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Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen ( Rienzi, the last of the ; 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 . Written 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 then 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 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.
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 Planer, 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 Semperoper, 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.
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:
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
12 December 2025
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!Role
!Voice type
!Premiere cast, 20 October 1842 Conductor: Carl Reißiger | ||
| Cola Rienzi, Roman Tribune | tenor | Josef Tichatschek |
| Irene, his sister | soprano | Henriette Wüst |
| Stefano Colonna, a nobleman | bass | Georg Wilhelm Dettmer |
| Adriano, his son | soprano (en travesti) | Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient |
| Paolo Orsini, another patrician | bass | Johann Michael Wächter |
| Raimondo, Papal Legate | bass | Gioacchino Vestri |
| Baroncelli, Roman citizen | tenor | Friedrich Traugott Reinhold |
| Cecco del Vecchio, Roman citizen | bass | Karl Risse |
| The Messenger of Peace | soprano | Anna Thiele |
| Ambassadors, Nobles, Priests, Monks, Soldiers, Messengers, Populace | ||
The 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 , inspired by Rienzi's speeches, offers Rienzi the crown; he demurs, insisting that he wishes only to be a Tribune of the Roman people.
The patricians plot the death of Rienzi; Adriano is horrified when he learns of this. Rienzi greets a group of 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.
The 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.
Cecco 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.
Rienzi in his prayer "Allmächt'ger Vater" (Almighty Father!) asserts his faith in the people of Rome. He suggests to Irene that she seek safety with Adriano, but she demurs. An apologetic Adriano enters and tells the pair that the Capitol is to be burnt and they are at risk.
Scene 2: The Capitol is ablaze
Rienzi's attempts to speak are met with stones and insults from the fickle crowd. Adriano, in trying to rescue Rienzi and Irene, is killed with them as the building collapses.
In the original performances, Rienzi's final words are bitter and pessimistic: "May the town be accursed and destroyed! Disintegrate and wither, Rome! Your degenerate people wish it so." However, for the 1847 Berlin performance Wagner substituted a more upbeat rhetoric: "Ever while the seven hills of Rome remain, ever while the eternal city stands, you will see Rienzi's return!".
I am of the firm opinion that Rienzi is the finest thing achieved in grand opera in the last twelve years, that it is the most significant dramatic creation since Les Huguenots, and that it is just as epoch-making for its own time as were Les Huguenots, Der Freischütz, and Don Giovanni, each for its respective period of musical history.cited in
Other critical comments through the ages have included (apart from von Bülow's jibe about it being 'Meyerbeer's best opera'), 'Meyerbeer's worst opera' (Charles Rosen), 'an attack of musical measles' (Ernest Newman) and ' the greatest musical drama ever composed' (Gustav Mahler).
Franz Liszt wrote a "Fantasy on Themes from Rienzi" (S. 439) for piano in 1859.
Wagner later perceived Rienzi as an embarrassment; in his 1852 autobiographical essay, "A Communication to My Friends", he wrote "I saw it only in the shape of 'five acts', with five brilliant 'finales', with hymns, processions and the musical clash of arms".cited in Cosima Wagner recorded Wagner's comment in her diary for 20 June 1871:
Rienzi is very repugnant to me, but they should at least recognize the fire in it; I was a music director and I wrote a grand opera; the fact that it was this same music director who gave them some hard nuts to crack – that's what should astonish them.cited in
Although the composer disclaimed it, it can be noted that Rienzi prefigures themes (brother/sister relationships, social order and revolution) to which Wagner was often to return in his later works.
In every step of Rienzi's career – from ... acclamation as leader of the Volk, through military struggle, violent suppression of mutinous factions, betrayal and ... final immolation – Hitler would doubtless have found sustenance for his fantasies.
Albert Speer claims to have remembered an incident when Robert Ley advocated using a modern composition to open the Party Rallies in Nuremberg, but Hitler rejected this idea:
"You know, Ley, it isn't by chance that I have the Party Rallies open with the overture to Rienzi. It's not just a musical question. At the age of twenty-four this man, an innkeeper's son, persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire. Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."
A vocal score of the early 1840s, based on Wagner's draft, remains as the only existing primary source. Two surviving full scores made in Dresden in the early 1840s (under Wagner's supervision) already reflect the heavy cuts made in performances. The first printed score that was made under Wagner's supervision in 1844 reflects even heavier cuts.
A critical edition of the opera was prepared by Schott Music in Mainz in 1976 as volume III of their scholarly complete edition of Wagner's works. This edition was edited by Wagner scholars Reinhard Strohm and Egon Voss; it uses the extant sources but also contains the 1844 piano version prepared by Gustav Klink, (which includes some of the passages excised from early performances).
Overall it is not possible to accurately reconstruct Wagner's "original" Rienzi, but Rienzi on the other hand was clearly never finished by the composer. It was constantly being altered during the 1840s (and, it seems, possibly throughout Wagner's lifetime), so it is not feasible to fully determine Wagner's exact or final intentions based on existing evidence.
Audio recordings include:
Video recordings include:
Recordings of the overture include: Hans Knappertsbusch conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariss Jansons conducting the Oslo Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
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