On backstage of the first Ring in the Russian Empire in 1889
Acquaintance of the Russian public with Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen began in February 1863: during a tour in the city on the Neva, when Wagner performed fragments of The Ring, still unfinished. The composer tried to convince Russian Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna to finance the completion and staging of the tetralogy, he even read the libretto to her in the evenings in the drawing room of the Mikhailovsky Palace. If Elena Pavlovna did not refuse Wagner's proposal, St. Petersburg could well have become the birthplace of The Ring. The maestro did not worry too long about the refusal of the princess: soon the noble mission of the sponsor was taken over by the Bavarian king Ludwig II, who allocated funds for the construction of the Wagner theater in Bayreuth, where in 1876 the tetralogy was first presented to the public.
The Wagnerians from the Russian Empire, who were unable to attend the performances in Bayreuth, had to content themselves with reading the reviews by Russian composers who had attended the premiere of The Ring. The description of the tetralogy given by Pyotr Tchaikovsky – a terrible drag, leading to complete exhaustion – was, nevertheless, positive, if compared with the great-power comical criticism of Cesar Cui, published in the Russian newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti”. No choirs, no assemblies - you should learn from Russian composers, Mr. Wagner! The music is like an ugly woman, luxuriously dressed and artistically made up; she can still impress in the evening lighting, but, God forbid, that you see her next morning without a make-up! And the wonderful production and the best singers are the merit of the sponsor – the king; if we had one, we would have done much better!
In Russia, such a sponsor, alas, did not appear, but St. Petersburg, nevertheless, saw the Bayreuth production of The Ring. In 1889, a little more than a quarter of a century after the St. Petersburg tour of Richard Wagner, thirteen years after the Bayreuth premiere and six years after the death of the composer, the entrepreneur Angelo Neumann brought The Ring to St. Petersburg. Two months of rehearsals and repeated performances of all the four parts of the tetralogy became an event for the Mariinsky Theater and for the city of St. Petersburg. The enthusiastic responses of composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, absolutely opposite to the views of Russian witnesses to the Bayreuth premiere, are still quoted by musicologists. The tour of the Neumann troupe not only introduced The Ring to the Russian public, but also marked the launch of its production on the Mariinsky stage.
History has preserved the audience's impressions of those performances in numerous publications and monographs, but has hidden a bureaucratic description of their organization far down in the archives of St. Petersburg. It is about time to take these documents from the dusty archive shelf and to reveal their contents to opera lovers so that they could move back in time to the backstage of the first production of The Ring in Russia, understand whether it was easy for the Mariinsky Theater to perceive the tetralogy, and discover the interesting, occasionally funny, facts of this extraordinary event that so far have remained hidden from the public eye.
Who are you, Monsieur Neumann?
Angelo Neumann, who Richard Wagner used to refer as "my dear friend and ally", became famous for the fact that two years after the premiere of The Ring in Bayreuth, he presented this production at the Leipzig Opera, where he served as managing director, and three years later – in Berlin. Later he received exclusive rights from the composer to present The Ring in other theaters for a period of nine years, bought scenery and costumes from the Wagner Theater in Bayreuth, assembled his own troupe and toured with The Ring all over Europe, giving 135 performances, including one in Venice immediately after the death of the composer. Back in 1882, Wagner made an addendum to the contract with Neumann, authorizing him to show the tetralogy in St. Petersburg, and two days before his death he wrote a letter to the entrepreneur, where he expressed a wish to present The Ring in Russia.
In 1889, Neumann directed the Deutsche Opera in Prague that called themselves “a mobile theater of Richard Wagner”, and still retained the rights to the Bayreuth production, which he brought to the northern capital. Thus, the St. Petersburg public had the opportunity to see exactly the same Ring, which Cui shamelessly scolded.
Despite the fact that Neumann was well known in the opera world, the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters of Russia wanted to verify his identity and credentials, and received the following certificate from a notary in Bayreuth. “Adolf Gross, chief commissioner of the heirs of Richard Wagner, known in Bayreuth by name, rank and residence, declared and presented evidence that Angelo Neumann is the only one who has the right to present Der Ring des Nibelungen in Russia for several years. For this, he pays 10% of the box office to the heirs of Wagner and 5% to Mr. Gross”.
