120-708: The Tarnhelm is a magic helmet in Richard Wagner 's Der Ring des Nibelungen (written 1848–1874; first perf. 1876). It was crafted by Mime at the demand of his brother Alberich . It is used as a cloak of invisibility by Alberich in Das Rheingold . It also allows one to change one's form: Finally, it allows one to travel long distances instantly , as Siegfried does in Götterdämmerung , Act II. The stage directions in Das Rheingold and Siegfried describe it as
240-574: A film version in Swedish of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte , turned down an invitation to direct the festival. The most sensational production in Werkstatt Bayreuth was the centennial Ring cycle ( Jahrhundertring ) directed by Patrice Chéreau , who used an updated 19th-century setting, following the interpretation of George Bernard Shaw who regarded the Ring as a social commentary on the exploitation of
360-653: A Berlin court on 18 July 1870. Richard and Cosima's wedding took place on 25 August 1870. On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance (its premiere) of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life. Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle. He had not abandoned polemics: he republished his 1850 pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under
480-506: A French team around director Patrice Chéreau and conductor Pierre Boulez . Known as the Jahrhundertring , it was filmed. The newest production of the Ring (directed by Valentin Schwarz ) premiered in 2022 after pandemic-related delays. Schwarz's modern staging of the cycle— depicting a complex, tangled family drama spanning generations—was met with mixed reviews from audiences and
600-576: A composer of the new German Reich, the Societies and other fundraising channels were well short of the needed sum by the end of 1872. Wagner made another appeal to Bismarck in August 1873 and was again denied. Desperate, Wagner turned to his former patron, Ludwig II, who reluctantly agreed to help. In January 1874, Ludwig granted 100,000 Thaler and construction on the theatre, designed by architect Gottfried Semper , started shortly thereafter. A planned 1875 debut
720-510: A daughter, named Isolde , a child not of Bülow but of Wagner. Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult , who had left her husband for Franz Liszt . Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with Wagner, though nevertheless the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner also fell into disfavour with many leading members of
840-566: A distance, [was] a menace to his peace of mind." Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with her husband Otto, who maintained his financial support of the composer. In an 1859 letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan : "Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible . This final act!!!—I fear the opera will be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad." In November 1859, Wagner once again moved to Paris to oversee production of
960-651: A golden chain-mail helmet which covers the wearer's face. Nacht und Nebel ("Night and Fog") was a directive of Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 that was originally intended to remove all political activists and resistance "helpers"; "anyone endangering German security" throughout Nazi Germany 's occupied territories. The name was a direct reference to a magic spell involving the " Tarnhelm " ("stealth helmet") from Wagner's Rheingold . Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( / ˈ v ɑː ɡ n ər / VAHG -nər ; German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ] ; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883)
1080-514: A head in 1849, when the unsuccessful May Uprising in Dresden broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role . Warrants were issued for the revolutionaries' arrest. Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zürich where he at first took refuge with a friend, Alexander Müller . Wagner was to spend the next twelve years in exile from Germany. He had completed Lohengrin ,
1200-425: A lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel).... At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening [emphasis in original]. Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856). He began work on
1320-473: A letter to Mathilde from him. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice , where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian , while Minna returned to Germany. Wagner's attitude to Minna had changed; the editor of his correspondence with her, John Burk, has said that she was to him "an invalid, to be treated with kindness and consideration, but, except at
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#17328547342821440-720: A new revision of Tannhäuser , staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich , whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris. The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were a notable fiasco . This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club , which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in Act ;1 (instead of its traditional location in
1560-432: A pastoral opera based on Goethe 's Die Laune des Verliebten ( The Infatuated Lover's Caprice ), written at the age of 17, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), on which Wagner worked in 1832, and the singspiel Männerlist größer als Frauenlist ( Men are More Cunning than Women , 1837–1838). Die Feen ( The Fairies , 1833) was not performed in the composer's lifetime, and Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love , 1836)
1680-474: A performance by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra under conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, followed by the first post-war performance of Wagner's Parsifal . Under the direction of Wieland Wagner, the "New Bayreuth" ushered in an era that was no less than revolutionary. Gone were the elaborate naturalistic sets, replaced with minimalist modern productions. In comparison,
