Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 | Page 8

was the usual bankruptcy of the
management,--the fourth that affected him! Then he wrote a Parisian
Vaudeville, but it had to be given up because the actors declared it
could not be executed. The Grand Opera, on which he had fixed his eye,
was absolutely out of the question. He was brought to such straits that
he offered to sing in the chorus of a small Boulevard theatre, but was
rejected. His wife pawned her jewels; on several occasions it is said
that she even went into the street to beg a few pennies for their supper.
It was doubtless during these years of starvation that Wagner acquired
those gastric troubles which in later years often prevented him from
working more than an hour or two a day.
A few German friends occasionally gave a little pecuniary aid, but the
only regular source of income was musical hackwork for the publisher
Schlesinger, who gladly availed himself of Wagner's skill in having

him make vocal scores of operas, or arrange popular melodies for the
piano and other instruments. Wagner also wrote stories and essays for
musical periodicals, for which he received fair remuneration; but his
attempt to compose romances and become a parlor favorite failed.
Nobody wanted his songs, and he finally offered them to the editor of a
periodical in Germany for two dollars and a half to four dollars apiece.
This may seem ludicrously pathetic; but then had not poor Schubert, a
little more than a decade before this, sold much better songs for twenty
cents each!
Meyerbeer no doubt aided Wagner, but considering his very great
influence in Paris, he achieved surprisingly little for him. The score of
"Rienzi" had been completed in 1840, and in the spring of the next year,
Wagner went to Meudon, near Paris, and there composed the music of
"The Flying Dutchman," in seven weeks, but neither of these operas
seemed to have the least chance to appear on the boards of the Grand
Opera. The best their author could do was to sell the libretto of "The
Flying Dutchman" for one hundred dollars, reserving the right to set it
to music himself.
The outcome of all these disappointments was that he finally lost hope
so far as Paris was concerned, and sent his "Rienzi" to Dresden and his
"Flying Dutchman" to Berlin. The "Novice of Palermo" he had given
up entirely after the bankruptcy of the Renaissance Théâtre, because, as
he wrote, "I felt that I could no longer respect myself as its composer."
Meyerbeer had, at his request, kindly sent a note to the intendant of the
Dresden Opera, in which he said, among other things, that he had found
the selections from "Rienzi," which Wagner had played for him,
"highly imaginative and of great dramatic effect." Tichatschek, the
famous Dresden tenor, examined the score, and liked the title role; the
chorus director, Fischer, also pleaded for the acceptance of the opera;
and so at last Wagner got word in Paris that it would be produced in
Dresden. As Berlin, too, retained the manuscript of his other opera,
there was reason enough for him to end his Parisian sojourn and return
to his native country. He went overland this time, and, to cite his own
words, "For the first time I saw the Rhine; with tears in my eyes I, the
poor artist, swore eternal allegiance to my German fatherland."

It was fortunate in every way that he went to Dresden. His opera
required many alterations and improvements, which he alone could
make. He was permitted to superintend the rehearsals, which was, of
course, a great advantage to the opera. The singers grew more and more
enthusiastic over the music, and when the first public performance was
given, on October 20, 1842, the audience also was delighted and
remained to the very end, although the performance lasted six hours.
The composer immediately applied the pruning-knife and reduced the
duration to four hours and a half (from 6 to 10.30,--opera hours were
early in those days); but the tenor, Tichatschek, declared with tears in
his eyes, "I shall not permit any cuts in my part! It is too heavenly."
Those were proud and happy days for Wagner. "I, who had hitherto
been lonely, deserted, homeless," he wrote, "suddenly found myself
loved, admired, by many even regarded with wonderment." "Rienzi"
was repeated a number of times to overcrowded houses, though the
prices had been put up. It was regarded as "a fabulous success," and the
management was eager to follow it up with another. So the score of
"The Flying Dutchman" was demanded of Berlin (where they seemed
in no hurry to use it), and at once put into rehearsal. It was produced in
Dresden on January 2, 1843, only about ten weeks after "Rienzi,"--an