German opera

“ There are now no Emperors of Germany. Prague has become a third-rate city. That German Opera, which Mozart originated with his Entführung aus dem Serail, has attained a grand development, and among its composers has numbered Beethoven, Weber, and the latter's follower, and occasional imitator, Meyerbeer. Rossini has appeared with his seductive melody, and his brilliant, sonorous orchestra. But justice is still—more than ever—done to Mozart. ”

“ Several German opera companies have visited Paris; have begun well, and finished badly. And here our most brilliant singers would meet the same fate, because they would be allowed to sing nothing but German music; and German operas are not listened to in Paris. But if it were possible, with only a moderately good German company, to give Norma, the Barber, Robert the Devil, the Huguenots, and Mozart's operas, (omitting the dialogue,) that company, supported by a good orchestra, and performing in a decent theatre, would carry all before them, and return to Germany laden with fame and gold. ”

“ In the German Opera, which, through Gluck and Mozart, had attained its acme, and arrived at the same degree of perfection and estimation as the Italian, truth of expression, dignity, and sublimity in every point, were far more highly prized than the mere fluency of throat, hollow pathos, and excitements of sense, studied in that of the present day. These two institutions operated powerfully on all who were susceptible of what is truly beautiful and noble. ”

“ German opera, in the meanwhile, stands in a certain way apart. Germany, compared with Italy, has sent us very few great singers. We have never looked to Germany for a constant supply of operas, and, indeed, Germany has not produced altogether half a dozen thoroughly German operas (that is to say, founded on German libretti, and written for German singers and German audiences) , which have ever become naturalized in this country, or, indeed, anywhere out of their native land. ”

“ I have never heard anything more impressive, coming as it did to form a finale to the opera itself. It seemed as though the people held their breath during the performance; not a rustle, not a movement distracted one from the glorious music of the orchestra. At the close the whole house broke into wild applause and cries for "Zumpe! Zumpe!"
I do think this German enthusiasm splendid. We talk about the stolidity of the Teutonic race, but I have never yet seen here an unresponsive audience. If they do not like a thing they remain silent. ”

“ It is conceivable, therefore, that the growing partiality for German opera was regarded with disfavour by earnest men, as prejudicial alike to the dramatic interests which were still struggling to assert themselves in Germany, 21 and to the artistic development of operatic music proper. ”

“ This goal is the entire combination of all the phases of art into one great work: the music-drama, in which is mirrored every form of human existence up to the highest ideal life. As this music-drama rests historically upon the opera it is but natural that the second triumvirate of German music should be composed of the founder of German opera, C. M. von Weber, the reformer of the old opera, Christoph Wilibald Gluck, and Richard Wagner. ”

“ Germany had no opera of her own. Mozart and Gluck both composed in the French and Italian style, and Meyerbeer, the then ruler of the German operatic stage, fashioned his popular works on the spectacular style of the grand French opera. “Rienzi” was spectacular, with plenty of the same description of material as “Les Huguenots.” So Wagner’s hopes ran high, and a vista of happiness spread itself before him as an enchanted fairy-land. ”

“ Opera seems from the end of the seventeenth century to have gone on gaining new force and beauty in every country, and to-day it is supposed by some critics to have attained its highest form in Wagner's music. I fear those eager Italian gentlemen who used to meet in Conte Vernio's brilliant rooms would be very much alarmed by some of the German operas of to-day, and I own that, with all love of Wagner's great music, there is a peculiar charm in the old airs of operas which people try to scoff at now. ”

“ Under the accepted operatic form, however, it has relative truth, as the main musical purpose of opera seems, hitherto, to have been less to furnish expression for exalted emotions and thoughts, or exquisite sentiments, than to grant the vocal virtuoso opportunity to display phenomenal qualities of voice and execution. But all opera, however it may stray from the fundamental idea, suggests this dramatic element in music, just as mere lyricism in the poetic art is the blossom from which is unfolded the full-blown perfection of the word-drama, the highest form of all poetry. ”

“ In these remarks lies a valuable hint to the lovers of German opera. The most important thing to do, if opera is to be permanently retained, is to enlarge the operatic public. This can only be done by means of a concerted action of all admirers of the opera. Let them keep on, with "damnable iteration," to drum into their friends' heads the fact that if they will only make up their minds to attend one good opera three or four times in succession they will become devoted admirers of it the rest of their lives. ”

“ The hot-blooded young veritists who were soon to flood Italy with their creations had not yet been heard of. The champions of a change from Italian to German ideals seemed to have the argument all in their favor. The spectacle presented by the lyric stage in Germany and France seemed to show indubitably what course opera as an art form must needs take if it was to live. Gluck, Weber, and Wagner, all Germans, had pointed the way. ”

“ If it was the purpose of Abbey & Grau to put German opera on trial their method looked very unfair. "The drama for its own sake as an art work, and not for the sake of the singer" is a fundamental principle of German art, but it can only maintain its validity with the help of adequate performances. Saving the four singers who sang in Italian and French as well as German (Mme. Nordica, Miss Brema, and the brothers de Reszke) , the German singers of 1895-96 were woefully inefficient, and the German season was an indubitable failure. ”

“ Without going into particulars which would clog this issue, it may be stated that the tradition includes matters pertaining to scenery, staging, lighting, acting, singing, and even tempi in the orchestra. It is all-inclusive.
It must have been quite evident to even the casual concert-goer that German music has passed its zenith. It has had its day and it is not likely that post-bellum music will be Germanic. In an article in a recent number of “The Musical Quarterly,” Edgar Istel reviews German opera since Wagner with a consistent tone of depreciation. ”

