2005-2006 Student Night at the Opera Program
Study Guide for Opera Gala 2006 – The Greatest Wagner Concert
Ever!
“True Drama is only conceivable
as proceeding from a common urgency of every art towards the
most direct appeal to a common public. In this Drama, each separate
art can only bare its utmost secret to their common public through
a mutual parleying with the other arts; for the purpose of each
separate branch of art can only be fully attained by the reciprocal
agreement and co-operation of all the branches in their common
message.” –Wagner
Wagner! The name conjures a world of gods
and valkyries – cataclysmic
clashes of supermen and the mortals that challenge their awesome
power – music of heroes and schemers for lovers and dreamers – soaring
arias, grand choruses, brilliant orchestration – music
of terrifying emotional impact. Are you ready?
Introduction
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 in Leipzig – February
13, 1883 in Venice) was an influential German composer, music theorist,
and essayist, primarily known for his groundbreaking symphonic-operas
(or "music dramas"). His compositions are notable for
their continuous technique of combining two or more melodic lines
in such a way that they establish a harmonic relationship while
retaining their linear individuality, rich harmonies, orchestration,
and elaborate use of dominant and recurring themes which are
associated with specific characters or situations within an opera.
Wagner's music is chromatic, which means music that makes heavy
use of notes not belonging to the scales within the composition's
key. A chromatic chord, for example, has notes foreign to the
key.
Wagner also transformed musical thought through his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk
("total art-work"), epitomized by his monumental four-opera
cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876). His concept of dominant and
recurring themes and integrated musical expression was a strong
influence on many 20th century film scores. Apparently Wagner was
a rather unpleasant character in real life, but his personal shortcomings
must be sublimated in the poetry and majesty of his music. The
immense surges of sound of the Wagnerian orchestra with the voices
and choruses soaring above it like the crest of the waves form
a might ocean which washes away the pettiness of everyday life
and carries us into a magic land of heroism and romance – a
land where the pure of heart achieve apotheosis.
Program
Der Fliegende Holländer Overture
(The Flying Dutchman) Sailors’ Chorus
Spinning Song
Die Walküre The Ride of the Valkyries
(The Valkyrie) Du bist der Lenz
Der Männer Sippe
Tannhäuser Dich teure Halle
Chorus of Pilgrims
Tristan and Isolde Prelude
Liebestod (Love-Death: “Mild und leise”)
Lohengrin Wedding March
Die Meistersinger von Nümberg Prelude
(The Mastersingers of Nurmberg) Finale (including chorus: Wach
auf!)
Wagner’s Early Life
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig,
Germany, on May 22, 1813. His father was a minor city official
who died six months after his birth. In August of 1814, his
mother married the actor Ludwig Geyer. Geyer, who was rumored
to have actually been the boy's father, died when Richard was
six, leaving his mother as the sole caretaker.
Young Richard entertained ambitions to be a playwright. He first
became interested in music as a means of enhancing the dramas
that he wanted to write and stage. He soon turned toward the
study of music enrolling at the University of Leipzig in 1831.
One of his early musical influences was Ludwig van Beethoven.
In
1833, at the age of 20, Wagner had finished composing his first
complete opera, Die Feen. This opera, which clearly imitated
the style of Weber, would not be produced until half a century
later. Meanwhile, Wagner held brief appointments as musical director
at opera houses in Magdeburg and Königsberg. During this
period he wrote Das Liebesverbot, based on William Shakespeare's
Measure for Measure. This second compositional attempt was actually
staged at Magdeburg in 1836, but met with little acclaim.
On November
24, 1836, Wagner married actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer,
and they moved to the city of Riga where he became the musical
director at the local opera. A few weeks afterward, Minna ran
off with an army officer who left her penniless. Wagner accepted
her back, but it was the start of a troubled marriage that would
end, three decades later, in misery.
By 1839, the couple had amassed
such a large amount of debt that they were forced to flee Riga
to escape their creditors (the recurring problem of debt would
plague Wagner for the rest of his life.) During their flight,
they took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner obtained
the inspiration for Der fliegende Holländer. The Richard
and Minna lived in Paris for several years, during which time
Richard made a living writing articles and making arrangements
of operas by other composers.
Wagner in Dresden
Wagner completed his third opera Rienzi in 1840. Fortuitously,
it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre
in the German state of Saxony. In 1842, the couple moved to Dresden,
where Rienzi was staged with considerable success. Wagner lived
in Dresden for the next six years, eventually receiving an appointment
at the Royal Saxon Court as conductor. During this period, he
wrote and staged Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser.
