Reception from Das Rheingold
(1901) to Parsifal (1917)
J O A K I M T I L L M A N
In the Swedish reception of Wagner, including the influence of Wagner on Swedish composers, the music writer Gösta Percy has distinguished three periods.11 The first was roughly between 1857 and 1884.22 It began with concert performances of the Tannhäuser overture, and contin-ued with the introduction of Wagner’s operas at the Royal Swedish Opera (Kungliga Operan): Rienzi (1865), Der fliegende Holländer (1872), Lohengrin (1874) and Tannhäuser (in 1876 in a special performance at Mindre Teatern [The Smaller Theatre], and in 1878 at the Royal Swedish Opera). The second period began in 1884 with Harald Viking at the Royal Swedish Opera (a Swedish translation of Harald der Wiking) by Andréas Hallén (1846–1925), the first opera by a Swedish composer significantly influenced by Wagner.33 This work was followed by the first
1 Percy 1936, 2. As Owe Ander points out (2015a, 85–86), Wagner reception is a complex phenomenon that may concern many different aspects. When considering some of these aspects – Swedes attending Wagner performances in Germany, and short reports about Wagner’s work in the Swedish press – the Swedish reception of Wagner started already in the 1840s, that is, before Percy’s first period. However, as regards the reception of public performances of Wagner’s works in Sweden, Percy’s periodisation is on the whole valid. Percy himself stresses that the boundaries between the periods are flexible and approximate.
2 This period is described in Percy 1936, Gademan 1996, Salmi 2005 as well as Ander 2015a and 2015b.
3 Harald der Wiking, with a libretto by the German writer Hans Herrig (1845–1892), was
of Wagner’s music dramas in Stockholm: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1887) and Die Walküre (1895). The third period started at the turn of the century and is characterized by the introduction of the remaining music dramas: Das Rheingold (1901), Siegfried (1905), Götterdämmerung (1907, also the year of the first complete Ring cycle at the Royal Opera), Tristan und Isolde (1909) and finally Parsifal (1917) a few years after its copyright protection had expired, making the work available for theatres other than the Bayreuth Festival Theatre (Festspielhaus).
According to Percy, this third period marked a definitive victory for Wagner on Swedish soil.44
The aim of this article is to study the above-mentioned third period in the Swedish reception of Wagner by investigating the critical reac-tion to Swedish premieres of the works from Das Rheingold in 1901 to Parsifal in 1917. Thus, the article is a continuation of my 2012 study of the reception of the second period.55 The Royal Opera in Stockholm was the only opera institution in Sweden during this time, and therefore the Swedish reception of Wagner’s music dramas was to a large extent a Stockholm reception. However, two major newspapers outside the capital regularly reviewed the Wagner premieres at the Royal Opera, Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning in Gothenburg and Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten in Malmö. The article focuses on the most prom-inent and frequently discussed topics in the reviews, and it is divided into six main parts: the works, the stagings, cuts and longueurs, lan-guage confusion and translations, the performances, and the audience reactions.66
premiered in Leipzig in 1881, staged by Angelo Neumann (1838–1910) and conducted by Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922). Hallén’s first name is usually rendered Andreas, but I will adopt the spelling, Andréas, used by the composer himself.
