FOR nine months, from the Easter of 1836 to the opening of the new year, 1837, Wagner was without engagement. It was a period of hardship and suffering. In a most miserable plight he went to Leipzic and Berlin, energetically exerting himself to get his opera, “The Novice of Palermo” accepted. He met with plenty of promises but no performances. His needs became more pressing. Debts had been incurred and the prospect of paying them was of the gloomiest. An ordinary mortal would have sunk under such overwhelming trouble, but Wagner was made of sterner stuff. His indomitable self-reliance and pluck, based upon an abnormal self-esteem, ever kept alight the lamp of hope within him, and sustained him through sadder times than this. True, he had not proved to the world that he was a genius, but he, himself, was fully convinced of it. He had written two operas, a symphony, and other works, and though they did not surpass or even equal what had been accomplished by other artists, yet for all that he was strongly imbued with a consciousness of the greatness of his own power in the tonal and poetic arts. He was convinced that he had a mission to fulfil, a new art gospel to preach, and, too, that he would succeed. The death-bed prediction of his step-father that he would be “something” would be fulfilled.

As far as his art creations show, this was a period of non-productivity. But it is impossible to suppose that Wagner was idle. Genius is never inactive. If not visibly at work the reflective faculties are certain to be actively employed. Though beset with every conceivable worldly trouble, depending for daily wants on what he could borrow, he, with alarming temerity, married.

It was on the 24th November, 1836; the bride, FrÄulein Wilhelmina Planer, leading actress of the Magdeburg company. She was the daughter of a working spindle-maker. It was not the known possession of any histrionic gift that caused her to become a professional actress, but a very natural desire, as the eldest of the family, to increase the resources of the household. Spindle-making was not a profitable calling, and with a family, other help was gladly welcomed. But, as necessity has oft discovered and forced to the front many a talent that would have lain hidden from the world, so now was Magdeburg astonished by the presence of an unquestionably gifted artist. Minna Planer played the leading characters in tragedy and comedy. When off the stage her bearing was quiet and unobtrusive. No theatrical trick or display indicated the actress. And, after she had finally quitted stage life, it had been impossible to suppose that the soft-spoken, retiring, shy little woman had ever successfully impersonated important tragic rÔles.

Minna was handsome, but not strikingly so. Of medium height, slim figure, she had a pair of soft gazelle-like eyes which were a faithful index of a tender heart. Her look seemed to bespeak your clemency, and her gentle speech secured at once your good-will. Her movements in the house were devoid of everything approaching bustle. Quick to anticipate your thoughts, your wish was complied with before it had been expressed. Her bearing was that of the gentle nurse in the sick-chamber. It was joy to be tended by her. She was full of heart’s affection, and Wagner let himself be loved. Her nature was the opposite of his. He was passionate, strong-willed, and ambitious: she was gentle, docile, and contented. He yearned for conquest, to have the world at his feet: she was happy in her German home, and desired no more than permission to minister to him. From the first she followed him with bowed head. To his exuberant speech, his constant discourses on art, and his position in the future, she lent a willing, attentive ear. She could not follow him, she was not able to reason his incipient revolutionary art notions, to combat his seemingly extravagant theories; but to all she was sympathetic, sanguine, and consoling,—“a perfect woman, nobly planned,” as Wordsworth sweetly sings. As years rolled by and the genius of Wagner assumed more definite shape and grew in strength, she was less able to comprehend the might of his intellect. To have written “The Novice of Palermo” at twenty-three, and to have been received so cordially was to her unambitious heart the zenith of success. More than that she could not understand, nor did she ever realize the extent of the wondrous gifts of her husband. After twenty years of wedded life it was much the same. We were sitting at lunch in the trimly kept Swiss chalet at Zurich in the summer of 1856, waiting for the composer of the then completed “Rienzi,” “Dutchman,” “TannhÄuser,” and “Lohengrin” to come down from his scoring of the “Nibelungen,” when in full innocence she asked me, “Now, honestly, is Richard such a great genius?” On another occasion, when he was bitterly animadverting on his treatment by the public, she said, “Well, Richard, why don’t you write something for the gallery?” And yet, notwithstanding her inaptitude, Wagner was ever considerate, tender, and affectionate towards her. He was not long in discovering her inability to understand him, but her many good qualities and domestic virtues endeared her greatly to him. She had one quality of surpassing value in any household presided over by a man of Wagner’s thoughtless extravagance. She was thrifty and economical. At all periods of his life Wagner could not control his expenditure. He was heedless, relying always upon good fortune. But Minna was a skilled financier, and he knew this. For years their lot was uphill, sometimes a hard struggle for bare existence, and through all the devotion and homely love of the woman soothed and cheered the nervous, irritable Wagner. When their means enabled them to enjoy the comforts of life without first anxiously counting the cost, Minna was possessed of one thought, her husband and his happiness. And Wagner knew it and gratefully appreciated the heart’s devotion of the worshipping woman. Home was her paradise, her husband the king. Love, simple, trusting love, was her religion, and no greater testimony to the noble work of a genuine woman could be offered than that of the poet Milton in his “Paradise Lost”:—

