Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s

Ausgabe 2012/3 Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 2 Abstract. In a much-quoted interview with Richard Wagner conducted by the French critic Louis de Fourcaud in 1879, and published in different versions in 1880, 1884, and 1886, the composer allegedly advised the French to write operas drawing on their own legendary sources. Contemporary works such as d’Indy’s Fervaal, Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus, and Massenet’s Esclarmonde suggest that Fourcaud’s interview did indeed have a profound impact on the Wagnerian movement in France. However, a close examination of the sources reveals that his text owes much less to Wagner than scholars have previously assumed: in fact, evidence suggests that the most important part of the interview (that is, the advice to French composers) was added by Fourcaud himself after Wagner’s death. Zusammenfassung. 1879 führte der französische Musikkritiker Louis de Fourcaud ein Interview mit Richard Wagner, das er dann 1880, 1884 und 1886 in verschiedenen Versionen veröffentlichte. In diesem viel zitierten Interview soll Wagner den französischen Komponisten geraten haben, Opern auf der Grundlage ihrer nationalen Legenden zu schaffen. Zeitgenössische Werke wie d’Indys Fervaal, Chaussons Le Roi Arthus und Massenets Esclarmonde weisen darauf hin, dass Fourcauds Interview einen tiefen Einfluss auf den französischen Wagnerismus ausübte. Eine nähere Untersuchung der Quellen zeigt jedoch, dass der Inhalt dieses Textes weniger von Wagner stammt, als Musikwissenschaftler bisher vermuteten; dokumentarische Belege weisen darauf hin, dass der wichtigste Teil des Interviews (d.h. die Ratschläge an die französischen Komponisten) nach Wagners Tod von Fourcaud selbst hinzugefügt wurde. Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis, “Richard Wagner, Louis deFourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s,” in: ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance 3 (2012), no. 3. www.act.uni-bayreuth.de ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 3 Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s At the end of October 1879, the French art and music critic Louis de Fourcaud (1851–1914), 1 a well-known Wagnerian, traveled to Bayreuth in order to meet Richard Wagner. 2 Five years later, in 1884, he published an account of his interview with the famous composer. In this article, widely read in France, Wagner is quoted as follows: Le premier souci d’un compositeur français décidé à s’arracher à l’ornière doit être de se procurer un poème simple, humain, expressif, et surtout, conforme au génie de sa nationalité. […] J’ai expliqué dans mes ouvrages théoriques quelles raisons militent pour les sujets légendaires, où les héros sont affranchis des pressions contingentes, des petitesses, des l’intérêt et de la politique. Cela est dit pour la France comme pour l’Allemagne, et pour tous les pays imaginables. Puisez donc dans vos légendes, qui sont innombrables, et d’une richesse infinie. Lisez donc vos poèmes du moyen âge, vos chansons de geste, voire vos romans de chevalerie; ils forment le plus pur trésor de vos archives intellectuelles. […] Les Roland, les Arthur, les chevaliers de la Table Ronde, les paladins de vos anciens auteurs populaires ont éminemment la taille épique et lyrique et les idées qu’ils incarnent – idées de droit, de justice, de loyauté, de charité, d’amour qui sont, au premier chef, de celles qui portent à chanter. 3 This oft-cited interview represents one of the key moments in French Wagnerism, 4 and it had a deep impact on French opera composers at the end of the nineteenth century, as we see in works such as Ernest Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus (for which the composer wrote a libretto based on the Arthurian legend), Vincent d’Indy’s Fervaal (whose action takes place in the Cévennes, the birthplace of the composer-librettist), and Jules Massenet’s Esclarmonde (partly based on a medieval French novel). 5 But 1 For a brief bio-bibliography of Louis de Fourcaud, see Laure Schnapper, “Fourcaud, Louis (de),” in: Dictionnaire critique des historiens de l’art actifs en France de la Révolution à la Première Guerre mondiale, ed. Philippe Sénéchal and Claire Barbillon, accessible through the website of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, http://www.inha.fr/spip.php?rubrique347 (accessed 15 May 2009). 