Richard Wagner: New Light on a Musical Life

229 Pages·2013·5.275 MB·English

by  John Louis DiGaetani

Richard Wagner
ALSOBYOREDITEDBYJOHNLOUISDIGAETANI
ANDFROMMCFARLAND
Wagner Outside the Ring: Essays on the Operas, Their
Performance and Their Connections with Other Arts(2009)
Stages of Struggle: Modern Playwrights
and Their Psychological Inspirations(2008)
Inside the Ring: Essays on Wagner’s Opera Cycle (2006)
Wagner and Suicide (2003)
Carlo Gozzi: A Life in the 18th Century
Venetian Theater, an Afterlife in Opera(2000)
Richard Wagner
New Light on a Musical Life
JOHN LOUIS DIGAETANI
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
DiGaetani, John Louis, 1943–, author.
Richard Wagner : new light on a
musical life / John Louis DiGaetani.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4544-8
♾
softcover : acid free paper
1. Wagner, Richard, 1813–1883.
2. Composers—Germany—Biography. I. Title.
ML410.W1D56 2014 782.1092—dc23 [B] 2013039869
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2014 John Louis DiGaetani. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Richard Wagner and King Ludwig II, color lithograph
by Michael Mathias Prechtl (courtesy of the Stadtmuseum Amberg)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To my sister
Annette
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1. A Child of War: 1813–1821 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2. The Child as Victim: 1821–1830 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3. Student in Leipzig: 1823–1833 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4. Minna and Magdeburg: 1833–1840 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5. Russia, England and Paris (First Sojourn): 1837–1842 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
6. Kapellmeister in Dresden—Premieres of Rienzi,The Flying Dutchman
and Tannhäuser: 1840–1849 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7. Revolution in Dresden: 1848–1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
8. Wagner and Liszt—The Premiere of Lohengrin: 1849–1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
9. Refuge in Zurich—The Development of Big Plans: 1850–1857 . . . . . . . . . 90
10. The Idea of the Ring: Italy: 1857–1858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
11. The Wesendoncks: 1858–1859 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
12. Venice, Switzerland and Paris: 1859–1861 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
13. Paris and Tannhäuser: 1860–1861 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
14. Vienna, Russia and Matrimonial Crisis: 1861–1864 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
15. The Rescue by King Ludwig II of Bavaria: 1864–1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
16. Tristan in Munich: 1864–1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
17. The Triangle in Triebschen: 1865–1870 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
18. Meistersinger Premiere in Munich: 1868–1871 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
vii
Table of Contents
19. Hans, Cosima and King Ludwig: 1870–1874 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
20. The Idea of Bayreuth—The Premiere of the Ring: 1873–1876 . . . . . . . . . 175
21. Wagner and Nietzsche: 1876–1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
22. Parsifal: 1881–1882 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
23. Death in Venice: 1883 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Conclusion: A Life of Extremes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
viii
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Hofstra University for granting me a sab-
batical and travel funds to work on this book.
I would also like to thank the Richard Wagner Museum at
Bayreuth and the Geheimnis (Secret) Archive of the Bavarian State
Library for help in researching this book. The New York Public Library
kindly provided illustrations for this book.
Finally, I would like to thank Elayne Horn and Maribeth Bobeck
for their encouragement.
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