My Life — Volume 1

Desperate for singer intros, Wagner turns back to Meyerbeer, who introduces him to M. Gouin, a post-office official and Meyerbeer’s sole Paris agent, and Antenor Joly, director of the Theatre de la Renaissance. Gouin promises to produce Liebesverbot if the translation is completed, and when the theatre’s singers are too busy for a trial performance of the first three translated numbers, he uses Meyerbeer’s authority to secure Dorus-Gras, Widmann, and Dupont—who all previously refused Wagner—for the audience. Six months into his Paris stay, it is Easter 1840; encouraged by Gouin’s progress, Wagner takes Lehrs’ foolhardy advice to move from the cheap Quartier des Innocents to a flat near Paris’s musical centre on the Rue du Helder, unaware of the desperate financial straits he and Minna are already in. They live as cheaply as possible, paying a franc a head at a tiny restaurant, but their money melts away. Their friend Möller in Königsberg had promised to send the first profits from his business, but never writes again; they pawn every valuable they own: wedding silver, Minna’s trinkets, her old theatrical wardrobe including a silver-embroidered blue court dress once owned by the Duchess of Dessau, and finally their wedding rings. Wagner even sells the pawn tickets themselves for cash, losing the blue dress forever; Möller later admits in Dresden that he cut them off over slander he believed they spread about him, and they are devastated by the betrayal, certain of their innocence.

Small domestic diversions offer brief relief: their beloved dog, who could navigate London and Paris streets and retrieve lost items for crowds at the Quai du Pont-neuf, is stolen early in their stay, and friends call the loss lucky because they can barely feed themselves. Wagner’s sister Louisa arrives with her husband Friedrich Brockhaus on the way to Italy; they do not ask for help, and Minna assists Louisa with her shopping to avoid rousing pity. Louisa introduces them to Ernst Kietz, a kind, childlike young Dresden pastel portrait painter studying in Delaroche’s studio, whose lack of formal education and weak character will ensure his failure despite his talent, but whose simple devotion becomes a lifeline for the Wagners. He joins their evening circle almost nightly, his broken French and refusal to waste time cleaning brushes (meaning he never finishes a commissioned portrait) amuse them, and he finishes a warm pencil portrait of Wagner in 1841 that captures his cheerful resilience. The real bright spot is the renewal of their friendship with Heinrich Laube, who arrives in early 1840 with his young wife Iduna, who married him while he was imprisoned for his Berlin trial, serving his light sentence in Muskau near Prince Puckler, who smoothed his imprisonment. Laube jokes good-humouredly about Wagner’s Parisian folly, but moves to help: he secures a wealthy Leipzig friend and Avenarius relations to send Wagner six months of monthly subsidies, so they can afford the Rue du Helder flat. Minna takes over household finances, calculating that their own flat with installment payments for rent and furniture is cheaper than furnished rooms and restaurants, and they move in on April 15 with barely any luggage.

The first visitor to their new flat is Anders, with news that the Theatre de la Renaissance has gone bankrupt and closed. Friends suspect Meyerbeer sent them there knowing it would fail, but Wagner does not dwell on it, too panicked by the empty flat he cannot afford. The singers have already practiced the three Liebesverbot numbers for the trial, so he arranges a performance in the Grand Opera’s green room for temporary director Edouard Monnaie and Scribe, both of whom praise the music; Scribe offers to rewrite the full libretto if the theatre accepts the work, but Monnaie says it is impossible right now, a polite refusal Wagner recognizes. Ashamed that he returned to his superficial early work to cater to Parisian frivolous taste, his long-growing aversion to that taste now matches his abandoned Paris hopes, and he cannot bring himself to tell Minna the change in his feelings. It is the spring slack season, every door he knocks is closed with the monotone “Monsieur est à la campagne.” He romances to Minna about the South American Free States, where opera is unknown and they can make a living, while she focuses on pinching every possible penny. He sketches the poem for Der Fliegende Holländer, planning it as a one-act curtain raiser for the Grand Opera, writes to Meyerbeer for help, and resumes work on Rienzi. Within weeks, he has to draw in advance on Laube’s subsidies, alienating the practical Avenarius, who cannot understand why they remain in Paris.

The final collapse comes in quick succession: a parcel arrives from London containing the returned Rule Britannia overture from the London Philharmonic, Wagner cannot pay the seven franc carriage fee, sends it back, and never learns what became of the manuscript. Kietz finds a solution: a rich, miserly Leipzig spinster Fraulein Leplay needs cheap Paris lodging for herself and her stepmother, so the Wagners sublet most of their flat to her for two months, with Minna providing breakfast for a small fee that helps tide them over. After Leplay leaves, they sublet a room to Brix, a quiet, earnest German commercial traveler and flute player who stays most evenings and becomes a loyal friend. Then Laube comes through with a windfall: Count Kuscelew’s secretary visits, saying the count wants a musical director for a light opera company to take to his Russian estates, and is willing to meet Wagner. Wagner meets the affable count, plays his French songs, and the count sees at once he is not the right man for his Adam-style opera and his harem-like desired company, but sends him ten golden napoleons as a goodwill payment anyway. Wagner writes to ask for a commission, gets no reply, and later learns the count wanted a harem more than artists, so the money is a gift with no work attached. To recoup a 50 franc engraving fee for the Two Grenadiers (Schlesinger refuses to publish his small French songs, so Wagner pays to have the work engraved himself, with Kietz designing the title page), Schlesinger has Wagner write for the Gazette Musicale. Wagner’s French is poor, so his articles need translating, half the fee going to the translator, and the iron sheet measure used to calculate payment counts what he thought was a full sheet as only a half, leaving him drastically underpaid. His first essay, De la musique allemande, is an enthusiastic ode to German music’s sincerity, reprinted in Italy where he is mistakenly called “Dottissimo Musico Tedesco,” and he follows it with a puff piece for General Lwoff’s Stabat Mater arrangement and his own essay on virtuoso independence. Meyerbeer stops in Paris for a fortnight, takes Wagner to meet Grand Opera manager Leon Pillet, but tells Pillet Wagner should compose ballet music with another musician; Wagner refuses, but gives Pillet his Fliegende Holländer sketch anyway.