WAGNER, MINNA and COSIMA. %?I
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JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. WAGNER,MINNA AND COSIMA. BY GUSTAV KOBB?, AUTHOR OF "WAGNER'S LIFE AND WORKS," ETC. Wagner, Minna and Cosima; and?poor Minna! Thrown into the shade by the bright luminary that succeeded you, how are many there who realize that for nearly a quarter of a century you tried to smooth the pathway of one of the greatest and most ever contrary geniuses that lived, sharing exile, poverty and priva tion; slaving for him uncomplainingly; striving to create little oases of cheer in the desert of despondency; only to die unhonored am and unsung and, I tempted to add, almost unpitied? was a "She good wife, but she did not appreciate his genius." That disposes of Minna?pretty Wilhelmine Planer, the Magde burg actress who gave up her stage career to become Wagner's wife; who loved him and drudged for him, wearing away her youth and her beauty; and who, when after years of poverty he had become a protege of a king and the favored of fortune, died separated from him, another woman having taken her place. Yet what a wonderful part in his life that other woman played. She seems to have entered it under a decree of fate. Her father, Franz Liszt, had made championship of Wagner's art, when Wagner was still quite unknown, an almost sacred mission; and the objective point of her wedding trip with her first husband, Hans von B?low, was Wagner's house in Zurich. Had they never met, two souls would have lived on, yearning for the unknown. But they met; and the rest is history. When I was in Bayreuth at the production of "Parsifal" in 1882, this woman moved through the bustle and excitement attend ing the festival like a queen. A glance sufficed to show that she was Liszt's daughter. She was his image. Often I looked at her and thought of her remarkable career?the daughter of a great musician and of a beautiful, aristocratic and accomplished French 260 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. woman; the wife, first of a great pianist and then of the greatest musical genius the world has known, helping him to his triumph and sharing it. For those who are in a position to know say that without her tact Bayreuth would have remained an unfulfilled dream. That,, since Wagner's death, Frau Cosima has been Bay reuth is a self-evident proposition. But, though grateful to the kind fate that led Cosima to cross Wagner's path, one cannot help pitying the woman whose sad destiny it was to share only his unsuccessful years. There is ample evidence of how well she fulfilled her duties up to the point of fol lowing his genius in its daring flights, but, alas for her, not beyond. It was in November, 1836, that Wagner married Fr?ulein Wil helmina Planer, the leading actress of the Magdeburg company. Her father was a spindle maker. It is said that her desire to earn money for the household, rather than the impetus of a well-defined histrionic gift, led her to go on the stage ; but, once on the stage, she discovered that she had unquestionable talent, and played lead ing characters in tragedy and comedy with success. Minna is described as handsome, but not strikingly so; of medium height and slim figure, with "soft, gazelle-like eyes which were a faithful index of a tender heart." She was quiet in speech and movement, yet quick to anticipate any wish, almost complying with it before it was expressed. Her nature was the very opposite of Wagner's. Where he was passionate, strong-willed and am bitious, she was gentle, affectionate and retiring. Where he yearned for conquest, she wanted only a well-regulated home. But she could not follow him in his art theories, and as his genius assumed more definite shape she became less and less able to com prehend it. It was almost a sealed book to her. Doubtless, the ill success of "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tannh?user," works which, after "Eienzi," puzzled people, en gendered her first misunderstanding of Wagner's genius. Some may be surprised that this lack of appreciation did not bring about a separation sooner, instead of after nearly a quarter of a century of married life. But when a man is struggling with poverty, the woman who unobtrusively aids him in bearing it is regarded by him as an angel of light, and the question as to whether she appre ciates his genius or not becomes a secondary one in the struggle for existence. But when at last success comes, as it did in Wagner's case, WAGNER, MINNA AND COSIMA. %?i when there is time for companionship, there is also opportunity for an estimate of intellectual quality. Then it is that the man of genius discovers that the woman who has stood by him through his poverty lacks the graces of mind necessary to his complete hap piness, and the self-sacrificing wife who has been his drudge, in order that he might the better meet want, and who has perhaps lost her youth and her looks in his service, is forgotten for some one else. The worst of it is that the world forgets her and all she has done for the great man in her quiet, uncomplaining way. The drudge never finds a page in the "Loves of the Poets." The woman who comes in and reaps where the other has sown, does. During a hard struggle which lasted many years, Minna's homely love was all Wagner's ; and this in spite of the fact that, although Wagner appreciated her and even loved her, he loved his art better, making?fortunately for the world, perhaps? sacrifices for it which kept him in a continual state of semi poverty. The real secret of the unhappy lives often led by wives of men of genius is this : The wife of a genius must always admit a rival?her husband's art. The struggles, the poverty, which result from his devotion to it, she must be prepared to bear with out a murmur. She must be ready, when they need bread, to see him deliberately turn his back on the means of securing it, be cause those means are unworthy of his genius. No woman should enter marriage with her eyes as wide open as she who becomes the wife of a man of genius. Yet how few women, wedding such men, know what is before them ; and how many are there who are not doomed to disillusion? Wagner's friend, Ferdinand Praeger, has much to say of Minna's fine qualities. But he also tells several anecdotes which completely illustrate how absolutely she failed to comprehend Wagner's genius and ambition. Praeger visited them in their "trimly kept Swiss chalet" in Zurich in the summer of 1856. One day when Praeger and Minna were seated at the luncheon table waiting for Wagner, who was scoring the "?ibelung," to come down from his study, she asked : "Now, honestly, is Bichard really such a great genius?" Eemember that this question was asked about the composer of "Bienzi," "Flying Dutchman," "Tann h?user" and "Lohengrin." If she was unable to discover his genius in these, how could she be expected to follow its loftier flights in his later works? 262 TE1? WORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. On another occasion, when Wagner was complaining that the public did not understand him, she said: "Well, Eichard, why don't you write something for the gallery?" So little did she understand the man whose genius was founded upon unswerving devotion to artistic truth, and who would sooner have gone to the grave unknown than have dishonored himself by catering to the public. During Praeger's visit, an old Magdeburg singer and her two daughters called on Wagner. They sang the music of the Ehine daughters from "Bheingold." When they finished singing, Minna asked Praeger : "Is it really as beautiful as you say ? It does not seem so to me, and I'm afraid it would not sound so to others." Wagner was not slow to discover her inability to understand him, but "her good qualities and domestic virtues" greatly en deared her to him. Her economy in itself was most invaluable, as a brake on such thoughtless extravagance as Wagner was apt to indulge in if left to himself.