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He laid it aside because Rosalie disliked the plot; but immediately he proceeded to another opera, Die Feen, which he completed at Würzburg. The book of Die Hochzeit is dated December 5, 1832, Leipzig.
For the present he worked at Die Feen, and as soon as the theatre closed and Albert and his wife went elsewhere to perform in the off-season just as German, French, Italian and American singers come to Covent Garden now during the summer he had plenty of time. By New Year's day of '34 the work was complete.
This is significant, for Weber remained to him throughout his life as a demigod; from Die Feen, his boyish opera, until after Lohengrin he used freely the Weber phraseology and melodic contours, and when Weber's remains were transported from London to be reinterred in Germany it was Wagner who pronounced the inevitable discourse.
In 1833 he could not persuade any German manager to produce it, and, in the changes which soon came over his musical sympathies, 'Die Feen' was laid upon the shelf and probably forgotten. It was not until 1888, five years after the composer's death, that the general enthusiasm for everything connected with Wagner induced the authorities at Munich to produce it.
With the exception of Die Feen, nothing composed by Wagner prior to Rienzi calls for serious attention, nor would receive any attention whatever were not the author's name Wagner.
Albeit, I had the feeling that a solid basis for the gratification of this desire was not to be laid in Lauchstadt; nor did I find it easy to assist the plot concocted against the production of my Feen. I therefore determined to make a preliminary visit to the place just to see how things stood.
Remembering that Die Feen had been written years before, it is useless to contend that Wagner did not know he was aiming at something lower than the best he could produce. He never again fell away from his highest and truest self, though he was sorely tempted. The simple, terrible old legend of the Flying Dutchman had in it no elements of drama.
Die Feen has a certain atmosphere and a set artistic purpose which may, in the light of his subsequent achievements, be taken as an indication, a small hint, that the subsequent achievements were possible. So much, but not more, may be conceded. Das Liebesverbot is known to me only from descriptions and brief quotations, but these suffice to show that here is not the true Wagner.
Thus, amid manifold and passionate agitations, and in the few leisure hours which were left to me, I completed the greater part of my operatic poem, taking infinitely more pains, both as regards words and versification, than with the text of my earlier Feen.
From 1830 to 1833 many compositions after standard models are evidence of hard and systematic work and in 1833 he began his long career as an operatic composer with "Die Feen" which, however, never reached the dignity of performance till 1888 five years after Wagner's death.
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