For serious works, time is required in which to bring them a full acknowledgment, but it comes at last, and the Master's own judgment of his work was most triumphantly confirmed the other evening. Rienzi has not literally arrived at the Grand Opera, but at the Théâtre-Lyrique it met with a zeal, an ardour of conviction and a passionate devotion which ought to banish from his mind any possible regret. Pasdeloup has splendidly welcomed the illustrious guest that he endeavours to introduce and to naturalize in France.
A few words upon the libretto translated from Wagner's poem by Messrs Mutter and Guillaume. One need not seek there for the learned complications of our own lyric dramas. It is the history of Rienzi very simply told just as it happened in reality. Cola Gabrino, called "Rienzi" or "Rienzo," was the son of an Innkeeper. He received a good education, bound himself in friendship with Petrarch and, in studying antiquity, became enamoured of the ideas of liberty and a republic. The sojourn of the Popes at Avignon delivered Rome over to the most troublesome disorders. Rienzi harangued the people, succeeded in making himself Tribune, drove out the Barons and re-established the old and good government. His rule at first was wise, but intoxicated by too great power after having been liberator he became the oppressor of Rome. Driven out of the city once, he returned and was killed in a riot, by a servitor of the house of Colonna. Beginning like Brutus, he ended like Masaniello or Jean de Leyde.
Rienzi, Wagner's first lyric drama, shows already an immense talent. Here is not yet revealed the Wagner of the Flying Dutchman, but a man, nevertheless, untrammelled by precedent. Excepting the Cavatinas in the Italian style, inserted here and there to please the public, the opera resembles no other, the impression is unique. It is all a great tumult, a rising of the people. There are in fact only two characters, Rienzi and the populace. It is more like a magnificent symphony with choruses than like an opera as ordinarily heard. The orchestra has become the great power, the science of which the composer fully understands and controls.
"When the trumpet shall have sounded thrice,"