Carson Daily Appeal

WAGNER'S OPERAS.

The announcement was lately transmitted by telegraph that Wagner's opera, the Flying Dutchman, had been performed in New York, and that great success had been obtained. This performance marks a new era in the musical world of this country, and now that the initiatory step has been taken towards the production of music of the very highest style, it is to be hoped that both Wagner and Mozart will become as popular in the New World as they are already in the Old. And yet it is a difficult task to produce the Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, Tannhauser or any other opera which Wagner has written outside of Germany itself. Wagner is a poet as well as a musician. In this respect he differs from Mozart and Schumann, and has a superiority over both. The music in Mozart's operas is of the most artistic and beautiful kind, but the story of the opera is sadly wanting in poetry; it is very often trash of the most lovesick kind. But with Wagner the case is different. He writes his own words: he embodies a beautiful story in the same: he adapts his music to the case in hand. No more beautiful poem has ever been written than Lohengrin, but every word therein used is selected according to the tone in which it is to be given, and a substitute in a measure spoils the effect which is intended. Thus it is also with the dramas of Shakespeare. Translate them into German and the effect in a measure is gone. "To be or not to be" is Shakespearean and poetical, but "sein oder nicht sein" has a different sound entirely. So when an opera of Wagner is turned into English, the words are changed and the original effect is in a great measure lost. It is the same music for the orchestra, but it is not the same song for the singers. Then since the true excellence of such an opera can only be appreciated when given in the original tongue, there is another drawback in America in that no troupe possesses a number of stars equal to the exigencies of the occasion. Our very best troupes, such as that of Strakosch and that of Kellogg, are centered in a few stars such as Nilsson, Campanini or Kellogg herself, and while they are supreme in their way, yet they can not perform one of Wagner's operas themselves. There must be a score of stars in all, the entire company must be well versed in the art or the attempt at success must signally fail. In Flotow's Martha the main excellence of the piece is centered in a very few characters, and if these be given by artists of merit then the opera is a success. But not so with the productions of Wagner. They are one series of solos and choruses from the beginning to the end; a multiplicity of characters is included in the whole, and unless each part is given in harmony with the rest, then very shabby applause will be heard. Hitherto Wagner has been a comparative stranger in the operatic world of America; his pieces are too difficult and general for successful production, but now that the introduction has been given, that the Flying Dutchman has been performed, a greater advancement in the future is augured and a higher culture in the musical art in general.