The fairies
| Work data | |
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| Title: | The fairies |
Title page of the piano reduction, Mannheim 1888 |
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| Shape: | Opera in three acts |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Richard Wagner |
| Libretto : | Richard Wagner |
| Premiere: | June 29, 1888 |
| Place of premiere: | Munich |
| Playing time: | approx. 3 ¾ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | fairy tale |
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The fairies is the first completed opera by Richard Wagner . This opera was designed in the style of the German romantic opera, heavily influenced by Wagner's role models Carl Maria von Weber (leitmotifs) and Heinrich Marschner (dramatic spoken chant). The first performance of the fairies took place five years after Wagner's death on June 29, 1888 in the royal court and national theater in Munich , rehearsed by the young Richard Strauss , conducted by Franz Fischer.
prehistory
Arindal and his hunter Gernot are on the hunt. There you see a particularly beautiful doe. But they cannot kill this animal until dusk and inexplicably arrive in the realm of the fairies. The first thing you see there instead of a deer is the fairy Ada. Arindal and Ada instantly fall madly in love. Against the will of the fairy king, Ada wants to marry her lover. The Fairy King agrees on the condition that Arindal Ada is not allowed to ask who she is for the first eight years. Arindal accepts this condition. The years go by - both have two children - when Arindal asks Ada who she is shortly before the deadline. Thereupon Arindal and Gernot are driven out of the fairy realm and transported to a wild, desolate area. Ada, who is not ready to give up her husband, wants to renounce her immortality and goes in search of Arindal.
action
first act
Fairy garden
Zemina and Farzana are on a quest to find Ada to keep her from giving up her immortality. They call on all fairies and spirits to help them find Ada (give us help with our work) .
Wild wasteland with rocks
Tramond is threatened by King Murold. Therefore, after the death of Arindal's father, Morald and Gunther set out to look for Arindal. They meet Gernot, who tells them what has happened in the past eight years. With the help of the magician Groma, they want to persuade Arindal to return to Tramond. Arindal is still looking for Ada, (where do I find you, where can I get comfort) and in his desperation meets Gernot again. He tries to release him from his desperation by making Ada bad and comparing her with the witch Dilnovaz, whose beauty was based only on magic. Then Gunther, disguised as a holy priest, steps up to them (O King, you are in a bad way, surrounded by an evil woman) . However, the masquerade is exposed. Shortly afterwards, Morold appears in the form of Arindal's dead father. He tells him that he died of grief for his son. Immediately afterwards King Murold had invaded the country and laid waste to everything. Only one city is valiantly defended by the sister. When Arindal tries to rush home, this masquerade is also exposed. But Morald assures him that all of this is true and that he must get home quickly. Arindal agrees and wistfully wants to follow his companions (Oh cruel, goodbye forever, I go to battle for my fatherland) . When tiredness overcomes him, he sits down on a stone.
The scene is transformed into a lovely fairy garden, with a gleaming palace in the background
When Arindal wakes up, Ada is suddenly standing in front of him. His joy is great, but it reveals to him that they can only be together for a short time. When Gernot and the companions return, they do not initially know where they are. Then they see the beautiful Ada, and Gernot tells them that she is Arindal's wife. Now they are beginning to doubt whether Arindal will accompany them home after all. Ada assures Arindal that he will see him again the next day, but he has to swear not to curse her no matter what. After the oath, she releases him and his companions from the fairy realm (So I let you out of my arms) .
Second act
Entrance to a palace in the capital of the Arindal Empire
Dedicated to their downfall, Lora and the citizens of Tramond, despondent, gather in front of the palace. A messenger appears and announces that Arindal and his companions will return soon. When they come home, they see the desperate situation of the country (everything full of enemies, hardly an inch is ours) . Nevertheless, Gernot and the maid Drolla celebrate a happy reunion after eight years (it's you! Oh what joy!) . When the warriors go to battle, Arindal remains behind. Then Ada appears in the hall. At a signal from her, her children appear and fall into Arindal's arms. Ada snatches them from her father and throws them into the throat of fire that she conjured up, which disappears immediately afterwards. At the same time the warriors return, routed, proclaiming that all is lost and Morald is gone. When Harald appears and tells that a woman named Ada has allied herself with his enemy and has scattered his army in all directions, he curses Ada and breaks his oath. Then Ada reveals herself. Everything was just an appearance. Harald the traitor had convicted them and destroyed his companions. At this moment Morald wins through their support, the children reappear and fall into their father's arms again. But Ada is surrounded by stone under thunder and lightning, Arindal goes mad.
