My Life. Volume 2

The atmosphere created by this conviction now weighed with increasing pressure upon everything which was undertaken for the preparation of a performance which was postponed time after time. With the beginning of the year the rehearsals had readied the stage at which the scenes were arranged and the orchestral practices begun. Everything was conducted with a care which impressed me very agreeably at the beginning, until finally I was bored by it, because I saw that the powers of the performers were being relaxed by eternal repetition, and it was now evident that I must trust to my own ability to pull the matter quickly through as I thought best. But it was not the fatigue due to this system that finally made Niemann, the main prop in my work, recoil from the task which at the start he had undertaken with an energy full of promise. He had been informed that there was a conspiracy to ruin my work. From this time forward he was a victim to a despondency to which, in his relations with me, he sought to lend a sort of diabolical character. He maintained that so far he could only see the matter in a black light, and he brought forward some arguments that sounded very sensible; he criticised the whole Opera as an institution and the public attached to it, and also our staff of singers, of whom he maintained that not a single one understood his part as I intended it; and he exposed all the disadvantages of the undertaking, which I myself could not fail to see as soon as I came to deal with the chef du chant, the regisseur, the ballet-master, the conductor of the chorus, but, particularly, with the chef d'orchestre. Above all, Niemann (who at the beginning, with a full knowledge of what it involved, had imposed upon himself the task of playing his part without curtailments of any sort) insisted upon cutting down the score. He met my expression of astonishment with the remark, that I must not suppose that the sacrifice of this or that passage mattered, but that we were in the throes of an undertaking which could not be got through too quickly.

Under circumstances from which so little encouragement could be derived, the study of Tannhauser dragged itself along to the brink of the so-called 'dress' rehearsals. From all sides the friends of my past life gathered together in Paris to be present at the apotheosis of the first performance. Among these were Otto Wesendonck, Ferdinand Prager, the unfortunate Kietz, for whom I had to pay the costs of his journey and of his stay in Paris; luckily M. Chandon from Epernay came, too, with a hamper of 'Fleur du Jardin,' the finest of all his champagne brands. This was to be drunk to the success of Tannhauser. Bulow also came, depressed and saddened by the burdens of his own life, and hoping to be able to gather courage and renewed vitality from the success of my undertaking. I did not dare to tell him in so many words of the miserable state of affairs; on the contrary, seeing him so depressed, I made the best of a bad matter. At the first rehearsal, however, at which Bulow was present, he did not fail to grasp how matters stood. I no longer concealed anything from him; and we continued to indulge in sorrowful intercourse till the night of the performance, which was again and again postponed, and it was only his untiring efforts to be of use to me that gave some life to our companionship. From whatever side we regarded our grotesque undertaking, we encountered unsuitability and incompetence. For instance, it was impossible in the whole of Paris to find the twelve French horns which in Dresden had so bravely sounded the hunting call in the first act. In connection with this matter I had to deal with the terrible man Sax, the celebrated instrument-maker. He had to help me out with all kinds of substitutes in the shape of saxophones and saxhorns; moreover, he was officially appointed to conduct the music behind the scenes. It was an impossibility ever to get this music properly played.

