Das Operverbot, or, Perhaps Rienzi Isn't So Bad

[John Boyer]

This may be old news, but I just saw that Rienzi will be staged at Bayreuth in 2026, the first time in the festival's history:

https://apnews.com/article/bayreuth-wagner-festival-rienzi-4a85b967c08622459ea3f7d04ddb9d90

Are Wagner's seldom produced early operas fair game for discussion?  If so, I must say that as far as Bayreuth is concerned, it's about time.  Rienzi is actually a very good example of French grand opera, opera as pageant and spectacle.  And I've always thought the tension of the third act is, with the clash of the battle outside the city contrasted with the prayers of the populace on stage, a fine example of Wagner's dramatic ability.

With regard to the others, I've never heard Die Feen, but I did attend Glimmerglass's staging of Das Liebesverbot in 2008.  This, I'm afraid, left me a bit cold, though it may have been Glimmerglass's heavy-handed staging (they always tended to deliver their comedy with a lead pipe) that was to blame.

Thoughts on these dis-owned stepchildren?

[Alan Howe]

I think they're fair game here, John.

[Gareth Vaughan]

And as fair game they deserve to be shot - IMHO. They are, I think, pretty feeble. They don't sound like Wagner (he was finding his voice and unsure of his operatic direction): second rate Weber at best. Rienzi is in an altogether different league - although much of the ballet music still sounds rather banal to my ears. Nevertheless, it contains some glorious writing - albeit unlike mature Wagner.

[John Boyer]

Ah!  Well, in that case perhaps it wasn't just me.

Early Wagner is an odd thing.  It barely hints at what was to come.

[kolaboy]

I'll confess to having a bit of a liking for Die Feen; there's an anemic Beethoven/Weber tug of war going on that's entertaining. Then there's the overture to Das Liebsverbot with that castanet...

[eschiss1]

An instrument whose very name enchants the fish...

[John Boyer]

Once they heard it, they were hooked.

[Rainolf]

I don't know the early operas of Wagner very well. But I think that if he had shared the fate of Arriaga and had died at age 20, we would view Wagner, because of his Symphony in C major, as one of the most important symphonists of his day (that is the years immediately after Beethoven's death). Of cause, the style of this work and the early overtures of the same time is very different to his later style, but Wagner shows himself as a powerful composer, very much addicted to Beethoven, but yet with an individual voice.

Wagner later thought of his early works as student pieces, but what a master he was in his "student" days! The "problem" is that he wanted to be a playwright from the beginning on, and so he tended to downplay his achievements in absolute music. And from the viewpoint of The Ring and Parsifal, his early operas looked for him like studies in foreign styles, so he distanced himself from them.

[eschiss1]

Or maybe we'd reevaluate other composers from out Wagner's shadow, his shadow no longer existing, instead, and also have heard other symphonies composed in the 1830s more often. I'm not as sure that it's as good as the best of Kalivoda or Lachner. (Don't forget, too, that Rufinatscha's first symphony was composed but two years after Wagner's.)

[Alan Howe]

To be picky, I think the title of this thread should be 'Das Opernverbot', but I'm only 99.9% certain, so...

[John Boyer]

I reckon my German ain't none too gooder than my English.

Actually, I was going to ask you since I haven't a clue about German noun declension, but I decided instead to just wing it.  😉

[eschiss1]

If there were an opera by that name it would probably be Opernverbot- the term in regards Wagner is sometimes taken to refer to his refusal to let the Ring be staged outside of Bayreuth, I am guessing from things I'm seeing that I can't quite translate. But yes, Opernverbot seems more right. As to "Das Liebesverbot, oder, Die Novize von Palermo", which I see is based on "Measure for Measure" (irrelevant, I suppose, but I am interested in adaptations of Shakespeare loose and otherwise) I'm unfamiliar with it and might give it a go anyway, warnings acknowledged.

[Alan Howe]

I decided instead to just wing it. 

A bit like certain of my past A-level students who were promptly told to drop the subject and choose something easier!