Wagner Without Fear

by William Berger

  Meanwhile, there was music to make …

  Wagner insisted on bypassing regular channels at the Munich Opera—only Bülow could rehearse and conduct Tristan. No doubt he was right from a purely musical point of view, but Wagner now held an inherently political position as the king’s favorite, and the combined tactlessness of Wagner and Bülow could have offended a room full of marble statues. In one famous episode, the Munich theater manager complained that the enlarged orchestra would mean losing valuable seats in the auditorium, to which Bülow responded, “What does it matter if the stalls seat a couple of dozen Schweinehunde more or less?” The remark was overheard and circulated, and the press went bonkers. Bülow, everyone felt, had to go. One paper carried a headline “Bülow is still here!” for four days in a row, the size of the type increasing each day. Wagner had to issue a public statement advising commitment to art over personalities. The fact that Wagner was playing the diplomat shows the desperation of the situation.

  A week before this, on April 10, the day of the first orchestral rehearsal of Tristan, Cosima gave birth to her third daughter, named Isolde. The child was widely rumored to be Wagner’s, which, in fact, she was.

  TRIUMPHS AND TRAUMAS

  Cosima maintained the veneer of a marriage while pretending to be merely Wagner’s assistant. One is tempted to ask, in the manner of congressional inquiries, how much Bülow knew and when he knew it. We’ll never know for sure. Many of the letters that passed between Wagner and Cosima in this period were later destroyed by their daughter Eva for twisted reasons of her own. Judging from the timing of various visits among the parties concerned, including Liszt, and the dates of Bülow’s various fits, it would appear that he knew plenty the whole time. The more he knew, the worse his role in this masquerade became. And yet a miracle was achieved: Tristan was produced against all odds. After all, history records many legitimate fathers, but only one musician who gave life to Tristan.

  May 15, the day appointed for the premiere of Tristan, was a mess. Malvina Schnorr, the Isolde, caught a chill in her bath and lost her voice. The performance was postponed, causing many to speculate that the music really was unsingable after all. Friends and fans who had converged on Munich from all over Europe now had to return home un-Tristaned. Then some creditors from a half-forgotten Paris debt of 1860 descended on Wagner’s mansion demanding full payment. They held all the legal papers necessary to impound Wagner’s furniture if the money were not readily handed over. Wagner had an attack, but Cosima calmly wrote the king, and the State Treasury was ordered to make the funds available. She went down to the Treasury building with one friend and two small daughters in tow, only to be told, in an effort to humiliate her publicly, that the large amount of money was only available in small change. Undaunted, Cosima hailed a cab and personally heaved sacks of silver coins into it until the impressed Treasury officials sheepishly offered help. Say what you want about Cosima; she was what a later generation would call a “tough cookie.”

  The curtain finally rose on Tristan the night of June 10, 1865, before a glittering audience. King Ludwig appeared in civilian clothes, hardly acknowledging his cheering subjects. Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, the tenor, and his wife Malvina surpassed all expectation. Bülow was brilliant. The night was a triumph. The impossible had happened. Later, Wagner commented that future generations would be impressed by an era in which such a work was possible. The following few performances were even more successful—perfect, in Wagner’s estimation.

  Then things unraveled quickly. Schnorr went to Dresden after the last performance, and died of one of his era’s undefinable illnesses (brain fever) on June 21. No one could believe the big, healthy twenty-nine-year-old was dead. His last word was “Tristan!” Everyone assumed the role had killed him.

  That was only the start. A certain von der Pfordten, an old-line bureaucrat who hated Wagner from Dresden days, became prime minister of Bavaria. Pfistermeister also became a bitter enemy. Wagner could not resist advising Ludwig to dismiss Pfo and Pfi, as he called them. Ludwig humored Wagner but did nothing. Other factions angled around Wagner, playing him like a card. He was out of his league, but was constitutionally incapable of remaining aloof. In November, he and Cosima wrote an “anonymous” letter to a newspaper calling for the dismissal of the two cabinet ministers. It was a big mistake. Pfordten went to the king, telling him the real state of things. The people would sweep Ludwig from the throne, as they had done to his grandfather, if the composer were not sent out of the country immediately. Ludwig, for the first time in his reign, took serious counsel with his ministers and everybody else. Wagner had offended everyone by appearing to have total control over the king. Leaders of the church, business and industry, academics, bureaucrats, the queen mother, and virtually all factions were united, perhaps for the first time in the country’s history, in their verdict: Wagner must go. Even the butchers and bakers who supplied the court signed a petition to this effect. Wagner, as always, had done a thorough job of it.