The main grievance, however, lay in the incompetence of M. Dietzsch, the conductor, which had now reached a pitch hitherto unsuspected. In the numerous orchestral rehearsals which had been held hitherto, I had accustomed myself to use this man like a machine. From my habitual position on the stage near his desk I had conducted both conductor and orchestra. In this way I had maintained my tempi in such a way that I felt no doubt that on my removal all my points would remain firmly established. I found, on the contrary, that no sooner was Dietzsch left to his own resources than everything began to waver; not one tempo, not one nuance was conscientiously and strictly preserved. I then realised the extreme danger in which we were placed. Granted that no one singer was suited to his task, or qualified to achieve it so as to produce a genuine effect; granted that the ballet, and even the sumptuous mounting and vitality of the Parisian performances of the day, could contribute nothing on this occasion, or at most but little; granted that the whole spirit of the libretto, and that indefinable SOMETHING which even in the worst performances of Tannhauser in Germany roused a feeling of home, was likely here to strike an alien or at best an unfamiliar note; yet in spite of all this the character of the orchestral music, which if rendered with emphasis was full of suggestive expression, led one to hope that it would make an impression even upon a Parisian audience. But it was precisely in this particular that I saw everything submerged in a colourless chaos, with every line of the drawing obliterated; moreover, the singers became more and more uncertain in their work; even the poor ballet-girls were no longer able to keep time in their trivial steps; so that at last I thought myself obliged to interpose with the declaration that the opera required a different conductor, and that in case of necessity I myself was ready to take his place. This declaration brought to a climax the confusion that had grown up around me. Even the members of the orchestra, who had long recognised and openly ridiculed their conductor's incompetence, took sides against me now that the matter concerned their notorious chief. The press lashed itself into fury over my 'arrogance,' and in the face of all the agitation caused by the affair, Napoleon III. could send me no better advice than to forgo my requests, as in adhering to them I should only be exposing the chances of my work to the greatest risks. On the other hand, I was allowed to start fresh rehearsals and have them repeated until I was satisfied.

This way out of the difficulty could lead to nothing but an increase of fatigue for me and for the whole staff actively engaged in the undertaking, and the fact still remained that M. Dietzsch could not be depended upon for the tempo. Finally, by sheer force of will rather than of conviction, I tried to imagine I was doing a service by holding out for the correct interpretation of a performance which, after all, had to be got through; whereupon for the first time the impetuous musicians broke out into rebellion against the excessive rehearsals. At this stage I noticed that the guarantee of my practical control given by the general management was not altogether made in good faith, and in the face of the growing complaint on all sides against being overfatigued I decided 'to demand the return of my score' as they called it; that is to say, to dispense with the production of the opera. I addressed an express request to this effect to the cabinet minister Walewsky, but received the answer that it was impossible to comply with my wishes, more particularly on account of the heavy expenses which had already been incurred in its preparation. I refused to abide by his decision, and called a conference of those friends of mine who were more closely interested in me, among whom were Count Hatzfeld and Emil Erlanger. I took counsel with them as to the means at my disposal for forbidding Tannhauser to be performed at the Opera House. It happened that Otto Wesendonck was present at this conference; he was still waiting in Paris hoping to have the pleasure of attending the first performance, but he was now thoroughly convinced that the situation was hopeless, and promptly fled back to Zurich. Prager had already done likewise. Kietz alone held out faithfully, and he busied himself in trying to make some money in Paris to provide for his future, in which attempt he was hampered by many difficulties that stood in the way of his desire. This conference resulted in fresh representations being made to the Emperor Napoleon, which, however, met with the same gracious reply as before, and I was authorised to institute a fresh course of rehearsals. At last, weary to the depths of my soul, completely disillusioned, and absolutely decided in my pessimistic view of the matter, I determined to abandon it to its fate.

Having at last, in this frame of mind, given my consent to fix the date of the first performance of my opera, I was now plagued in another direction in the most astonishing way. Every one of my friends and partisans demanded a good seat for the first night; but the management pointed out that the occupation of the house on such occasions was entirely in the hands of the court and those dependent on it, and I was soon to realise clearly enough to whom these seats were to be allotted. At present I had to suffer the annoyance of being unable to serve many of my friends as I should have liked. Some of them were very quick to resent what they supposed to be my neglect of them. Champfleury in a letter complained of this flagrant breach of friendship; Gasperini started an open quarrel because I had not reserved one of the best boxes for his patron and my creditor Lucy, the Receiver-General of Marseilles. Even Blandine, who had been filled with the most generous enthusiasm for my work at the rehearsals she had attended, could not suppress a suspicion that I was guilty of neglecting my best friends when I was unable to offer her and her husband Ollivier anything better than a couple of stalls. It needed all Emil's sang-froid to obtain from this deeply offended friend a just appreciation of the honest assurance that I was in an impossible position, in which I was exposed to betrayal on all sides. Poor Bulow alone understood everything; he suffered with me, and shirked no trouble to be of use to me in all these difficulties. The first performance on the 13th of March put an end to all these complications; my friends now understood that it was to no celebration of my triumphs, as they supposed, to which they should have been invited.

