《我的生平——第一卷》

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.