  On the evening of December 6, 1865, Ludwig’s second secretary was sent to Wagner’s mansion to tell him that he had to leave the country. Wagner lost his head, heaping abuse in language so plain the secretary had to tell him to get hold of himself, since he was a royal representative on official business. The next morning, Ludwig wrote him a note confirming this message, saying it was only temporary and expressing his undying devotion in the usual purple phrases. Wagner spent two days writing frantic notes to the king, but finally decided to heel and not jeopardize his cushy annual salary. He took the 5 a.m. train to Switzerland on December 10.

  UNOFFICIAL EXILE, OR, THANK GOD FOR SWITZERLAND

  In the calm of the mountains, Wagner reflected that things weren’t really so bad after all. He was never at his best in cities, where there were so very many people to annoy. He had Meistersinger to complete, which Munich was still waiting to produce. While in the south of France, on the lookout for a possible new residence, Wagner received a telegram that Minna had died. He calmly wired back to a friend in Dresden, instructing him to make arrangements for the funeral.

  Wagner found a house he liked on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which he named Tribschen and where he determined to settle “for good.” King Ludwig paid the rent, and Wagner wrote to both Bülows to join him there. Hans was sent off to concertize, while Cosima and her three daughters moved in on May 12. Wagner worked on completing Meistersinger.

  Bavarian life did not stop when Wagner left, except perhaps for the king. Isolated in his beloved mountains, writing passionate letters to “the Friend” while his country teetered on the brink of war with powerful Prussia, Ludwig was discovering that reality was disappointing. On May 22, Wagner’s fifty-third birthday, while the cabinet debated war, the king secretly left the capital. He appeared at Tribschen and had himself announced as Walther von Stolzing, the hero of Meistersinger. If he was surprised to see Cosima there, he kept it to himself, and stayed for two days.

  Munich was in no mood for such silliness. A scathing article appeared in the press, bluntly accusing Wagner of a greed that extended beyond the Treasury and into his conductor’s marriage. Cosima begged the king to save her reputation, sending a draft of a rebuttal letter for him to sign. Ludwig complied.

  Who was the guiltiest party in this scam? Wagner, of course, saw sacrifice in others as a sign of devotion, and allowed the three people whose honor he should have defended the most to perjure themselves publicly. Bülow, who resigned his post in June, was bent on self-destruction. It is always easiest to blame Cosima for this letter episode, but she, at least, was fully aware of what she was doing. Her diaries are full of oblique yet clear references to the guilt she bore to her grave for leaving Bülow, but her mind was made up. She understood her remorse as the cross she had to bear on her sacred mission, which was to nurture the person and genius of Richard Wagner. This, we would say today, was dirty work, but somebody had to do it, and there’s no arguing that she did it splendidly.

>   Ludwig must also be called to account, since after a certain point one must ask how much of naiveté is voluntary. The king began to realize that there was a great gulf between the concept of Wagner and the man, and began treating him a touch more distantly even while continuing the charade of love letters. Meanwhile, Bavaria utterly lost the six-week war, which left Prussia solely in charge of central Europe.

  Ludwig kept seeking Wagner’s “permission” to abdicate, but the last thing Wagner needed around his house was a spaced-out boy with no access to the Treasury. Instead, the country sighed with relief when Bismarck and the Prussians displayed great leniency with the defeated Bavarians, sensing they would be needed later. Ludwig stayed on his throne.