4 Percy 1936, 2.
5 Tillman 2012.
6 The investigation is based on all reviews listed in Svenskt Pressregister 1998, vol. 6, 1901–
1902 (Das Rheingold), and Svenskt Pressregister 2015, vol. 7, 1903–1911 [electronic resource]
(Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, and Tristan und Isolde). Volume 7 of Svenskt Pressregister is less complete than the earlier printed volumes, and a search has been made by the author for reviews in newspapers not listed and instalments of reviews that are obviously missing in this resource. As Parsifal in 1917 is not covered by Svenskt Pressregister, the
Wagner’s breakthrough in Sweden
Towards the end of his review of Siegfried after its first Swedish perfor-mance (1905), the Wagnerian critic and composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867–1942) wrote:
Well, but what about the work then, asks the reader, who naturally expected the undersigned to read the usual big Wagner Mass because of the premiere. Well, does anything really need to be said about the work? Wagner is nowadays a classic […].77
In contrast to Die Meistersinger in 1887 and Die Walküre in 1895, the music dramas premiered after 1900 did not elicit substantial nega-tive opinions. Many critics did not evaluate the works at all, but only the staging and the performers. For many younger critics, heated dis-putes for and against Wagner were a thing of the past. When Andréas Hallén’s Harald Viking was revived at the Royal Opera in 1911, the com-poser and critic Olallo Morales (1874–1957) wrote:
The opera emerged during a time when the Wagner battle was still raging, and because of its clear connection to Wagner’s music dramatic principles, it was of course implicated in the battle. The reviews were contradictory, depending on whether the critics were Wagnerians or anti-Wagnerians; sharp blows were exchanged, and Harald Viking cer-tainly needed his armour for protection against the attacks. The bitter Wagner feuds have nowadays been fought to their end, and we can ignore the exaggerations on both sides, and dispassionately consider this post-Wagnerian product.88
author has searched the same newspapers that reviewed the earlier music dramas, but also added Afton-Tidningen. Maria Evertsson’s bachelor’s thesis (2000) on the Swedish reception of Wagner’s Ring is based on a more limited selection of reviews.
7 Dagens Nyheter 12 December 1905: “Nå, men verket då, spörjer läsaren, som naturligtvis väntat att få se undertecknad läsa den sedvanliga, stora Wagnermässan med anledning av premiären. Ja, behöver verkligen något sägas om verket? Wagner är numera klassisk […].” The review is reprinted in Peterson-Berger 1923, vol. 1, 217–221.
8 Svenska Dagbladet 29 December 1911. “Operan framträdde under en tid, då
Besides this general change in the climate of Wagner reception, other circumstances contributed to establishing Wagner’s music at the Royal Opera in Stockholm during the first decades of the twentieth century. Die Meistersinger in 1887 was premiered in the old Gustavian opera house, and Die Walküre in 1895 was staged in Svenska Teatern (the Swedish Theatre) on Blasieholmen, the site of the Royal Opera in 1891–1898 during the construction of the new opera building. Thus, both works were played in venues completely unsuitable for Wagnerian music drama. The new Oscarian opera house, inaugurated in 1898, provided Stockholm with a stage and an orchestra pit that were more suited to the demands of Wagner’s works. Still, conditions were not perfect. After the premiere of Siegfried, B. Haglund complained that, as usual when Wagner was performed in Stockholm, the strings were too weak in comparison with the brass. The problem was es-pecially noticeable in Act 3 with its complex polyphony in the style of Götterdämmerung, where the singers were constantly under threat of being drowned in the orchestral swell.99 Eugène Fahlstedt praised the conductor, Richard Henneberg (1853–1925), but requested that he be more careful with the dynamics in the Wanderer scenes and in the whole final scene. Otherwise, the audience would be deprived of too much of the beauty and meaning of the text.1010 In his Götterdämmerung review, Harald André stated that complaints about the orchestra being too loud were often heard, but it would be more appropriate to blame this problem on the construction of the orchestra pit, which lacked a cover. In Götterdämmerung the wind instruments had been placed on a lower level, but according to André, this was not enough. And
Wagnerstriden ännu ej utkämpats, och genom dess tydliga anslutning till Wagners musikdramatiska principer blef den naturligtvis indragen i striden. Omdömena blefvo motsatta allt efter som kritikerna voro wagnerianer eller antiwagnerianer, skarpa hugg skiftades och Harald Viking behöfde väl sitt pansar till skydd mot angreppen.
De förbittrade Wagnerfejderna äro i våra dagar slutkämpade, och vi kunna nu lämna öfverdrifterna å ömse håll åt sitt värde och lidelsefritt betrakta denna efterwagnerska produkt.”
