(Rienzi, the last of the tribunes; WWV 49) is an 1842 opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name (1835). The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi . Composed between July 1838 and November 1840, it was first performed at the Königliches Hoftheater Dresden, on 20 October 1842 and was the composer's first success.
The opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzo (1313–1354), a late medieval Italian populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles' rebellion against the people's power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which had initially urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents have made a last stand.
Composition history
Rienzi is Wagner's third completed opera, and is mostly written in a grand opera style. In his 1860 essay "Music of the Future," Wagner called it "a work full of youthful fire" which was inspired by "the heroic opera of Spontini" and the Parisian grand opera of Daniel Auber, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Fromental Halévy. Rienzi'''s depictions of the mob, the liberal ethos associated with the hero and the political intervention of a reactionary clergy recall Spontini's La vestale (1807), Halévy's La Juive (1835), and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (1836). Each act ends with an extended finale ensemble and is replete with solos, duets, trios and crowd scenes. There is also an extended ballet in act 2 according to the accepted Grand Opera format. Hans von Bülow was later to joke that "Rienzi is Meyerbeer's best opera".
Wagner began to draft the opera in Riga in 1837, after reading Lytton's novel (although John Deathridge has argued that Wagner's work also bears the influence of Mary Russell Mitford's 1828 "highly successful English play" Rienzi). During a 1839 visit to the bathing resort town of Boulogne, Wagner approached Meyerbeer with a partial draft of Rienzi, and the elder composer responded with encouragement. Meyerbeer also introduced Wagner to Ignaz Moscheles, who was also staying at Boulogne; as Ernest Newman comments, this was "Wagner's first meeting with real international musical celebrities". When the opera was completed in 1840, Wagner hoped for it to be premiered at the Berlin Royal Opera or the Paris Opéra.
Several circumstances, including his lack of influence, prevented this. Moreover, Wagner's wife Minna, in a letter of 28 October 1840 to Wagner's friend Apel, who had likely first made the suggestion that Wagner compose Rienzi, mentions a plan to perform the overture to Rienzi "a fortnight hence", but contains a clear indication that her husband had just been committed to a debtors' prison. The full score of Rienzi was completed on 19 November 1840.
In 1841 Wagner moved to Meudon, just outside Paris, where the debt laws could be more easily evaded, whilst awaiting developments for Rienzi, having already written to King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, requesting that he order a production of the work in Dresden.
With the support of Meyerbeer, a staging of Rienzi was arranged in Dresden; Meyerbeer wrote to the Director of the Opera in Dresden, Baron von Lüttichau, that he found the opera "rich in fantasy and of great dramatic effect". This, with the proposed staging of Der fliegende Holländer in Berlin, also supported by Meyerbeer, persuaded Wagner to return to Germany in April 1842. During rehearsals the performers were highly enthusiastic; the tenor Tichatschek, in the title role, was so impressed with a passage from act 3 (later deleted because of the opera's length), that "at each rehearsal, each of the soloists contributed a silver groschen to [a] fund that Tichatschek had started ... No one suspected that what was an amiable joke for them was the means of buying [Wagner] an extra morsel of sorely-needed food."; see also
The premiere of Rienzi took place on 20 October 1842 in the new Dresden Opera House, designed by the architect Gottfried Semper and opened the previous year. Semper and Wagner were later to become friends in Dresden, a connection which eventually led to Semper providing designs which became a basis of Wagner's Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
The first performance of Rienzi was well received in Dresden despite running over six hours (including intermissions). One legend is that, fearful of the audience departing, Wagner stopped the clock above the stage. In his later memoirs, Mein Leben, Wagner recalled: No subsequent experience has given me feelings even remotely similar to those I had on this day of the first performance of Rienzi. The only too well-founded anxiety as to their success has so dominated my feelings at all subsequent first performances of my works that I could never really enjoy them or take much notice of the way the audience was behaving.[...] The initial success of Rienzi was no doubt assured beforehand. But the uproarious way in which the public declared its partiality for me was extraordinary ... The public had been forcibly predisposed to accept it, because everyone connected with the theatre had been spreading such favourable reports ... that the entire population was looking forward to what was heralded as a miracle ... In trying to recall my condition that evening, I can remember it only as possessing all the features of a dream.
Subsequently, Wagner experimented with giving the opera over two evenings (at the suggestion of von Lüttichau), and making cuts to enable a more reasonable performance in a single evening.
Performance history Despite Wagner's reservations, Rienzi remained one of his most successful operas until the early 20th century. In Dresden alone, it reached its 100th performance in 1873 and 200th in 1908 and it was regularly performed throughout the 19th century in major opera houses throughout Europe and beyond, including those in America and England in 1878/9. The Paris premiere of Rienzi finally took place on 6 April 1869 at the Théâtre Lyrique under the baton of Jules Pasdeloup. The US premiere took place on 4 March 1878 at the Academy of Music in New York and was followed on 27 January 1879 by the first UK performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. The overture was the first work performed at the inaugural Henry Wood Promenade Concert at the Queen's Hall in London in August 1895.