  HIGHLIGHTS AND LOW POINTS

  Wagner sought to have Bülow reinstated in Munich, if only to conduct Meistersinger, which was taking shape. Cosima apparently resolved to refrain from discussing a divorce until after the Meistersinger premiere, which took place on June 21, 1868. It was probably the biggest opening night success of Wagner’s career. Despite its unprecedented length, audiences went into raptures, and theaters all over Germany jockeyed to perform it. Performance royalties had also become standard by this time, guaranteeing additional income. Things were looking up for Wagner. Cosima chose this moment to confront Bülow, who agreed to a divorce, had a nervous malaise, and sought consolation from Liszt, who had broken off relations with Wagner and Cosima.

  Although Meistersinger was a bona fide hit, Wagner was still regarded suspiciously by many different factions. Just when he most needed to proceed diplomatically, he reissued “Judaism in Music” in an expanded form, this time signing his name to it. Many of his fans, especially the Jewish ones, had forgiven the 1850 edition as a youthful aberration (much had been said carelessly in those revolutionary years, and even Karl Marx’s writings were thought to have much in common with certain of Wagner’s sentiments), but now all the ugliness was out in the open. Meistersinger was booed in Mannheim. Liszt clucked in disapproval. The crown princess of Prussia recommended the pamphlet to her mother, Queen Victoria of Britain, if she desired to read something “really cracked,” and noisily endowed a Jewish orphanage in Berlin. Ludwig criticized Wagner obliquely, saying that people must come to realize that “all men are brothers, whatever their religion.” (Insane? Ludwig may have been the only sane person in nineteenth-century Europe.) Of course, not everyone in Germany had a negative reaction to this pamphlet, and the German anti-Semitic movement took a great leap forward thanks to Wagner.

  Home life proceeded heedless of the world. Their daughter Eva was born in 1868. Wagner picked up the unfinished score of the Ring where he had left off twelve years before (Act II of Siegfried), and a long-awaited son arrived in June 1869. He was named Siegfried. Life was now extremely pleasant at Tribschen, whose rent Ludwig continued to pay. Whatever Wagner’s worth as a human being, he was a good father, including to Cosima’s two daughters by Bülow, and the house was filled with music and pets. On Christmas Day, 1870 (also Cosima’s birthday), she arose to the ravishing sounds of a new piece of music. Wagner had assembled a small orchestra in the vestibule of the house to play the first performance of the Siegfried Idyll, one of his few mature nonvocal compositions and a stunningly sumptuous piece of music still adored today. It may have been the most elegant gift in history.

  It also meant Wagner was serious about completing and producing the Ring. There was a slight problem in that King Ludwig owned the Ring, including the portions of it not yet composed (Act III of Siegfried and all of Götterdämmerung). Wagner had no intention of producing the Ring in Munich—it needed to be in an ideal theater and meticulously supervised by him, and it was clear by this point that the Semper theater would never be built. Ludwig ordered Das Rheingold to be performed in Munich in September 1869. Wagner begged, pleaded, screamed, and abused everybody, but to no avail. Ludwig let it be known that Wagner’s income would be cut off and all his works banned in Munich if he didn’t shut up. That did the trick. Rheingold was premiered on September 22 while Wagner sulked in Switzerland. Actually, the Munich Rheingold came off rather well, even if the scenery and stage action were not what Wagner had intended. Wagner wrote Ludwig morbid letters, and Ludwig pretended to be contrite, assuring Wagner that he couldn’t help himself but would abide by his idol’s wishes on behalf of their shared vision. Meanwhile, he quietly ordered the production of Die Walküre for the following year.

  The premiere of Die Walküre took place in Munich on June 26, 1870. Wagner, predictably, stayed home in Switzerland, and even Ludwig, who was getting increasingly unpredictable, did not attend until the third performance. Among those who did attend were the still-incommunicado Liszt, who was moved to tears, Brahms, Camille Saint-Saëns, and a great many other luminaries, including a large number of French devotees. Walküre was a great success. The king now asked for the completed score of Siegfried. Wagner said he couldn’t quite manage to finish it, but would send it along as soon as it was done. He kept this fiction up for years after he had finished the entire Ring, and Ludwig stopped nagging him after awhile. He had other problems.