Their
stay at Dresden was brought to an end by Richard's involvement
in left-wing politics. A nationalist movement was gaining force
in the independent German States, calling for increased freedoms
and the unification of the weak states into a single nation.
Richard Wagner played an enthusiastic role in this movement,
receiving guests at his house that included his colleague August
Röckel, who was editing the radical left-wing paper Volksblätter,
and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.
Widespread discontent against the Saxon government came to a
boil in April 1849, when King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony
dissolved his Parliament and rejected a new constitution pressed
upon him by the people. The May Uprising broke out, in which
Wagner played a minor supporting role. The incipient revolution
was quickly crushed by an allied force of Saxon and Prussian
troops, and warrants were issued for the arrest of the revolutionaries.
Wagner had to flee, first to Paris, and then to Zürich.
Röckel and Bakunin failed to escape and were forced to endure
long years of imprisonment.
Wagner in Exile, Schopenhauer, and
Mathilde Wesendonk
Wagner spent the next twelve years in exile. He had completed
Lohengrin before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately
to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt
eventually conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850.
Nevertheless,
Wagner found himself in grim personal straits, isolated from
the German musical world and without any income to speak of.
The musical sketches he was penning, which would grow into the
mammoth work Der Ring des Nibelungen, seemed to have no prospects
of performance. His wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he
had written after Rienzi, was falling into a deepening depression.
During this period, Wagner's primary output was a set of notable
essays: "The Art-Work of the Future" (1849), in which
he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total
artwork", in which the various arts such as music, song,
dance, poetry, visual arts, and stagecraft were unified; and "Opera
and Drama" (1851), which described ideas in aesthetics that
he was putting to use on the Ring operas.
In the following years,
Wagner came upon two independent sources of inspiration, leading
to the creation of his celebrated Tristan und Isolde. The first
came to him in 1854, when his poet friend Georg Herwegh introduced
him to the works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Wagner
would later call this the most important event of his life. His
personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to
Schopenhauer's philosophy, which was centered on a deeply pessimistic
view of the human condition. He would remain an adherent of Schopenhauer
for the rest of his life, even after his fortunes improved.
One
of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role
among the arts, since it was the only one unconcerned with
the material world. Wagner quickly embraced this claim, which
must have resonated strongly despite its direct contradiction
with his own arguments, in "Opera and Drama", that
music in opera had to be subservient to the cause of drama. Wagner
scholars have since argued that this Schopenhauerian influence
caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his
later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which
he had yet to compose. Many aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine
undoubtedly found its way into Wagner's subsequent stories for
his operas. For example, the self-renouncing cobbler-poet Hans
Sachs in Die Meistersinger, generally considered Wagner's most
sympathetic character, is a quintessentially Schopenhauerian
creation (despite being based on a real person).
Wagner's second
source of inspiration was the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck,
the wife of the silk merchant Otto von Wesendonck. Wagner met
the Wesendoncks in Zürich in 1852. Otto, a fan
of Wagner's music, placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's
disposal. By 1857, Wagner had become infatuated with Mathilde.
Though Mathilde seems to have returned some of his affections,
she had no intention of jeopardizing her marriage, and kept her
husband informed of her contacts with Wagner. Nevertheless, the
affair inspired Wagner to put aside his work on the Ring cycle
(which would not be resumed for the next twelve years) and begin
work on Tristan und Isolde, based on the Arthurian love story
of the knight Tristan and the (already-married) lady Isolde.
The
uneasy affair collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted a letter
from Wagner to Mathilde. After the resulting confrontation, Wagner
left Zürich alone, bound for Venice. The following
year, he once again moved to Paris to oversee production of a
new revision of Tannhäuser. The premiere of the new Tannhäuser
in 1861 was an utter fiasco, owing to disturbances caused by
aristocrats from the Jockey Club. Further performances were cancelled,
and Wagner hurriedly left the city.
In 1861, the political ban against Wagner was lifted, and the
composer settled in Biebrich, Prussia, where he began work on
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Remarkably, this opera is
by far his sunniest work. In 1862, Wagner finally parted with
Minna, though he (or at least his creditors) continued to support
her financially until her death in 1866.
Wagner’s Patronage
of King Ludwig II
Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig
II assumed the throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young
King, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas since childhood, had
the composer brought to Munich. He settled Wagner's considerable
debts, and made plans to have his new opera produced. After grave
difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered to enormous
success at the Munich Court Theatre on June 10, 1865.
