Personal Re QOllections of Wagner BY ANGELO NEUMANN Translated from
the Fourth German Edition BY EDITH LIVERMORE CONTENTS PART I ABROAD
CHAPTER PAGE I. VIENNA 3 II. LEIPSIC 15 III-BAYREUTH, 1876 19 IV.
AH ATTEMPT AND A FAILURE 24 PART II THE RING IN LEIPSIO V-A NEW
CONNECTION 5 VL RlIINEGOLD AND THE VALKYRE 68 VIL SIEGFRIED AND 4
G5TTERDAMMERUNG ... 81 VIII. PREPARATIONS FOR TRISTAN 101 PART III
BERLIN IX. RICHARD WAGNER AND BOTHO VON Htx. 8EN . 109 X.
ORGANISATION AND REORGANISATION . . . 123 XI. THE NlBELtTNGBN IN
BERLIN 188 XII. THB NIBELTJNGEN IN BERLIN OONTINTDBJD, . 166 ill iv
CONTENTS PART IV HOPES AND PLAK8 CHAPTER XIII. FRIENDS AGAIN PAGK
177 XIV. PARIS AND LITTLE PARIS ... XV. LONDON . ... 210 XVI.
PARSIFAL . PART V THE RICHARD WAGNER THEATRE XVII. GERMANY, HOLLAND
AND BELGIUM Oi1 XVIII. ITALY - - l TTTV A 280 A. IA. AUSTRIA XX.
RUSSIA, 309 ILLUSTEATIONS RICHARD WAGNER . . . frontispiece Bust by
Anton zur Strassen in the foyer of the Leipsic Stadttheater. ANGELO
NEUMANN ... 54 Prom a picture in the Ktlnstlerzimmer of the Leipsic
Stadttheater. ANTON SEIDL ...... 104 Bas-relief by Winifred Holt of
New York. Replica commissioned by Herr Direktor Neumann. HEDWIG
REXCHER-KINDERMANN . . .206 FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM WAGNER TO NEU
MANN, RECEIVED AFTER THE NEWS OF NERS DEATH ..... 269 PART I ABROAD
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WAGNER CHAPTER I IT was the celebrated
singing teacher of those days, Therese Stilke-Sessi of Vienna, who
gave me my first introduction to the genius of Richard Wagner and
fired me with an early enthusiasm for his new and wonderful style.
This remarkable woman was training nae for the stage and taught me
among other things the part of Wol fram von Eschenbach
inTannhauser. I mention this particularly as in those years the
early forties it was rare indeed to find a singer with this rOle in
his reper toire, and managers then found it most difficult to cast
this important part. Being young and impressionable, I soon became
an ardent disciple of the Master, yet even I at this time, in spite
of my devotion to the cause, found it utterly im possible one night
to sit through an entire performance of The Flying Dutchman given
at the Royal Opera in Vienna under exceptionally favourable
circumstances, I frankly confess that I left, thoroughly bored with
that long duet, at the close of the second act. I was then a mere
boy of nineteen, however, and my judgment could hardly have been
considered quite sound. The cast that evening was a memorable one
and worthy to be recorded Senta, Louise Dustmann Mary, . 4 ABROAD
Caroline Bettelheim Daland, Karl Mayerhofer Erik, Gustav Walter.
John Nepomuk Beck sang the Plying Dutchman, and the conductor was
Heinrich Esser. In the yea 1862, after engagements in Pressburg and
Dantzic, I myself became a member of the Royal Opera Company in
Vienna, and this very year Richard Wagner began his career in that
city. He was presenting his Tristan, which after forty-seven
preliminary rehearsals was finally set aside as utterly
impracticable for the stage At the same time, however, he was
striving to interest the Viennese in his works by giving those
wonderful con certs in their great theatre. He then lived at the
Hotel Kaiserin Elizabeth, and as my rooms were in that same
quarter, it often chanced that I met him on the street going to and
from rehearsals, generally talking to him self, and usually
flourishing his great redbandanna The Masters hair was brown in
those days, and he invariably wore a high silk hat and a long frock
coat never by any chance buttoned up. His presence brought life and
swing into the artist world of Vienna, and the question of the hour
was, Do we, or do we not, approve of these innovations I my self
together with most of the younger musicians was a most enthusiastic
partisan of the Master, and took a gleeful share in his triumphs at
those concerts...
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