3. Wagner was different
from most other
musicians of his time due
to his talents as a
composer, a conductor, a
music theorist, and an
essayist.
4. A life changing moment:
“I only remember that one
evening I heard a symphony of
Beethoven’s for the first time,
and it set me in a fever, and on
my recovery, I had become a
musician.”
5. Wagner became involved in politics when a
nationalist movement was gaining force in the
independent German States, calling for
constitutional freedoms and the unification of the
weak princely states into a single nation. Wagner
played an enthusiastic role in this movement,
receiving guests at his house that included the
editor of the radical left-wing paper and a Russian
anarchist. Widespread discontent against the Saxon
government came to a head in April 1849, when
King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony dissolved
Parliament and rejected a new constitution pressed
upon him by the people. The May Uprising broke
out, and the revolution was quickly crushed.
6. Warrants were issued for the arrest of
the revolutionaries. Wagner had to flee,
first to Paris and then to Zürich.
Wagner spent the next twelve years in
exile. He had completed Lohengrin
before the Dresden uprising, and now
wrote desperately to his friend Franz
Liszt to have it staged in his absence.
Liszt, who proved to be a friend in need,
eventually conducted the premiere in
Weimar in August 1850.
7. The "Bridal Chorus" from the opera
Lohengrin, by Wagner, is the standard
march played for the bride's entrance at
most formal weddings in the US and at
many weddings throughout the Western
world. In English-speaking countries it is
generally known as the "Wedding March"
(though actually "wedding march" refers to
any song accompanying the entrance or
exit of the bride, most often Felix
Mendelssohn's "Wedding March") or "Here
Comes the Bride".
8. Der Ring des Nibelungen:
The cycle is modeled after
ancient Greek dramas that
were presented as three
tragedies and one satyr play.
9. The plot revolves around a
magic ring that grants the
power to rule the world,
forged by the Nibelung
dwarf, Alberich from gold
stolen from the river Rhine.
Several mythic figures
struggle for possession of
the Ring
10. Der Ring des Nibelungen:
Both the libretto and
the music were written
by Richard Wagner
over the course of
twenty-six years.
11. Wagner was inspired by the poet-writer Mathilde
Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto von
Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks in
Zürich in 1852. Otto, a fan of Wagner's music, placed
a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal. By
1857, Wagner had become infatuated with Mathilde.
Though Mathilde seems to have returned some of his
affections, she had no intention of jeopardising her
marriage, and kept her husband informed of her
contacts with Wagner. Nevertheless, the affair
inspired Wagner to put aside his work on the Ring
cycle (which would not be resumed for the next
twelve years) and begin work on Tristan und Isolde,
based on the Arthurian love story of the knight
Tristan and the (already-married) Lady Isolde.
13. Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in
1864, when King Ludwig II assumed the
throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young
king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas
since childhood, had the composer brought
to Munich. He settled Wagner's considerable
debts, and made plans to have his new opera
produced. After grave difficulties in
rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered to
enormous success at the National Theatre in
Munich in 1865.
14. In the meantime, Wagner became embroiled in
another affair, this time with Cosima von Bülow, the
wife of the conductor Hans von,, one of Wagner's most
ardent supporters and the conductor of the Tristan
premiere. Cosima was the illegitimate daughter of
Franz Liszt and 24 years younger than Wagner. Liszt
disapproved of his daughter seeing Wagner, though
the two men were friends. In April 1865, she gave
birth to Wagner's illegitimate daughter, who was
named Isolde. Their indiscreet affair scandalized
Munich, and to make matters worse, Wagner fell into
disfavor amongst members of 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 in order to follow his hero into exile, but
Wagner quickly dissuaded him.
15. Ludwig installed Wagner at a villa beside
Switzerland's Lake Lucerne. Die Meistersinger
was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and
premiered in Munich the following year. In
October, Cosima finally convinced Hans von
Bülow to grant her a divorce. Richard and
Cosima were married in 1870. (Liszt would not
speak to his new son-in-law for years to come.)
On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner
presented the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's
birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the
end of Wagner's life. They had another
daughter, named Eva, and a son named
Siegfried.
16. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
(The Mastersingers of
Nuremberg) is an opera in three
acts, written and composed by
Richard Wagner. It is one of the
most popular operas in the
repertory, and the longest still
commonly performed today,
usually taking around five hours.
17. The story takes place in Nuremberg
during the middle of the 16th century.
The story revolves around the real-life
guild of Meistersinger (Master Singers),
an association of amateur poets and
musicians, mostly from the middle class
and often master craftsmen in their main
professions. The Meistersingers
developed a craftsman like approach to
music-making, with an intricate system
of rules for composing and performing
songs.
18. The Flying Dutchman (German title: Der fliegende Holländer), is an
opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner. Wagner originally
wrote it to be performed without intermission — an example of his
efforts to break with tradition — and, while today's opera houses
sometimes still follow this directive, it is most often performed in three
acts. The central theme is redemption through love, which Wagner
returns to in most of his subsequent operas.
This work marks the first major shift in Wagner's work away from
conventional opera and towards music drama. That is, rather than
relying on a series of individual songs with clear boundaries, he created
an uninterrupted melody filled with leitmotifs (literally, "leading motifs")
associated with the characters and themes. The leitmotifs are all
introduced in the overture, which begins with a well-known ocean or
storm motif before moving into the Dutchman motifs.
The story comes from the legend of the Flying Dutchman, about a ship
captain condemned to sail until Judgement Day. Wagner claimed in Mein
Leben that the inspiration was partly autobiographical, arising during his
stormy sea crossing in July and August 1839, but a more likely source is
Heinrich Heine's retelling in his Aus den Memoiren des Herren von
Schnabelewopski.
19. Parsifal is Wagner’s final opera. It is loosely
based on Eschenbach’s Parzival, the
medieval (13th century) epic poem of the
Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his
quest for The Holy Grail. In Wagner's opera
the hero Parsifal recovers the spear used to
pierce Christ during his crucifixion. Wagner
first conceived the work in 1857, but it was
not completed until twenty-five years later.
Wagner preferred to describe Parsifal not as
an opera, but as "ein Bühnenweihfestspiel" -
"A Festival Play for the Consecration of the
Stage".