1800-536: A piano transcription of the 9th Symphony. He was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart 's Requiem . Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period. In 1829 he saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient , who became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in
1920-449: A pseudonym, under his own name in 1869, extending the introduction and adding a lengthy final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim. In 1871, Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth , which was to be the location of his new opera house. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for
2040-631: A reconciliation with Minna during this Paris visit, and although she joined him there, the reunion was not successful and they again parted from each other when Wagner left. The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in the North German Confederation after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in 1862. The composer settled in Biebrich , on the Rhine near Wiesbaden in Hesse . Here Minna visited him for
2160-616: A scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven , which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris , where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis. He also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. During this stay he completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and Der fliegende Holländer . Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. With
2280-447: A second festival the following year, and travelled to London to conduct a series of concerts in an attempt to make up the deficit. Although the festival was plagued by financial problems in its early years, it survived through state intervention and the continued support of influential Wagnerians, including King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Following the financial failure of the initial Bayreuth Festival, as well as Wagner's death in 1883, there
2400-415: A small pension which she maintained until 1859. With help from her friend Jessie Laussot, this was to have been augmented to an annual sum of 3,000 thalers per year, but the plan was abandoned when Wagner began an affair with Mme. Laussot. Wagner even plotted an elopement with her in 1850, which her husband prevented. Meanwhile, Wagner's wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi ,
2520-498: A well-known Jewish woman). Winifred's influence with Hitler was so strong that at her behest, he wrote a letter to anti-fascist Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini , inviting him to lead the festival. Toscanini, who had conducted there in 1930 and 1931, refused in 1933. From 1933 to 1942, the festival was conducted principally by Karl Elmendorff . It was in Nazi Germany that the festival made its first break from tradition, abandoning
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#17328547342822640-481: Is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations. Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on 26 May. Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered a series of increasingly severe angina attacks. During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on 29 August, he entered
2760-458: Is given to members of the Society of Friends of Bayreuth (financial donors), famous patrons, and to regional and international Wagner societies, which are distributed to their own members through lottery or the willingness to pay a high contribution. However, in 2013 tickets for one opera production were offered exclusively online, on a first come first served basis with no preferential eligibility. It
2880-495: Is reported that they sold out within seconds. This offer was repeated for the 2014 season, with tickets being available for eight performances including one complete Ring cycle. As of 2014, retail ticket prices ranged from €320 for a front row stalls seat to €45 for a gallery (third level) back row seat. The Festival authorities assiduously police the traffic of tickets, and monitor sites such as eBay . On admission patrons may be required to show photographic identification matching
3000-437: Is very difficult to get tickets, because demand (estimated at 500,000) greatly exceeds supply (58,000 tickets); the waiting time is between five and ten years (or more). The process entails submitting an order form every summer; applicants are usually successful after about ten years. Failure to make an application every year results in being placed at the back of the queue. Although some tickets are allocated by lottery, preference
3120-475: The Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like arias and recitatives . He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in
3240-524: The Centennial March for America, for which he received $ 5,000. Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal , his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons. From 1876 to 1878 Wagner also embarked on the last of his documented emotional liaisons, this time with Judith Gautier , whom he had met at the 1876 Festival. Wagner
3360-581: The National Theatre Munich on 10 June 1865, the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld , was hoarse and needed time to recover.) The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow , whose wife, Cosima , had given birth in April that year to
3480-462: The Philharmonic Society of London , including one before Queen Victoria . The Queen enjoyed his Tannhäuser overture and spoke with Wagner after the concert, writing in her diary that Wagner was "short, very quiet, wears spectacles & has a very finely-developed forehead, a hooked nose & projecting chin." Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted
3600-506: The Ring cycle (which was not resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan . While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder , five songs for voice and piano, setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "studies for Tristan und Isolde ". Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in 1855 with
