Chapter I: Front Matter

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A BOOK OF OPERAS

THEIR HISTORIES, THEIR PLOTS, AND THEIR MUSIC

BY HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL

TO

LUGIEN WULSIN

AN OLD FRIEND

"Old friends are best."--SELDEN.

"I love everything that's old,--old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine."--GOLDSMITH.

"Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!"--MELCHIOR.

CONTENTS

Chapter I "Il Barbiere di Siviglia"

First performance of Italian opera in the United States--Production of Rossini's opera in Rome, London, Paris, and New York--Thomas Phillipps and his English version--Miss Leesugg and Mrs. Holman--Emanuel Garcia and his troupe--Malibran--Early operas in America--Colman's "Spanish Barber"--Other Figaro operas--How Rossini came to Write "Il Barbiere" --The story of a fiasco--Garcia and his Spanish song--"Segui, o caro" --Giorgi-Righetti--The plot of the opera--The overture--"Ecco ridente in cielo"--"Una voce poco fà,"--Rossini and Patti--The lesson scene and what singers have done with it--Grisi, Alboni, Catalani, Bosio, Gassier, Patti, Sembrich, Melba, and Viardot--An echo of Haydn.

Chapter II "Le Nozze di Figaro"

Beaumarchais and his Figaro comedies--"Le Nozze" a sequel to "Il Barbiere"--Mozart and Rossini--Their operas compared--Opposition to Beaumarchais's "Marriage de Figaro"--Moral grossness of Mozart's opera--A relic of feudalism--Humor of the horns--A merry overture --The story of the opera--Cherubino,--"Non so più cosa son"-- Benucci and the air "Non più andrai"--"Voi che sapete"--A marvellous finale--The song to the zephyr--A Spanish fandango--"Deh vieni non tardar."

Chapter III "Die Zauberflöte"

The oldest German opera current in America--Beethoven's appreciation of Mozart's opera--Its Teutonism--Otto Jahn's estimate--Papageno, the German Punch--Emanuel Schikaneder--Wieland and the original of the story of the opera--How "Die Zanberflöte" came to be written--The story of "Lulu"--Mozart and freemasonry--The overture to the opera-- The fugue theme and a theme from a sonata by Clementi--The opera's play--"O Isis und Osiris"--"Hellish rage" and fiorituri--The song of the Two Men in Armor--Goethe and the libretto of "Die Zauberflöte"-- How the opera should be viewed.

Chapter IV "Don Giovanni"

The oldest Italian operas in the American repertory--Mozart as an influence--What great composers have said about "Don Giovanni,"-- Beethoven--Rossini--Gounod--Wagner--History of the opera--Da Ponte's pilferings--Bertati and Gazzaniga's "Convitato di Pietra"--How the overture to "Don Giovanni" was written--First performances of the opera in Prague, Vienna, London, and New York--Garcia and Da Ponte --Malibran--English versions of the opera--The Spanish tale of Don Juan Tenorio--Dramatic versions--The tragical note in the overture --The plot of the opera--Gounod on the beautiful in Mozart's music --Leporello's catalogue--"Batti, batti o bel Masetto"--The three dances in the first finale--The last scene--Mozart quotes from his contemporaries--The original close of the opera.

Chapter V "Fidelio"

An opera based on conjugal love--"Fidelio," "Orfeo," and "Alceste"-- Beethoven a Sincere moralist--Technical history of "Fidelio,"--The subject treated by Paër and Gaveaux--Beethoven's commission--The first performance a failure--A revision by the composer's friends-- The second trial--Beethoven withdraws his opera--A second revision --The revival of 1814--Success at last--First performances in London and New York--The opera enriched by a ballet--Plot of "Fidelio"-- The first duet--The canon quartet--A dramatic trio--Milder-Hauptmann and the great scena--Florestan's air--The trumpet call--The opera's four overtures--Their history.

Chapter VI "Faust"

The love story in Gounod's opera--Ancient bondsmen of the devil-- Zoroaster, Democritus, Empedocles, Apollonius, Virgil, Albertus Magnus, Merlin, Paracelsus, Theophilus of Syracuse,--The myth-making capacity--Bismarck and the needle-gun--Printing, a black art--Johann Fust of Mayence--The veritable Faust--Testimony of Luther and Melanchthon--The literary history of Dr. Faustus--Goethe and his predecessors--Faust's covenant with Mephistopheles--Dr. Faustus and matrimony--The Polish Faust--The devil refuses to marry Madame Twardowska--History of Gounod's opera--The first performance-- Popularity of the opera--First productions in London and New York-- The story--Marguerite and Gretchen--The jewel song--The ballet.

Chapter VII "Mefistofele"

Music in the mediaeval Faust plays--Early operas on the subject-- Meyerbeer and Goethe's poem--Composers of Faust music--Beethoven-- Boito's reverence for Goethe's poem--His work as a poet--A man of mixed blood--"Mefistofele" a fiasco in Milan--The opera revised-- Boito's early ambitions--Disconnected episodes--Philosophy of the opera--Its scope--Use of a typical phrase--The plot--Humors of the English translation--Music of the prologue--The Book of Job--Boito's metrical schemes--The poodle and the friar--A Polish dance in the Rhine country--Gluck and Vestris--The scene on the Brocken--The Classical Sabbath--Helen of Troy--A union of classic and romantic art--First performance of Boito's opera in America, (footnote).

