Magdeburg

His first task with the Bethmann company was to conduct a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in August 1834. During this period he continued to compose, completing the libretto for Das Liebesverbot and beginning another symphony. In December he composed an overture and incidental music for the play Columbus, written by another friend, Theodor Apel. He plunged straight into setting Das Liebesverbot, completing it in March 1836. He had come to an arrangement with the company that he was to have the opportunity of having this work performed – one might say that this was one of the reasons that Wagner continued with the company, in spite of its being a third-rate one.

He was fortunate during his time with the Bethmann company to meet the superb soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient in 1835 – she would work with Wagner in three operas and provide powerful interpretations of the roles written for her.

But in other respects, the Bethmann company provided only disappointments. The premiere of Das Liebesverbot was a shambles – the major roles were not sufficiently prepared and there was rather more of improvisation in that first performance than could do justice to the work. To be fair to the performers, they really did not have sufficient time to learn the work – it was completed at the beginning of March, and the premiere was on the 29th of that month.

“As a matter of fact the singers, and especially the men, were so extraordinarily uncertain that from beginning to end their embarrassment crippled the effectiveness of every one of their parts. Freimüller, the tenor, whose memory was most defective, sought to patch up the lively and emotional character of his badly learned rule of the madcap Luzio by means of routine work learned in Fra Diavolo and Zampa, and especially by the aid of an enormously thick, brightly coloured and fluttering plume of feathers. Consequently, as the directors failed to have the book of words printed in time, it was impossible to blame the public for being in doubt as to the main outlines of the story, seeing that they had only the sung words to guide them. With the exception of a few portions played by the lady singers, which were favourably received, the whole performance, which I had made to depend largely upon bold, energetic action and speech, remained but a musical shadow-play, to which the orchestra contributed its own inexplicable effusions, sometimes with exaggerated noise.”³

The Berthmann company, unsurprisingly, went bankrupt – it had been on the very edge of insolvency for some time.

Königsberg and marriage

Fortunately, Minna Planer had another engagement with the Königsberg theatre (now Russia), and due to her influence and that of a once-wealthy man named Möller, Wagner was retained as the conductor-in-reserve in a ticklish situation. The actual conductor had forewarned the company that he might have to leave at any moment, due to another situation becoming vacant. This conductor Schubert (no relation to the famous Lieder composer) loathed Wagner intensely, and Wagner no doubt reciprocated heartily, resentful of being retained as a “just in case”.