Third act
Festive hall
The rightful King Arindal has gone mad and can no longer rule his country. Morald and Lora - very concerned about Arindal's condition - rule as king and queen.
Terrible wilderness, high wooded rocks
In his madness, Arindal searches for his wife Ada. The magician Groma, whose voice he often hears, encourages him to continue his search (On Arindal, why are you hesitating) . There he meets the fairies Zemina and Farzana. They show Arindal a way how he can bring Ada back to life, but secretly want his perdition (we like to lead him to her, because we are pleased with his downfall) . The magician Groma advises Arindal to follow the two fairies, but not to forget the shield, sword and lyre.
Terrible underground chasm
The fairies lead him to the underworld, where Arindal has to pass two tests against the earth spirits. With Groma's help, shield and sword, he wins the almost hopeless fight and finally stands in front of the petrified Ada. Already desperately he wants to come to terms with the fate that he cannot demystify the stone when he hears Groma's voice again: Take hold of the lyre . Arindal takes up the lyre, serenades his adored ones (Oh you, your bosom's exhilaration) and Ada comes back to life (Now no power can rob you of me) . Farzana and Zemina, the schemers, disappear in horror.
Magnificent fairy palace, crossed by clouds
Arindal is bestowed immortality by the Fairy King because of his courage and heroism. He will stay with Ada in the fairy realm forever. At the festival, Morald, Lora, Drolla, Gernot and Gunther are allowed into the fairy realm as mortals and are allowed to celebrate the enthronement of Arindal. Morald and Lora are officially declared by Arindal to be the new rulers of Tramond (I will now give you two my earthly land) . Arindal is led to the throne by Ada with great sympathy from the fairies (he has won a high lot) .
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : flute piccolo , two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons
- Brass : four horns , two trumpets , three trombones
- Timpani
- harp
- Strings
- Incidental music: two flutes, two clarinets, two trumpets, four trombones
Work history
Emergence
For Wagner himself, Die Feen was already his fourth stage work. Of his debut work, the "great tragedy" Leubald , Wagner only completed the text; he may never have started the setting. Not even the title of his second opera (Schäferoper) has survived. The horror opera The Wedding broke off Wagner at the turn of the year 1832/33 after the family, especially his sister Rosalie, found the plot disgusting. In 1833 Wagner's first music-dramatic work was performed. It is an aria that Wagner wrote for Marschner's opera Der Vampyr .
In January 1833 Wagner turned to the fairies . The literary model for this opera was Carlo Gozzi's La donna serpente - The woman as a snake (1762). A change in content - here the fairy Ada is turned into a stone instead of a snake - Wagner adopted from Gozzi's fable Il corvo (1761), which his uncle Adolf Wagner had translated into German and published in 1804 under the title Der Rabe . Some people from the wedding can also be found in the fairies , for example Ada and Arindal, who are also a couple here, but this time happily married for years. Wagner had already completed the text in Leipzig before moving to Würzburg in January 1833 with the intention of setting it to music . There he worked from 1833 to 1834 as a choir repetitor at the Würzburg Theater. He finished the score on January 6, 1834 at 12 noon in Lochgasse 34 as a subtenant of the valet Friedrich Krug (near today's Spiegelstrasse 19).