Chapter VIII "La Damnation de Faust"

Berlioz's dramatic legend--"A thing of shreds and patches"--Turned into an opera by Raoul Gunsbourg--The composer's "Scenes from Faust" --History of the composition--The Rakoczy March--Concert performances in New York--Scheme of the work--The dance of the sylphs and the aërial ballet--Dance of the will-o'-the-wisps--The ride to hell.

Chapter IX "La Traviata"

Familiarity with music and its effects--An experience of the author's--Prelude to Verdi's last act--Expressiveness of some melodies--Verdi, the dramatist--Von Bülow and Mascagni--How "Traviata" came to be written--Piave, the librettist--Composed simultaneously with "Il Trovatore,"--Failure of "La Traviata," --The causes--The style of the music--Dr. Basevi's view--Changes in costuming--The opera succeeds--First performance in New York, --A criticism by W. H. Fry--Story of the opera--Dumas's story and harles Dickens--Controversy as a help to popular success.

Chapter X "Aïda"

Popular misconceptions concerning the origin of Verdi's opera--The Suez Canal and Cairo Opera-house--A pageant opera--Local color-- The entombment scene--The commission for the opera--The plot and its author, Mariette Bey--His archaeological discoveries at Memphis --Camille du Locle and Antonio Ghislanzoni--First performance of the opera--Unpleasant experiences in Paris--The plot--Ancient Memphis--Oriental melodies and local color--An exotic scale--The antique trumpets and their march.

Chapter XI "Der Freischütz"

The overture--The plot--A Leitmotif before Wagner--Berlioz and Agathe's air--The song of the Bridesmaids--Wagner and his dying stepfather--The Teutonism of the opera--Facts from a court record --Folklore of the subject--Holda, Wotan, and the Wild Hint--How magical bullets may be obtained--Wagner's description of the Wolf's Glen--Romanticism and classicism--Weber and Theodor Körner--German opera at Dresden--Composition of "Der Freischütz"--First performances in New York, (footnote).

Chapter XII "Tannhäuser"

Wagner and Greek ideals--Methods of Wagnerian study--The story of the opera--Poetical and musical contents of the overture--The bacchanale--The Tannhäuser legend--The historical Tannhäuser--The contest of minstrels in the Wartburg--Mediaeval ballads--Heroes and their charmers--Classical and other parallels--Caves of Venus-- The Hörselberg in Thuringia--Dame Holda--The tale of Sir Adelbert.

Chapter XIII "Tristan und Isolde"

The old legend of Tristram and Iseult--Its literary history--Ancient elements--Wagner's ethical changes--How the drama came to be written --Frau Wesendonck--Wagner and Dom Pedro of Brazil--First performances in Munich and New York--The prelude--Wagner's poetical exposition-- The song of the Sailor--A symbol of suffering--The Death Phrase--The Shepherd's mournful melody--His merry tune--Tristan's death.

Chapter XIV "Parsifal"

The story--The oracle--The musical symbol of Parsifal--Herzeleide-- Kundry--Suffering and lamentation--The bells and march--The eucharistic hymn--The love-feast formula--Faith--Unveiling of the Grail--Klingsor's incantation--The Flower Maidens--The quest of the Holy Grail--Personages and elements of the legend--Ethical idea of Wagner's drama--Biblical and liturgical elements--Wagner's aim--The Knights Templars--John the Baptist, Herodias, and the bloody head-- Relics of Christ's sufferings--The Holy Grail at Genoa--The sacred lances at Nuremberg and Rome--Ancient and mediaeval parallels of personages, apparatuses, and scenes--Wagner's philosophy--Buddhism-- First performances of "Parsifal" in Bayreuth and New York, (footnote).

Chapter XV "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"

"Ridendo castigat mores"--Wagner's adherence to classical ideals of tragedy and comedy--The subject of the satire in "Die Meistersinger" --Wagenseil's book on Nuremberg--Plot of the comedy--The Church of St. Catherine in Nuremberg--A relic of the mastersingers--Mastersongs in the Municipal Library--Wagner's chorus of mastersingers, (footnote) --A poem by Sixtus Beckmesser--The German drama in Nuremberg--Hans Sachs's plays--His Tannhäuser tragedy--"Tristram and Iseult"--"The Wittenberg Nightingale" and "Wach' auf!"--Wagner's quotation from an authentic mastersong melody--Romanticism and classicism--The prelude to "Die Meistersinger."

Chapter XVI "Lohengrin"

Wolfram von Eschenbach's story of Loherangrin--Other sources of the Lohengrin legend--"Der jüngere Titurel" and "Le Chevalier au Cygne" --The plot of Wagner's opera--A mixture of myths--Relationship of the Figaro operas--Contradictions between "Lohengrin" and "Parsifal" --The forbidden question--Wagner's love of theatrical effect--The finale of "Tannhäuser,"--The law of taboo in "Lohengrin"--Jupiter and Semele--Cupid and Psyche--The saga of Skéaf--King Henry, the Fowler.

Chapter XVII "Hänsel und Gretel"

Wagner's influence and his successors--Engelbert Humperdinck--Myths and fairy tales--Origin of "Hänsel und Gretel"--First performances-- An application of Wagnerian principles--The prelude--The Prayer Theme --The Counter-charm--Theme of Fulfilment--Story of the opera--A relic of an old Christmas song--Theme of the Witch--The Theme of Promise-- "Ring around a Rosy"--The "Knusperwalzer."