  Bismarck and the Prussians were angling for war against the French. Not really having any option, Ludwig, between repertory performances of Rheingold and Walküre, ordered Bavaria to mobilize on July 16, 1870. (He gave the mobilization order in French. Whether this was an elegant protest against the war or a lapse of judgment remains debated to this day.) On July 18, Cosima was informed that her marriage to Hans von Bülow had been dissolved by the civil authorities in Berlin. On July 19, the French declared war. The declaration was made by Emile Ollivier, who happened to be Cosima’s brother-in-law and an old friend of Wagner’s in Paris. On August 25 (Ludwig’s birthday), Cosima and Richard were finally married in the Protestant church at Lucerne. It was a hell of a summer.

  If Ludwig was no longer showing up at their doorstep, the Wagners now had a new wide-eyed groupie to idolize them. Friedrich Nietzsche had met Wagner in October 1868. Wagner was instantly impressed with the young man’s intelligence, conversation, and knowledge of Wagner’s work. When Nietzsche took a chair of philology at Basel in 1869, he became a frequent visitor to Tribschen—so frequent that he was regarded as one of the household. Wagner would be the obsession of his life; idol for now, later, in one of those about-faces that characterize Nietzsche’s life and thought, his bitter enemy.

  CREATING BAYREUTH

  Meanwhile, what to do with the Ring? Wagner remembered the pretty town of Bayreuth from a visit in 1836, and was delighted to learn that it had a baroque opera house with a relatively huge stage. In April 1871, the Wagners visited the town. The lovely old opera house turned out to be unsuitable, but the town impressed them. It was in Bavaria, but remote from Munich and very close to the center of Germany. There was no existing opera company or musical establishment to contend with. The mayor and townspeople were eager to help. The Wagners decided to settle there and build a theater especially for the Ring, which they would stage in a national festival. “So much the better,” wrote Cosima. Once again, all that was needed was a fortune.

  Europe had changed by 1871. The Germans defeated the French, toppled their government, and laid siege to Paris. Wagner and his Parisian wife laughed publicly when they heard the Parisians were eating rats. After the surrender, Wagner penned an embarrassing farce, Eine Kapitulation, which even the smaller theaters in Berlin politely declined to produce. Cosima thought it was charming. Meanwhile, Bismarck pressured Ludwig, as the most historically legitimate German monarch, to write a letter “inviting” the king of Prussia to assume the title of Emperor and legitimize the new order. Ludwig dithered but finally complied, and the letter was read at Versailles, where the German Empire, the Second Reich, was born. Although some facts are missing, it appears that Bismarck paid Ludwig handsomely for that letter.

  Ludwig didn’t like the Bayreuth idea at all, and said so. He knew Wagner would be hitting him up for cash, and Ludwig had projects of his own. Being lit
tle more than a puppet monarch in the new Reich, and with a mysteriously bulging bank account, the king had discovered the joys of building castles, if not in the air, then at least in the Alps. On a rocky crag across from Hohenschwangau arose Schloss Neuschwannstein, now perhaps the most recognizable castle in the world, designed, significantly, by the scenic designer of the royal theater. There, in a courtyard based on Act II of Lohengrin and with a Song Hall based on Act II of Tannhäuser, Ludwig could revel in Wagnerian imagery without the pesky reality of the man. He also built Linderhof, a neobaroque tribute to Louis XIV (a new obsession of his) that boasted a Venusberg Grotto, à la Tannhäuser, and a “Hunding’s Hut,” as in Walküre, on its grounds. These indulgences were seen as signs of impending insanity. Today we would allow this in the sort of pop stars who build private amusement parks.

  Wagner applied to the kaiser for support for the Bayreuth plan, and was told to make a proposal to the Reichstag, or Imperial Parliament, which he refused to do. If the new emperor couldn’t see what a boon the Ring would be to the new Germany, then there was no use begging. Wagner societies were formed all over Germany and in other countries to raise funds for the festival. The idea was that patrons would donate money and be guaranteed seats. If there were enough of a groundswell of enthusiasm, the festival would be held according to the original intention, that is, a true folk celebration.