| Abstract |
The magic fire of Richard Wagner's genius became the glory of Germany, and he, the master of the world of music. Yet he was the child of poverty, without influence or rank. To his last years, his life was an unrelenting struggle. His successes were spectacular. His failures were crashing. As a youth of seventeen he wrote an orchestral overture that was accepted and played; it was booed to a stop. At twenty-one he was a brilliantly successful conductor of a provincial opera company. Its funds were embezzled and its creditors pursued him. He wooed and won for his wife a delicious young actress, and found himself supporting her illegitimate daughter. His charmer became a nagging housewife who decried his music because it was not popular. In Paris he was imprisoned for debt. Released, he found himself famous as the author of the opera Rienzi, Royal Court conductor in Saxony. In a few years, he and his operas were proscribed and he was fleeing for his life. An emperor, a princess, a mad king were among those who stretched out their hands to him. Again he found himself established and honored, and, best of all, his operas were produced. Once more came ruin and flight. The love of his life, who inspired his Isolde, would not return his passion. The wife of one of his devoted friends, the daughter of his benefactor Franz Liszt, flung aside husband, father, reputation to follow him against his will. She became a chief architect of his final success and shared in all his honors. Together they built his enduring monument, the theater at Bayreuth, to whose Wagnerian festival all the world has made pilgrimage. With a vitality and power akin to Wagner's, Bertita Harding sweeps the reader through this long, rich, exciting book, in every page of which one feels the warm pulse of emotion. With the supreme storyteller's gift, she brings to life not the genius alone, but the man; not Wagner alone, but the men and, above all, the women who surround him. Scene follows scene, crowded not with a painted pageant of the past, but with human beings. Here are Richard and Minna starving in a Paris slum; here they are stuffing themselves at a reception for the King of Saxony. Here one evening is he conducting the Royal Court orchestra, the next day marching in a workers' parade for justice. Now Tannhauser is produced at last, and Richard turns back the clock so that the audience won't get discouraged by its lengths and go home! Singers rebel at the difficulty of his music. One who masters Tristan collapses and dies from the tremendous effort. These are only a few of the episodes with which this warm, vibrant story is packed. Dramatic in structure, romantic and pungent in style, gay and sad, thrilling and idyllic, luxurious and sordid, tragic and funny, it is the very stuff of life, and to read it is to live in the world of Richard Wagner, to see and feel the blaze of his magic fire. |