A staging at the English National Opera in London, produced by Nicholas Hytner in 1983, placed the hero in the context of 20th-century totalitarianism. A production by David Pountney at the Vienna State Opera in 1999 set the work in the "near future". Of this production Pountney wrote: Wagner invested the musical realization of Rienzi with the unashamed extravagance and tasteless exaggeration of a Las Vegas hotel ... only the self-consciously deliberate and unabashed use of kitsch could match this musical egomania.
Other contemporary productions have been rare. Performances were given at the Theater Bremen in April/May 2009 and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Oper Leipzig in April/May 2010. In July 2013, the bicentennial year of Wagner's birth, performances of all three of Wagner's early operas, including Rienzi, took place for the first time at Bayreuth, at the Oberfrankenhalle.Wagnerjahr-2013 , accessed 10 July 2013 This performance trimmed some parts, including the second-act ballet."Guerrilla Opera: Reflections on Bicentennial Rienzi at Bayreuth's Oberfrankenhalle" by Michael Teager, 31 December 2013 The Boston premiere was produced in concert by Odyssey Opera in September 2013 as their inaugural performance. The Australian premiere was a concert performance by Melbourne Opera in December 2013, as part of the bicentennial celebrations."Melbourne Opera's performs Rienzi, a lumpish curiosity piece not one of Wagner's best" by Michael Shmith, The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 2013
On 26 July, 2026, Rienzi was performed in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus for the first time, as part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival.https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/programm/auffuehrungen/rienzi/, 12 December 2025
Roles
+RoleVoice typePremiere cast, 20 October 1842Conductor: Carl ReißigerCola Rienzi, Roman TribunetenorJosef TichatschekIrene, his sistersopranoHenriette WüstStefano Colonna, a noblemanbassGeorg Wilhelm DettmerAdriano, his sonsoprano (en travesti)Wilhelmine Schröder-DevrientPaolo Orsini, another patricianbassJohann Michael WächterRaimondo, Papal LegatebassGioacchino VestriBaroncelli, Roman citizentenorFriedrich Traugott ReinholdCecco del Vecchio, Roman citizenbassKarl RisseThe Messenger of PeacesopranoAnna ThieleAmbassadors, Nobles, Priests, Monks, Soldiers, Messengers, Populace
Synopsis Overture
The opera opens with a substantial overture which begins with a trumpet call (which in act 3 we learn is the war call of the Colonna family) and features the melody of Rienzi's prayer at the start of act 5, which became the opera's best-known aria. The overture ends with a military march.
Act 1Outside Rienzi's houseThe patrician Orsini and his cronies attempt to kidnap Rienzi's sister Irene. Stefano Colonna, also a patrician but inclined to support Rienzi, prevents them. Raimondo appeals to the parties in the name of the Church to stop their fighting; Rienzi's eventual appearance (marked by a dramatic key shift, from D to E flat) quells the riot. The Roman people support Rienzi's condemnation of the nobles. Irene and Adriano realise their mutual attraction (duet "Ja, eine Welt voll Leiden" – Yes, a world of sorrows). A gathering crowd of plebeians, inspired by Rienzi's speeches, offers Rienzi the crown; he demurs, insisting that he wishes only to be a Tribune of the Roman people.
Act 2A hall in the CapitolThe patricians plot the death of Rienzi; Adriano is horrified when he learns of this. Rienzi greets a group of ambassadors for whom an entertainment is laid on (a lengthy ballet). Orsini attempts to stab Rienzi, who however is protected by a vest of chain mail. Adriano pleads with Rienzi for mercy to the nobles, which Rienzi grants.
The act 2 ballet is noteworthy as Wagner made a clear attempt to make it relevant to the action of the opera (whereas in most Grand Operas the ballet was simply an entertaining diversion). The Rienzi ballet was intended to tell the tale of the 'Rape of Lucretia'. This storyline (in which Tarquinius, the last king of Rome, attempts to rape the virtuous Lucretia), parallels both the action of Rienzi (Orsini's attempt on Irene) and its background (patricians versus the people). In its original form the ballet lasts for over half an hour – in modern performances and recordings it is generally drastically cut.
Act 3The Roman ForumThe patricians have recruited an army to march on Rome. The people are alarmed. Adriano begs Rienzi to stop the war, offering his own life to avoid bloodshed, but is ignored. Rienzi rouses the people and leads them to victory over the nobles, in the course of which Adriano's father Stefano is killed. Adriano swears revenge, but Rienzi dismisses him.
Act 4Before the Lateran ChurchCecco and other citizens discuss the negotiations of the patricians with the Pope and with the Emperor of Germany. Adriano's intention to kill Rienzi wavers when Rienzi arrives together with Irene. Raimondo now announces that the Pope has laid a papal ban on Rienzi, and that his associates risk excommunication. Despite Adriano's urgings, Irene resolves to stay with Rienzi.