My most worthy friend,
This time it has taken me rather longer to get round to answering your kind letter. I am often overwhelmed by such a mass of correspondence that I am obliged to postpone writing letters for which I need to be in the right frame of mind. I am sorry that you took exception to my report of the rumour concerning your alleged fear of “Rienzi”. You are quite right to suppose that it is mere actors’ gossip; but I knew of no better expedient than to mention the matter to you openly. I hope that this has had the advantage of allowing us to come to a proper understanding, so that we may achieve something really original here. Truth to tell, I had already given up this “Rienzi” altogether. Thanks to Tichatscheck’s tremendous vocal achievement - perhaps also (excusably!) thanks to the work itself - the piece had gained the reputation of being a speciality that could be unearthed uniquely and solely by Tichatscheck. Now that I find myself dealing with you, the object itself has taken on a new lease of life for me, and it gives me pleasure to go through the work once again with you, as far as is feasible by letter.
And so, with regard more especially to the character’s chief feature, the following - as already indicated - is to be borne in mind.
Nothing affected Rienzi so deeply in his youth as the brutal killing of his little brother by the soldiers of the nobili, against whom he was unable to obtain justice. Starting out from a desire for vengeance, but failing to find satisfaction anywhere, he began to ponder the matter and learned to recognize its causes in the general misery of his age and, more especially, of his own fatherland. In order to account for this, he familiarized himself with his country’s history; going back from one source to another, he finally reached Roman antiquity and immersed himself enthusiastically in contemplation of the grandeur and greatness of ancient Rome, and, on turning back to the present, became conscious of a tremendous decline, so that, where he had previously brooded only on the reasons for his own unsatisfied vengeance, he now saw the general decay of the entire world, a decay from which he resolved to free it. And so the original motive of “vendetta” became a purified patriotism of visionary sublimity which, once he had suppressed all memory of the injury he himself had suffered, gave him the wonderful power which, for a time, he exercised over his people. - His counterpart is the figure of Adriano. In the latter’s case it is his enthusiasm which is the starting-point for his actions, an enthusiasm which Rienzi is able to inspire in him on the strength of the young man’s love of Irene. But instead of maintaining this enthusiasm, which in Rienzi finally overrides all natural and personal relationships, Adriano sinks back down to the level from which Rienzi had set out in order to rise to his present greatness. “Blood” comes between them, and Adriano cannot rise above the feeling of “vendetta”; he remains ensnared in mere family ties, whereas Rienzi has only the state as a whole in mind, with the result that, fired by his passionate thirst for vengeance and scarcely restrained by his love, Adriano perishes powerless and demented, while Rienzi, launching into the battle hymn, allows himself and the Capitol to be destroyed by an ungrateful and misguided populace. -
Setting aside the remaining brilliance of the stage-picture, this is Rienzi’s essential characteristic, and one which must be clearly brought home by the performer.
When Rienzi first appears among the people, it is, as it were, simply as a peace-maker, in all his deeply conscious dignity. He then sees the ladder at the window of his house; a glance at Irene and the nobili tells him everything. “And so yet another encroachment upon my family, then it was murder, today an attempted abduction!” Carried away by deadly hatred and almost seething with fury, he acts over-precipitately at the beginning of his recitative against the nobili. Entirely spontaneously, however, his injured personal interests quickly expand to embrace his violated fatherland; he grows in stature and becomes ever greater, and with the words: “are you yet Romans?” he stands before the degenerate assembly like the god of vengeance himself. From now on he regains his full sublime calm and dignity. He scornfully dismisses the mockery of the nobili and is concerned only to dissuade the people from their ill-considered attack. - The more terribly worked up he is in his first speech to the nobili, when he catches sight of the ladder, the more sublime must now be the impression left by his self-assurance and calm, with which he finally invites the people to assemble the next morning at the sound of the trumpet’s note, to pray for freedom.