3720-461: The Ring cycle, is presented every five to seven years, following a year in which no Ring is presented. In years in which the Ring is staged, three other works are also presented. When no Ring is staged, five other works are presented. Tickets for the Ring are normally sold only as a complete set for all four performances. The Ring produced for the Festival's centenary in 1976 was produced by
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3840-560: The Ring , and the other operas Wagner planned. Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben , at the King's request. Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer , and regretted that "this operatic master, who had done me so much harm, should not have lived to see this day." After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at
3960-702: The Royal Shakespeare Company , Götz Friedrich of the Deutsche Oper Berlin , Harry Kupfer of the Berlin State Opera in the former communist East Germany and Heiner Müller of the Berliner Ensemble . In the end, Wolfgang's decision to bring in experimental directors helped rejuvenate Bayreuth and restore its reputation as the world leader in Wagnerian opera. There was uncertainty over how
4080-532: The 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal . Performances take place in a specially designed theatre, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus . Wagner personally supervised the design and construction of the theatre, which contained many architectural innovations to accommodate
4200-451: The 2021 festival, which went ahead with a limited audience capacity and testing/vaccination requirements. The 2022 festival went ahead as normal, including the new production of the Ring . In 2023 the festival had mixed opinions due to the use of AR goggles and 3D glasses to enhance the experience. The festival has attempted to modernize to aid with low ticket sales. The festival draws thousands of Wagner fans to Bayreuth every summer. It
4320-602: The Bayreuth Festival and its assets were transferred to a newly created Richard Wagner Foundation . The board of directors included members of the Wagner family and others appointed by the state. As chairman, Wolfgang Wagner remained in charge of administration of the festival. While Wolfgang Wagner continued to administer the festival, beginning in the 1970s, production was handled by a number of new directors in what Wolfgang called Werkstatt Bayreuth (Bayreuth Workshop). The idea
4440-538: The Emperor Pedro II of Brazil , Anton Bruckner , Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky . Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later his attitude towards the productions was "Never again, never again!" Moreover, the festival finished with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried meant that Wagner still sought further sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions such as
4560-870: The Festival in the hands of his English-born wife Winifred Wagner , with Heinz Tietjen as artistic director. In the 1920s, well before the rise of the Nazi Party , Winifred Wagner became a strong supporter and close personal friend of Adolf Hitler ; her correspondence with Hitler has never been released by the Wagner family. She and other festival leaders were members of Nazi chief ideologue Alfred Rosenberg 's Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur , which actively suppressed modernist music and works by "degenerate" artists. The festival maintained some artistic independence under Nazi rule . Ironically, Hitler attended performances that included Jewish and foreign singers, long after they had been banned from all other venues across Germany (including homosexual heldentenor Max Lorenz , married to
4680-496: The Festival was to be managed after the retirement of Wolfgang Wagner at the end of August 2008. In 2001, the Festival's 21-member board of directors had voted for his daughter, Eva Wagner-Pasquier , to succeed him. Wolfgang Wagner, however, proposed to hand control over to his second wife, Gudrun, and their daughter Katharina. Gudrun died in 2007. No successor was named at that time, but it was speculated that Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina would eventually be named as joint directors of
4800-634: The French newspaper Le Figaro , which called the music "the dream of a lunatic". The disillusioned included Wagner's (then) friend Friedrich Nietzsche , who, having published his eulogistic essay "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" before the festival as part of his Untimely Meditations , was bitterly disappointed by what he saw as Wagner's pandering to increasingly exclusivist German nationalism; his breach with Wagner began at this time. The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I ,
4920-534: The Great ) in 1747. With its ample capacity and strong acoustics, the opera house seemed a good match for Wagner's vision. Second, the town of Bayreuth was located outside those regions where Wagner no longer owned the rights to the performance of his own works, which he had sold off in 1864 in order to alleviate pressing financial concerns. Finally, the town had no cultural life that could offer competition to Wagner's own artistic dominance. The Festival, once launched, would be
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5040-464: The Jewish singers at the Bayreuth Festival who had been murdered in concentration camps. A plaque was finally installed honouring Ottilie Metzger-Lattermann and Henriette Gottlieb after Winifred's death. Two-thirds of the town of Bayreuth were destroyed by American bombing in the final days of World War II, taking with it the rotunda, living room and guest room of Wahnfried , though the theatre itself
5160-592: The Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden . Until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father. Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel. In late 1820, Wagner
5280-420: The Ring just as they had been in Wagner's day, defending any proposed changes with appeals to her son Siegfried : "Was this not how Papa did it in 1876?" During her era of leadership, the festival became increasingly associated with antisemitism . After Cosima's retirement in 1906, Siegfried Wagner took over management of the festival, introducing new staging and performance styles. His early death in 1930 left
