Overture to Genoveva, Op. 81 Composed in 1847 Robert

OVERTURE TO GENOVEVA, OP. 81 COMPOSED IN 1847

ROBERT SCHUMANN BORN IN ZWICKAU, SAXONY, JUNE 8, 1810 DIED IN ENDENICH, JULY 29, 1856

Composers react in different ways to the allures and challenges, to the benefits and dangers of opera. It was assumed in the time of Haydn and Mozart that important composers would write for the theater. Mozart triumphed, while Haydn’s efforts, and there are many of them, are largely forgotten. Beethoven kept on rewriting the same opera, his Leonore/Fidelio. Schubert tried nearly a dozen times but gave up in despair, partly because of the Viennese infatuation with Rossini, who, along with many of his Italian descendents such as Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, and Puccini, primarily wrote operas. Wagner, of course, also composed little else than his massive theatrical works. At the same time, many other 19th-century composers, such as Brahms, shied away from opera entirely. It was apparently impossible to succeed in everything, as Mozart had done so elegantly.

SCHUMANN’S OPERA Schumann was one of the most intensely literary composers of the century and developed an early passion for the theater. It is hardly surprising that he would be drawn to writing operas. “In time, my endeavors in this, the dramatic field, will be accorded a just assessment.” Schumann’s prediction, unfortunately, has yet to be fulfilled. In the late 1840s he threw himself wholeheartedly into dramatic projects that would combine his musical gifts with his love of literature. In addition to many unrealized plans over the course of his career, Schumann focused late in life on a series of works that share elevated literary origins and that explore the solitary world of outcast anti-heroes, most remarkably Manfred and Faust. By 1847, when he began composing his lone opera, Genoveva, Schumann was well known for his piano and vocal compositions, as well as for his activities as one of the most powerful and brilliant music critics of the age. In late 1846 he and his wife, the virtuoso pianist Clara Wieck, embarked on a four-month tour to Vienna, Brno, Prague, Dresden, and Berlin during which she performed and his music was heard. They also attended a lot of opera and theater, which evidently got Schumann thinking once again of writing his own opera. His first idea was to set Byron’s Mazeppa, but with Clara’s encouragement he turned to Friedrich Hebbel’s Genoveva (1841). The old tale, also familiar to Romantics in an earlier version by Ludwig Tieck (1799), tells the story of Count Siegfried, who goes off to battle leaving his young wife, Genoveva, in the care of his friend Golo. His friend tries to seduce her and, when repulsed, tracks down the wounded Siegfried and alleges Genoveva’s infidelity with the steward Drago. Trusting his friend, and after consulting a magical oracle, Siegfried vows to kill her, but upon his return is convinced of her innocence. He banishes Golo, who kills himself, and is happily reunited with his beloved amongst general celebration.

WAGNER’S ADVICE Schumann immediately set to work on the Overture we hear today at the beginning of April 1847, sketching it in just a few days. Writing the overture first is not a common practice—composers often save it for last, until after the entire opera is written and they better know how they want to lead into the drama. Schumann outlined the story he wanted to tell, enlisted poet Robert Reinick to write a libretto, and sought Hebbel’s counsel when he was dissatisfied with what Reinick produced. In the end he wrote most of the libretto himself, or rather assembled the text, as he used as much as possible the actual words of Tieck and Hebbel. Schumann talked with Richard Wagner about the project. According to Wagner’s autobiography: “His quite extraordinary incompetence as a conductor … had aroused my especially active sympathy for this profound and productive musician, whose work I much admired. Emphatic good will and friendly trust prevailed between us.” Schumann attended performances of Tannhäuser and praised the work, but, as Wagner writes, “My example had affected him only superficially, and really amounted only to an endorsement of the idea of my practice of writing my own libretti.” Schumann read Genoveva to Wagner, who made some suggestions that he remembered were not taken: “He would permit me to be carried away by him; but he would resist any interference with his work and his inspiration in a most stubborn and prickly fashion. So we left it at that.” In December 1847 Schumann orchestrated the Overture and began working steadily on the rest of the four-act opera. It was a time of considerable personal turmoil for Robert and Clara. In May their good friend Fanny Mendelssohn died (brother Felix followed less than six months later), Clara was pregnant, and their firstborn son, Emil, died in June. Robert nonetheless completed Genoveva in August. The premiere was scheduled for Leipzig, but was repeatedly postponed until it was finally given three performances in June 1850. Franz Liszt revived the opera in Weimar five years later, but by this time Schumann had attempted suicide by throwing himself in the Rhine and was in an asylum in Endenich. (He died there the following year.) Although Genoveva received other productions, it did not secure a place in the repertory and is now largely forgotten. The Overture, however, is one of Schumann’s finest orchestral works and has enjoyed success from the beginning. Even before the opera’s premiere, Schumann conducted it in Leipzig and Hamburg.

A CLOSER LOOK A slow and rather mysterious introduction (Langsam) leads seamlessly into a fast section that Schumann marks Leidenschaftlich bewegt (passionately moving). Various themes in the Overture prefigure ones in the opera and the effective use of the French horns evoke hunting horns appropriate for the forest scenes in the work. The Overture builds to an exciting and triumphant conclusion that neatly sums up the happy end of the opera. Indeed, as Beethoven found with his Leonore Overture No. 3, this orchestral introduction may too effectively chart the emotional terrain of the entire opera and make what follows seem either repetitive or anticlimactic.

—Christopher H. Gibbs