He now speaks to Adriano in a mild and serious tone; he is above all prejudice, and rejoices in the possibility of winning over a son of his mortal enemy to his righteous cause, rather than exacting vengeance upon him. But it is precisely this which reminds him of the blood that has been spilt: it then flares up, more terribly than before. In his account of his brother’s death, he reveals to us, as though himself bleeding, the mysterious origins of the demon he has subdued. Let him be terribly moved. The more awful his suffering appears to us here, the quicker we shall recognize Rienzi’s entire great, fully purified nature when Adriano asks him: “what shall I do to expiate our shame?” and, suddenly raising himself to his full height, he replies with the inspiriting exhortation: “be mine! be a Roman!” - This must create such a powerful impression that it strikes the youth like a lightning flash, so that he calls out to Rienzi, beside himself with emotion: “let me be a Roman”. -
After this rough outline, I shall now single out for you all that relates to this one principal motive. - When the nobili (in the 2nd act) trespass against his person and against the freedom of the state, he is assured and firm in dealing with them; no inner reproach clouds his judgement, which he pronounces briefly and grimly. But when he is alone for a moment, his first thought is “my poor brother! not by me but by Rome herself are you now avenged!” And so his desire for personal vengeance has not yet been entirely suppressed, and when Adriano rushes in, beside himself, in order to save his father’s life, he touches on a spot that Rienzi himself has left uncovered. It is through this feeling that Rienzi is really reformed once more, in order, as it were, to destroy the last remaining seeds of personal vengeance. And so he quickly resolves, at the risk of his own safety, to pardon the nobili. - He is now completely stainless. But woe betide them if they relapse! For then he may no longer be the avenging brother but only the avenging godhead! - Thus the third act finds him resolute and unswerving in the face of their repeated betrayal. Here he is of annihilating greatness and terribleness in contrast to Adriano, for, while the latter increasingly forgets Rome, his fatherland and freedom simply in order to see his slain father once more, Rienzi now puts all thought of fraternal vengeance behind him and is now fully conscious in himself of representing only Rome, his fatherland and freedom.
But Rome, the fatherland and freedom now exist in him and in him alone. The populace itself knows none of this; they stand in a state of half-awareness on the side of Adriano, for they, too, can see only their own brothers and sons who have fallen in battle and for whose deaths they now make Rienzi responsible. His downfall is therefore certain. The great purity that he has now gained and his transfigured majesty help to delay it, but they cannot prevent it from happening. Scarcely has he won over the conspirators outside the church by his all-powerful grandeur and enthusiasm when everyone recoils before him, stupidly and aghast at his excommunication. For he now sees that only his idea was real, not the common people. He remains great and noble, but as rigid as a statue, his gaze fixed firmly in front of him in sublime and rapt contemplation, just like his idea, which has similarly grown petrified like some monument and which the world cannot grasp. But once again the marble melts; Irene throws herself upon his breast. He sees that he is not alone; smiling gently he recognizes his sister and now knows that there is, after all, “a Rome”. - In his prayer in the 5th act he communes alone with the God who once spoke to him and who has always spoken to him, of that noble idea. It is, as it were, the “idea” which the whole world has failed to understand that now speaks to itself. Nobility, purity, deeply felt religious fervour, the desire for dissemination, finally to be lost entirely within himself, to be totally self-absorbed: - during the postlude to the prayer, therefore, he should incline his head and whole body towards the ground. -
Final, painfully animated enjoyment of this idea in his scene with Irene. An exalted and sublime joy in the overall mood here. Profound delight in his sister who has renounced her love and thus, like her brother, has enabled the idea to triumph over passion. If, by dint of prudent economy, your vocal powers are undiminished by the time you reach this scene, it is bound to be one of the most enthralling in the whole piece. -
The ending is self-explanatory. -
Whether I have made myself clear, I do not know, but I have certainly warmed to this youthful subject of mine, which only now do I myself properly understand. I hope that I have conveyed this warmth to you; only if you accept it in this spirit will you hit upon the right course, which involves genuine seriousness and profound sympathy with the part, qualities which I could never demand of the good and splendid Tichatscheck. - I do not doubt your success. You must then propagate this opera, too. My most respectful greetings to your dear betrothed and allow me to assure you of the sincere friendship of
Your own
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 234