Vestas Feuer ("The Vestal Flame"Translation from Lockwood (2008:82); a more literal translation would be "Vesta's Fire".) is a fragment of an opera composed in 1803 by Ludwig van Beethoven to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The plot involves a romantic intrigue in which the heroine temporarily becomes a Vestal Virgin (a keeper of the Vestal Flame in Ancient Rome). Beethoven set to music only the first scene of Schikaneder's libretto, then abandoned the project. The fragment (about ten minutes of music) is rarely performed.
Background Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812) was not just a librettist but also an actor, singer, playwright, and theater director. He had already achieved a form of immortality in 1791 by authoring the libretto of (and generally sponsoring) Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, a tremendous success at its premiere and still an important part of his company's repertoire. According to Lockwood, The Magic Flute was an opera that Beethoven "loved ... and knew like the back of his hand".Lockwood (2008:81) In 1801, Schikaneder's company had abandoned the Theater auf der Wieden in which The Magic Flute had premiered, and moved into a larger and grander theater he had built, the Theater an der Wien. This theater was well suited to Schikaneder's preference for theatrical spectacle, with elaborate scenery and stage effects. The theater opened with an opera about Alexander the Great, composed by Franz Teyber; the libretto had been offered by Schikaneder first to Beethoven, who had declined it.Lockwood (2008:80)
By 1803, the year of his Beethoven collaboration, the 51-year-old Schikaneder was already seeing his career go into decline (ultimately, it collapsed entirely), but at the time he was still an important figure in the Viennese theatrical and musical scene.Lockwood (2008:79) "Vestas Feuer" was his last libretto.Kolb, Fabian (2006) Exponent des Wandels: Joseph Weigl und die Introduktion in seinen italienischen und deutschsprachigen Opern. Münster: LIT Verlag, p. 105 fn.
For Beethoven, 1803 was a pivotal year.This opinion is given, for instance, by Lockwood (2008:93). He was 32, and during the eleven years he had spent in Vienna he had already established himself as a leading composer. He had recently begun an important shift in his compositional methods and goals, a shift that emphasized the musical portrayal of heroism and led to what today is often called his Middle Period. Already completed were important new works such as the Op. 31 piano sonatas,See articles on Op. 31, No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. and on his desk were massive new works representing the Middle Period in full flower: the Waldstein Sonata and the Third Symphony.
Schikaneder and Beethoven's collaboration Beethoven's collaboration with Schikaneder was only the latest in a series of experiences he had had since arriving in Vienna in 1792 paralleling the life experiences (patrons, colleagues, performing venues, travel itineraries) of Mozart, who had died in 1791; for discussion see Mozart and Beethoven.
During the years he spent at the Theater auf der Wieden, Schikaneder had found it efficient to live where he worked; i.e. in the same apartment complex that included the theater; many of his colleagues lived there too. Schikaneder made sure he could continue this practice by incorporating into the new Theater an der Wien a four-story apartment house where he and a number of members of his theatrical company dwelt.
In early 1803 Schikaneder made another attempt to collaborate with Beethoven: he asked him to compose an opera for his theater, providing as a partial incentive free housing in the apartment complex. Beethoven agreed and moved into the complex, where he was to live from about April 1803 to May 1804, apart from some summer visits (his custom) to nearby rural locations in Baden and Oberdöbling. Beethoven's younger brother Kaspar Karl,Beethoven by Maynard Solomon pg.169 who was acting as his business manager at the time, also moved into one of the theater's apartments. Beethoven scheduled a concert of his works for the theater in April; and the theater was to continue as a favored venue for him.Source for this paragraph: Lockwood (2008:80). For Beethoven concerts at the Theater an der Wien, see the article on this theater.
At first Beethoven was free of any obligations in the collaboration, since Schikaneder did not finish his libretto for Beethoven until late October. Beethoven was in any event fully occupied with composing other works (see above). He began work on Vestas Feuer in late November and kept at it for about a month.
Plot and musical structure
Lockwood summarizes the plot of Vestas Feuer thus:
The plot centers on the heroine Volivia and her lover Sartagones, "a noble Roman," whose father is Porus's sworn enemy. Intrigues are hatched by the jealous slave Malo and by other characters led by Romenius, a Roman official. Romenius also loves Volivia and, for her, has abandoned his former lover, Sericia. Romenius manages to banish both Porus and Sartagones from Rome. Volivia seeks refuge from Romenius's advances by becoming a priestess in the Temple of Vesta, thus giving Romenius and his soldiers a reason to destroy the temple -- whereupon the sacred flame is extinguished. After various episodes, including the reappearance of Porus and Sartagones, Romenius has Malo drowned in the Tiber but is himself stabbed by his jealous lover Sericia. When all the evildoers are dead, the sacred flame miraculously reignites itself, the Vestal Virgins rejoice, and Volivia is reunited with Sartagones and Porus amid general rejoicing.Lockwood (2008:82)
The first scene was the only one set by Beethoven. The setting for this scene was given thus by Schikaneder:
The theater [i.e. stage ] is an enchanting garden of cypresses; a waterfall gushes forth in the center and runs into a brook at the right. On the left is a tomb with several steps leading down. Dawn is shining through the trees.Translation from Westermann's (1983) edition of the work.