Throughout his career Wagner shook off the troubles of daily life with an elasticity truly remarkable. But now he must do something. He had incurred the most sacred of all obligations, to provide for his wife, and employment of some description was a pressing necessity. Viewed from an artistic point, his lost appointment had been a success. He had acquired all the skill of an efficient conductor and had familiarized himself with a large number of opera scores. But what had he done with his own gifts? The miserable finale of the Magdeburg episode, and his increased responsibilities, made him seriously reflect on this past year and a half. True he had composed an entire opera. But of what material was it made? He had regretfully to acknowledge that it was not as he would wish it. He had thrown over his household gods to worship Baal. He had rejected Weber and Beethoven, “his adored idols,” to dress his thoughts in attractive, showy, French attire. He had forsaken heartfelt truth for a graceful exterior. And what had he gained by imitating Auber and Rossini? Not even the satisfaction of public success. And why? His models spoke as they felt, whilst he clothed his thoughts in a borrowed garb. He was now conscious that he had but to express himself in his own language to convince others of the truth of his art gospel.

Some such similar post as at Magdeburg was what he now desired. There he would be Wagner himself. But in these early years smiling fortune was not always his happy companion. Nearly a year elapses before he again finds himself directing an operatic company. This time it is at KÖnigsberg.

But before accompanying the weary artist to his new home some mature reflections of Wagner on his Magdeburg period are worthy of notice. His elevation to the post of music director of the Magdeburg theatre was a joyful moment. For the first time he would be sole controller of operatic performances. When a youth he had been revolted by the slatternly manner in which theatre conductors had led the performances. Even the Gewandhaus concerts had not been altogether satisfactory. Something then was lacking in the ensemble. Now was his opportunity. The mechanical time-beating prevalent among conductors of opera houses would find no place with the ardent youthful composer. He first secured the affection of the singers by evincing a personal interest in their public success. His born actor’s skill enabled him to illustrate how such a character should move, whilst with the orchestra he would sing passages and rehearse one phrase incessantly until he was satisfied. He was indefatigable. The secret of his success was his earnestness. He knew what he wanted, which was half-way to securing it. The company seems to have been fairly intelligent and to have responded freely to his wishes, but the audiences were phlegmatic. Magdeburg was a garrison city, and the audiences were domineered by the cold reserve observed by the military. Wagner thought of all publics the worst was a military one. Effusive exhibitions of joy they regard as indecorous and unseemly, and the absence of spontaneous enthusiasm exercises a depressing effect on artists. Among the operas he conducted were Auber’s “Masaniello” and Rossini’s “William Tell.” Both of them were favourites of his. At that period, 1836, they stood out in bold relief from modern and ancient operas. Their melodies were fresh and graceful, and a dramatic truthfulness pervaded them which to the embryo imitator of the Greek tragedy was a strong recommendation. Further, the revolutionary subjects were congenial to the outlaw of 1848. But Auber and Rossini were soon to be eclipsed by the clever Hebrew, Meyerbeer, and it is this last writer who in a couple of years impels Wagner to leave his fatherland for Paris. It is Meyerbeer’s works that he is now about to conduct at KÖnigsberg, where we shall at once follow him.

The time he spent in KÖnigsberg was a prolongation of the miserable existence which had followed the breaking up of the Magdeburg company, intensified now, alas, by anxiety for his young wife. It was unenlivened by any gleam of even passing sunlight. The time dragged heavily, and was never referred to without a shudder. In later years, in the presence of his first wife, he has compassionately remarked, “Yes, poor Minna had a hard time of it then, and after the first few months of drudgery no doubt repented of her bargain.” To which the gentle Minna would reply by a look full of tender affection. Wagner’s references to the devotion and untiring energy of his wife during the KÖnigsberg year of distress always affected him.