5400-485: The architect Gottfried Semper . Wagner's involvement in left-wing politics abruptly ended his welcome in Dresden. Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin . He was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ludwig Feuerbach . Widespread discontent came to
5520-629: The arts throughout the 20th century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. Richard Wagner was born on 22 May 1813 to an ethnic German family in Leipzig , then part of the Confederation of the Rhine . His family lived at No 3, the Brühl ( The House of the Red and White Lions ) in Leipzig's Jewish quarter . He was baptised at St. Thomas Church . He
5640-720: The audience to experience the full psychosocial aspects of the drama without the baggage and distraction of elaborate set designs. Others have speculated that by stripping Wagner's works of their Germanic and historic elements, Wieland was attempting to distance Bayreuth from its nationalistic past and create productions with universal appeal. Over time, many critics came to appreciate the unique beauty of Wieland's reinterpretation of his grandfather's works. Wieland's innovative productions invited comparison to Wolfgang's, which critics unanimously found to be uninspired. If Wieland's productions were radical, Wolfgang's were regressive. Although still minimalist in approach, Wolfgang resurrected much of
5760-568: The cancelled 2020 season.) Then came the first performance of Das Rheingold . Present at this unique musical event were Kaiser Wilhelm , Dom Pedro II of Brazil, King Ludwig (who attended in secret, probably to avoid the Kaiser), and other members of the nobility, as well as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who committed much effort to helping his then good friend Wagner establish the festival, and such accomplished composers as Anton Bruckner , Edvard Grieg , Pyotr Tchaikovsky , Franz Liszt , and
5880-475: The co-directorship leaving, in accord with her father's will, Katharina in sole charge. On the 31 March 2020 it was announced that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions, the 2020 festival (due to take place from 25 July to 30 August) would be cancelled. The new Der Ring des Nibelungen production planned for that festival would be postponed until at least 2022. Restrictions were eased for
6000-411: The conclusion of the 2008 Festival. They were chosen ahead of the pair of their cousin, Nike Wagner , and Gerard Mortier , who had placed a late bid for the directorship on 24 August. The conductor Christian Thielemann has agreed to act as chief adviser to the new directors, effectively taking the role of music director of the Festival. In 2014 it was announced that Eva would be stepping down from
6120-487: The couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga on the run from creditors. Debts plagued Wagner for most of his life. Initially the pair took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der fliegende Holländer ( The Flying Dutchman ), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine . The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839 and stayed there until 1842. Wagner made
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#17328547342826240-549: The court, who were suspicious of his influence on the King. In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him. Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen , beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne . Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on 21 June
6360-469: The deteriorating 19th century sets created by Richard Wagner. Many protested at the changes, including prominent conductors such as Toscanini and Richard Strauss , and even some members of the Wagner family. In their view, any change to the festival was a profanation against "the Master" (Wagner). Nevertheless, Hitler approved of the changes, thus paving the way for more innovations in the decades to come. During
6480-433: The development of classical music; his Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music . As he matured, he softened his ideological stance against traditional operatic forms (ie. arias, ensembles and choruses ), reintroducing them into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ( The Mastersingers of Nuremberg ) and Parsifal . To properly present his vision of
6600-490: The dominant feature of Bayreuth's cultural landscape. In addition, "Richard Wagner did not want his works interpreted amid the hustle and noise or the distractions of a large city; he sought a place remote from the usual theatrical world where it was so quiet so that the hearers could concentrate their whole attention on the work offered, and could in the pauses refresh themselves in natural surroundings. " In April 1870, Wagner and his wife Cosima visited Bayreuth. On inspection,
6720-408: The ending of allocations to Wagner Societies (but not including the Society of Friends of Bayreuth as they make a substantial financial contribution) and a reduction in the proportion reserved for travel agents and hotels. As a result, the proportion of tickets available to the general public would increase to about 65 percent of the total available. A new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen , or
6840-478: The family home, " Wahnfried ", into which Wagner, with Cosima and the children, moved from their temporary accommodation on 18 April 1874. The theatre was completed in 1875, and the festival was scheduled for the following year. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima: "Each stone is red with my blood and yours." For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of
6960-401: The festival from 1876 to 1901, conducted Tristan und Isolde there in 1886. Until the 1920s, performances were strictly in accordance with the traditions established under King Ludwig's patronage. Not a note was "cut" from any of the enormous scores; no concessions were made to the limits of human patience on the part of the audiences. Cosima Wagner preserved the productions of Parsifal and
7080-453: The festival in its early history. From its inception, the festival has attracted leading conductors and singers, many of whom performed without pay. Among these was Hans Richter , who conducted the premiere of the Ring Cycle in 1876. Another was the talented conductor Hermann Levi , who was personally chosen by Richard Wagner to conduct the debut of Parsifal in 1882 with the assistance of
7200-435: The festival was deferred. To raise funds for the construction, " Wagner societies " were formed in several cities, and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. By the spring of 1873, only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the project on the verge of collapse, the King relented and provided a loan. The full building programme included
7320-454: The festival. Directors have stated that preference will be given to descendants of Richard Wagner, and that a non-descendant would have to be a clearly better candidate. On 1 September 2008, Wolfgang Wagner's daughters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner , were named by Bavaria's culture minister, Thomas Goppel , to take over the Festival. They were to take up their duties immediately, since their father had announced his retirement at
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#17328547342827440-507: The festival. Wagner next considered Nuremberg, which would have reinforced the thematic significance of works such as Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . On the advice of Hans Richter , however, the focus fell upon Bayreuth which enjoyed three distinct advantages. First, the town boasted a splendid venue: the Markgräfliches Opernhaus built for Margrave Frederick and his wife, Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine (sister of Frederick
7560-474: The first evening of the complete Ring cycle; the 1876 Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended. The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter ). At the end, critical reactions ranged between that of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg , who thought the work "divinely composed", and that of
7680-583: The first half of the 16-hour, four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of the Nibelung , also known simply as The Ring ). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures , rich harmonies and orchestration , and the elaborate use of leitmotifs —musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres , greatly influenced
7800-444: The following year. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring , Das Rheingold and Die Walküre , were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870, but Wagner retained his dream, first expressed in "A Communication to My Friends", to present the first complete cycle at a special festival with a new, dedicated, opera house . Minna died of a heart attack on 25 January 1866 in Dresden. Wagner did not attend
7920-416: The funeral. Following Minna's death Cosima wrote to Hans von Bülow several times asking him to grant her a divorce, but Bülow refused to concede this. He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner: another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger , and a son Siegfried , named after the hero of the Ring . The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by
8040-542: The huge orchestras for which Wagner wrote as well as the composer's particular vision about the staging of his works. The Festival has become a pilgrimage destination for Wagnerians and classical-music enthusiasts. The origins of the Festival itself lie rooted in Richard Wagner's interest in establishing his financial independence. A souring of the relationship with his patron, Ludwig II of Bavaria , led to his expulsion from Munich, where he had originally intended to launch
8160-428: The ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house in Munich. Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these include darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience. The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August 1876 with Das Rheingold , at last taking its place as
8280-524: The importance of the orchestra is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role in the later operas includes the use of leitmotifs , musical phrases that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminate the progression of the drama. These operas are still, despite Wagner's reservations, referred to by many writers as "music dramas". Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Abandoned works include
8400-750: The impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire". In 1831, Wagner enrolled at the Leipzig University , where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity . He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig . Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons. He arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major (which
8520-534: The journal Bayreuther Blätter , published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen . Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal , was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism , and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals. Many of these later articles, including "What
8640-467: The last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert-hall piece. Die Feen , Das Liebesverbot , and Rienzi were performed at both Leipzig and Bayreuth in 2013 to mark the composer's bicentenary. Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (German: Bayreuther Festspiele ) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth , Germany, at which performances of stage works by
8760-502: The last of his middle-period operas, before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850. Nevertheless, Wagner was in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any regular income. In 1850, Julie, the wife of his friend Karl Ritter, began to pay him