2 I am deeply grateful to Jean-Jacques Nattiez, whose profound knowledge of the Wagnerian literature helped me to complete the arguments presented here; to Knut Holtsträter, who drew my attention to an essential source and granted me access to it, allowing me to refine my arguments; and to Tim Carter, who made invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this text and edited the final version. 3 Louis de Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français,” in: Bayreuther Festblätter in Wort und Bild: Gesammelte Beiträge deutscher, französischer, belgischer, schweizerischer, spanischer, englischer, amerikanischer und italienischer Schriftsteller und Künstler mit Facsimiles aus den Original-Partituren Richard Wagners, ed. Central-Leitung des Allgemeinen Richard WagnerVereins, Munich 1884, p. 42f. Hereafter cited as “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” (1884). 4 See, for example, Steven Huebner, French Opera at the Fin de Siècle: Wagnerism, Nationalism, and Style, Oxford 1999, p. 78 and p. 321f; Cécile Leblanc, Wagnérisme et création en France, 1883–1889, Paris 2005, p. 355f; Jean-Jacques Nattiez, “L’univers wagnérien et les wagnérismes,” in: Musiques: Encyclopédie pour le 21e siècle 4: Histoires des musiques européennes, under the direction of Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Arles 2006, p. 1242f; François de Médicis, “Tristan dans La Mer: Le crépuscule wagnérien noyé dans le zénith debussyste?” in: Acta musicologica 79 (2007), p. 228. The interview is also mentioned (although not cited explicitly) in Cécile Leblanc, “Le wagnérisme musical en France,” in: Dictionnaire encyclopédique Wagner, under the direction of Timothée Picard, Arles 2010, p. 751; in addition, two later versions of Fourcaud’s text are listed in the Dictionnaire’s bibliography, p. 2349. 5 See Huebner, French Opera at the Fin de Siècle (see nt. 4), in particular, p. 77f; for more details on Le Roi Arthus, see MarieHélène Benoit-Otis, Ernest Chausson, “Le Roi Arthus” et l’opéra wagnérien en France, Frankfurt 2012, especially pp. 52–57. ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 4 if Wagner’s advice to French composers as reported by Fourcaud undeniably contributed to the evolution of the Wagnerian movement in France, several pieces of evidence that have been neglected until now raise serious doubts about its authenticity. Did Wagner really say what Fourcaud wrote in 1884? That is the question I will address in this article. Some bibliographical problems The starting point of my investigation was a simple observation: as far as I know, all recent books and articles that cite, mention or comment upon Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner use indirect, incomplete or even inaccurate references that seldom allow the reader to read the original text. This confusion prompted some careful bibliographical research. It appears that all the authors of the past decade or so who mention Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner quote it by way of two sources, each of which is highly problematic, albeit for different reasons: the book Richard Wagner: Vues sur la France, edited by Gustave Samazeuilh in 1943, 6 and the first volume of Léon Vallas’ biography of Vincent d’Indy, which appeared in 1946. 7 Both texts place great importance on the interview, and at first glance both seem to be trustworthy firsthand sources. But a closer examination reveals that they must be treated with caution. Samazeuilh’s Richard Wagner: Vues sur la France is a collection of essays on the general subject “Wagner and France;” it includes writings by Wagner himself about his experiences in France, as well as articles by late nineteenth-century French authors who, for the most part, strongly favored Wagner’s works. In such a context, it comes as no surprise that Samazeuilh decided to include in this volume a reprint of Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner as it appeared in 1884. The reprint would be flawless, were it not preceded by the following: “Publié en 1886, par les Feuilles de Bayreuth et reproduit fragmentairement par le Ménestrel.” 8 Both of these statements are misleading: Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner appeared neither in the Bayreuther Blätter, the monthly journal founded by Hans von Wolzogen for the benefit of visitors to the Bayreuther Festspiele, nor in Le Ménestrel, a weekly brought out by the Parisian publisher Heugel. In fact, it appeared in a special volume entitled Bayreuther Festblätter in Wort und Bild, published in 1884 and reissued in 1886, which has nothing to do with the Bayreuther Blätter, despite the similarity of the titles; it was then partially reprinted in Le Gaulois. Apparently, Samazeuilh confused two periodicals, generating a double bibliographical error. Léon Vallas’ biography of Vincent d’Indy, published in two volumes in 1946 and 1950, presents a more subtle and complex problem. Here, we find bibliographical 6 Richard Wagner: Vues sur la France, ed. Gustave Samazeuilh, Paris 1943. 