He began his public life at KÖnigsberg by conducting orchestral concerts in the town theatre. This led to his appointment as music director of the theatre. The operatic stage was then governed almost entirely by Meyerbeer, “Robert le Diable” and “Le ProphÈte,” both recent novelties, being the great attraction. They met with an enormous success everywhere. Meyerbeer was in Paris, the idol of the populace. A man possessed of undeniable genuine merit, he bartered it away for gold. The real merit was over-laden with a thick coat of meretricious glitter. Attractive and dazzling show was what he set before the light-hearted public of the French capital, and they mistook the tinsel for pure gold. But, for all that, Meyerbeer was the hero of the hour, and what was fashionable in Paris was immediately reproduced in the fatherland towns and cities. In matters of art Paris was the acknowledged leader of Germany. From afar, the young ambitious music director of KÖnigsberg heard of the fabulous sums which Meyerbeer received for his works. He was in the direst distress. The troubles of Magdeburg had followed him to his new home, and he looked with longing eyes towards Paris, the El Dorado of his dreams. He became haunted with visions of luxurious independence, startling in their contrast to his present penurious position. He looked about him and bestirred himself. With his accustomed boldness, not to say audacity, he promptly wrote to Scribe, hoping by one effort to emerge from all his trouble. What he sent to the famous French librettist was a plan he had sketched of a grand five-act opera based on a novel by KÖnig, “Die Hohe Braut” (“The Noble Bride”). He was anxious for the collaboration of Scribe, since in that he saw the open sesame of the Grand Opera House, Paris. The French writer did not reply. Wagner felt the slight. This was the second time the assistance of an acknowledged litterateur had been solicited, and it was the last. Laube did not satisfy him. Scribe did not notice him. Henceforth he would rely on himself.

His stay at KÖnigsberg is marked by an event of peculiar interest to Englishmen. Wagner had heard “Rule Britannia.” He gave me his impressions of it. He thought the whole song wonderfully descriptive of the resolute, self-reliant character of the English people. The opening, ascending passage, which he vigorously shouted in illustration, was, he thought, unequalled for fearless assertiveness. The dauntless expressiveness of its themes seemed admirably adapted for orchestral treatment, and he therefore wrote an overture upon it. This he sent to Sir George Smart, one of the most prominent of English musicians, justly appreciated, among other things, for having introduced Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” to England at the Liverpool festival of 1836. When Wagner related this incident to me in 1855, on his visit to London, he said that, having received no reply, he inquired and ascertained that the score seemed to have been insufficiently prepaid for transmission, and that Sir George Smart had refused to pay the balance, “and for all I know,” continued Wagner, “it must still be lying in the dead-letter office.”

A digest of Wagner’s impressions of the world beyond the footlights, after his intimate connection with the provincial theatres of WÜrzburg, Magdeburg, and KÖnigsberg, will explain how so serious a thinker could adapt himself to the slipshod existence of thoughtless, light-hearted play-actors. Among modern stage reformers Richard Wagner stands in the front rank. He was earnest. He was practical. He had experienced all evils arising from the shortcomings of the theatre, and he knew where to place his finger on the plague spot. His drawings and prescriptions were those of the practical worker; and he was enabled to make them so through the knowledge acquired during his early life behind the scenes.

What a curious medley stage life introduces one to! “My first contact with the theatre seems like the fantastic recollection of a masked ball,” was Wagner’s vivid description of his early stage experiences. The stage in Germany has too frequently, for the advance of dramatic art, been the last resort for gaining a livelihood. People of all ranks, highly educated, or with no more than the thinnest smattering of education, as soon as they find themselves without the means of existence, fly to the stage. To one individual endowed by nature for the histrionic vocation who thus adopts the profession, there are ten with absolutely no gifts and whose appearance is due to failure in other walks of life, or to want. All this motley group is, by the restricted stage precincts, brought nolens volens into daily contact and cannot avoid constantly elbowing each other. Their private affairs, their friendships, are an open secret. A special jargon is current coin among them. Cant phrases abound and their very occupation familiarizes them with sententious quotations on almost every subject. In no profession is there such an ardent catering for momentary praise. It is the food, the absolute nourishment of the actor; hence jealousy and envy exist stronger here than anywhere else, and Byron does not exaggerate when he speaks of “hate found only on the stage!”

To Wagner’s impressionable and pageant-loving nature, the stage possessed fascinating attractions. The free and easy intercourse that existed between all the members of the company, actors, singers, and orchestral performers, the existence of a sort of masonic equality, and the general light-hearted exterior, was in accordance with the jocular temperament of the chorus master. He was familiarly joking and laughing with all his surroundings, a habit he retained to the day of his death. His self-esteem would at all times insist on a certain deference to his opinion, nor would he brook with equanimity any infraction of his ruling as music director. From the age of twenty, when he first ruled the chorus girls at WÜrzburg, down to the Bayreuth rehearsals for “Parsifal,” at which he would illustrate his intention by gesture, speech, and song, he was eminently the commander of his company. His lively temperament, his love of fun, and remarkable mimetic gifts made him a general favourite. In the supervision of operas, musically distasteful to him, he was earnest and energetic, attending to detail and appropriate gesture in a manner that demanded the respectful admiration of all under his bÂton. Respect and submission to his rule he exacted as due to his office, and he rarely had difficulty in securing it.

From KÖnigsberg he paid a flying visit to Dresden, the city of his school-boy days. With his accustomed omnivorous reading, scanning every book within reach, he fell upon Bulwer Lytton’s “Rienzi.” Here was a subject inviting treatment on a large scale. Here was a hero of the style of William Tell and Masaniello. The spirit was revolution and moral regeneration of the people. It was a happy chance which led him to this story, the sentiment of which harmonized so perfectly with his own aspirations. Visions of Paris and its grand opera house had never left him. “Rienzi” offered the very situations calculated to impress an audience accustomed to the gorgeous splendour of the grand opera. Although his eyes were turned towards the French capital, and his immediate hope the conquest of the Parisians, it was not his sole nor ultimate desire. Paris was a means only. He saw that Paris governed German art, and he felt that only through Paris lay his hope of success in his fatherland. It was while under such influences that he began to formulate “Rienzi.”

His stay in KÖnigsberg was cut short owing to the company becoming bankrupt. This was the second experience of the kind he had met with in the provinces, and it helped to intensify his contempt for stage life. He was again in money troubles. Fortunately, his old friend Dorn was well placed at Riga and able to secure for him the post of conductor of the opera there. The company was a good one, and its director, Hotter, an intelligent and well-known playwright, who understood Wagner’s artistic ambition. The young conductor was very exacting in his demands at rehearsals. To appeal to him was useless. He was earnest and inflexible. And yet, notwithstanding his earnestness and the trouble he took in producing uncongenial operas, he became weary of their flimsy material. Within him the sap of the future music-drama was beginning to rise. His own genius and artistic tendencies were in conflict with what was enacted before him. It was the difference between simulated and real feeling. What he was forced to conduct was stage sentiment, what he yearned for was life-blood. And this latter he strove to infuse into his “Rienzi,” which was now assuming definite shape, words and part of the music being written.

When two acts were finished to his satisfaction, there was no longer any peace for him. Paris was the only fitting place where it could be adequately represented. But how to get to Paris? At Riga, as elsewhere, he lived beyond his means. I have before remarked on his incapability of controlling his expenses and living within a fixed income. Minna was thrifty and anxious, but her will was not strong enough to restrain her self-willed husband. She was in a constant state of nervous worry, but her devotion to Wagner prevented her making serious resistance. Now funds were wanting for the projected Paris trip, he had none. However, such a trivial item was not likely to thwart his ambition and to stand in his way. He borrowed again. He was without any letters of recommendation to Paris, spoke but very little French, and yet was full of buoyancy and hope of the success that awaited him when there. It was a bold, not to say reckless, venture. But it is characteristic of Wagner. At all great junctures of his life he risked the whole of his stakes on one card. His determination to leave Riga, and to turn his back on the irritating miseries of a provincial theatre, led him to embark with his wife and an enormous dog, in a small merchant vessel Pillau for London. Totally unprovided with any convenience for passengers, badly provisioned and undermanned, the frail trading-craft took the surprisingly long period of three weeks and a half to reach London. It encountered severe weather and on two occasions narrowly escaped foundering. The three passengers, Richard Wagner, his wife, and dog, were miserably ill. On one occasion the bark was driven into a Norwegian fiord; the crew and its passengers—there were no others on board beside the Wagner trio—landed at a point where an old mill stood. The poor wretches, snatched from the jaws of death, were hospitably received by the owner, a poor man. He produced his only bottle of rum and struck joy into all their hearts by brewing a bowl of punch. It was evidently appreciated by the hapless ship’s company, as Wagner was hilarious when he spoke of what he humorously called his “Adventures at the Champagne Mill.” When the weather had cleared sufficiently the ship set sail for London and arrived without any further mishap.