G. Abandoned operas
COLLECTED BY
Organization:
Alexa Crawls
Starting in 1996,
Alexa Internet
has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the
Wayback Machine
after an embargo period.
this data is currently not publicly accessible.
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20050503091107/http://www.faqs.org:80/faqs/music/wagner/general-faq/section-13.html
In addition to works that were published during his lifetime, Wagner's
output included sketches and drafts for stage works that were never
completed. His first attempt at writing opera, at the age of 17, was
soon abandoned and neither text nor music from his "pastoral opera",
based on a play by Goethe, 'Die Laune des Verliebten', has survived.
His next operatic project was 'Die Hochzeit', WWV 31, from which three
numbers have survived, although he destroyed the libretto.
Shortly after completing 'Das Liebesverbot' (see above), he attempted to
write a grand historical opera, 'Die hohe Braut oder Bianca und
Giuseppe', WWV 40. He completed only the libretto, which among other
influences showed that of Schiller and which he allowed his friend Jan
Bedrich Kittl to set to music. Kittl took such liberties with the book,
however, in particular diluting the revolutionary content of the work
and making much of the plot confused and unmotivated, that Wagner asked
that his name be removed from it. The libretto that appears in volume 11
of Wagner's collected works is the one rewritten by Kittl; it is unclear
how much of Wagner's text remains in it, although a comparison with his
prose draft shows that Kittl made significant changes. At about the same
time, Wagner drafted a comedy based on a tale from the Arabian Nights:
'Die gl?ckliche B?renfamilie', WWV 49. Unfortunately he abandoned the
project after sketching the first three numbers.
Later unrealised opera projects included 'The Mines at Falun' (Die
Bergwerke zu Falun) WWV 67, 'Friedrich Barbarossa' WWV 76, 'Wayland the
Smith' (Wieland der Schmied) WWV 82 and 'The Victors' (Die Sieger) WWV
89. Only for the last of these did Wagner sketch any music; see Osthoff,
1983.
Top Document: [humanities.music.composers.wagner] Wagner General FAQ
Previous Document: F. Prose and poetry
Next Document: III. Frequently asked questions
Single Page
[
Usenet FAQs
|
Search
|
Web FAQs
|
Documents
|
RFC Index
]
Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer:
mimirswell@hotmail.com
(Derrick Everett)
Last Update June 15 2004 @ 00:29 AM