7 Léon Vallas, Vincent d’Indy, 2 vols., Paris 1946–50. 8 Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français,” in: Samazeuilh, Richard Wagner (see nt. 6), p. 54. ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 5 information about Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner that is almost complete and accurate. Vallas describes the publication history of Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner in the following terms: Louis de Fourcaud avait fait imprimer une première fois le texte dans Le Gaulois du 5 janvier 1880. De nouveau, le 17 juin 1884, il en fit publier les termes, mais en allemand, par les Bayreuther Festblätter […]; une nouvelle fois il les redit en français dans un article, La Revanche de Wagner […], publié par Le Gaulois du 13 janvier 1886. 9 Vallas seems to be confusing the Bayreuther Blätter with the Bayreuther Festblätter, as Samazeuilh did before him; the precise publication date he indicates (17 June 1884) also gives the impression that he treats the book as if it were a journal, but in fact, this detail simply shows that he consulted the 1886 re-edition of the Bayreuther Festblätter instead of the first edition of 1884. 10 Furthermore, Vallas wrongly assumes that Fourcaud’s article was published in German. Whereas the Bayreuther Blätter was a German-only periodical, the Bayreuther Festblätter included contributions in French, Spanish, English and Italian, as indicated in its subtitle (Gesammelte Beiträge deutscher, französischer, belgischer, schweizerischer, spanischer, englischer, amerikanischer und italienischer Schriftsteller und Künstler); in its pages, Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner appears in French. These bibliographical errors are minor, but they do not constitute the most problematic aspect of the passage that Vallas devotes to Louis de Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner. Vallas includes a long summary of its contents, in which one can read, for example, the following: Devant l’assurance rayonnante du maître allemand, Louis de Fourcaud […] n’avait guère hésité à lui poser des questions précises: “Que feriez-vous si vous étiez compositeur français, comment agiriez-vous? De quels éléments de réforme feriez-vous usage?” Alors des lèvres de Wagner était tombé cet oracle: “[Le] premier souci [du musicien de théâtre]? Se procurer un poème simple, humain, expressif, conforme avant tout au génie de votre nation. De préférence, un sujet légendaire: récits français, poèmes du moyen âge, chansons de gestes, romans de chevalerie. […] Comme personnages, des types nationaux: les Roland, les Arthus, les chevaliers de la Table Ronde, les paladins des anciens auteurs populaires; ces héros, incarnations admirables du droit, de la justice, de la loyauté, de la charité, ils ont éminemment la taille épique et lyrique .” Wagner avait conclu: “Sur un poème vraiment français, si vous ne vous inspirez que de la vérité des mœurs, vous ferez de la musique vraiment française. […] Ayez des drames simples et substantiels, semblables à de grands tableaux intéressant les hommes de votre musique et leur parlant d’eux-mêmes; animez-les d’une musique que vous tirerez, non de votre mémoire, mais de 9 Vallas, Vincent d’Indy, I (see nt. 7), p. 294. 10 In this version, which is otherwise extremely similar to the original 1884 edition, Fourcaud’s article is signed in his handwriting and dated “17 juin 1884.” See Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” (see nt. 3), p. 42f. Hereafter cited as “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” (1886). ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 6 votre intelligence des situations, de l’âme de vos héros, des événements de votre fable, et vous ferez pour la France ce que j’ai fait.” 11 Although this passage undoubtedly corresponds to the spirit of Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner, it does not correspond to the letter, for despite Vallas’ use of quotation marks, he presents anything but exact quotations. In fact, Vallas freely summarized and rephrased the versions of Fourcaud’s text that appeared in the 1884 and 1886 Bayreuther Festblätter and in the January 1886 issue of Le Gaulois. 12 The genealogy of an interview It turns out that the three versions of the interview mentioned by Vallas are not identical. This detail has gone unnoticed until now, but once put into context, it becomes a matter of major importance. Vallas gives three bibliographical references for the interview: an article that appeared in Le Gaulois on 5 January 1880, 13 the Bayreuther Festblätter article of 1884 (reissued in 1886), 14 and another article in Le Gaulois that was published on 13 January 1886. 15 If we are to believe Vallas, these are three reprints of the same text, but the reality is a little more complex. The primary version of the interview (at least from the standpoint of Wagner’s advice to French composers) is the text published for the first time in 1884 in the Bayreuther Festblätter in Wort und Bild. This is the version reprinted by Samazeuilh in 1943; it also forms the core of Fourcaud’s 1886 article, “La revanche de Wagner.” The latter was written in the context of the lively controversy surrounding a performance of Lohengrin planned by the Opéra-Comique for 1886 (a performance that ultimately did not take place precisely because of that controversy). 16 In his attempt to defend Wagner against the revanchard accusations he faced by French patriots who had not forgotten the humiliations of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71, Fourcaud used excerpts from his 1884 interview in order to show that the composer was, in fact, highly supportive of French art. 17 His first and last lines make the point clear: 11 Vallas, Vincent d’Indy, I (see nt. 7), p. 293f. 12 Vallas’ modified quotations are also found in some recent publications that cite Fourcaud’s interview through Vallas’ book. See, for example, Leblanc, Wagnérisme et création en France (see nt. 4), p. 355; the author does not mention Vallas; nevertheless, she takes up the whole content of the passage he devotes to Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner. A similar case can be found in the writings of Vincent d’Indy, edited by Marie d’Indy and published under the title Ma vie (see below). Here, Marie d’Indy quotes Fourcaud’s interview with Wagner as paraphrased by Vallas in order to support her thesis that Wagner made similar remarks to d’Indy; unfortunately, Wagner’s precise words to d’Indy are not documented. See Vincent d’Indy, Ma vie: Journal de jeunesse. Correspondance familiale et intime (1851–1931). Choix, présentation et annotations de Marie d’Indy, Paris 2001, p. 360. 13 Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner,” Le Gaulois, 5 January 1880. 14 Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” (1884 and 1886, see nts. 3 and 10). 15 Fourcaud, “La revanche de Wagner,” Le Gaulois, 13 January 1886. 16 See, for instance, Huebner, French Opera at the Fin de Siècle (see nt. 4), p. 16f. 17 The publication of this article, in which Fourcaud rails vigorously against the anti-Wagnerians, gave way to an open exchange of letters with the anti-Wagnerian Juliette Adam; these letters, which appeared in Le Figaro and Le Gaulois, illustrate the political stakes of the debate. See Juliette Adam, “La question Wagner,” Le Figaro, 15 January 1886, and Fourcaud, “La question de Lohengrin,” Le Gaulois, 16 January 1886. ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 7 Je veux aujourd’hui […] esquisser les idées du maître à l’endroit de la musique française. […] [J]e prie nos lecteurs de juger si l’homme qui parlait ainsi cherchait, réellement, à nous imposer ses formules. Nous avons fort à gagner à méditer ses enseignements, et je me refuse à croire que notre dignité nationale soit intéressée à ce que nous repoussions ses chefs-d’œuvre. 18 Here, Fourcaud openly asserts a political agenda, which was already present (although in latent form) in the Bayreuther Festblätter version of his interview: his goal is to reconcile the French to Wagner by showing that Wagnerism and French nationalism can go hand-in-hand. This was certainly not obvious to the French after the publication in 1873 of Wagner’s satirical play Eine Kapitulation, translated into French as early as 1876, 19 in which Wagner made light of the sufferings of the besieged Parisians during the Franco-Prussian War. The play caused a scandal in France, as well as a particularly intense wave of anti-Wagnerism. From the first Bayreuther Festblätter edition in 1884 to the article in Le Gaulois in 1886, Fourcaud’s intentions are constant, and even if the formulation changes slightly, the content of his interview with Wagner remains unmodified. Fourcaud’s first article in Le Gaulois, published on 5 January 1880, is a very different matter, however. This is the only report of the interview that appeared during Wagner’s lifetime, and it does not contain a single word of the advice that the composer purportedly gave to French opera composers. What, then, is this first version of the interview about? Fourcaud first explains the circumstances of his trip to Bayreuth, obviously to justify his visit to the controversial author of Eine Kapitulation to his countrymen (a recurring preoccupation in Fourcaud’s writings on Wagner in the 1870s and 1880s). 