The attempt to perform the opera in Leipzig failed despite Wagner's good connections to the publishing and cultural scene (Wagner's sister Luise had been married to the publisher Friedrich Brockhaus since 1828 , his sister Rosalie was a well-known actress at the Leipzig theater). After the artistic directors kept postponing an agreement to perform the fairies in their house, Wagner finally turned away from the work in the autumn of 1835. The fairies play from that time are no longer relevant in his life. At Christmas 1865 Wagner gave the original score of his opera Die Feen to his patron King Ludwig II of Bavaria . In 1939 this original score, together with the original scores of the operas Das Liebesverbot , Rienzi , Das Rheingold and Die Walküre , was given to Adolf Hitler on the occasion of his 50th birthday. These manuscripts have disappeared since 1945.
reception
It was premiered posthumously on June 29, 1888 in the Royal Court and National Theater in Munich under the direction of Fritz Fischer. The rehearsals were carried out by Hermann Levi and Richard Strauss . The sets were designed by Anton Brioschi and Hermann Burghart , the costumes by Joseph Flüggen and the stage technology by Carl Lautenschläger . It was directed by Karl Brulliot and the choreography was by Franz Fenzl . It sang Viktoria Blank (Feenkönig, Old "en travesty"), Lili Dressler (Ada), Margaretha Marie Sigler (Farzana), Pauline Sigler (Zemina), Max Mikorey (Arindal), Adrienne Weitz (Lora), Anton von Fuchs (Morald ), Gustav Siehr (Gernot), Emilie Herzog (Drolla), Heinrich Herrmann (Gunther), Kaspar Bausewein (Harald) and Max Schlosser (messenger).
The production was so successful that the work was given fifty times by 1891. In Munich there were revivals in 1895, 1899 and a new production of the print regent theater in 1910. It was played in Prague in 1893 and in Zurich in 1914. There were no further performances again until the 1930s. In the long run, the fairies could not hold their own on the game boards. The work was also harshly criticized immediately after its premiere. So wrote Eduard Hanslick u. a .:
“The young Wagner immersed this inedible fairy ragout in a brew of music from which no one would suspect a great future. (...) Not a strong, original thought, not a charming melody, not a sound that swells up from the bottom of the heart interrupts the monotony of this musical factory work. "
Ludwig Holtmeier attests to the work a "juxtaposition of the most modern progressive harmony and undamaged cadenza harmony of classical style, of dynamic, dramatic form construction and simple symmetry of the periods". The rapidly changing harmonic course leaves a “strange feeling of colorlessness and directionlessness”. The dominant impression of the work is that of "lack of proportion".
literature
- Orfeo GmbH, Munich; Recording and text book Die Feen from 1984.
- Egon Voss : Afterword to Richard Wagner's Rienzi; Reclam 5645 from 1983.
- Culture library; Volume II; Opera and operetta guides.
- Booklet accompanying the CD: Die Feen , Frankfurter Opernorchester , S. Weigle, published October 2012.
Web links
- The Fairies : Sheet Music and Audio Files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Plot and libretto of Die Feen in German at Opera-Guide
- Discography of Die Feen bei Operadis
- Text book and overview of scenes from Die Feen in the text database of the Richard Wagner workshop
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Egon Voss : The fairies. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , pp. 539-544.
- ↑ Ulrich Konrad : Guest article Where Wagner really lived in Würzburg . In: Main-Post. December 13, 2013.
- ↑ Stephanie Schwarz: Fairies and Wine. Richard Wagner. In: Kurt Illing (Ed.): In the footsteps of the poets in Würzburg. Self-published (print: Max Schimmel Verlag), Würzburg 1992, pp. 53-64.
- ↑ June 29, 1888: "The Fairies". In: L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia ..
- ^ Sven Friedrich: Richard Wagner's operas - a musical work guide. CH Beck, Munich 2012, pp. 17 and 18
- ^ Eduard Hanslick : Richard Wagner's youth opera "Die Feen". In: Musical and literary matters. The modern opera 5. 1889, p. 52 ff.
- ↑ Ludwig Holtmeier : From the fairies to the prohibition of love - To the story of a dilettante. In: Eckehard Kiem and Ludwig Holtmeier: Richard Wagner and his time. Laaber-Verlag, 2003, pp. 37 and 39
The wedding (1832, unfinished) | The prohibition of love (1836) | List of men greater than list of women (1838, unfinished) | Rienzi (1842) | The Flying Dutchman (1843) | Tannhauser (1845) | Lohengrin (1850) | Tristan and Isolde (1865) | The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (1868) | The Ring of the Nibelung : ( Das Rheingold (1869) | Die Walküre (1870) | Siegfried (1876) | Götterdämmerung (1876)) | Parsifal (1882) | The fairies (1888, posthumous)