In the meantime,
Wagner became embroiled in another affair, this time with Cosima
von Bülow, the wife of the conductor Hans
von Bülow, one of Wagner's most ardent supporters and the
conductor of the Tristan premiere. Cosima was the illegitimate
daughter of Franz Liszt and the famous Countess Marie d'Agoult,
and 24 years younger than Wagner. In April 1865, she gave birth
to Wagner's illegitimate daughter, who was named Isolde. Their
indiscreet affair scandalized Munich, and to make matters worse,
Wagner fell into disfavor with members of the court, who were
suspicious of his influence on the King. In December 1865, Ludwig
was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently
also toyed with the idea of abdicating in order to follow his
hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him.
Ludwig installed Wagner at the villa Triebschen, beside Switzerland's
Lake Lucerne. Die Meistersinger was completed at Triebschen in
1867, and premiered in Munich on June 21 the following year.
In October, Cosima finally convinced Hans von Bülow to grant
her a divorce. Richard and Cosima were married on August 25,
1870. In December of that year, Wagner presented the Siegfried
Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to
the end of Wagner's life. They had an additional daughter, named
Eva, and a son named Siegfried.
It was at Triebschen, in 1869,
that Wagner first met the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who
quickly became a firm friend. Wagner's ideas were a major influence
on Nietzsche, who was 31 years his junior. Nietzsche's first
book, Die Geburt der Tragödie
("The Birth of Tragedy", 1872), was dedicated to Wagner.
The relationship eventually soured, as Nietzsche became increasingly
disillusioned with various aspects of Wagner's thought, such
as his pacifism and anti-Semitism. In Der Fall Wagner ("The
Case of Wagner", 1888) and Nietzsche Contra Wagner (Nietzsche
vs. Wagner, 1895), he would condemn Wagner as decadent and corrupt,
even criticizing his earlier adulatory views of the composer.
Wagner in Bayreuth
Wagner, settled into his newfound domesticity, turning his energies
toward completing the Ring cycle. At Ludwig's insistence, "special
previews" of the first two works of the cycle, Das Rheingold
and Die Walküre, were performed at Munich, but Wagner wanted
the complete cycle to be performed in a new, specially-designed
opera house.
In 1871, he decided on the small town
of Bayreuth as the location of his new opera house. The Wagners
moved there the following year, and the foundation stone for
the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival House") was
laid. In order to raise funds for the construction, "Wagner
societies" were
formed in several cities, and Wagner himself began touring Germany
conducting concerts. However, sufficient funds were only raised
after King Ludwig stepped in with another large grant in 1874.
Later that year, the Wagners moved into their permanent home
at Bayreuth, a villa that Richard dubbed Wahnfried ("Freedom
from Illusion".)
The Festspielhaus finally opened in
August 1876 with the premiere of the Ring cycle. Present at
this unique musical event was an illustrious list of guests:
Kaiser Wilhelm, Dom Pedro II of Brazil, King Ludwig (who attended
in secret, probably to avoid the Kaiser), other members of
the nobility, as well as accomplished composers including Anton
Bruckner, Edvard Grieg, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Franz Liszt.
Artistically,
the Festival was an outstanding success. ("Something
has taken place at Bayreuth which our grandchildren and their
children will still remember," wrote Tchaikovsky, attending
the Festival as a Russian correspondent.)
Financially, however,
it was an unmitigated disaster. Wagner abandoned his original
plan to hold a second festival the following year, and traveled
to London to conduct a series of concerts in an attempt to make
up the deficit.
Wagner’s Final Years
In 1877, Wagner began work on Parsifal, his final opera. The
composition took four years, during which time he also wrote
a series of increasingly reactionary essays on religion and art.
Wagner
completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival
was held for the new opera. Wagner was by this time extremely
ill, having suffered through a series of increasingly severe
angina attacks. During the sixteenth and final performance of
Parsifal on August 29, he secretly entered the pit during Act
III, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi, and led the
performance to its conclusion.
After the Festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for
the winter. On February 13, 1883, Richard Wagner died of a heart
attack in the Palazzo Vendramin on the Grand Canal. His body
was returned to Bayreuth and buried in the garden of Wahnfried.
Wagner’s
Operas
“Wagner's primary artistic legacy consists of the operas
that he wrote. These can be roughly divided into three groups” The
early-stage operas are Die Feen (The Fairies), Das Liebesverbot
(The Ban on Love), and Rienzi. These works are seldom performed
today. His middle-stage output, which is considered to be of
remarkably higher quality, beginning with Der fliegende Holländer
(The Flying Dutchman), followed by Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.
