_Tuesday, first representation of Rienzi_,
In an age when the general interest is certainly not with works of art, Wagner has the gift of stimulating the public, of calling forth frantic enthusiasms and provoking violent repulsions.
The mere mention of his name assembles clouds in the most serene heavens, clouds which soon grow into a storm, lightning breaks out in intermittent flashes, thunder mutters and growls above the sound of the rain, the wind and the hail. In all this tumult no one remains indifferent, the universe seems about to collapse and each person hurries toward the altar of his own menaced deity.
The rival choruses of detractors and admirers insult each other as at the taking of Messina and are ready to tear each other to pieces. There is an excitement,--a tumult--a fury, which recalls the great romantic struggles of 1830, when the young followers of Hernani broke into the theatre with their password, and tore away the classic masks and headgear--proclaiming the liberty and independence of art.
If we had never heard a note of Richard Wagner, all this uproar would have assured us of his superiority. He troubled all the musical world too profoundly not to be a genius, a hero, in accordance with the meaning of Emerson and Carlyle. From whatever point of view one considers him, he always produces a new sensation, it may be a little prematurely, but one is conscious even now that he will become the sovereign master and that nothing can prevent his future greatness. Very soon his victorious banner will float from the highest turret of the citadel, gilded by the sun and caressed by the very wind which before had twisted and torn it.
Young musicians, not yet established, regard Wagner either as a God or as a tempting demon. It is Wagner who preoccupies the thoughts of the older masters already secure in their own glory, and in every contemporaneous work it is not difficult to find some reflections, or at least traces of the secret study of this powerful originator.
A chance of travel led to my being present at a production of _Tannhäuser_ in the theatre at Wiesbaden, at a time, already long past, when the name of Richard Wagner was hardly mentioned in France. This music, strikingly novel to us who knew absolutely nothing of the composer, made an impression upon us at the same time strange and delicious. We had heard for the first time the true music of romance, such as poets might conceive it. The opera reproduced, with most unaffected fidelity, the legend of the good knight Tannhäuser and Madame Venus, living happily together on the heights of Venusberg--until at last the noble German, who was a good Catholic at heart, became suspicious of some witchcraft and said to his mythological companion: