« Wie ist mir wohl, daB ich ein Deutscher bin ! » : Le Freischütz à Paris (1841) et les doutes de Richard Wagner face au grand opéra français

Abstract

The first Parisian stay (1839-1842) of Richard Wagner was a very important one. He arrived with the purpose of becoming a grand opera composer and leaved the city with the finished score of Der fliegende Hollander. The numerous articles he wrote in Paris for French and German newspapers give us an important testimony of his change of mind. For the 1841 production of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischutz (with the additional recitatifs of Hector Berlioz) Wagner wrote two papers: the first one before the performance for the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris and the second one as a critic for the Abend-Zeitung in Dresden. These texts show us that Wagner begins to reject the universalist aesthetics he developed since 1834. The grand opera is no more considered as an artistic goal but depicted as an industrial art, a product of the modern civilisation. Wagner is becoming aware of the cultural difference and the different levels of perception between the French and the German assistance. In his two articles, he already asserts some of the arguments he will use ten years later to construct his critic of the contemporary opera and his theory of the musical drama. After this first Parisian stay, Wagner will continue to be at some level influenced by the grand opera but the articles on Der Freischutz show us clearly that a decisive turn occured in his mind.