9 Stockholms Dagblad 12 December 1905.
10 Svenska Dagbladet 12 December 1905.
continuously having to subdue the orchestra in Wagner’s works with their demands for utmost expression was completely inappropriate.1111 In the Parsifal reviews in 1917 the composer Andréas Hallén wrote that a greater number of strings would have been desirable, but he supposed that the relatively small size of the orchestra pit made such an expansion impossible.1212 Olallo Moralles shared this view, desiring both a larger number of strings as well as a lower placement of the orchestra.1313
Another circumstance that contributed to a change in the Swedish Wagner reception at the beginning of the twentieth century was the new generation of music critics. Das Rheingold in 1901 was the last Wagner premiere in Stockholm to be reviewed by Adolf Lindgren (1846–1905), who, after the death of the rabidly anti-Wagnerian Wilhelm Bauck in 1877, became one of the most influential music critics in the Stockholm press. In his important study Om Wagnerismen (On Wagnerism, 1881), Lindgren expressed a positive attitude towards Wagner’s operas, above all Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, but, influenced by Eduard Hanslick, he was highly critical of the later music dramas. Using the buzz words in Wagner reception, he criticized the “infinite melody”, i.e. what he perceived as the lack of periodic melody and form, the over-abundant repetition of “leitmotifs” with such far-fetched connotations that spe-cial guides had to be published to explain them, and the mix-up of the correct relationship between singers and orchestra.1414
The most important new critic to emerge in the 1890s was Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, who, with brief interruptions, was a critic for Dagens Nyheter from 1896 to 1930. Peterson-Berger became an admirer of Wagner after hearing the Stockholm premiere of Die Meistersinger in 1887. In his Minnen (Memories) he writes that the music bewitched him, and for several days he drifted around the streets of Stockholm
11 Svenska Dagbladet 1 March 1907.
12 Nya Dagligt Allehanda 22 April 1917.
13 Svenska Dagbladet 22 April 1917.
14 Tillman 2012, 197–199.
in a kind of “Trunkenheit ohne Wein” (drunkenness without wine).1515 His knowledge of Wagner was broadened during his study in Dresden and by a Tristan performance in Vienna in 1891. After his audition re-view in the autumn of 1895, Peterson-Berger was asked by the editor of Dagens Nyheter for his view on Wagner; not knowing the expected answer, he diplomatically replied, “I accept him in all essentials”.1616 He did not have to worry about the answer, as Fredrik Vult von Steijern (1851–1919), editor-in-chief of Dagens Nyheter 1889–1898, was one of the most devout Wagnerians in Sweden.1717 Initially, Peterson-Berger was one of the most passionate Wagner champions in the Swedish press, yet Peterson-Berger, an admirer of Nietzsche, was no uncritical Wagner disciple, and he gradually became more sceptical.
Besides Lindgren and Peterson-Berger, there were others involved in the new generation of critics. Das Rheingold was the last Wagner pre-miere to be reviewed by Magnus Josephson (1866–death year unknown) and Henrik Victorin (1858–1902), two critics who can be character-ized as ambivalent or moderate, but not one-sidedly negative in their opinion of the later Wagner works. However, Wagnerians like Eugène Fahlstedt and Karl Valentin also ceased their activities as critics (both after Siegfried), moving on to other assignments. Among the critics in the new generation, several were composers, like Olallo Morales (see above), Ture Rangström (1884–1947)1818 and Sigurd von Koch (1879–1919), but also, for a short time, Harald André (1879–1975), a director at the Royal Opera in 1907–1908 and again from 1910 to 1924.1919 The only critic
15 Peterson-Berger 1943, 56. As Henrik Karlsson points out (2013, 40) this is a reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s West–Östlicher Divan, “Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein” (Youth is drunkenness without wine).
16 Karlsson 2013, 104. “Jag accepterar honom i allt väsentligt.”
17 See Salmi 2005, 197–203, for an account of Vult von Steijern’s relationship with Wagner’s music, Bayreuth and the Wahnfried circle.
18 For Rangström the revival of Die Meistersinger at the Royal Opera in 1900 was a strongly emotional and overwhelming experience, see Helmer 1998, 18.
19 Starting in the 1890s, opera reviews were largely signed, although most critics used a pseudonym, which often consisted of just one or two letters. It has been possible to identify many of the critics with the help above all of Hildebrand & Lundstedt 1910 (and some educated guesswork), but unfortunately many still remain unknown.
to review the Meistersinger premiere in 1887 who also wrote about the introduction of Parsifal in 1917 was Andréas Hallén (who returned to music criticism in 1907 and also covered the premiere of Tristan und Isolde in 1909). It is important to point out that a few of the critics in-volved in the reception of Wagner’s music dramas played more than one role in this process. Hallén, for example, besides being the composer of Harald der Wiking, and of other operas influenced by Wagner, also conducted the Stockholm premiere of Die Walküre in 1895. Peterson-Berger too was a composer influenced by Wagner in his operas, and as a director at the Royal Opera in 1908–1910 he staged Tristan und Isolde in 1909 (and made the Swedish translation of the libretto, published in 1908).2020 Harald André staged the first Stockholm performance of Parsifal in 1917.
