Last of the Tribunes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 358, 3 May 1946, Page 14

Last of the Tribunes

"RIENZI’S HYMN, by Wagner," follows the usual operatic solo, the climax of which, three-quarters of the way through, must be either agony, triumph or ecstasy-and it hardly matters which. How much do we learn of what Wagner really thought about Rienzi — supposing this to have some importance beside how Wagner used Rienzi to make a musical noise? Echo answers at some length, but little to the point. It is a pity, because Rienzi was not only an extraordinary man, but a test case in how far an artist will let himself be carried away by melodrama. The story is briefly as follows: the inhabitants of the decayed city of Rome in the earlier Middle Ages held themselves to have inherited the empire of the Roman People and to be the true rulers of the known world. From time to time

some local adventurer would win glory by doing two things; leading the Roman populace against the nobility and the Pope, and setting up some sort of shortlived Roman republic which claimed to revive the world empire of the city of Rome. Rienzi-Cola Si Rienzi, known as the Last of the Tribunes-was the last and loudest of these demagogues; and the climax of;his career came at a vast popular festival where, dressed in an elaborate version of classical raiment, he pointed a sword to the four quarters of the compass successively and pro-claimed-whether on his own behalf or on that of the Roman people has never been satisfactorily determined-*"All this is mine." Shortly afterwards he was lynched. But how Wagner must have lapped all this up; and how little of his excitement (I am afraid) is conveyed by the wordless booming of the singer.