I have already said enough elsewhere of the way in which this evening passed off. I was justified in flattering myself that in the end a favourable view of my opera prevailed, inasmuch as the intention of my opponents had been to break up this performance completely, and this they had found it impossible to do. But I was grieved the next day to receive nothing but reproaches from my friends, with Gasperini at the head of them, because I had allowed the occupation of the house at the first performance to be completely wrested out of my hands. Meyerbeer, they urged, knew how to work such things differently; had he not, ever since he first appeared in Paris, refused to allow the production of a single one of his operas to take place without a guarantee that he himself should fill the auditorium, to the remotest corner? As I had not looked after my best friends, such as M. Lucy, was not the ill-success of that evening to be ascribed to my own conduct? Confronted with these and similar arguments, I had to spend the whole day in writing letters and in devoting myself to the most urgent efforts at propitiation. Above all, I was besieged with advice as to how I might recover the lost ground at the subsequent performances. As the management placed a very small number of free seats at my disposal, money had to be found for the purchase of tickets. In the pursuit of this object, which my friends were so warmly advocating and which involved much that was disagreeable, I shrank from approaching Emil Erlanger or anybody else. Giacomelli, however, had found out that Aufmordt, the merchant, a business friend of Wesendonck, had offered to help to the extent of five hundred francs. I now allowed these champions of my welfare to act according to their own ideas, and was curious to see what assistance I should derive from these resources which I had previously neglected and now utilised.

The second performance took place on the 18th of March, and, indeed, the first act promised well. The overture was loudly applauded without a note of opposition. Mme. Tedesco, who had eventually been completely won over to her part of Venus by a wig powdered with gold dust, called out triumphantly to me in the manager's box, when the 'septuor' of the finale of the first act was again vigorously applauded, that everything was now all right and that we had won the victory. But when shrill whistling was suddenly heard in the second act, Royer the manager turned to me with an air of complete resignation and said, 'Ce sont les Jockeys; nous sommes perdus.' Apparently at the bidding of the Emperor, extensive negotiations had been entered into with these members of the Jockey Club as to the fate of my opera. They had been requested to allow three performances to take place, after which they had been promised that it should be so curtailed as to admit of its presentation only as a curtain-raiser to introduce a ballet which was to follow. But these gentlemen had not agreed to the terms. In the first place, my attitude during the first performance (which had been such a bone of contention) had been observed to be utterly unlike that of a man who would consent to the proposed line of conduct; this being so, it was to be feared that if two more performances were allowed to take place without interruption, we might hope to win so many adherents that the friends of the ballet would be treated to repetitions of this work thirty times running. To guard against this they determined to protest in time. The fact that these gentlemen meant business was now realised by the excellent M. Royer; and from that time he gave up all attempt to resist them, in spite of the support granted to our party by the Emperor and his Consort, who stoically kept their seats through the uproars of their own courtiers.

The impression made by this scene had a disastrous effect upon my friends. After the performance Bulow broke out into sobs as he embraced Minna, who had not been spared the insults of those next to her when they recognised her as the wife of the composer. Our trusty servant Therese, a Swabian girl, had been sneered at by a crazy hooligan, but when she realised that he understood German, she succeeded in quieting him for a time by calling him Schweinhund at the top of her voice. Poor Kietz was struck dumb with disappointment, and Chandon's 'Fleur du Jardin' was growing sour in the storeroom.

