《我的生平——第一卷》

Part 43 / Part 46

I had long despised theatrical life, viewing court theatres as arrogant, bureaucratic hellscapes where vain, ignorant rulers strangled all noble artistic impulse, so I met the 1843 negotiations for Dresden’s vacant court conductorship with cool reluctance, turning down the first offer of Carl Maria von Weber’s old musical director post out of hand. But every force aligned to break my resolve: the promise of a life tenure with a fixed 4,500 mark annual salary would end years of wandering poverty for my wife Minna and me; Caroline von Weber, my beloved master’s widow, begged me with tears in her eyes to take the post, not leave Weber’s legacy to the lazy, mediocre Reissiger who butchered his operas year after year; practical advisors insisted the light official duties would finally give me time to compose after a year of no creative work; and Lüttichau, Dresden’s general theatre director who had once dismissed me, now showed me unexpected, seemingly genuine kindness that seduced my hope for a fresh start. On February 2, 1843, I was summoned to Lüttichau’s office before the assembled royal orchestra, where a royal rescript was read appointing me forthwith court conductor, with the rare exemption from the year-long probation even Weber had been forced to serve, no room to negotiate the salary figure. Minna fainted with delight when I got home, and I felt I had no choice but to accept the post, give no offense, congratulate myself on my sudden rise.

The formal oath and presentation to the orchestra were followed by my first audience with King Friedrich, the kind, homely monarch I’d once written a political overture for in my youth. He spoke politely of his fondness for my Rienzi and Fliegender Holländer, noting only that the elemental forces of the sea and the mob in those works overpowered their individual characters, a critique I took as proof of his sincere, original artistic judgment. He apologized for rarely attending the theatre, a rule of his strict childhood training that had given him and his brother John a lifelong hatred of forced public appearances. Lüttichau, forced to wait in the anteroom, was furious at the long audience, a small, perfect snapshot of courtier pettiness. I would only see the King two more times: once presenting him with a dedication copy of the Rienzi piano score, once after he congratulated me in the park for my well-received arrangement of Gluck’s Iphigenia in Aulis. That first audience marked the high point of my Dresden career; anxiety set in immediately after.