings for the Paris version were stylistically incongurous, as his musical language had now developed as far as Tristan und Isolde. In the overture to the original Dresden version, the religious element, represented by the Pilgrims’ Hymn, gives way to the seductive Venusberg music but later returns as a triumphant climax. Lohengrin, completed about three years after Tannhäuser, was premiered in Weimar in 1850. Here, in what has been described as the Wagner opera for nonWagnerians, the composer chose 10th-century Antwerp as the setting for his adaptation of another legend. The sublime prelude that evokes the revelation of the Holy Grail was described by Nietzsche as the first instance of hypnosis through music. Ernest Newman wrote, ‘The prelude is perfect in its fusion of musical theme and dramatic meaning, its harmonious design, and its choice of the moment for releasing its maximum of energy.’ The Prelude to Act 3, contrastingly, is a jubilant representation of wedding festivities. The next opera in Wagner’s oeuvre was Das Rheingold, composed during 1853–4. It was the first music he had written in about five years, a period during 3
94937 Wagner overtures_BL2 v6_. 04/12/2015 09:38 Page 4
which theorising and other prose writings including the pamphlet Judaism in Music had consumed his energy. The eventual tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, of which Das Rheingold forms the preliminary evening, occupied him on and off for more than 20 years. Originally he had intended merely a single opera, Siegfried’s Tod, which eventually became Götterdämmerung; the backward extension of three additional operas was necessitated by his wish for more explanatory pre-history. Wagner’s various original sources, which he began to study as early as 1848 while finishing Lohengrin, include the Volsunga Saga, Nibelunglied, the Eddic poems, the Grimm Brothers’ writings and other works based on the Nordic tales. Dramatically speaking, many years have elapsed between the end of Das Rheingold and the beginning of Die Walküre (composed 1854–6); of the nine warrior-maidens or Valkyries who Wotan has fathered, his favourite is Brünnhilde, who now becomes a central character in the drama. Even when played as a concert piece, the Ride of the Valkyries at the beginning of Act 3 vividly conveys the storm-tossed scene as the warrior-maidens ride with the bodies of fallen heroes hanging from their saddles. Having completed two acts of the third opera, Siegfried, by the summer of 1857, Wagner then laid it aside for ten years. In the interim he turned to two other pressing issues: Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger. The earliest sketch for Tristan und Isolde dates from December 1856, with the full score completed in August 1859. Wagner’s version of this ancient legend, which is probably of Celtic origin, is set on board a ship, in Cornwall and then in Brittany. The prelude alone moved many composers to hyperbole – for the weeping Chabrier, who said he had waited ten years for that first ‘A’ in the cellos, it was the moment at which he felt compelled to become a full-time composer. As for Isolde’s Liebestod – Wagner preferred the term Verklärung – we must fast-forward to the transcendent final pages of the drama. The familiar concert version of the Prelude and Liebestod, arranged by Wagner himself, was premiered in 1862, three years before the opera. In Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1862–7) Wagner turns away from the extreme chromaticism of Tristan and restores one’s faith in diatonic language, as is immediately 4
evident in the Prelude – which, most unusually, was written before the rest of the opera. In the resplendent final section, Wagner combines his three main themes in a celebrated contrapuntal tour de force. The cobbler Hans Sachs was an actual historical figure who lived during the years 1494–1576, while a guild of mastersingers also existed from the 14th to the 16th century. Thus Die Meistersinger, richly endowed with humanity and humour, is the only one of the composer’s mature operas not dependent on legend. The long gap between the composition of Acts 2 and 3 of Siegfried (which was eventually completed in 1871) resulted in some stylistic discrepancies, although, together with other kinds of inconsistency and changes of focus throughout The Ring – almost inevitable when a work is composed over a period of more than 20 years – they have not prevented this overwhelming, multi-faceted music drama from maintaining its hold on the public. The music of Siegfried Idyll – an intimate piece for small orchestra composed as a birthday present for Wagner’s wife Cosima, who had given birth to their son Siegfried in June of the previous year – is inseparable from the charming scene of its first performance on Christmas morning 1870. Most of the themes are taken from Act 3 of Siegfried, and one of the opera’s most memorable parts is undoubtedly Forest Murmurs – a pastoral episode in Act 2, during which the hero meditates while listening to the sounds of the forest and its birdsong. Wagner completed Götterdämmerung in November 1874, and the entire Ring cycle was premiered at Bayreuth in August 1876. Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, linking the Prologue to the first scene, depicts the hero setting out in search of adventure and glorious deeds, with obbligato horn. In Act 3, Hagen (son of the dwarf Alberich) kills Siegfried by driving a spear into his back. Siegfried dies with Brünnhilde’s name on his lips, and his body is borne away as the episode known as Siegfried’s Funeral March, combining solemn lament and triumph, is played. Wagner completed Parsifal (which he described as ‘Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel’ – ‘a sacred festival drama’) in January 1882, and the work was premiered in July of the same year under Hermann Levi. Based on a 13th-century legend concerning the Holy 5
94937 Wagner overtures_BL2 v6_. 04/12/2015 09:38 Page 6
Grail, Parsifal was the only opera that Wagner composed with a particular building in mind: the unique acoustic of the custom-built Bayreuth Festspielhaus, opened for the premiere of The Ring in 1876. Debussy famously remarked that the orchestration seemed to be ‘lit from behind’, and indeed the sound-world of this opera represents another strikingly new departure for the composer. The very slow tempo of the Prelude minimises any sense of rhythm and thus helps to create a timeless quality. In Act 3, the ‘holy fool’ Parsifal, after years of wandering, arrives at Monsalvat on Good Friday. Anointed sovereign of the Grail, leader of the new order, he observes the meadows transformed with a peaceful, radiant aura. The Good Friday Music is pervaded by the potent atmosphere of spiritual exaltation, synonymous with the opera as a whole. 훿 Philip Borg-Wheeler
훿 2016 Brilliant Classics Licensed from Phoenix Music Ltd (CD1 & CD2); Licensed from VOX, a division of SPJ Music Inc. (CD3)
6
More Wagner on Brilliant Classics
Complete Piano Music 94450 2CD
Parsifal 95120 3CD
Der fliegende Holländer 94664 2CD
Lieder 94451 1CD
7