Hearing that in spite of everything a third performance was fixed, I was confronted with only two possible solutions of the difficulty. One was, to try once more to withdraw my score; the other, to demand that my opera should be given on a Sunday, that is to say, on a non-subscriber's day. I assumed that such a performance could not be regarded by the usual ticket-holders as a provocation, for they were quite accustomed on such days to surrender their boxes to any of the general public who chanced to come and buy them. My strategical proposal seemed to please the management and the Tuileries, and was accepted. Only they refused to conform to my wish to announce this as the third and LAST performance. Both Minna and I stayed away from this, as it was just as embarrassing for me to know that my wife was insulted as to see the singers on the stage subjected to such behaviour. I was really sorry for Morelli and Mlle. Sax, who had proved their genuine devotion to me. As soon as the first performance was over, I met Mlle. Sax in the corridor on her way home, and chaffed her about being whistled off the stage. With proud dignity she replied, 'Je le supporterai cent fois comme aujourd' hui. Ah, les miserables!' Morelli found himself strangely perplexed when he had to weather the onslaught of the hooligans. I had explained to him in the minutest detail how to act his part from the time when Elizabeth disappears in the third act, until the beginning of his song to the evening star. He was not to move an inch from his rocky ledge, and from this position, half turning to the audience, he was to address his farewell to the departing lady. It had been a difficult task for him to obey my instructions, as he maintained that it was against all operatic custom for the singer not to address such an important passage straight to the public from the footlights. When in the course of the performance he seized his harp to begin the song, there was a cry from the audience, 'Ah! il prend encore sa harpe,' upon which there was a universal outburst of laughter followed by fresh whistling, so prolonged, that at last Morelli decided boldly to lay aside his harp and step forward to the proscenium in the usual way. Here he resolutely sang his evening carol entirely unaccompanied, as Dietzsch only found his place at the tenth bar. Peace was then restored, and at last the public listened breathlessly to the song, and at its close covered the singer with applause.

As the vocalists showed a courageous determination to encounter fresh onslaughts, I could not protest. At the same time I could not endure to be in the position of a passive spectator suffering at the infliction of such unworthy methods, and as the third performance was also likely to be attended with doubtful consequences, I stayed at home. After the various acts messages reached us informing us that after the first act Truinet at once came round to my opinion that the score should be withdrawn; it was found that the 'Jockeys' had not stayed away, as was their custom, from this Sunday performance; on the contrary, they had purposely taken their seats from the beginning, so as not to allow a single scene to pass without a row. I was assured that in the first act the performance had been twice suspended by fights lasting a quarter of an hour each. By far the greater part of the public obstinately took my part against the childish conduct of the rowdies, without intending by their action to express any opinion of my work. But in opposing their assailants they were at a great disadvantage. When everybody on my side was utterly wearied out with clapping and shouting applause and calling 'Order,' and it looked as if peace were about to reign once more, the 'Jockeys' returned afresh to their task and began cheerfully whistling their hunting-tunes and playing their flageolets, so that they were always bound to have the last word. In an interval between the acts one of these gentlemen entered the box of a certain great lady, who in the excess of her anger introduced him to one of her friends with the words, 'C'est un de ces miserables, mon cousin.' The young man, completely unabashed, answered, 'Que voulez-vous? I am beginning to like the music myself. But, you see, a man must keep his word. If you will excuse me, I will return to my work again.' He thereupon took his leave. The next day I met Herr von Seebach, the friendly Saxon Ambassador, who was as hoarse as he could be, as he and all his friends had completely lost their voices through the uproar of the previous night. Princess Metternich had remained at home, as she had already had to endure the coarse insults and ridicule of our opponents at the first two performances.