The Directorate was satisfied with this notary's certificate, despite the fact that a mistake crept into the Russian translation: the document was dated November 8, 1882, when Wagner was still alive and enjoying his time in Venice. Did the official in charge miss the wrong date, or just treated the “Know Your Client” procedure formally, or simply did not know the date of Wagner's death, or, maybe, even Wagner at all? Anyway, the process of signing the agreement has been launched.
Great Lent to the Wagner’s music
Just as Richard Wagner presented fragments from his Ring to the St. Petersburg public during Great Lent in February - March 1863, so the tour of the Neumann troupe in 1889 took place at the same time of the year, and again during Great Lent. Imperial theaters stopped giving performances at this time and rented out the premises to foreign troupes. We can easily say that, if not for religious traditions, The Ring would not have reached St. Petersburg for a long time.
At Neumann's request, all references to Great Lent were deleted from the contract. And, judging by the number of tickets sold for sixteen performances and two concerts, it seems that a huge number of St. Petersburg residents did not keep the fast, unlike ballet dancers. To the request of Mr. Neumann to provide him with eight girls, eight maidens and four women from the ballet troupe for staging, the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters responded with a harsh refusal.
A quarter for the Directorate
A rather simple contract between the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters and Angelo Neumann was agreed in a couple of weeks and signed on November 22, 1888.
During February and March 1889, the Directorate put Mariinsky Theater at the disposal of Mr. Neumann free of charge for rehearsals and four cycles (sixteen evenings) of the tetralogy. The theater covered the costs for the orchestra of 96 musicians, the choir of 20 men to participate in Götterdämmerung, day players, support and administrative staff, announcements, posters and technical support for the production, and also undertook to "find time" for rehearsals.
Neumann promised to deliver scores, soloists, conductor, stage director and machinist, scenery, costumes and to pay royalties to the heirs of Richard Wagner at his own expense.
The parties agreed on the cost of tickets: the most expensive one was 110 rubles for a dress circle box, the cheapest one was one and a half rubles for a ticket on the last bench of the gallery (in modern money, about EUR 1,275 and EUR 17, respectively). According to the tradition established by the young Richard Wagner while working at the German Theatre in Riga, season tickets were offered to the public. When buying tickets for all four parts of the tetralogy, a spectator enjoyed a 10 percent discount. This "special offer" for the public had been announced even before the formal contract was signed, and expired exactly two months before the first performance.
It was agreed for the fee to be divided as follows: 75% of ticket sales - to Neumann, 25% - to the Directorate. If more than sixteen performances were given, then, starting from the seventeenth, the Directorate requested 40%.
Judging by the drafts of the contract, the parties did not bargain much. Neumann removed from the contract the reason for banning the performance on the March,1 - the day of the death of Alexander II, and also increased the targeted collection from season tickets from seventy to one hundred thousand rubles (approximately EUR 1,2 million in modern money). In case this was not achieved, he could opt out of the contract. The Directorate retained the right to withdraw if subscriptions bring less than fifty thousand.
Kickback and extortion, or Sub-contract and charity?
In the contract, the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters stated that the right to sell the leaflets and the libretto was transferred to the firm of Eduard Goppe, and Mr. Neumann was ordered to "enter into a special agreement" with this firm. Since the income from the sale of leaflets and librettos and the costs of printing them did not appear in the profit and loss statement of the Directorate compiled at the end of the tour, a reasonable question arises whether the “special agreement” was not a legalized form of kickback. History fails to mention its size.
An even more interesting situation arose with the two concerts of Wagnerian music that the Neumann troupe gave at the Mariinsky theatre after the completion of sixteen performances of the tetralogy and which were not included in the contract. The tickets for the concert were one third cheaper than the tickets for the main performances, so as not to be a loser, the Directorate considered these concerts the seventeenth and eighteenth performances, for which it was entitled to 40% of ticket sales.
Like Wagner, who in 1863, at the request of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, was forced to transfer the fee for a concert in the Hall of the Nobility Assembly in favor of the debtors held in custody, Mr. Neumann was forced to give his fee for one concert (60% of the collection) in favor of the musicians of the Mariinsky Theater orchestra. Well, why not an extortion? The Directorate asked the Ministry of Finance if the remaining 40% of the concert fee could be paid to musicians as well, but the verdict of the auditor was unambiguous – at least this portion is due to the Treasury!
The Emperor himself gave the “go-ahead”!
Playbills of performances lured the St. Petersburg public with brilliantly restored costumes, scenery and stage equipment from the famous original production in Bayreuth and stage machines under the direction of the chief machinist of the Royal Munich Theater. Angelo Neumann undertook to deliver all this to St. Petersburg, along with musical material, at his own expense, and the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters guaranteed him duty-free import and export.
The issue of duty-free importation was reported to the Emperor himself. Alexander III solved this issue in advance and very quickly, setting only one condition: to bring everything back within six months.
The St. Petersburg customs did not have a good understanding of the stuff being imported for “late Wagner’s Nibelungs” and let “musical instruments and notes, two boxes, a pile of books and 331 pieces of theater supplies” through the Russian border under a written obligation of the Directorate to pay duties to the Treasury in case of violation of the deadline for re-export.
Customs officers in the Russian Empire remembered the tour of The Ring longer than anybody else: over two years after its completion, they kept reconciling the quantities of imported and exported goods in the hope of replenishing the Treasury with penalties. But the scrupulous Neumann took out everything he brought in to Russia, not even having left a single copy of the scores.
Third grade does not mean rejects
A couple of months before the start of the tour in St. Petersburg, rumors began to spread that Angelo Neumann was going to bring on tour a troupe of the third and fourth cast, moreover, with a singer who had failed in the role of Brunnhilde in Italy. Upon hearing these rumors, the entrepreneur began to assure the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters of their groundlessness. Along with Prague singers unknown to the Russian public, but who regularly performed in Wagner's operas in front of an equally demanding audience, Neumann promised the city on the Neva to bring the stars of stage in order to present the tetralogy to St. Petersburg art connoisseurs in the best possible way.
Indeed, the troupe that came on tour consisted of experienced Wagner soloists from opera houses of nine cities: Dresden, Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig, Berlin, Darmstadt, London, New York and Prague. The role of Brunnhilde, for example, was performed by Therese Malten (stage name Müller), whom Richard Wagner himself chose for the role of Kundry in Parsifal at the premiere in Bayreuth in 1882, and Therese Vogl, the very first performer of the role of Sieglinde in Die Walküre. The latter's husband, Heinrich Vogl, who played the role of Siegfried in St. Petersburg, had participated in the premiere performance of The Ring in Bayreuth. As a result, the rumors about the singers of the supporting cast turned out to be greatly exaggerated, and the St. Petersburg public heard the same voices as the guests of the Bayreuth festival.
Coping with overseas instruments
To direct the orchestra in Russia, Mr. Neumann appointed Karl Muck, chief conductor of the German Theater in Prague, who had already performed the Wagner's Ring in Berlin. Muck was a remarkable interpreter of the music of Richard Wagner. After the Russian tour, he became a musical assistant to Hermann Levi, the chief conductor of the Bayreuth Festival chosen to this position by Wagner himself. Muck took over from Levi after the latter’s death, and conducted all performances of Parsifal in Bayreuth for more than twenty years.
The son of the famous conductor of the Mariinsky Theater Eduard Napravnik recalled how Muck repeatedly expressed his enthusiastic surprise about the musicians of the Mariinsky Orchestra to his father and said that he had never expected to meet something like this in barbaric Russia. The imperial orchestra of 96 artists, which the conductor called "excellent", deserved such praise after thirty-six rehearsals (against the planned twenty-four).
Synergy between the venerable conductor and the musicians of the orchestra has not been achieved immediately. Judging by the attendance records of rehearsals in January 1889, at first the musicians indulged themselves in skipping these rehearsals, and discipline improved only a week later, after the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters had promised to give them a special reward for participating in the tetralogy.
But as soon as the whole orchestra finally got together, Maestro Muck was instantly swamped with complaints. At first, the conductor was told that only one musician in the whole orchestra was able to play the imported double-bass trumpet, but he refused to saying that the instrument was bad. The same complaint was filed for the bass trumpet, appealing that the instrument was old and damaged. Even more complaints were received about four Wagner tubes – the invention of the composer himself: Muck has no right to demand that the orchestra artists play instruments that are alien to them and new in design.
The tour was on the verge of failure, but as soon as Muck promised the musicians an additional pay of two rubles for a rehearsal and five rubles for a performance, they resignedly agreed to play these strange instruments. Everyone agreed, except for the French horn player, who flatly refused to play the part of the first horn complaining that it was too high and complicated. Muck concluded that this man played badly anyway and that Russian musicians are unable to perform the Siegfried's signal at all. So, Mr. Neumann had to spend extra money on bringing a foreign horn player, Professor Beer, to St. Petersburg.
It seemed like all the obstacles for the performance of The Ring were removed, but the Russian theater did not have the twelve anvils required for Das Rheingold. The anvils were bought, Neumann at his own expense ordered eighteen musicians from the Finnish Guards Regiment to strike the anvils according to the notes, and the preliminary evening of The Ring sounded really Wagnerian.
Choristers – truants
History has preserved the statement of conductor Karl Muck about the choir of the Mariinsky Theater: "as for the" Russian choir ", I have never ever heard anything like it before". This phrase refers to the twenty male choristers who were provided by the Imperial Theater Directorate for Götterdämmerung, the last part of the tetralogy.
The Directorate was in no hurry to find proper choristers in St. Petersburg. Two months have passed, and no choristers were still available. Then the Directorate asked for urgent help from the Russian opera troupe, in order not to break the contract with Neumann. Choristers were finally found but the discipline was not their strongest point. So, a strict order was issued: every day they should gather in the theater at ten in the morning for rehearsals, and stay there until further notice.
Odd rituals
At the Mariinsky Theater Neumann tried in every possible way to repeat the rituals familiar to the frequenters of Bayreuth, what was especially memorable to the St. Petersburg public. Before the start of each performance, the lights in the auditorium went out, that was a novelty for Russian spectators.
Just as in Bayreuth, the audience was informed about the beginning of the performance and the end of the intermissions by trumpeters, who played both in the foyer and on the stage the leitmotifs from the part of tetralogy that was on the stage on a particular evening. Neumann got a special consent for this from the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters (“since it is usually done abroad at these performances”) and at his own expense invited three trumpeters of the Finnish Guards Regiment.
The ritual was disrupted only once, on March 2, 1889: instead of the leitmotifs of Siegfried, the audience heard the Russian anthem marking the day of the accession to the throne of Alexander III. How not to notice the resemblance to Wagner himself, who performed the Russian anthem during his first concert in St. Petersburg!
Lost in translation
The tour continued not without problems. At the rehearsal of Siegfried, for example, the worker Nikitin fell and smashed an expensive lighting device brought by a foreign troupe. Such things happen from time to time, but the device was repaired, and fair compensation was paid to Neumann. However, this case became the subject of numerous reports about the language issue.
Frightened that he did not understand the instructions of the German engineer, Nikitin at the rehearsal began to shine the lantern from the high stairs, while he was asked to turn off the lantern. Frightened, he fell and broke the device. And the poor German apologized many times for speaking his native language at the moments of over-excitement by the success of the rehearsal, and even gave Nikitin three rubles as “reimbursement” for moral damage.
Maestro ‘has the honor to ask humbly’
For more than a month of touring, Angelo Neumann and his troupe were able to “appreciate” the Russian bureaucratic machine to a full extent. Almost every action was subject to written approval by the office of the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters, the significance did not matter, be it the use of state-owned carriages or a courier, or real theatrical affairs.
The Directorate, for example, approved the start time and duration of each performance (except for Das Rheingold they all ended by midnight), the duration of intermissions, the text of the poster and the possibility of its summary in Russian, the program of concerts, and even the costs that Mr. Neumann thought it necessary to bear himself. But if it were not for the Russian bureaucracy, evidence of which is securely preserved in the historical archive, we would never have known the amusing stories related to the first production of Wagner's Ring in Russia.