8880-471: The last time: they parted irrevocably, though Wagner continued to give financial support to her while she lived in Dresden until her death in 1866. In Biebrich, Wagner, at last, began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , his only mature comedy. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in 1845, and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in 1860, where he
9000-527: The masses in order to achieve fame and financial success, rather than creating genuine works of art. In " Opera and Drama " (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen . He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfried's Tod ( Siegfried's Death ), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded
9120-516: The most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, sometimes categorised as " philosophical pessimism ". He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life. One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will. This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that
9240-418: The music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose. Aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti. A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with
9360-490: The name on the ticket, with any not matching being refused admission to the performance. In 2011 it was revealed that the German Bundesrechnungshof (federal audit office) were investigating the situation where, for a publicly subsidised event, only 40 percent of the tickets were actually available to the general public. Early in 2012 it was announced that changes would be made to the allocation system, including
9480-597: The naturalistic and romantic elements of pre-war productions. Thus, when Wieland died prematurely from lung cancer in 1966, many wondered if Bayreuth had a future. They began to question Bayreuth's primacy among German opera houses, and some suggested that more interesting productions were being staged elsewhere. Around this time (1955), in order to broaden its audience, the whole Bayreuth Festival company conducted performances in Paris and Barcelona, performing Parsifal , Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde . In 1973, faced with overwhelming criticism and family infighting,
9600-419: The opera house proved to be inadequate. It was built to accommodate the baroque orchestras of the 18th century and was therefore unsuited for the complex stagings and large orchestras that Wagner's later stage works required. Nonetheless, the burgermeisters proved open to assisting Wagner with the construction of an entirely new theatre, and the Festival was planned to launch in 1873. After a fruitless meeting in
9720-478: The operas he had previously written through Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical " A Communication to My Friends ". This included his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring cycle: I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by
9840-554: The pit unseen during act 3, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi , and led the performance to its conclusion. After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 13 February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi , a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal . The legend that the attack was prompted by an argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in
9960-561: The poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck , the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks, who were both great admirers of his music, in Zürich in 1852. From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest"). During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on
10080-422: The pre-war changes seemed tame. For the first time in its history, the Bayreuth audience booed at the end of productions. Wieland was particularly derided for his 1956 production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . Stripped of its pageantry, conservatives viewed the breaking of this "sacred German tradition" as an outrage. Wieland defended the changes as an attempt to create an "invisible stage" that would allow
10200-441: The second act); but the opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III . It was during this visit that Wagner met the French poet Charles Baudelaire , who wrote an appreciative brochure, " Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris ". The opera was withdrawn after the third performance and Wagner left Paris soon after. He had sought
10320-716: The singer Carrie Pringle , who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence. After a funerary gondola bore Wagner's remains over the Grand Canal, his body was taken to Germany where it was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth. Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects. The first complete scholarly edition of his musical works in print
10440-587: The spring of 1871 with the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to obtain funds, Wagner embarked on a fundraising tour across Germany, including Leipzig and Frankfurt. An initial public subscription proved disappointing until Wagner, at the suggestion of his friend and admirer Emil Heckel, launched a number of Wagner Societies to increase participation in the Festival's subscription. Societies were established in Leipzig, Berlin, Vienna and other places. Despite making direct appeals based on Wagner's role as
10560-423: The story with Der junge Siegfried ( Young Siegfried ), which explored the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre ( The Valkyrie ) and Das Rheingold ( The Rhine Gold ) and revising the other libretti to conform to his new concept, completing them in 1852. The concept of opera expressed in "Opera and Drama" and in other essays effectively renounced all
10680-614: The strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer , it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre ( Hofoper ) in the Kingdom of Saxony , and in 1842 Wagner moved to Dresden. His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his " Autobiographic Sketch " of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris, "For the first time I saw the Rhine —with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland." Rienzi