She indicated the height to which this fury had risen by mentioning some of her best friends, with whom she had engaged in so virulent a controversy that she had ended by saying: 'Away with your free France! In Vienna, where at least there is a genuine aristocracy, it would be unthinkable for a Prince Liechtenstein or Schwarzenberg to scream from his box for a ballet in Fidelio.' I believe she also spoke to the Emperor in the same strain, so that he seriously debated whether by police intervention some check could not be put upon the unmannerly conduct of these gentlemen, most of whom, unfortunately, belonged to the Imperial Household. Some rumour of this got abroad, so that my friends believed they had really gained the day when, at the third performance, they found the corridors of the theatre occupied by a strong body of police. But it turned out later on that these precautions had only been taken to ensure the safety of the 'Jockeys,' as it was feared they might be attacked from the pit as a punishment for their insolence. It seems that the performance, which was again carried through to the end, was accompanied from start to finish by an endless tumult. After the second act the wife of von Szemere, the Hungarian revolutionary minister, joined us in a state of complete collapse, declaring that the row in the theatre was more than she could bear. No one seemed able to tell me exactly how the third act had been got through. As far as I could make out, it resembled the turmoil of a battle thick with the smoke of gunpowder. I invited my friend Truinet to visit me the next morning, so that with his help I might compose a letter to the management withdrawing my work and, as author, forbidding any further performance of the same, as I did not wish to see my singers abused instead of myself by a section of the public from whom the Imperial administration seemed unable to protect them. The astonishing thing about the whole matter was that in thus interfering I was guilty of no bravado, for a fourth and fifth performance of the opera had been already arranged, and the management protested that they were under obligations to the public, who still continued to crowd to this opera. But through Truinet I contrived to have my letter published the next day in the Journal des Debats, so that at last, though with great reluctance, the management gave their consent to my withdrawal of the piece.

Thereupon the legal action taken on my behalf by Ollivier against Lindau also came to an end. The latter had put in a claim on my author's rights in the libretto, in which he said he was entitled to a share as one of the three collaborators. His counsel, Maitre Marie, based his plea on a principle which I was said to have established myself, namely that the point of chief importance was not the melody, but the correct declamation of the words of the libretto, which obviously neither Roche nor Truinet could have ensured, seeing that neither of them understood German. Ollivier's argument for the defence was so energetic that he was almost on the point of proving the purely musical essence of my melody by singing the 'Abendstern.' Completely carried away by this, the judges rejected the plaintiff's claim, but requested me to pay him a small sum by way of compensation, as he seemed really to have taken some part in the work at the beginning. In any case, however, I could not have paid this out of the proceeds of the Paris performances of Tannhauser, as I had decided with Truinet, on withdrawing the opera, to hand over the whole of the proceeds from my author's rights, both for libretto and music, to poor Roche, to whom the failure of my work meant the ruin of all his hopes for the amelioration of his position.

Various other connections were also dissolved by this outcome of affairs. During the past few months I had busied myself with an artistic club which had been founded, chiefly through the influence of the German embassies, among an aristocratic connection for the production of good music apart from the theatres, and to stimulate interest in this branch of art among the upper classes. Unfortunately, in the circular it had published it had illustrated its endeavours to produce good music by comparing them to those of the Jockey Club to improve the breed of horses. Their object was to enrol all who had won a name in the musical world, and I was obliged to become a member at a yearly subscription of two hundred francs. Together with M. Gounod and other Parisian celebrities, I was nominated one of an artistic committee, of which Auber was elected president. The society often held its meetings at the house of a certain Count Osmond, a lively young man, who had lost an arm in a duel, and posed as a musical dilettante. In this way I also learned to know a young Prince Polignac, who interested me particularly on account of his brother, to whom we were indebted for a complete translation of Faust. I went to lunch with him one morning, when he revealed to me the fact that he composed musical fantasies. He was very anxious to convince me of the correctness of his interpretation of Beethoven's Symphony in A major, in the last movement of which he declared he could clearly demonstrate all the phases of a shipwreck. Our earlier general meetings were chiefly occupied with arrangements and preparations for a great classical concert, for which I also was to compose something. These meetings were enlivened solely by Gounod's pedantic zeal, who with unflagging and nauseating garrulity executed his duties as secretary, while Auber continually interrupted, rather than assisted the proceedings, with trifling and not always very delicate anecdotes and puns, all evidently intended to urge us to end the discussions. Even after the decisive failure of Tannhauser I received summonses to the meetings of this committee, but never attended it any more, and sent in my resignation to the president of the society, stating that I should probably soon be returning to Germany.

With Gounod alone did I still continue on friendly terms, and I heard that he energetically championed my cause in society. He is said on one occasion to have exclaimed: 'Que Dieu me donne une pareille chute!' As an acknowledgment of this advocacy I presented him with the score of Tristan und Isolde, being all the more gratified by his behaviour because no feeling of friendship had ever been able to induce me to hear his Faust.

