Franz Schubert’s stage works have never become firmly established in the repertoire. And yet they contain interesting examples of Romantic opera aesthetics. And with the 2028 Schubert anniversary year in mind, they offer a variety of opportunities for productions.

A large tableau fills the stage: the court of Charlemagne and his people receive the Emperor after his victorious battle against the Moors. Knights enter with martial music, young women pay homage to the ruler, prisoners are paraded, and the people celebrate freedom in an exuberant dance. In the midst of this, four young protagonists lose themselves, who do not share in the general rejoicing and see a “night full of horror” ahead of them in the future. Whenever they join in the singing, the rousing waltz turns into a ghostly dance full of fear.

This impressive scene from Schubert’s “heroic-romantic” opera “Fierabras”, typical of his music theatre works, is as unknown to most lovers of his music as are the rest of his stage works. These form one of the largest groups of works in his output. Whilst a schoolboy Schubert worked on his first Singspiel Der Spiegelritter; the fragmentary score was published in 2023 as the latest volume of the “New Schubert Edition”. From 1813 to 1815 he wrote four Singspiels and the opera “Des Teufels Lustschloss” in his composition lessons with Antonio Salieri, who praised Gluck’s and Mozart’s operas as classical models, but initially recommended his pupil to tackle less demanding genres. From early on Schubert demonstrated astonishing assuredness in the Italian buffa style, but quickly orientated himself more towards French music theatre, since in the early 19th century opéras-comiques were predominantly performed in Viennese theatres. In this genre the plot takes place in spoken dialogues, whilst the music is only heard where it is also part of social life in reality. Thus, lieder, marches, dances and splendid processions are part of the established repertoire of an opéra-comique, which suited Schubert’s talent for small forms. He successfully made his debut in summer 1820 at the Vienna Kärntnertortheater with the comic one-act “Die Zwillingsbrüder”.

Nevertheless, after his apprenticeship, the young composer was pushed in the direction of grand opera. From 1819 he worked on six opera projects, of which only “Alfonso und Estrella” and “Fierabras” were completed. The themes included the classical subject of Adrast after Herodotus, as well as unusual subjects such as the crusader legend “Der Graf von Gleichen” and the Indian “Sacontala”, which were much discussed by the Romantics.

For a long time the social changes brought about by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had also been reflected on the operatic stage. Dramatic scenes such as battles and executions, themes such as lack of freedom, imprisonment and political persecution, but also sentimental motifs such as separation, flight and forced displacement were found in the plots of previously innocuous 18th century musical comedy. These themes spoke to the younger generation around Franz Schubert and feature in many of his stage works.

Musically too, opéra-comique had developed further. Composers such as Étienne-Nicolas Méhul and Luigi Cherubini introduced symphonic entr’actes or melodrama as a mixed form between language and music, in order to do justice to the changed setting of these revolutionary operas. They expanded the ends of acts to become groups of scenes in several parts, into which sung recitatives and arioso sections were integrated. Schubert was deeply impressed by Beethoven’s “Fidelio”, the German opera which came closest to the French “rescue opera”. He enthusiastically took up new formal elements in music. As in Fidelio, the fate of the individual, whether a princess or a humble soldier, was indivisibly associated with great political intrigues in Schubert’s operas. Hence, the chorus plays a central role as representative of society, whereas individual characters seldom emerge from the crowd with major arias. Inner tension is discharged in condensed ariosi, and emotions are expressed in coded messages such as the “Lied vom Wolkenmädchen” in “Alfonso und Estrella”. Schubert shared the Romantic vision of a plot-orientated drama fully set to music. Although his through-composed opera Alfonso und Estrella failed because it was rejected by the court opera, in his stage works he repeatedly attempted to combine the usual sequence of numbers into larger scenes and to create flowing transitions between the music and the spoken text. Impressive examples of this are found in the accompagnati and melodramas of the opera “Fierabras” and in the entr’actes of the incidental music to the dramas “Die Zauberharfe” and “Rosamunde”. Schubert’s “Rosamunde” music and the “Zauberharfe” overture remain amongst his best-known (stage) works to this day.

Despite the support of influential Viennese theatre officials, Schubert did not succeed as an opera composer. “Fierabras” was about to be performed in 1823, but after Rossini’s Italian melodrama had conquered the Viennese stages, and even Weber’s “Euryanthe” had only achieved a moderate success, no-one wanted to risk producing an opera by an as-yet unknown young composer. Schubert’s French-inspired music dramas could not find acceptance with audiences who were enthusiastic about the aesthetics of Italian opera. When the late reception of his stage works began in 1860, the now well-advanced development of German music drama had long since overtaken Schubert’s innovative approaches.

And so Schubert’s stage works fell into oblivion, and some scores and libretti were lost. The composer did not pursue other opera projects to their conclusion: seven out of eighteen stage works only survive in sketches, ranging from short score sketches to fully worked out scores of complete acts. It is precisely these fragments that contain interesting, surprising and dramatically effective music, which is in no way inferior to the originality, sensitivity and subtlety of Schubert’s chamber music and symphonies. Its strong communicative qualities on the stage was first shown in February 2024 in Raphaël Pichon’s collage “L’autre voyage”, a production of the opéra comique in Paris with Ensemble Pygmalion.  It is to be hoped and desired that the special quality of Schubert’s stage works will be newly discovered in the wake of the current growing interest in 19th century German opera.

Christine Martin
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson / from [t]akte 2/2024)