10800-412: The task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". From 1849 onwards, he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama" (although he later rejected this term), in which all musical, poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the Gesamtkunstwerk . Wagner developed a compositional style in which
10920-695: The theatre in Würzburg . In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen ( The Fairies ). This work, which imitated the style of Weber, went unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883. Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love ), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . This
11040-572: The theatre. The two married in Tragheim Church on 24 November 1836. In May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man, and this was only the first débâcle of a tempestuous marriage. In June 1837, Wagner moved to Riga (then in the Russian Empire ), where he became music director of the local opera; having in this capacity engaged Minna's sister Amalie (also a singer) for the theatre, he presently resumed relations with Minna during 1838. By 1839,
11160-401: The theatre. The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid. Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle was presented complete, for 1873, but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed and the proposed date for
11280-608: The third Ring drama, which he now called simply Siegfried , probably in September 1856, but by June 1857 he had completed only the first two acts. He decided to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde , based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult . One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , notably his The World as Will and Representation , to which Wagner had been introduced in 1854 by his poet friend Georg Herwegh . Wagner later called this
11400-426: The throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich. The King, who was homosexual, expressed in his correspondence a passionate personal adoration for the composer, and Wagner in his responses had no scruples about feigning reciprocal feelings. Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts and proposed to stage Tristan , Die Meistersinger ,
11520-509: The war, the festival was turned over to the Nazi Party, which continued to sponsor performances for wounded soldiers returning from the front. These soldiers were forced to attend lectures on Wagner before the performances, and most found the festival to be tedious. However, as "guests of the Führer", none complained. During the 1970s Winifred Wagner was repeatedly petitioned to install a memorial to
11640-550: The working class by wealthy 19th-century capitalists. The audience reaction was initially split between those who saw the production as an offence and those who considered it the best Ring Cycle ever produced. The ensuing conflict, short only of outright riot, between supporters and detractors was unprecedented in the history of the festival. Later, the performances proved influential for the concept of Regietheater . Other notable directors to have participated in Werkstatt Bayreuth included Jean-Pierre Ponnelle , Sir Peter Hall of
11760-521: The works, Wagner had his own opera house built to his specifications: the Bayreuth Festspielhaus , which featured many innovative design elements intended to immerse the audience in the drama. The premieres of The Ring and Parsifal took place there, and his most important stage works are performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival . The early success of the festival was secured by the efforts of his wife, Cosima Wagner , and has since been maintained by their descendants , attracting audiences from around
11880-452: The world. Wagner's unorthodox operas, essays, and personal dealings engendered considerable controversy during his lifetime, and continue to do so. Declared a "genius" by some and a "disease" by others, his music is widely performed, but his views on religion, politics, and social life are debated—most notably on the extent to which his antisemitism finds expression in his stage and prose works. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of
12000-399: The young Arthur Foote . Artistically, the festival was a success. ("Something has taken place at Bayreuth which our grandchildren and their children will still remember", wrote Tchaikovsky , attending the Festival as a Russian correspondent.) Financially, however, the festival was a disaster and did not begin to make money until several years later. Wagner abandoned his original plan to hold
12120-410: The young Engelbert Humperdinck . Following Wagner's death, his widow Cosima continued running the festival at one or, more frequently, two-year intervals. She gradually introduced the early operas which complete the Bayreuth canon of Wagner's last ten mature works. Levi, the son of a rabbi , remained the festival's principal conductor for the next two decades. Felix Mottl , who was involved with
12240-461: Was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, " music dramas "). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer , Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of
12360-482: Was a political discourse of Wagner's works involving a disenchantment with the Reich that led to a cultural lull of the festival. The declining popularity of the current centralized government created an artistic shift away from Richard Wagner who had preemptively popularized his works amongst the German government in an attempt to gain mass popularity and recognition. This consequently led to a general lack of public interest in
12480-707: Was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal , and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll ) to the publisher Schott . Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views. These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in