I now came into touch with energetic protagonists of my cause at every turn. I was particularly honoured in the columns of those smaller journals of which Meyerbeer had as yet taken no account, and several good criticisms now appeared. In one of these I read that my Tannhauser was la symphonie chantee. Baudelaire distinguished himself by an exceedingly witty and aptly turned pamphlet on this topic; and finally Jules Janin himself astonished me by an article in the Journal des Debats, in which, with burning indignation, he gave a somewhat exaggerated report, in his own peculiar style, of the whole episode. Even parodies of Tannhauser were given in the theatres for the delectation of the public; and Musard could find no better means of attracting audiences to his concerts than the daily announcement, in enormous letters, of the Overture to Tannhauser. Pasdeloup also frequently produced some of my pieces by way of showing his sentiments. And lastly, Countess Lowenthal, the wife of the Austrian military plenipotentiary, gave a great matinee, at which Mme. Viardot sang various items from Tannhauser, for which she received five hundred francs.

By some singular coincidence people managed to confound my fate with that of a certain M. de la Vaquerie, who had also made a dismal failure with a drama, Les Funerailles de l'Honeur. His friends gave a banquet, to which I was invited, and we were both enthusiastically acclaimed. Fiery speeches were made about the encanaillemenl of the public, containing references to politics, which were easily explained by the fact that my partner in the festivity was related to Victor Hugo. Unfortunately particular supporters had provided a small piano, on which I was literally compelled to play favourite passages from Tannhauser. Whereupon the evening became a festival in my honour alone.

But a much more important result than these was that people began to recognise the reality of my popularity, and began to plan yet greater undertakings. The manager of the Theatre Lyrique sought everywhere for a tenor suitable for Tannhauser, and only his inability to find one compelled him to renounce his intention of producing my opera at once. M. de Beaumont, the manager of the Opera Comique, who was on the verge of bankruptcy, hoped to save himself with Tannhauser, with which intention he approached me with the most urgent proposals. True, he hoped at the same time to enlist Princess Metternich's intervention on his behalf with the Emperor, who was to help him out of his embarrassments. He reproached me with coldness when I failed to fall in with his glowing dreams, in which I could find no pleasure. But I was interested to learn that Roger, who now had a post at the Opera Comique, had included part of the last act of Tannhauser in the programme of a performance given for his own benefit, whereby he drew down upon his head the fury of the more influential press, but won a good reception from the public. Schemes now began to multiply. A. M. Chabrol, whose journalistic name was Lorbach, visited me on behalf of a company, whose director was an enormously wealthy man, with a plan for founding a Theatre Wagner, of which I refused to hear anything until it could secure an experienced man of first-class reputation as manager. Eventually M. Perrin was selected for the post. This man had lived for years in the firm conviction that he would be some day appointed manager of the Grand Opera, and thought, therefore, that he ought not to compromise himself. It is true, he ascribed the failure of Tannhauser entirely to Royer's incapacity, who ought to have made it his business to win over the press to his side. Nevertheless he was strongly tempted to share in the attempt because of the opportunity it afforded him of proving that, if he took the matter in hand, everything would at once wear a different aspect, and Tannhauser become a great success. But as he was an exceedingly cold and cautious man, he thought he had discovered serious flaws in M. Lorbach's proposals, and when the latter began to stipulate for certain commissions, Perrin immediately fancied that he detected a not quite blameless savour of speculation in the whole business, and declared that if he wanted to found a Wagner Theatre, he would manage to procure the necessary funds in his own way. As a matter of fact, he did actually entertain the notion of securing a large cafe, the 'Alcazar,' and after that the 'Bazar de la Bonne Nouvelle,' for the purposes of such a theatre. It also seemed possible that the requisite capitalists would be found for his enterprise. M. Erlanger believed he could succeed in getting ten bankers to guarantee fifty thousand francs, thus placing a sum of five hundred thousand francs at M. Perrin's disposal. But the latter soon lost courage when he found that the gentlemen thus approached were willing to risk their money on a theatre for their own amusement, but not for the serious purpose of acclimatising my music in Paris.