border which separates the orchestra from the stage. His period of juvenility was not quite ended, but he may be said to have finished the preparatory stage of his career and to be about to enter on the first years of serious struggle toward his real goal. His boyhood was fairly indicative of his nature. Restless, dissatisfied, eager to reach the topmost heights, and not suited with the means at hand, we yet find him experimenting with the methods of those who preceded him, analysing and assimilating the musical past, and learning to conquer musical forms. In the juvenile symphony he showed that he had honestly solved the problems of construction, that he had mastered the formal materials of his art. The wise Schumann said, "Mastery of form leads talent to ever increasing freedom." At nineteen years of age, with the methods of Beethoven and Mozart firmly fixed in his mind, the young Wagner had produced a symphonic composition, which, while imitative in both themes and treatment, showed astonishing musical vigour and an enterprising spirit. The boy was on the verge of manhood, artistically as well as physically.

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST OPERAS

In the year 1832, while he was in Prague, Wagner began his career as a composer of operas, and in his first attempt, as in all later ones, wrote his own libretto. His friend Heinrich Laube[3] had offered him a libretto on the subject of Kosciuszko, but he refused it, saying that he was engaged wholly on instrumental music. But his genius was for the stage, and his boyhood had been surrounded by the immediate influences of the theatre. It is, therefore, not surprising to find him at work on an opera. He says in his autobiography: "In that city [Prague] I also composed an opera book of tragic contents, 'Die Hochzeit.' I know not whence I had come by the mediæval subject matter:—a frantic lover climbs to the window of the sleeping-chamber of his friend's bride, wherein she is awaiting the advent of the bridegroom; the bride struggles with the madman and hurls him into the courtyard below, where his mangled body gives up the ghost. During the funeral ceremony the bride, uttering one cry, sinks lifeless on the corpse. Returning to Leipsic, I set to work at once on the composition of this opera's first number, which contained a grand sextet that much pleased Weinlig. The text-book found no favour with my sister; I destroyed its every trace."

We are indebted to the good Rosalie for her objections to this stupid and unpoetic book. Wagner's memory in regard to this juvenile work was not perfect. He presented an autograph of the numbers composed to the Würzburg Musikverein. They are an introduction, a chorus, and a septet, not a sextet as he said. This autograph copy is still extant. Franz Muncker, in his "Life of Wagner," says that the young librettist found his subject in Immermann's "Cardenio und Celinde" (1826), and that he arranged the conclusion of his story after that of the "Bride of Messina." The whole matter, however, may be dismissed as unimportant.

Wagner now went to Würzburg, and at the age of twenty sought employment as a musician through the influence of his brother Albert, then engaged in the Würzburg Theatre as actor, singer, and stage manager. Albert succeeded in securing for him a position as chorus master at ten florins a month. As an evidence of his gratitude he composed for Albert an aria of 142 measures to substitute for a shorter one in Marschner's "Der Vampyr." A phototype reproduction of this aria may be found in Wilhelm Tappert's "R. Wagner; Sein Leben und Seine Werke." It has no especial interest except for collectors of Wagneriana.

In the year 1833 the young composer set to work on another opera. This was entitled "Die Feen," and although it was completed, its fate was not unlike that of its predecessor. It came to nothing in the composer's life, and though finished on Dec. 7, 1833, received its first performance in Munich on Jan. 29, 1888. Perhaps the best short account of this work that can be given is that of Wagner himself in his "Communication to my Friends."[4] He says:

"On the model of one of Gozzi's fairy tales ['La donna serpente'] I wrote for myself an opera text in verse, 'Die Feen' [The Fairies]; the then predominant romantic opera of Weber, and also of Marschner—who about this time made his first appearance on the scene, and that at my place of sojourn, Leipsic—determined me to follow in their footsteps. What I turned out for myself was nothing more than barely what I wanted, an opera text; this I set to music according to the impressions made upon me by Weber, Beethoven, and Marschner. However, what took my fancy in the tale of Gozzi was not merely its adaptability for an opera text, but the fascination of the 'stuff' itself. A fairy, who renounces immortality for the sake of a human lover, can only become a mortal through the fulfilment of certain hard conditions, the non-compliance wherewith on the part of her earthly swain threatens her with the direst penalties; her lover fails in the test, which consists in this, that however evil and repulsive she may appear to him (in an obligatory metamorphosis) he shall not reject her in his unbelief. In Gozzi's tale the fairy is now changed into a snake; the remorseful lover frees her from the spell by kissing the snake: thus he wins her for his wife. I altered this dénouement by changing the fairy into a stone and then releasing her from the spell by her lover's passionate song; while the lover—instead of being allowed to carry the bride off to his own country—is himself admitted by the Fairy King to the immortal bliss of Fairyland, together with his fairy wife."

This opera was offered to the director of the theatre at Leipsic, whither Wagner returned early in 1834, and it is evident that a production was promised, for Laube announced in his journal that immediately after "Le Bal Masqué" by Auber there would be brought forward the first opera of a young composer named Richard Wagner. But when Auber's work had completed its run, the director announced Bellini's "I Capuletti ed i Montecchi," and that was the end of "Die Feen" till 1888. Some of the commentators have found the germs of important features of Wagner's later works in this opera, but there is really no evidence that any direct connection exists. It is true that the story is mythical, but Wagner departed from the myth in his next opera. It is, perhaps, more significant that already the young writer showed some skill in the management of pictorial stage effects. The music was wholly imitative of Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner, with some minor borrowings from Mozart. Here and there can be found musical ideas which recur in later works and which are characteristic of Wagner. The score was constructed on the Italian opera model and contains the regular series of arias, scenas, cavatinas, etc. It has even a "mad scene." Furthermore it is a strikingly melodious score, and very light in touch. But the work has now only a historical interest, and its occasional performances in Munich, about the time that the foreign pilgrims to Bayreuth are