20 Then follows a detailed and enthusiastic description of Wahnfried and of Wagner himself, as well as a brief biography of the composer that focuses on his Parisian years. All of this takes up two of the three columns of the article. The last column gives an account of what Wagner actually said to Fourcaud during the interview. According to Fourcaud, the composer spoke first of Parsifal, which he was currently completing for its planned premiere in Bayreuth. Fourcaud then begins to come to a close, directly quoting a long passage from Wagner: 18 Fourcaud, “La revanche de Wagner” (see nt. 15). 19 In October 1885, Eine Kapitulation was also briefly presented in the Revue wagnérienne, by an author who signed the initials “E.D.” (probably Edouard Dujardin). This text, as well as an anonymous “Chronique” that preceded it, was clearly intended to demonstrate “la parfaite et essentielle bonhomie” of Wagner’s play; see “Chronique. Richard Wagner et les Parisiens: Une capitulation,” Revue wagnérienne 1 (8 October 1885), p. 225ff; and Richard Wagner, “Une capitulation: Comédie à la manière antique,” Revue wagnérienne 1 (8 October 1885), p. 228–34; the quotation is on p. 228. 20 In an article published in October of 1876, Fourcaud even feigns to adopt an anti-Wagnerian argument, probably hoping to show its absurdity by exaggeration: “Jamais nous n’aurons assez de sifflets pour M. Wagner, qui est Prussien, et de son état l’insulteur à gages de notre patrie!” The article, signed “Spectator” [Louis de Fourcaud], was entitled “Le scandale d’hier” and appeared in Le Gaulois, 31 October 1876. According to Rocheblave, Fourcaud’s biographer, with this article Fourcaud inaugurated “cette autre carrière spéciale de critique wagnérien en France, qu’il poursuivra contre vents et marées avec une conviction, un savoir, et une autorité qui grandiront sans cesse”, Samuel Rocheblave, Louis de Fourcaud et le mouvement artistique en France de 1875 à 1914, Paris 1926, p. 51. ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 8 D’ailleurs, on ne me jouera jamais communément chez vous. Ma musique est trop allemande. Je tâche d’être de mon pays aussi profondément que je le puis. Il est dangereux de me chanter sans mes vers: ils sont le complément indispensable de mes déclamations mélodiques. Que n’existe-il à Paris une scène internationale où l’on interprète dans leur langue les grandes œuvres célèbres à l’étranger? 21 Fourcaud cannot resist the opportunity to mention the scandal caused by the performances of Tannhäuser in Paris in 1861, again quoting Wagner: On me suppose des rancunes? Des rancunes! Et pourquoi? Parce qu’on a sifflé le Tannhäuser? Est-on bien sûr de l’avoir entendu tel qu’il est? Auber le savait, à qui j’avais conté mes doléances. Que voulez-vous? Le moment n’était pas venu de la musique sincère. Pour la presse, je n’ai pas eu à m’en plaindre autant qu’on a dit: je n’ai pas fait de visites aux journalistes, comme Meyerbeer; mais Baudelaire, Champfleury et Schuré n’en ont pas moins écrit les plus belles choses qui aient été écrites sur mon compte. Vous le voyez, je ne suis pas aussi mécontent qu’on l’affirme. 22 These two passages just quoted are the only ones in the 1880 version of the interview in which Wagner mentions French music – or at least music in France. This is a far cry from the interviews published in the Bayreuther Festblätter and Le Gaulois in January 1886, and from the advice to French composers that Wagner allegedly conveyed to Fourcaud. The 1880 article appeared about two months after Fourcaud’s encounter with Wagner, at a point when Fourcaud could still remember clearly Wagner’s words and might have been anxious to represent the composer faithfully, given that Wagner would have been able to read the article since he was still living. Of course, these elements are not sufficient in themselves to assert with a reasonable degree of certainty that the 1880 version of the interview is the only one that is authentic. Nonetheless, they raise doubts about the contents of the later articles, which, as we shall see, come into question in other ways. In fact, the summary that Fourcaud gave of his interview with Wagner in his 1880 article is confirmed point by point in Cosima Wagner’s diaries, in which she carefully noted every event of her husband’s life. On 29 October 1879 23 , she wrote: Abends Besuch eines Mr. de Fourcaud, Redakteur des “Gaulois,” welcher vergeblich nach München gereist ist, um Tristan und Isolde zu sehen – R. sucht ihm auseinanderzusetzen, 1o wie er keine Rancune gegen die Franzosen wegen des Tannhäuser’s habe noch haben könne, 2o wie seine Werke in Frankreich nicht aufzuführen seien, und wie die Franzosen, um sie kennenzuler21 Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner” (see nt. 13). 