Schumann’s Genoveva as German Romantic Drama

Schumann’s Genoveva as German Romantic Drama Linda Siegel With the exception, perhaps, of a few works of Hebbel and Kleist, the Romantic movement in Germany produced little for the dramatic stage. From the time of Goethe and Schiller, prior to the development of Romanticism, to the later works of Wag­ ner there are few significant excursions into the field of the drama. One of the reasons, perhaps, why German Romantic stage productions exhibited relatively little growth was that the philosophical and aesthetic ideals of German Romanticism were difficult to express solely in terms of the drama: the delight in musical effects, fantasy, mysticism, and moods; the desire to express longing and the unconscious; and the doctrine of Synaesthesia. These are goals which are not easily achieved in the traditional form of the drama. Many German Romantic literary figures such as Wackenroder, Jean Paul, E. T. A. Hoff­ mann, Morike, and the Schlegels prophesied that the spirit of German Romanticism would only be fully expressed by artists equally gifted in music and poetry. Môrike, for example, in his poem, “Der junge Dichter,” described music as the poet’s second soul. Schumann along with Hoffmann and Wagner fulfilled this prophecy. Robert Schumann’s formative years were devoted primarily to literary endeavors. His father, a bookseller, founder of a pub­ lishing house, writer, and translator of Shakespeare into Ger­ man, profoundly influenced young Schumann’s great love of literature. By the time he was thirteen he had contributed arti­ cles to his father’s publications, had written large anthologies of poetry and a five-act tragedy, and had translated many Latin works into German. Before he turned seriously to music, Schu­ mann made several further excursions into the field of the novel and the drama (Coriolan, Leonhard und Mantellier, etc.). Even 257 258 Comparative Drama in his later life Schumann’s activity was not confined primarily to music. He wrote articles for several German periodicals, in­ cluding Der Komet, Leipziger Tageblatt, Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung, and was the editor of a well-known music journal, Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, long before he became known to the world as a composer. Schumann’s youthful love of writing drama and poetry found an outlet in his later life in the field of the opera libretto. He had attempted several libretti on a variety of subjects over a period of years, but for one reason or another only one of these projects ever materialized into a completed opera, Genoveva (1847-48), for which the composer wrote both music and drama. As a youngster, Schumann became acquainted with the medieval legend of Genoveva through Ludwig Tieck’s drama­ tized fairy tale, Leben unci Tod der heiligen Genoveva (1799). It did not occur to him, however, to write an opera based on this tale until he saw, in 1847, another version of the eighth-century Rhenish legend, Hebbel’s morbid play, Genoveva. Schumann subsequently asked Robert Reinick, poet, painter, and personal acquaintance of the composer, to sketch a libretto for him. Reinick’s eiforts, however, did not please him; no novice in the field of libretto writing and infinitely more knowledgeable in lit­ erary matters than any composer before him, Schumann was not easily satisfied. He began rewriting Reinick’s work and upon completion of the first act wrote to Hebbel for advice. Despite the composer’s written requests and an actual visit with the dramatist in July 1848, Hebbel refused to have anything to do with the libretto. Reinick also, seeing how Schumann had so greatly altered his eiforts, renounced all claims to the authorship of Genoveva. Schumann then took it upon himself to write the text for his opera. On the title page of his work, the composer had written: Genoveva an Opera in Four Acts after Tieck and Hebbel. When Schumann began the task of writing his own libretto, he decided to use as his source material both the Hebbel and Tieck versions of the Genoveva legend. This was an approach which differs little from Wagner, whose Tannhäuser, for example, combines elements from Heine and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Schumann’s wish to take what he felt to be the best from each...