ABSTRACT
Weber, who as a boy had met Mozart and heard a number of his Prague performances, was able to advise Wagner on tempi in Mozart's opera. Wagner was also closely associated with Weber's successor as director of the Conservatory, Jan Kittl, whom he first met during the visit of 1834. In 1846, Wagner passed on to him his libretto of Bianca und Giuseppe, originally written for Karl Reissiger. The opera was staged in Prague's German Theatre on 19 February 1848, according to Wagner very successfully. Inevitably, there are tensions between Dvok's clear embrace of the Wagner manner and the nature of the libretto. The influence of Wagner was strongly shown in the harmony and orchestration. For critics determined to see Wagner in its pages, the use of thematic transformation and the occasional adopting of Wagnerian harmony was excuse enough. Dvok cast his compositional net very wide and Wagner was certainly part of the haul.