Lockwood gives the action of the scene:
Malo has been spying on the lovers, Volivia and Sartagones, and he rushes on to tell Porus he has seen them together, presumably all night since it is now morning. Porus is furious, because he hates Sartagones, and declares he will disown his daughter. ... Porus and Malo hide as the lovers appear. Now Sartagones and Volivia swear to love each other, but she anxiously begs Sartagones to ask her father's blessing, assuring him that Porus is good hearted. Porus suddenly emerges and confronts Sartagones, evoking their ancient family feud. Volivia pleads, but Porus is adamant. Then Sartagones draws his sword, asking "Will not she be mine?" Porus refuses, whereupon Sartagones points the sword at his own breast. But Porus, whose anger turns in a flash to sympathy, strikes the sword at once from Sartagones's hand, singing with Volivia, "Halt ein!" ["Stop!"] ... Now Porus immediately turns magnanimous, ... declaring "Since you love her so much, I will bestow her upon you" and affirms his friendship with Sartagones. Malo, upset by all this, leaves the stage, whereupon the three main characters -- the father and the two lovers -- close the first scene in a joyful trio of mutual affection.Lockwood (2008:83)
As Lockwood notes, Beethoven set this stage action in four musical sections, with keys as noted:
G minor: dialog of Malo and Porus E flat major: love duet of Volivia and Sartagones C minor: "accompanied dialog recitative: confrontation of Sartagones and Porus, ending in their reconciliation" G major: final trio
The scoring of the work is for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, and strings.Westermann (1983:2)
Influences of Mozart Beethoven's music for Vestas Feuer sounds unmistakably Beethovenian, indeed, characteristic of the emerging Middle Period of his career. Nonetheless, clear influences from Mozart have been discerned. Lockwood hears in the "Halt ein!" portion of the scene Beethoven set an echo of 'a parallel moment in The Magic Flute in which Papageno is saved by intervention of the Three Boys from suicide. The love duet between Volivia and Sartagones, in E major and time, evokes Mozart's "Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen" (sung by Pamina and Papageno in The Magic Flute), which has the same key and time signature and was the subject of a set of variations for cello and piano by Beethoven (WoO 46),Lockwood (2008:84) written 1801.Date taken from contents page of Complete sonatas and variations for cello and piano: from the Breitkopf & Härtel complete works edition. Courier Corporation, 1990.
Lockwood also discerns a precedent set by Mozart involving formal structure: an Introduzione; i.e. Beethoven's scene forms a separable initial section of an opera having some degree of integrity of both plot and harmonic plan; Lockwood calls the Introduzione a "miniplay". Three of Mozart's operas begin with such an Introduzione: Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and The Magic Flute.They narrate, respectively, the killing of the Commendatore, the conclusion of an ill-fated bet, and the Three Ladies' initial encounter with Tamino. Beethoven's Introduzione has a harmonic structure echoing that of The Magic Flute. The downward sequence of keys given above (g minor, E flat major, c minor, G major) echoes the upward sequence of similar keys in the Introduzione section of The Magic Flute: c minor, E flat major, G major, C major.
Nedbal (2009) notes that Beethoven emphasizes moral over personal aspects of the libretto, an echo of the overt moralizing seen throughout The Magic Flute. In contrast, Joseph Weigl's setting of the same words (see below) emphasizes the feelings and experience of the characters.
Abandoning the project Beethoven eventually felt as intolerable both the Vestas Feuer libretto and the task of collaborating with Schikaneder, and he dropped the project. He expressed his opinions in a letter to Johann Friedrich Rochlitz:
I have finally broken with Schikaneder, whose kingdom has been entirely eclipsed by the light of the clever and thoughtful French operas. Meanwhile he has held me back for fully six months, and I have let myself be deceived simply because, since he is undeniably good at creating stage effects, I hoped that he would produce something more clever than usual. How wrong I was. I hoped at least that he would have the verses and the contents of the libretto corrected and improved by someone else, but in vain. For it was impossible to persuade this arrogant fellow to do this. Well, I have given up my arrangement with him, although I had composed several numbers. Just picture to yourself a Roman subject (of which I had been told neither the scheme nor anything else whatever) and language and verses such as could come out of the mouths of our Viennese women apple-vendors.Lockwood (2008:80-81); bracketed commentary is from Lockwood.
Lockwood speculates that Beethoven must have felt some empathy at this stage with the long-dead Mozart, who unlike him had managed to bring his Schikaneder collaboration to a successful conclusion.
Vestas Feuer as embryonic Fidelio Early in 1804, after dropping Vestas Feuer, Beethoven began work on a different opera, then entitled Leonora; which ultimately became Fidelio, now a cornerstone of the repertory. Lockwood explains why the Leonora libretto was everything to Beethoven that the Vestas Feuer libretto was not: