Rienzi 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. The success of "Rienzi" – his first real success of any kind – was crucial in Wagner's career, launching him as a composer to be reckoned with. It was followed, within months, by his appointment as Kapellmeister at the Dresden Opera (February 1843), which also gave him considerable prestige. It also received critical acclaim elsewhere in Europe. The young Eduard Hanslick, later to be one of Wagner's foremost critical adversaries, wrote in 1846 in Vienna: I
Rienzi followed on 27 January 1879 by the first UK performance at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. The overture was the first work performed at the inaugural Henry Wood Promenade Concert at the Queen's Hall in London in August 1895. 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