How quickly Richard Wagner changed his mind about “Rienzi,” his first successful opera.
In his self-aggrandizing memoir, “My Life,” assembled at the request of the Bavarian King Ludwig II and dictated to his wife, Cosima, Wagner described the 1842 opening night as something like the apotheosis of his artistic coming-of-age. “No subsequent experience,” he said, “has given me feelings even remotely similar to those I had on this day of the first performance of ‘Rienzi.’”
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