The wedding (opera)

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The young Wagner 1842

The Wedding , WWV 31 is an unfinished opera by Richard Wagner . Wagner wrote the libretto and began composing it in the autumn of 1832 at the age of 19. After his sister Rosalie, the main supporter and spokesperson for the family, expressed her displeasure, Wagner rejected the project and destroyed the manuscript. Only the introduction, a choir and a septet from the opera have been preserved.

Emergence

According to his own statements, a few years before the draft of the libretto, Wagner had “ read a tragic incident casually cited in Büsching's book”. In keeping with the tradition of E. T. A. Hoffmann's stories , Wagner drafted a novella that, in contrast to the present-day original, was to take place on the estate of a rich art lover. However, he did not complete the novella, but instead began working on the libretto for a tragic opera during a stay in Prague.

Action of the opera according to Wagner's statements

According to Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben , the opera had the following content:

Two hostile noble or patrician families should swear primal feuds to each other . As a sign of this, the head of the family of one party also invites the son of his previous enemy to a celebration of reconciliation and the simultaneous wedding of his daughter. During the wedding celebrations, the son of the ex-enemy is gripped by "a dark passion for the bride". After the bride has been led to her tower room, where she is waiting for her bridegroom, she suddenly sees the stranger's gaze fixed on her from the window. He enters her room and passionately embraces her. She succeeds in pushing him back to the balcony and falling over the parapet.

The body of the shattered man is found by his followers and they swear vengeance. However, the elderly head of the family, the bride's father, manages to appease her. The deceased is to be buried with great solemnity in the presence of the suspected family. At the same time , the head of the family hopes for a divine judgment that will prove that his family is innocent of death. During the preparation of the funeral service, the young woman becomes more and more insane. She rejects the bridegroom and locks herself up in her tower room. However, she returns to the funeral service , guided by the bridesmaids . While the slain relatives rush to take revenge, she sinks to the ground in front of the coffin. When the dead man's relatives ask about the murderer, the father points to his deceased daughter.

Another fate of the opera

According to Wagner, he returned with the completed introduction of the first act and an “Adagio for vocal septet”, which echoes the reconciliation of the warring families, the love vows of the bride and groom and the “gloomy glow of the secretly lover”. While Wagner's teacher Christian Theodor Weinlig was positive, his sister Rosalie could not make friends with the subject. Above all, she criticized the play's gloom and the lack of conciliatory and friendly scenes. Thereupon Wagner, who was very interested in his sister's judgment, destroyed the manuscript "without any passion".

However, parts of the work have been preserved, including a sketch of the composition, dated “Leipzig December 5, 1832”. On March 1, 1833, Wagner made a copy of the parts of the opera that had already been composed for the Musikverein in Würzburg , where he took up a position as choir conductor in the same year. This handwritten copy has been preserved and bears the following dedication:

Fragment of an unfinished
opera: The wedding
of
Richard Wagner.
Honored in
memory of the Würzburg Musikverein .
Introduction: choir and septet.

music

A first edition of the score of the fragment with introduction, opening chorus and the septet was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1912 . As part of the complete edition of Wagner's works , a new edition of the opera fragment was also published.

Derived from the score, Wagner planned seven vocal soloists, two sopranos (Ada, Lora), three tenors (Arindal, Harald, Admund), two basses (Cadolt, Hadmar), and a mixed choir for the opera . The orchestra consisted of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in C, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in C, 2 trumpets in C, timpani and strings.

After-effects and parallels

Due to the fact that the introduction and the septet have been preserved, musicologists like Egon Voss made further conclusions about the plot and made comparisons with Wagner's first completely preserved opera Die Feen . What is particularly striking is the identity of the names. Ada and Arindal are the protagonist couple in both the fairies and the opera fragment . A Harald and a Lora also appear in both operas, which Voss considers to be more "coincidental". The gloomy adversary Cadolt from the wedding is missing in the fairies . From this Voss concludes that the fairies should become the more forgiving counterpart to the wedding, with which Wagner wanted to prove his change of heart to the family.

literature

  • Richard Wagner: My life . Complete, annotated edition. Edited by Martin Gregor-Dellin. List, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-471-79124-8 , pp. 74-76

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Wagner, My Life . Published by Martin Gregor-Dellin: Paul List-Verlag Munich 1977, p. 75
  2. ↑ Richard Wagner: Mein Leben , pp. 74-76
  3. ↑ Information and quotations from Richard Wagner: Mein Leben , p. 76
  4. ↑ a b Michael Balling (Ed.): Richard Wagner's works. Musical Dramas - Youth Operas - Musical Works XII ( Memento from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.9 MB) Foreword.
  5. ^ Description of the 1912 edition with line-up and instrumentation
  6. ↑ WWV Volume 15, edited by Egon Voss. DNB 350925399
  7. ^ A b Egon Voss: "Die Feen", an opera for Wagner's family . In: Supplement to Die Feen , Orfeo, Munich 1984