Zweig MS 120

Translation of libretto as ‘La défense d’amour / ou / La novice de Palerme’. With draft of letter to Giacomo Meyerbeer; [1839, 1840]. Autograph. As follows:

ff. 1-30r. Libretto; [1839]. French. Title and list of dramatis personae on f. 1; text (ff. 1v-30r) has marginal diagrams relating to metrical structure at many points. Written in brown ink. With, in another hand in ink, corrections and additions to text throughout and note in French (f. 12v) on metre and rhyme scheme.

ff. 30v, 1r. Draft letter to Meyerbeer; [18 Jan. 1840]. German. Begins on f. 30v and is continued above, below and to either side of the title and list of dramatis personae on f. 1r; written in brown ink, with a small number of autograph deletions. A number of ink blots on the upper part of f. 1r. Numbered 19 in pencil at top left of f.1r; foliation 61-89 in pencil, is possibly in the hand similarly annotating Zweig MS 119 and others (see description of Zweig MS 119).

‘Das Liebesverbot’ was first performed in Magdeburg, 29 March 1836. The translation was apparently made with the help of Dumersan, probably in the autumn of 1839, in preparation for a possible performance at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris; Wagner revised some music, and there was a trial performance of at least some numbers. (See Wagner Werk-Verzeichnis, pp. 142-3). In the letter Wagner seeks the help of Meyerbeer, then in Baden-Baden, in achieving a performance at the Renaissance; it is published in an abbreviated variant form in Gertrud Strobel, Werner Wolf (eds.), Richard Wagner. Sämtliche Briefe (Leipzig, 1967- ), vol. i, pp. 378-9, drawn from earlier printed sources. The text in Becker, Meyerbeer, which agrees almost exactly with Zweig MS 120 as corrected by Wagner, is taken from publication in the Schweizerische Musikzeitung, 1934, a source apparently not known to the editors of Richard Wagner. Sämtliche Briefe. The letter itself, sent by Wagner, seems now to be lost.