The revival of Die Meistersinger:
Springtime for Wagner
A first indication of the definitive break-through for Wagner’s later works in Stockholm was the return of Die Meistersinger in April 1900, a work which had not been performed at the Royal Opera since its less than successful first run in 1887. The reviews of the revival report that already after the first act a full house greeted the opera with vivid applause and three curtain calls, and the enthusiasm grew after each act. The audience certainly appeared to be entertained, wrote Adolf Lindgren, and he pointed out that there was no exodus after the sec-ond act as had been the case at the premiere in 1887.2121 According to Peterson-Berger it was great to be a herald of victory, and he empha-sized that the enthusiastic cheering for a music drama which earlier had been considered heavy and incomprehensible was an extraordi-nary event, and so was audience’s untiring attention for four and a half
20 See Tillman 2006 and 2008 for two studies of Wagner’s influence on Peterson-Berger’s operas.
21 Aftonbladet 9 April 1900.
hours: “It is a celebration, a glorious feast, spring is here!”2222 Reviews of later performances reveal that Die Meistersinger continued to be played for nearly full houses and greeted with lively applause.2323
With the exception of “-z-” in Stockholm-Tidningen,2424 all crit-ics, even those who earlier had raised objections to Wagner’s music dramas, hailed the Die Meistersinger as a masterpiece. For instance, Adolf Lindgren had already changed his opinion of Die Meistersinger after attending the opera in Bayreuth in 1899. In his August “Letter from Bayreuth”, he admitted that he did not fully understand Die Meistersinger when it was premiered in Stockholm in 1887. But as per-formed in Bayreuth it was transper-formed into a completely different op-era. Scenes that in Stockholm appeared dull were revealed to have a vivid dramatic effect in the Bayreuth staging, which also, through ingenious scenic arrangements, was able to neutralize passages in the work that indeed were tedious.2525 The revival of Die Meistersinger in Stockholm was directed by Johannes Elmblad (1853–1910), who was a director at the Royal Opera from 1897 to 1902. Elmblad was also an internationally successful opera singer (a bass), having made his stage debut in 1880, and he appeared in major opera houses all over the world.
Between 1896 and 1904 he took part in the Bayreuth festival, singing Fafner in the Ring (and in 1896 also Hagen).2626 Almost all critics praised Elmblad and gave him full credit for the success of the staging, which
22 Dagens Nyheter 8 April 1900: “Det är fest, det är strålande helg, våren är här!”
23 Dagens Nyheter 15 May 1900; Post- och Inrikes Tidningar 14 May 1900; Svenska Dagbladet 11 April 1900.
24 Stockholms-Tidningen 9 May 1900. According to “-z-” the unbearably tiring longueurs with their dry music of reason were not suitable for the open Nordic mind, which was more receptive to music’s real, natural beauty than to a pedant’s work with its dry teachings and hairsplitting dogma.
25 Aftonbladet 23 August 1899. However, Lindgren continued to have reservations about the other music dramas he attended in Bayreuth, the Ring and Parsifal.
26 Richard Wagner had wanted Elmblad to take the part of Donner in the 1876 Ring, but out of respect for his religious father, Elmblad declined the offer and did not make his stage debut until 1880, see Richard Wagner’s letters to Lilli Lehmann on 16 April 1876 and 11 May 1876, printed in Richard Wagner an seine Künstler (1908, 190–191 and 196–197 and Sigrid Elmblad 1924, 642).
in their opinion was almost as good as the Bayreuth production of Die Meistersinger that served as a model. The conductor Richard Henneberg was also singled out for praise, although many critics complained that the orchestra sometimes was too loud. Because of this the singers were forced to strain their voices, making it difficult to perceive the words.
Even though this problem was more pronounced at the dress rehears-al than at the premiere, Henneberg was recommended to subdue the orchestra.2727 Reviews of later performances report that the balance be-tween the orchestra and the singers had been corrected in a beneficial way.2828