12600-614: Was commenced in 1970 under the aegis of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur of Mainz , and is presently under the editorship of Egon Voss . It will consist of 21 volumes (57 books) of music and 10 volumes (13 books) of relevant documents and texts. As at October 2017, three volumes remain to be published. The publisher is Schott Music . Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy. Unlike most opera composers, who generally left
12720-513: Was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as Wagner's Op. 1. A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major , a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833. He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), which he never completed. In 1833, Wagner's brother Albert managed to obtain for him a position as choirmaster at
12840-529: Was determined to set it to music and persuaded his family to allow him music lessons. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven 's 7th Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th Symphony , both at the Gewandhaus . Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote
12960-529: Was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear . Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule , the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor , at the expense of Geyer's brother. At the age of nine he
13080-563: Was falling into a deepening depression . Wagner fell victim to ill health, according to Ernest Newman "largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing. Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zürich was a set of essays. In " The Artwork of the Future " (1849), he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), in which music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts and stagecraft were unified. " Judaism in Music " (1850)
13200-563: Was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber 's opera Der Freischütz , which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (the standard listing of Wagner's works) as WWV 1, was a tragedy called Leubald . Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe . Wagner
13320-462: Was inspired by Titian 's painting The Assumption of the Virgin . Throughout this period (1861–1864) Wagner sought to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna. Despite many rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible" to sing, which added to Wagner's financial problems. Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to
13440-433: Was postponed for a year due to construction and other delays. Since its opening in 1876, the Bayreuth Festival has been a socio-cultural phenomenon. The inauguration took place on 13 August 1876, with a performance of Beethoven 's "Choral" Symphony , which is occasionally programmed during the festival. (It was played at the post-war reopening in 1951, and subsequently in 1953, 1954, 1963, 2001, and had been planned for
13560-426: Was staged at Magdeburg in 1836 but closed before the second performance; this, together with the financial collapse of the theatre company employing him, left the composer in bankruptcy. Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer , and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg , where she helped him to get an engagement at
13680-497: Was staged to considerable acclaim on 20 October. Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. During this period, he staged there Der fliegende Holländer (2 January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19 October 1845), the first two of his three middle-period operas. Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and
13800-596: Was staged. When the Festival House was handed over to the city of Bayreuth in 1946, it was used for concerts of the Bayreuth Symphony Orchestra and the performances of such operas as Beethoven's Fidelio , d'Albert's Tiefland , Puccini's Madama Butterfly , and Verdi's La traviata and talks about reopening of the Wagnerian Festival started. Finally, it reopened on 29 July 1951 with, as always,
13920-498: Was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. In this polemic Wagner asserted—often with vulgar, abusive language—that Jews lived as "outsiders" amid European societies and were disconnected from the national spirit ( Volksgeist ) of these countries, thus capable of producing only shallow and artificial imitations of European art music, despite having achieved technical proficiency in its study. According to Wagner, Jews such as Meyerbeer commercialised music catered to
14040-434: Was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Pätz), the daughter of a baker. Wagner's father Carl died of typhoid fever six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards, his mother Johanna lived with Carl's friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer . In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married, although no documentation of this has been found in
14160-439: Was to turn the festival into an opportunity for directors to experiment with new methods for presenting the stage works. The change came out of necessity, as it was impossible for Wolfgang to both administer and direct the festival. It also provided an opportunity for Bayreuth to renew itself with each production, rather than continue to present the same stage works in the same way, year after year. Ingmar Bergman , who famously made
14280-548: Was undamaged. Following the war, Winifred Wagner was sentenced to probation by a war court for her support of the Nazi Party. The court also banned her from administration of the Bayreuth Festival and its assets, which fell eventually to her two sons, Wolfgang and Wieland . During American occupation of the region after World War II, the theatre was used for army recreation and religious services for American soldiers. Only popular concerts and mixed entertainment were allowed: comedy, dancing, acrobatics, and then only Die Fledermaus
14400-520: Was withdrawn after its first performance. Rienzi (1842) was Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged. The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre , and they have been performed only rarely in
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