Aductos base-BH 3 /BF 3

The most popular version of the Genoveva legend was Ludwig Tieck’s, published in 1799. However, the inspiration for Tieck’s treatment of the subject came from two places. First, in 1797, he read the unpublished manuscript of Friedrich Maler Müller’s Golo und Genoveva, which can be said to be the first truly literary adaptation of the Genoveva legend.106 The second source was the Volksbuch von der Pfalzgräfin Genoveva, which initially appeared in 1647.107 It is in the Volksbuch where we first find many of the narrative points that passed down all the way to Tieck and Hebbel, such as Golo’s nurse as an accomplice, Siegfried’s wound and stopping in Strasburg to visit the witch, Drago’s ghost, and Genoveva’s bearing a son.

Most of Tieck’s inspiration came from Müller’s version, however, so a brief comparison is warranted here. Müller wrote his drama between 1775 and 1781, though it was not published until 1811.108 (It is not known whether or not Schumann ever read or was even aware of Müller’s Golo und Genoveva, though there are some similarities between it and Schumann’s libretto, not least of which, the ending in which Genoveva does not die). To be sure, Müller’s work is classic Sturm und Drang. His Golo is a veritable Werther, and the comparison can be extended to Siegfried and Genoveva, who are just as clearly Albert and Charlotte. In the same way, Golo’s mother, Mathilde, owes much to Lady Macbeth; she is the mover of the action in Müller’s play. Full of ambitions for her son, it is her scheming that leads to the tragedy, though Golo accepts the guilt and the responsibility. Mathilde is the most interesting character in Müller’s version of the story, where she has a far bigger presence than in either Tieck’s or Hebbel’s (who may both have avoided this ‘mistake’ by Müller for the imbalance it created in

106 Giehl, “Genivieve,” 30. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., 13–14

the Genoveva theme.) Her disdain for accepted law also places her firmly as a Sturm und Drang character, but the enthusiasm with which Müller breathed life into her overshadows the true tragic character as supported by both Tieck and Hebbel, who is Golo. Only after Mathilde’s departure from the drama does Golo regain some of his strength as a dramatic character. He stands up to accept his fate and his guilt, recognizing that he must be true to the nature given to him by God: “Ihr Elenden, die nicht fühlen, wie jammervoll dem Unglücklichen ist! Ihr schmähet mich, schaut auf mein Verbrechen, aber nicht auf das Schicksal, das mich bis dahin trieb.”109 [You wretches, who do not feel how full of misery is the ill-fated one! You taunt me; you look at my crime, but not at my fate, which drove me to it.] Golo’s acceptance of death from the executioners whom he had already shown the ability to overpower is as much a suicide as Werther’s pistol, and with the same motivation. Schumann’s account shows sympathy with the Sturm und Drang of Müller’s Golo in that Golo perceives his guilt to stem only from his existence. Hebbel takes the same stance, although, rather than obscuring it, he places it as the centerpiece of his drama.

Tieck’s Genoveva, which was composed a couple of decades after Müller’s, is altogether different in quality. It is as much as product of Romanticism as Müller’s was of Goethe and the Sturm und Drang. What defines Tieck’s dramatization of the legend is its scope.110 Though there is not much in the way of character development, Tieck succeeds in creating a comprehensive atmosphere of the Middle Ages. After all, Tieck’s version was composed during an age when study of the Middle Ages was very popular, far more so even than when Müller was composing his text. Accordingly, there are scenes, such as the one in the Saracen and Christian

109

Friedrich Müller, Golo und Genovefa, Act V, Scene 12. In Werke (Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1811), III, 419.

110

Like Goethe’s Faust, Tieck’s Genoveva was a drama in style rather than actual practice, as it was never performed on stage.

camps and even on the battlefield itself, which lend nothing at all to the Genoveva story, but probably contributed heavily to the popularity of the work. Part of the reason for the loose dramatic construction is the fact that Tieck borrowed heavily from the Volksbuch, including its exact sequence of scenes.

Related to this is another striking feature of Tieck’s drama: there is no central character to speak of. Neither Genoveva nor Golo is given a starring role. Rather, the focus shifts from scene to scene, sacrificing individual character development for a purely event-based narrative. Even characters that are minor or non-existent in other settings, such as Charles Martel and Abd-el Rahman, are given larger roles in Tieck’s drama. Tieck seemed concerned only with action; a feature that Robert Reinick must have found particularly compelling when he was looking for sources for a libretto that would please crowds attuned to Meyerbeer-esque spectacles in the German opera houses of his day.

Right and wrong are made extremely clear in Tieck’s version of the legend, and his understanding of the Genoveva theme as the age old triangle between two men and a woman is made painfully simplistic. Siegfried is the noble hero, Golo the wicked villain, and Genoveva little more than a saintly object of their mutual desire. Indeed, Tieck spends much time ensuring the utter infallibility of Genoveva at the expense of her humanness. While in Müller Genoveva is treated as a “mere” woman instead of a saint (one of the changes he made from the Volksbuch), Tieck reverses that trend, and recourses to Genoveva’s original saintly nature. Tieck’s Genoveva studies the lives of the saints, likes taking long walks with the chaplain, and even has visions of Jesus and of heaven. In the other settings of the legend, the mental conflict that arises in Genoveva at her attraction to the dashing Golo and her pledge to her husband is explored at least in a small way. But this is not so in Tieck, whose Genoveva is utterly flat and

lifeless. Even after hearing Golo’s declaration of love to her, she simply leaves him to study the Bible with Drago. Her death in the arms of Siegfried at the end of the play also amounts to a kind of martyrdom to which she was destined from the opening act.

With Golo, Tieck fares better in creating a character with some humanity and even some traceable development. At first, his love for Genoveva is noble, and he wishes to declare it so. However, as the play progresses, his love transforms into an all-encompassing obsession, and proves his downfall. Where Müller’s Golo was a product of the Sturm und Drang, Tieck’s Golo is just as much a product of Romanticism and ends up being too sentimental. It is hard to see Tieck’s Golo as a villain, so positive are his qualities early in the play. The same characteristics that make Hebbel’s and Schumann’s Golo inherently flawed psychologically make Tieck’s Golo a Romantic sentimentalist par excellence.

Perhaps the most conspicuous departure in Tieck’s legend from Müller’s is the role of the nurse Gertrud (Mathilde in Müller’s version). Rather than a strong woman of purpose and ideas, she is weak and sees nothing necessarily wrong in Golo’s love for Genoveva. In fact, she is shocked when the events take the dramatic turn that they do. However, she is more the nurturing mother-character than the scheming manipulator, and given the fact that she is conflated into Schumann’s Margaretha, this is an important facet to her personality.

All in all, it is surprising that Schumann retained any of Tieck’s text at all, given its spectacular and superficial nature. This is exactly what Schumann did not want in a libretto, and his retention of some of the text may have stemmed from reservations he had that a successful opera could center entirely on character development, as is the case in the play by Hebbel. The most important conceptual idea borrowed from Tieck, however, is the evenness with which Schumann treats his four main characters, rather than emphasizing one almost exclusively as

Hebbel had done. The main strength of Tieck’s text, i.e., creating a compelling picture of a past age, is also lost on Schumann, who downplays the setting save in one passing reference to Charles Martel in the opening scene.