Wagner vs. Meyerbeer

SOME years ago, the director of an important regional opera company in the United States was asked if he would consider putting on an opera by Meyerbeer. In reply, he said that it would only happen over his dead body, since Meyerbeer's operas have effects without causes.He almost made it sound as if effects without causes were a mild form of leprosy.

The phrase actually originated with Richard Wagner, as did many other often repeated criticisms of Meyerbeer. Some of these may have been correct, others were irrelevant (whether right or not), still others were accurate but no different than what Wagner himself did, and still others were downright wrong. But Wagner was not the only German composer to be negative, being joined in that respect by both Mendelssohn and Schumann. Their comments, which were sometimes extremely clever and eminently quotable, have stuck to Meyerbeer to the point where it has become difficult for many musicologists to discuss that composer without dragging in "effects without causes." ¹ Or, in lieu of that particular catchphrase, some other bon mot about Meyerbeer originating with Richard Wagner or his fellow Germans inevitably comes up, although in the case of "effects without causes" Wagner's specific meaning is rarely if ever mentioned. To quote Gerhard: "This polemic is as old as the works now classified as constituting the genre of grand opéra, and since Richard Wagner came up with the pithy phrase 'effects without causes,' in his antisemitic diatribe Jewry in Music, there has probably not been a single music-lover, critic, or composer who has remained wholly unaffected by the influence of such (prejudicial) statements." ² The fact that the meaning of Wagner's phrase is so rarely brought out has resulted in a fair amount of conjecture. There was a lengthy discussion of it on the Opera-L website some time ago, during which it was suggested that Wagner was referring to the ballet sequence in Le prophète. ³ One interpretation is that it means "striking and brilliant musical numbers inadequately motivated by the dramatic situation." ⁴ Actually, this last suggestion (inadequate motivation) might make sense, except that it is not what Wagner uses for an example. Wagner states that the secret of Meyerbeer's operas is the "effect," which he further defines as "Wirkung ohne Ursache" (translatable as effects without causes) and cites the end of act 3 of Le prophète as an example. ⁵ To quote the stage directions at that point in the libretto: "After the famous 'Roi du ciel,' where Jean has called upon his army to march on Muenster, the fog that had covered the pond and the forest dissolves. The sun shines and allows us to see in the distance, beyond the frozen pond, the city and the ramparts of Muenster, which Jean points to with his hand. The army lets out cries of joy and lowers its banners before him." Thus, the truth is that it was nothing more than a stage effect.

In view of the liberties some stage directors and producers now take with operatic staging, this hardly seems anything to get excited about. But it should also be remembered that it is no different from what Wagner was to do as late as the Ring. Ernest Newman provides a long list of what he sees as unnecessary and superfluous leitmotivs and special effects in the Ring. Interestingly, one such example, specifically pointed out by Newman, involves a blue light:

Erda, as the embodiment of the forces of the earth, might be made a solemnly impressive conception in the hands of a fine poet, but Wagner's Erda—a woman rising from a hole in the rock, to the accompaniment of blue light—simply jars on the artistic sense. She may utter such pseudo-profound jargon as "Whatever was, I know; whatever is, whatever shall be, also do I see; the endless world's all-wise one, Erda, speaks to you"—but we never for a...