set to rights without much real difficulty—a glaring evil remains, an evil so great that it seems to threaten the very life of Wagner's art. Among innumerable performances, not one in a hundred is free from the most barbarous and senseless cuts; in many instances mere shams and shabby makeshifts are offered to the public! If an aria be omitted in an opera of Mozart's (take the first act of 'Nozze di Figaro' for an instance), the audience will lose so many bars of beautiful music, and one of the characters will in so far appear at a disadvantage. Cut an equivalent number of bars in the Finale of the same opera, and the case is already different—the balance of an entire section appears marred, the action disturbed, the sequence of musical effects crude. But in a musical drama constructed on Wagner's lines the damage done by such a cut will be still greater, because the scenic arrangements, the words, action, music, are inextricably interwoven; mutilate any portion of the music and the continuity is lost, the psychological thread connecting scene with scene torn asunder, the equilibrium of the entire structure destroyed. How can the result be other than a sense of incongruity, vagueness, eccentricity, and consequent irritation and weariness on the part of the audience? All manner of lame excuses, 'preposterous demands on the public time,' 'strain on the singers' voices,' etc., have been put forward; but there is no valid excuse for imitating and perpetuating the mistakes of slovenliness and incompetency. It is easy to discover the origin of any particular cut—the true cause will invariably be found to lie in the caprice of this or that conductor or singer at some leading theatre whose example is blindly followed. Then the text-books are printed with the cuts, and before long something like an authoritative tradition comes to be established. Latterly things have been carried so far that if leading executants from all parts of Europe were brought together and asked to perform any one of the master's works in its integrity they could not do it. They would have to study the cuts, the orchestra and chorus parts would have to be filled in, and rehearsals begun afresh.
'If I had a chance,' said Wagner in 1877, 'to get up the Meistersinger with an intelligent company of young people, I would first ask them to read and act the play; then only would I proceed with the music in the usual way. I am certain we should thus arrive at a satisfactory performance in a very short time.' The desiderata are simple enough. Keep the work apart from the ordinary répertoire, clear the stage for at least a week, and during that time let every one concerned give his attention to the task in hand and to nothing else; give the work entire, and aim at reproducing the score exactly as it stands.—Individual conductors and singers who see the existing evils and suffer from them protest now and then; but they are powerless, and Wagner's own appeals to the artistic or intellectual conscience of the operatic world appear to have been addressed to an unknown quantity. It would seem that there is no hope unless the pressure of public opinion can be brought to bear upon all those concerned.
IV. Chronological Lists.
FOR THE STAGE.
Die Hochzeit: fragment of an opera; introduction, chorus, and septet.[1] Unpublished; autograph copy of the score, 36 pages, dated March 1, 1833, was presented by Wagner to the Musikverein of Würzburg.
Die Feen: romantische Oper, in three acts; 1833. Never performed; the overture only was played at Magdeburg 1834. Unpublished; original score in possession of the King of Bavaria. [App. p.814 "Add that Wagner's early opera, 'Die Feen' (see vol. iv. p. 349), was produced at Munich on June 29, 1888."]
Das Liebesverbot: music composed 1835 and 36. Performed once only, at Magdeburg, March 29, 1836. Original score in the possession of the King of Bavaria. A song from the opera, 'Carnevalslied,' was printed in Lewald's 'Europa,' 1837, p. 240, and pirated at Braunschweig and Hannover.
Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen, grosse tragische Oper, in 5 acts. Music begun at Riga in 1838. Acts 1 and 2 finished 1830 at Riga and Mitau; Acts 3, 4, and 5 at Paris, 1840. First performed at Dresden, Oct. 20, 1842.
Der fliegende Holländer: romantische Oper, in 3 acts. Music written at Meudon, Paris, 1841. First performed at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843.
Tannhäuser, und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg: romantische Oper, in 3 acts. Poem written at Dresden, 1843; score completed, 1844–45. First performed at Dresden, Oct. 19, 1845.
Lohengrin, romantische Oper, in 3 acts. Poem written at Dresden 1845; music begun Sept. 9, 1846. Introduction written August 28, 1847; instrumentation of the entire work completed during the ensuing winter and spring. First performed August 28, 1850.
Das Rheingold.' Part I. of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen.' Poem of 'Der Ring' begun at Dresden 1848, executed in reverse order (Siegfrieds Tod, Siegfried, Walküre, Rheingold); finished at Zürich 1851–52. Music to Das Rheingold begun in the autumn of 1853 at Spezzia; score finished in May 1854. First performed at Munich Sept. 22, 1869, PF. score published 1861; full do. 1873.
Die Walküre. Part II. of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen,' in 3 acts. Score finished at Zürich 1856. First performed, June 26 [App. p.814 "June 25"], 1870, at Munich. PF. score published 1865; full do. 1873.
Tristan und Isolde: in 3 acts. Poem written at Zürich 1857; music begun 1857. Score of Act 1 finished in the autumn of 1857 at Zürich; Act 2, March 1859 at Venice; Act 3, August 1859 at Lucerne. First performed June 10, 1865, at Munich. PF. and full score published 1860.
Siegfried. Part III. of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen,' in 3 acts. Music begun at Zürich, before Tristan. Act 1 finished April 1857; part of Act 2, up to the 'Waldweben' written in 1857; Act 2 completed at Munich June 21, 1865; Act 3 completed early in 1869. First performed August 16, 1876, at Bayreuth. PF. score published 1871; full do. 1876.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: in 3 acts. Sketch 1845; poem begun winter 1861–62 at Paris, printed as MS. 1862: music begun 1862; score finished Oct. 20. 1867. First performed June 21, 1868, at Munich. PF. score published 1867; full do. 1868.
Götterdämmerung. Part IV. of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen.' (The first sketches to Siegfried's Tod date June 1848.) Music begun 1870 at Lucerne. Sketch of Introduction and Act 1 completed Jan. 20, 1871. Sketch of full score finished at Bayreuth June 22, 1872. Instrumentation completed Nov. 1874. First performed August 17, 1876, at Bayreuth. PF. score published 1875; full do. 1876.
Parsifal: Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel, in 3 acts (the first sketches of Charfreitagszauber, belong to the year 1857, Zürich). Poem written at Bayreuth 1876-77; sketch of music begun at Bayreuth 1877; completed April 25, 1879. Instrumentation finished Jan. 13, 1882 at Palermo. First performed July 26, 1882, at Bayreuth. PF. score published 1882; full do. 1884.
ORCHESTRAL AND CHORAL WORKS.
Overture B♭ (6-8). Unpublished. Performed 1830 at Leipzig. Score apparently lost.
Overture D minor (4-4). Unpublished. Performed Dec. 25, 1831, at Leipzig. Score at Bayreuth.
Overture in C. ('Konzert-ouverture—ziemlich fugirt'). Unpublished. Written 1831, performed April 30. 1833, at Leipzig, and May 22, 1873 at Bayreuth.
Overture 'Polonia.' C major (4-4). Unpublished. Written 1832 at Leipzig. Score at Bayreuth.
Symphony in C. Unpublished. Written 1832 at Leipzig, and performed at Prague, summer, 1832; Dec. 1832 at the Euterpe, and Jan. 10, 1833, at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig; Dec. 24, 1882, at Venice.
New Year's Cantata. Introduction and two choral pieces. Unpublished. Performed at Magdeburg on New Year's Eve, 1834–5, and at Bayreuth, May 22, 1873.
Overture 'Columbus.' Unpublished. Written and twice performed at Magdeburg 1835; repeated at Riga 1838, and at Paris. Feb. 4, 1841 (after the last performance score and parts disappeared and have not been heard of since).
