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Genoveva
Opera byRobert Schumann
Genoveva in the Forest Seclusion, byLudwig Richter (1841)
Librettist	Robert Reinick Robert Schumann
Language	German
Based on	Genevieve of Brabant
Premiere	25 June 1850 (1850-06-25) Stadttheater, Leipzig

Genoveva,Op. 81, is anopera in four acts byRobert Schumann in the genre ofGerman Romanticism with alibretto byRobert Reinick and the composer. The only opera Schumann ever wrote, it received its first performance on 25 June 1850 at theStadttheater inLeipzig, with the composer conducting. It received only three performances during the premiere, and the negative criticism it received in the press played a decisive role in Schumann's decision to not write a second opera.

Genoveva is based on the story ofGenevieve of Brabant, amedieval legend set in the 8th century that is reputedly based on the 13th century life of Marie of Brabant, wife ofLouis II, Duke of Bavaria. The story gained in popularity during the first half of the 19th century, primarily in Germany through various theatrical settings. Two of the settings from this period,Ludwig Tieck's playLeben und Tod der heiligen Genoveva (Life and Death of Saint Genoveva) andChristian Friedrich Hebbel's playGenoveva, served as the basis for the opera's libretto.

The plot of the opera has several similarities withWagner'sLohengrin, which was composed during the same period as Schumann was writingGenoveva.

Genoveva has never won a large popular audience, but it continues to be revived at regular intervals throughout the world and has been recorded several times.

Schumann expressed the desire to write an opera as early as 1842, and was fascinated by the possibilities of operas based on traditional German legends. His notebooks from this period show that, among others, Schumann considered the stories of theNibelungen,Lohengrin andTill Eulenspiegel to be good candidates for settings inGerman opera.

Schumann began work onGenoveva toward the end of a period of intense depression. In the early 1840s, discouraged both by the greater public esteem enjoyed by his wife,Clara Schumann, a leading pianist as well as a composer with a high-profile career as a touring virtuoso, and by the fact that he was not offered the directorship of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Schumann's depression intensified. In 1844, he and Clara moved toDresden, where his depression eventually moderated and he began work on a number of compositions, includingGenoveva.

While in Dresden, Schumann encounteredRichard Wagner, whose discouraging comments on Schumann's libretto forGenoveva strained relations between the two composers. For his part, however, Schumann came to admire the dramatic impact of Wagner's operas, and the influence of Wagner's music worked its way into the score forGenoveva. Indeed, some of the musical techniques used in the opera, such as the fluidthrough-composed music (i.e. there are no recitatives) and lack of purely virtuosic vocal moments, are Schumann's personal interpretations and adaptations of Wagner's compositional methods.

Although the then recently constructed DresdenSemperoper house declined to stageGenoveva, much to Schumann's fury, he eventually secured a staging in Leipzig.

TheBielefeld Opera rediscoveredGenoveva in 1995 in the first staged production worldwide in over 70 years. Conducted byGeoffrey Moull and directed byKatja Czellnik, the opera was given eight notable performances.Opera magazine of London wrote that

it is possible to say from the impression created by Geoffrey Moull's vigorous conducting that Schumann's theatre music is more plausible, more tense and more exciting than has so far been conceded.^[1][2]

The North American premiere, in a concert performance at Emmanuel Church inBoston on 2 April 2005, ended with a standing ovation.

The opera was presented by theZürich Opera in February 2008, and again byUniversity College Opera, London, in March 2010.

Act 1

The opera begins with Hidulfus, Bishop of Trier, summoning Brabant's Christian knights to joinCharles Martel's crusade against a feared Saracen conquest of Europe. Siegfried, Count of Brabante, answers the call. In preparing to leave for war, he entrusts his wife, Genoveva, to his young servant, Golo. Margaretha, Golo's nurse, wants revenge for being banished by Siegfried for her involvement in black magic. She fuels Golo's desire and offers him her help.

Act 2

Despite Golo's overwhelming desire for her, Genoveva persistently rejects his advances. Infuriated by these rejections, Golo seeks revenge against Genoveva by staging a trap to discredit her. One night, Golo sneaks Drago, an old steward, into Genoveva's bedroom to fake an adulterous affair that is then witnessed by other servants, brought to the scene by Golo. In their rage, the servants kill Drago and Genoveva is imprisoned for adultery.

Act 3

Word of this imagined infidelity gets back to Siegfried, who then commands Golo to put Genoveva to death. Drago's ghost appears in front of Margaretha and tells her that if she does not reveal the truth, she will die.

Act 4

As two armed men are dispatched to kill Genoveva, her life is saved through the intervention of a mute, deaf boy. Siegfried then discovers Golo's treachery and restores his wife's honour.

Genoveva is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

Schumann had an eager interest in the tradition ofGerman-language opera, by his time having a well-established pedigree in the works ofMozart andWeber. He had an interest in the music of contemporary exponents of opera in Germany, such asMarschner and Wagner, and knew the music of Beethoven'sFidelio.

Schumann was eager to integrate intoGenoveva the new approach to opera which Wagner's operas exhibited: he wrote for a brass-heavier orchestra than called for by classical models such asThe Magic Flute or even Fidelio. He also omitted recitative, a recent innovation on Wagner's part which shared the burden of expounding an opera's plot more evenly between libretto and music. The Romantic themes of the opera are kin with not onlyLohengrin, with which its plot has many similarities, but with much of Wagner's output. Wagner, like Schumann, had an eager interest in the art and culture of the middle ages which was due in part to Romantic revivalists likeSchiller andEichendorff.

After Wagner, but also in keeping with Schumann's own longstanding penchant for ciphers and coded messages in music,Genoveva makes use of leitmotifs; for instance, Golo is represented by a descending fifth then a dotted rhythm rising stepwise through a minor third. The whole of the opera sees the recurrence of this leitmotif, associated also with Genoveva's torment. The famous chorale theme which initiates the opera's action is built upon a related motif, which returns to characterise instances or mentions of religious piety and chivalry throughout the opera.^[3]

Linda Siegel writes of the opera that 'Schumann's preoccupation with the interplay between his characters, incidentally, led him to adopt a system of musical imagery amazingly advanced for the time: the highly complex web of musical symbols in Genoveva cannot be found in Wagner untilTristan'.^[4]

• Lohengrin
• Under the yoke - characters perform Genoveva as a mirror to the romantic subplot

• Genoveva (Schumann): Scores at theInternational Music Score Library Project
• Genoveva history and plot summary,Naxos Records
• "Schumann's life: A Brief Biography"
• A translation of Grimm's Saga No. 538 "Siegfried and Genofeva"

• Compositions by Robert Schumann
• 1850 operas
• German-language operas
• Operas
• Operas based on myths and legends
• Operas based on plays

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from June 2008
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• Works with IMSLP links
• Articles with International Music Score Library Project links