The first of Wagner's mature operas: Tristan und Isolde (Tristan
and Isolde), often considered his masterpiece, Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), the only
comedy in his oeuvre apart from Das Liebesverbot. This is followed
by Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring
cycle, a set of four operas based on German and Scandinavian
mythology. Spanning roughly 16 hours in performance, the Ring
cycle has been called the most ambitious artistic work ever made.
Wagner's final opera, Parsifal, is a contemplative work based
on the Christian legend of the Holy Grail.
Through his operas and theoretical essays,
Wagner exerted a strong influence on the operatic medium. He
was an advocate of a new form of opera, which he called "music drama",
in which all the musical and dramatic elements were fused together.
He is remembered for developing a compositional style in which
the orchestra has at least as great a dramatic role as the singers
themselves. The expressiveness of the orchestra is aided by the
use of leitmotifs ( musical sequences standing for a particular
character or plot element) whose illuminate the progression of
the drama.
Unlike other opera composers, who generally
delegated the task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics)
to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred
to as "poems".
Most of his plots were based on European myths and legends.
Wagner's musical style is often considered the epitome of classical
music's Romantic period, owing to its unprecedented exploration
of emotional expression. He introduced new ideas in harmony and
form, including extremes of chromaticism. In Tristan und Isolde,
he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system that gave
keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to the rise
of atonality in the 20th century. Certain historians of music
have even placed the beginning of modern classical music at the
first notes of Tristan (the so-called Tristan chord.)
Early-stage
· (1832) Die Hochzeit
· (1834) Die Feen
· (1836) Das Liebesverbot
· (1837) Rienzi — Rienzi, der letzte der
Tribunen
Middle-stage
· (1843) Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying
Dutchman)
· (1845) Tannhäuser
· (1848) Lohengrin
Mature
· (1859) Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde)
· (1867) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The
Mastersingers of Nuremberg)
· Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)
o (1854) Das
Rheingold (The Rhinegold)
o (1856) Die Walküre (The Valkyrie)
o (1871) Siegfried (First named: Die Junge
Siegfried or The young Siegfried)
o (1874) Götterdämmerung (The Twilight
of the Gods) (First named: Siegfrieds Tod or The Death of Siegfried)
· (1882)
Parsifal
Wagner’s Non-operatic Music
Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces
of music. These include a single symphony (written at the age
of 19), and some overtures, choral and piano pieces. Of these,
the most commonly-performed work is the Siegfried Idyll, a beautiful
chamber piece written for the birthday of his second wife, Cosima.
The Idyll draws on several motifs from the Ring cycle, though
it is not part of the Ring. The next most popular are the Wesendonck
Lieder, properly known as Five Songs for a Female Voice, which
were composed for Mathilde Wesendonck while Wagner was working
on Tristan.
After completing Parsifal, Wagner apparently intended to turn
to the writing of symphonies. However, nothing substantial had
been written at the time of his death.
The overtures and orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and
late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For
most of these, Wagner wrote short passages to conclude the excerpt
so that it does not end abruptly. This is true, for example,
of the Parsifal prelude and Siegfried's Funeral Music. A curious
fact is that the concert version of the Tristan prelude is unpopular
and rarely heard; the original ending of the prelude is usually
considered to be better, even for a concert performance.
The Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin (popularly
known in English-speaking countries as "Here Comes the Bride")
is often played as the processional at wedding
We love to get mail at Toledo Opera! Please encourage your
students to draw a picture or write a paragraph describing their
favorite character, favorite part of the story, or general impressions
of the presentation. Letters and pictures can be sent to:
Jennifer Gross
Education & Outreach Program
Toledo Opera
425 Jefferson Avenue, Suite 601
Toledo, OH 43604-1080
Resources
Composer
· http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/sit2.html
· http://www.dsokids.com/2001/dso.asp?PageID=619
· http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/wagner.spml
· http://www.answers.com
· http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/ranhabwagner.html
· http://w3.rz-berling.mpg.de/cmp/wagner.html
Operas
· http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/opera.html
· http://www.seattleopera.org/wagner/recordings/meistersinger.aspx
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridal_Chorus
· http://web.ukonline.co.uk/nso/Wagner.htm
· http://www.oldandsold.com/articles30/opera-guide-16.shtml
· http://www.music-with-ease.com/flying-dutchman-synopsis.html
· http://opera.stanford.edu/reviews/hollander.html
· http://www.romanhurko.com/dutchmanreview.html
· http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0153797.html
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