It’s time to share the fees
According to the auditor's report, box office for the St. Petersburg performances of The Ring (not counting two concerts) amounted to a little more than 132 thousand rubles (about EUR 1,6 million in modern money). The public actively bought season tickets with a discount and they made up 90% of all revenues. Considering the approved ticket prices and the number of seats, each evening the auditorium of the Mariinsky Theater was more than 90% full.
According to the contract, the income was divided 75/25 between Neumann and the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters. The profit of Angelo Neumann, who exchanged checks issued by the Directorate for a thick bundle of banknotes at the Imperial Treasury, remained a trade secret, and the profit of the Russian treasury amounted to 40% of the Directorate's income - almost 14 thousand rubles (about EURO 165 thousand in modern money).
Cosima, the widow of Richard Wagner should have been no less pleased. She was entitled to 10% of ticket sales for all performances.
The Directorate's expense statement allows one to see the largest expenditures of the Mariinsky Theater for the tour of The Ring: 41% of all expenses went to pay for the orchestra, 17% - for the electric lighting of the theatre, 10% - for choristers, 6% - for policemen and gendarmes. In those days mostly respectable public came to the opera house, tickets were not cheap, but payments to law enforcement officers exceeded the wages of all the theater's technical staff for almost two months. Apparently, it was not easy for the police to pacify the noble public, who violently demanded to replace Madame Vogl, who performed the part of Brunnhilde, with Madame Malten, loved by the St. Petersburg public.
Moscow: no sign of profits, just losses?
Like Richard Wagner, who went on tour to Moscow after concerts in St. Petersburg in 1863, the Neumann troupe presented one cycle of The Ring and two concerts at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow after the end of the performances at the Mariinsky Theatre. The idea of the tour was submitted by Emperor Alexander III himself, who attended the performances of the second cycle of The Ring with his family, but it immediately aroused strong resistance from officials of the Moscow office of the Directorate of Imperial Theaters.
In correspondence the managers of both the Moscow and St. Petersburg offices of the Imperial Theatres tried not to discuss "the unpleasant question" as much as possible. The reason was the dislike for Wagner's music by Russian music officials, their unwillingness to break traditions (before this tour, the Imperial Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater had never left St. Petersburg), as well as the fear of selling too cheap. Initially, the proposal of Angelo Neumann to pay the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters 12.5% of the gross collection from performances was met with indignation: the Directorate will get only a very insignificant financial benefit. If there is a need to provide to Neumann both the choir and part of the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater, the Directorate will generally get caught up in losses! In addition, the Directorate already had plans for good earnings from a tour of a private Italian opera in Moscow at the same time.
As it is usually the case in such situations, the issue was resolved by chance and money. On behalf of Neumann, negotiations on the Moscow tour were conducted by the impresario Theodor Hermann who arrived in St. Petersburg. He was personally interested in Neumann's larger share of the gross proceeds, as he had been promised 5%. In the end of January Hermann died suddenly, and Angelo Neumann came to Russia to continue the negotiations personally. Realizing that they are reaching a dead end, Neumann agreed to double the Directorate's fee and bear 75% of the cost for transporting soloists, choir, orchestra with instruments, and scenery from St. Petersburg to Moscow on a special train. The parties shook hands, and the Muscovites, who paid for four evenings almost a third of the monthly box office of the St. Petersburg tour, still managed to see The Ring.
The Directorate of the Imperial Theaters did not have time to express their indignation at the late impresario Hermann, but took revenge on his heirs, notifying them through the German Consul that they could not in any way claim a percentage of the Moscow tour, since Hermann's proposals were rejected due to unprofitability.
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The Neumann troupe left Russia, stirring the hearts and replenishing the number of the Russian Wagnerians. Tour witness Leo Tolstoy wrote about how he spent four days, silently, in the dark, in the company of not quite adequate people with perverted tastes, straining their brains with annoying sounds, but the enlightened Russian public had a different opinion. The next time they had the chance to see The Ring, albeit not in full, was only nine years later, again performed by a foreign troupe, and again during Great Lent.