Richard Wagner, "Rienzi" - Overture

Robert Ley, a well-known and highly corrupt Nazi party leader who committed suicide in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, once asked Hitler why he had decided to open the annual party meeting with the overture to Richard Wagner's opera Rienzi. The dictator replied thus:

"...It's not just a musical question. At the age of twenty-four this man, an innkeeper's son, persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire. Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."

Well. At the end of the war, Germany did not end up greater but rather reduced to rubble. The anecdote, however, serves to illustrate Hitler's curious fascination with Rienzi, the mythical hero of Wagner's work who will end his days trapped and defeated.

The play, whose full title is Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes, is based on a novel of the same title, a 19th century best seller by an English author. It tells the story of Cola di Rienzi, a papal notary turned political leader, who lived in medieval Italy and managed to defeat the noble classes of Rome by handing over power to the people. His vicissitudes will end when he must face, with a few followers, his fatal destiny.

R. Wagner (1813 - 1893)

With texts and music by Wagner, the opera was written between July 1838 and November 1840. Its premiere, an apotheosis, took place in Dresden on October 20, 1842, and it represented the musical consecration of the composer at the age of twenty-nine. The Flying Dutchman (1841), Tannhäuser (1843), and Lohengrin (1845) were soon to follow.

The play is extensive. Originally it had five acts and its representation would take more than six hours. Wagner wrote shorter versions later, but it is still rarely performed today, although its Overture still enjoys wide public acclaim.

The Orchestra of the Franz Liszt University of Music, Weimar, conducted by Nicolas Pasquet, performs Rienzi Overture.