“ As opera writers they have never excelled, but for love-songs and martial choruses, their style is equal to that of any other people in the world. Their serenades are among the sweetest efforts of simple composition in the world, containing, notwithstanding the plainness of their style, considerable feeling, and an obvious expression of deep passion.
The Italian school of music divides with the German the admiration of the world. Differing widely from the German, it possesses charms equally attractive and quite as moving. ”

“ To understand the story of the overthrow of German opera managed by the owners of the opera house, and the reversion to the system which had proved disastrous at the beginning and was fated to prove disastrous again, it is well to bear the fact in mind that instability was, is, and always will be an element in the cultivation of opera so long as it remains an exotic; that is, until it becomes a national expression in art, using the vernacular and giving utterance to national ideals. ”

“ The opera begins in Dresden at seven o’clock and closes at ten. The best seats are absurdly cheap, and whole families, whole schools, whole communities, I should say, were there together. I never saw so many children at an opera in my life. Coming straight from Paris, from the theatrical, vivacious, enthusiastic French audiences, with their abominable claqueurs, this first German audience seemed serious, thoughtful, appreciative, but unenthusiastic. They use more judgment about applause than the French. ”

“ These were Lilli Lehmann, soprano from the Royal Opera House in Berlin; Emil Fischer, bass from the Royal Opera House in Dresden; Max Alvary, lyric tenor from Weimar, and Anton Seidl, conductor of the Angelo Neumann Wagner Opera Company. These four artists became subsequently the mainstay of the German opera and in America developed to greater and greater power and fame. ”

“ Vienna introduced Italian opera in 1631, and, generally speaking, the Catholic princes of Germany, who one after another followed the example of Vienna, preferred opera in Italian. Protestant Germany inclined more to opera in its own language, though towards the end of the century Italian gradually gained the upper hand at the more important courts. Native German opera owed its origin partly to the visit of the English comedians early in the century, and partly to the musical plays acted by school-boys ”

“ Of the opera itself he says little, except that the sweet unknown Italian words added to the magic of the whole, so that he afterwards agreed with the Great Frederic as to the profanity of allowing Art to speak in the vulgar tongue, and sympathised heartily with the royal dislike of the German opera. ”

“ If a work never intended to be acted could command attention under such circumstances, surely it would not be too much to hope for the same success from Operas, such as 'Rinaldo,' or 'Ariadne,' full of equally beautiful Music, and expressly designed for a splendid mise en scène. An attempt has already been made by the revival of 'Almira,' Handel's first German opera, at the commemoration festival of the Hamburg Opera-house in Jan. 1878. Let us hope that some enterprising Manager will, one day, turn his attention to the still finer Italian Operas. ”

“ The German school of opera is distinguished by a seriousness of purpose that discards all effort at vocal display for itself alone, and strives, in a score, well-balanced as between voice and orchestra, to express more forcibly than could the spoken work, the drama that has been set to music. ”

“ Of French opera as a whole during this century, the general characterization may be made that it has gained in cosmopolitan quality, nearly all the composers mentioned in the present chapter having gained a world-wide fame. The distinguishing feature of this class of opera is its sprightly rhythm, and the clearness of the melodic forms. The instrumentation, also, is generally clever. The music is pleasing rather than deep, and the popularity of French opera in Germany, for example, is mainly due to its value as a relief to the often undue elaboration of the original German article. ”

“ It is characteristic of the audacity of youth that I should have given two new performances of operas which were rehearsed and produced while we were on tour, “La Dame Blanche” and “Orpheus.” But as the principal rôles had been sung by most of our artists in Germany, these two operas being in the regular repertoire of every German opera-house, the feat was not so extraordinary. The performances were good in ensemble and gave great pleasure to the audience.
My farewell performance in Boston was a Saturday matinée of the “Walküre” with Materna as Brunhilde. In the morning the orchestra struck. ”

“ There had been many German operas performed at Halle itself during the twenty years before Handel's birth, and Duke Johann Adolf opened an opera-house at Weissenfels in 1685, in which Philipp Krieger produced German operas regularly for the next thirty years. ”

“ When we consider the boundless disorder, the medley of forms, periods and modulations of so many of the new German opera composers, by which we are prevented from enjoying many an isolated piece of beauty, we often might wish to see this ravelled skein put in order by means of that stable Italian form. ”

“ The progress illustrated in these examples is that from myth to Mährchen, and Humperdinck in writing his fairy opera, or nursery opera if you will, paid tribute to German nationality in the same coin that Wagner did when he created his "Ring of the Nibelung." Everything about "Hänsel und Gretel" is charming to those who can feel their hearts warm toward the family life and folklore of Germany, of which we are, or ought to be, inheritors. The opera originated, like Thackeray's delightful fireside pantomime for great and small children, "The Rose and the Ring." ”

“ In Germany it had to be Wagner or nothing, and thus, except for the writers of sentimental Singspiele, a form of opera which scarcely comes into the province of art at all, German musicians have vied with each other in producing imitations of their great master, which succeeded or failed according to the measure of their resemblance to their model, but had very little value as original work. ”

“ The fusing of these elements by means of the imagination into one whole is what constitutes German romanticism. The music destined to correspond with this ideal should be bright, highly-coloured, and varied, full of sharp contrasts, subjective rather than objective, the artistic forms constantly evolving themselves in obedience to the arbitrary direction of the imagination. Hence arose two alterations of position, both of great importance in opera, the one between the instrumental and vocal parts of the music ”