Wagner: Die Feen

Opera no 61

Wagner Die Feen

Soloists

Munich Opera

Wolfgang Sawallisch

This was Wagner’s first complete opera, though it was not given its first performance until after his death. I knew the overture and I think that I heard at least some of the opera when it was revived on Radio 3 in the 1970s as a part of a series of uncut performances of the early Wagner operas.

For a 20 year old with only a modest musical education this was an astonishing achievement. It is assured and full of drama. Weber is the most obvious influence and you can also hear passages reminiscent of the choral music of Schubert and Mendelssohn. But already Wagner had a distinct voice and I am sure that parts of this could have been incorporated into Lohengrin or Tannhauser without anybody noticing anything amiss. You get some moment of comic relief amid the drama - there is a long duet for the subsidiary characters in act 2 - which reminds us that Wagner’s next opera Das Liebesverbot was a comic opera. Who knows - had Die Feen been performances and Das Liebesverbot been given more than a single disastrous performance the whole direction of Wagner’s career might have been quite different.

The high point in this opera is probably the big soprano aria in Act 2 - which can best be described as Weber on steroids. It is a real tour de force of the early romantic style. It is perhaps too long, but then even in this cut performance of the opera there were several moments where one wanted Wagner not to dwell quite so long in the moment and get on to the next bit of action. But overall this was a really good experience and I think that it is only the sheer weight of the impact of Wagner’s mature operas that has led Die Feen to be only of curiosity value. It deserves more than that.