22 Fourcaud, “Richard Wagner” (see nt. 13). 23 According to Cosima Wagner’s diaries, Fourcaud’s visit to Wagner took place on 29 and 30 October 1879, and not on 26 and 27 October of that year, as Fourcaud has it (“Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” [1884 and 1886, see nts. 3 and 10], p. 42), as does Vallas (Vincent d’Indy, I [see nt. 7], p. 292) and Rocheblave (Louis de Fourcaud et le mouvement artistique en France [see nt. 20], p. 276). ACT – Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance, Ausgabe 2012/3 Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis: Richard Wagner, Louis de Fourcaud, and a Path for French Opera in the 1880s. 9 nen, nach Deutschland wohl kommen müßten. R. spielt das Vorspiel zu Parsifal. 24 We find here all three elements that are mentioned in the last column of Fourcaud’s 1880 article: Parsifal, Wagner’s music in France, and the Tannhäuser scandal in 1861. Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that Cosima, for one reason or another, missed part of the conversation between Fourcaud and Wagner; but this perfect correspondence between two accounts written independent of one another implies a high probability that both are accurate. Cosima’s diaries also supply additional information on Fourcaud’s encounter with Wagner. We learn, for example, that there was not one interview, but two: Fourcaud came to Wahnfried again the following day, after the conversation on Parsifal and Wagner’s music in France. On 30 October 1879, Cosima wrote: “Unser Gallier kommt, Abschied zu nehmen, versäumt aber den Zug, bleibt zu Tisch und überrascht durch seine Fragen, u.a.: ‘Maître, aimez-vous Raphael?’” 25 Then, the next day, she records: “Gestern wollte der fragende Franzose wissen, an welchem Werke R. am meisten hing, R. sagte, er wisse es nicht, vergäße sie bald, den Parsifal könnte er vielleicht nennen, weil er diesen unter den günstigsten Umständen geschrieben.” 26 Adapting Wagner All this certainly demonstrates that Fourcaud asked Wagner many other questions, but not that any of them were related to the future of French opera. Indeed, there is a strong argument to suggest that the thoughts on French opera that Fourcaud attributes to Wagner were added by the critic himself in the version of the interview he published in the Bayreuther Festblätter. Wagner died on 13 February 1883 and thus was no longer available to confirm the authenticity of Fourcaud’s text. Fourcaud himself implied in this new version of the text (perhaps as a form of preemptive self-defense) that he was working from memory. 27 Moreover, Fourcaud’s “interview” with Wagner now bears striking resemblances to Catulle Mendès’ (1841– 1909) famous fictitious dialogue between a young winner of the Prix de Rome and an old Wagnerian (“Le jeune Prix de Rome et le vieux wagnériste”): LE PRIX DE ROME. – Il faut que le drame musical soit fondé en France! LE WAGNERISTE. – Certes, il le faut. Mais par quel moyen? LE PRIX DE ROME. – Étudions l’homme nouveau! Approprions-nous son génie, sa manière …. LE WAGNERISTE. – Arrêtez! Si vous ouvrez dans cette pensée une seule partition de Richard Wagner – fût-ce Lohengrin, fût-ce le Vaisseau fantôme, – vous êtes perdu pour la musique française. Dans le domaine de l’art, on n’égale qu’à la condition de différer, et, en outre, de tous les modèles que vous pourriez vous proposer, Richard Wagner est précisément le plus dangereux. 24 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebücher, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, vol. II, 1878–1883, München 1977, p. 433. 25 Wagner, Die Tagebücher (see nt. 24), p. 434. 26 Wagner, Die Tagebücher (see nt. 24). The emphasis is Cosima Wagner’s. 27 Fourcaud writes: “Ses discours, ingénieux jusque-là, prirent soudain un tour si frappant que chaque phrase s’en grava dans mon souvenir,” in: “Richard Wagner et l’opéra français” (1884 and 1886, see nts. 3 and 10), p. 42.