Handwritten layers of operatic practices
The reception of Richard Wagner at the Neue Deutsche Theater in Prague (1888–1938)
2020–2023
RFD12
This project has performed a material-related investigation and systematisation of the handwritten tradition of operatic practices. The approach was methodologically significant because historical performance practice can be reconstructed almost only by means of (handwritten) annotations. Essentially, the handwritten supplements, eliminations, and alterations represent fragmentary evidence of former practices. The project focused on the pivotal period between the establishment of music drama by Richard Wagner and the outbreak of the Second World War.
The opera archive of the renowned Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague (1888–1938) served as a model source collection, as it offered completely unexplored material in its original constitution. The project analysed the various handwritten notes within the printed performance material (conductor’s scores, piano reductions, parts, stage and light directions), and considered the sources’ quality as well as their relation to each other. On this basis, the interdependencies between handwritten marks within the performance material and the aesthetic ideals of the operatic practice have been exemplarily described, and related to the public reception of Wagner in Prague. The point hasn’t been to publish a critical edition of the works concerned, but to identify, collect, and digitise the annotations related to performance practices. The handwritten markings are displayed in their relation to the notated (resp. printed) ‘original’ layers of the works as substrates of an historic operatic practice.
The findings concerning the Prague performance materials of Wagner’s Rheingold and Parsifal are of significant importance for interpretative research and performance practice. Through an elaborate stratigraphic analysis, the oldest layer of annotations in the Rheingold conductor’s score was identified and historically contextualised. This layer consists of annotations made by Anton Seidel during preparations for the renowned tour of Angelo Neumann’s Richard Wagner Theatre across Europe (1882-1883). As Wagner had hoped, these performances of the Richard Wagner Theatre exerted a lasting influence on subsequent productions at a total of 55 venues both domestically and abroad. Given Neumann’s tireless commitment—who from 1885 served as director of the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague—to rendering Wagner’s musical and theatrical visions as faithfully as possible and to realising the aspiration of a “model performance,” the Richard Wagner Theatre exemplifies a pioneering European reception of Wagner’s work. The significant alterations made by Seidel, notably the substantial reduction of the orchestra from 108 to 66 musicians, resulting in a markedly different sound, are particularly noteworthy. Moreover, it is documented for the first time that, contrary to the score, an organ was used at the outset of Rheingold, while excluding several woodwind instruments. The extensive handwritten annotations to the printed score go far beyond the commonly assumed flexibility in 19th-century staging of Wagner’s operas, thus providing significant insights for both interpretative research and performance practice (Rentsch 2022).
Equally illuminating was the analysis of the Parsifal material. The scores, piano reductions, and parts used in Prague from January 1, 1914, onward—prepared for the production under Alexander Zemlinsky—offer valuable insights into the preparation of the conducting score and the aesthetic sound ideal. Zemlinsky, widely regarded as the “first modern conductor” and known for his dedicated efforts to establish a conducting pedagogy, can be examined in detail through the available performance materials (Kalbow 2025). The extensively annotated Prague sources—comprising conductor’s scores, director’s books, prompt books, piano reductions, parts, stage and lighting directions—for Rheingold from the late 19th century, as well as for Parsifal conducted by Zemlinsky, are accessible as research data.
People
Project lead: Ivana Rentsch
Research Associate: Laura-Maxine Kalbow