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After the success of 'Die Feen' at Munich, it naturally occurred to the authorities there to revive Wagner's one other juvenile opera. The score of 'Das Liebesverbot' was accordingly unearthed, and the parts were allotted. The first rehearsal, however, decided its fate.
His letters of the period are as buoyant as could be wished. He had other schemes. At the Freemasons' concerts his Die Feen overture made a hit. He heard Schröder-Devrient in Bellini's Montechi e Capuleti, and found to his astonishment that a great singer could create great artistic effects in music of no very high value.
He himself confesses that 'if any one should compare this score with that of "Die Feen" he would find it difficult to understand how such a complete change in my tendencies could have been brought about in so short a time. The incident which turned his thoughts into this new channel was a performance of Bellini's 'Capuletti e Montecchi, in which Madame Schroeder-Devrient sang the part of Romeo.
A distinct picture was in the composer's mind's-eye; and besides, the themes came out of an opera already composed. Die Feen The Fairies is based on a version of the child's tale of Beauty and the Beast, Gozzi's La Donna Serpente. In Gozzi's form a lady is changed to a serpent: the handsome and valiant prince comes along and all ends well.
Thereupon Tom with his right hand draws forth his sword, and with one dreadful shout does exclaim, 'Now will you swear to become my wife, for if you don't, by God's blood and nails, I will this moment smite off your hand with this sword. Then the lady being very much frightened, and having one sneaking kindness for Tom, who though he looked very fierce looked also very handsome, said, 'Well, well! a promise is a promise; I promised to become your wife, and so I will; I swear I will; by all I hold holy I swear; so let go my hand, which you have almost pulled off, and come in and welcome! So Tom lets go her hand, and the lady opens her door, and before night they were married, and in less than one month Tom, being now very rich and Lord of Ystrad Feen, was made justice of the peace and chairman at quarter session."
I also reckoned on my acquaintance with Schroder- Devrient, who had always been nice to me and who, though her efforts were ineffectual, had been at great pains, out of regard for my family, to get my Feen introduced at the Court Theatre, Dresden.
Stegmayer, the conductor, who had no inclination to practise my score Feen during the hot summer weather, as he had promised to do, promptly recommended me for the post, and in that way really managed to shake off a very troublesome tormentor.
The leap was a prodigious one, and you may search history in vain for its like; and still more astounding was it if you reckon from the point where the run was commenced. "The Flying Dutchman" was avowedly that point. "Die Feen" is boyish folly, and "Rienzi" an attempt to out-Meyer Meyerbeer.
Well, after some time, the lady's husband dies and leaves her all his property, so that all of a sudden she finds herself one great independent lady, mistress of the whole of Strath Feen, one fair and pleasant valley far away there over the Eastern hills, by the Towey, on the borders of Shire Car.
If Raff's opera, as you tell me, has pleased, he ought to be satisfied; in any case he had a better reward than I had for my "Feen," which was never performed at all, or for my "Liebesverbot," which had one abominable performance, or for my "Rienzi," of the revival of which I think so little that I should not permit it if it were contemplated anywhere.
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