Rieterpark

Last updated
Rieterpark Rieterpark.jpg
Rieterpark

The Rieterpark is a park in central Zurich, Switzerland. Richard Wagner lived at Villa Wesendonck in Reiterpark from 1849 to 1858 where he worked on Tristan. [1]

Contents

History

In the 19th century it was bought by the German merchant Otto Wesendonck in an independent municipality near Zurich. Through the well-known architect Leonhard Zeugheer, he established the Villa Wesendonck and hired the gardener Theodor Froebel to design the extensive park and gardens.

As a great patron of the arts, the Wesendoncks granted the house to Richard Wagner in 1849. Wagner had an affair there with Mathilde Wesendonck and finished in 1858 when he fled from Zurich. [2] In 1871, the Wesendoncks eventually sold the mansion to the industrialist Rieter family along with the park grounds. [2] After the death of Adolf Rieter Rotpletz in 1882, he left it to his son Fritz Rieter. Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli was hired to develop part of the property. In 1912, the German Emperor William II stayed several days at the villa as a guest. In 1887 Fritz Rieter further extended the property, with farm buildings and an orangery created by Adolf Brunner.

In 1945, after a referendum on the matter, the city of Zurich bought a 68,000 m2 large area of Rieterpark and Villa Wesendonck for 2.9 million francs from the Rieter family. Through a popular decision in 1949, the Villa Wesendonck was renovated and became a museum for non-European culture. Baron Eduard von der Heydt of the City of Zurich, donated and led to the establishment of the Rietberg Museum in 1952. [2] This was extended in 2007.

The park has a notable pond and fountain and is used for classical concerts and theater.

On 26 December 1999 parts of the park were severely damaged by Cyclone Lothar.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Wagner</span> German composer (1813–1883)

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. 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 the Gesamtkunstwerk, by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.

<i>Tristan und Isolde</i> Opera by Richard Wagner

Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "eine Handlung".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Loos</span> Austrian and Czechoslovak architect and theorist of modern architecture

Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was inspired by modernism and a widely-known critic of the Art Nouveau movement. His controversial views and literary contributions sparked the establishment of the Vienna Secession movement and postmodernism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfried Semper</span> German architect and theorist (1803–1879)

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. He fled first to Zürich and later to London. He returned to Germany after the 1862 amnesty granted to the revolutionaries.

<i>Wesendonck Lieder</i>

Wesendonck Lieder, WWV 91, is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano by Richard Wagner, Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme. He set five poems by Mathilde Wesendonck while he was working on his opera Tristan und Isolde. The songs, together with the Siegfried Idyll, are the two non-operatic works by Wagner most regularly performed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathilde Wesendonck</span> German poet

Agnes Mathilde Wesendonck was a German poet and author. The words of five of her verses were the basis of Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder; the composer was infatuated with her, and his wife Minna blamed Mathilde for the break-up of their marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nina Stemme</span> Swedish opera singer

Nina Maria Stemme is a Swedish dramatic soprano opera singer.

<i>Wagner</i> (film) 1983 British television miniseries

Wagner is a 1983 television miniseries on the life of Richard Wagner with Richard Burton in the title role. It was directed by Tony Palmer and written by Charles Wood. The film was later released on DVD as a ten-part miniseries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Merian</span>

The Villa Merian, with its English Garden, stands on the elevated plain above Brüglingen in Münchenstein, in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minna Planer</span>

Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer was a German actress and the first wife of composer Richard Wagner, to whom she was married for 30 years, although for the last 10 years they often lived apart. At an early age, she had an illegitimate daughter with a Royal Saxon Army officer, whom she raised as her sister. After a stormy courtship, which involved infidelities on both sides, she married Richard Wagner in 1836.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rietberg Museum</span> Art museum in Zürich, Switzerland

The Rietberg Museum is a museum in Zürich, Switzerland, displaying Asian, African, American and Oceanian art. It is the only art museum focusing on non-European art and design in Switzerland, the third-largest museum in Zürich, and the largest to be run by the city itself. In 2007, it received approximately 157,000 visitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zürichhorn</span>

Zürichhorn is a river delta on Zürichsee's eastern shore in the lower basin of the lake. The area is part of the parks and quays in the Seefeld quarter of the city of Zürich in Switzerland. The gardens are one of the most popular recreational areas within the city of Zürich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavillon Le Corbusier</span> Art and biographical museum dedicated to the work of Le Corbusier in Zürichhorn, Switzerland

The Pavillon Le Corbusier is a Swiss art museum in Zürich-Seefeld at Zürichhorn dedicated to the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. In 1960 Heidi Weber had the vision to establish a museum designed by Le Corbusier – this building should exhibit his works of art in an ideal environment created by the architect himself in the then Centre Le Corbusier or Heidi Weber Museum. In April 2014 the building and museum went over to the city of Zürich, and was renamed in May 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zürich</span> City in Switzerland

Zürich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2023 the municipality had 443,037 inhabitants, the urban area 1.315 million (2009), and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million (2011). Zürich is a hub for railways, roads, and air traffic. Both Zurich Airport and Zürich's main railway station are the largest and busiest in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Belvoir</span> Mansion and park in Enge, Switzerland

The Villa Belvoir respectively the Belvoirpark is a Cultural Heritage in Zürich-Enge that comprises the mansion built between 1828 and 1831, and one of the largest public parks and arboreta in the city of Zürich in Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arboretum Zürich</span> Park and arboretum in Switzerland

The Arboretum is a botanical garden, public park and arboretum in Switzerland. The garden is part of the so-called Quaianlagen, a series of lakefronts in Zürich. The area also houses a lido, a public bath with a lake sauna, and the Voliere Zürich including the Vogelpflegestation, a unique sanatorium for birds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quaianlagen (Zürich)</span>

Quaianalagen or Seeuferanlagen on Lake Zürich is a series of lakefronts in Zürich. Inaugurated in 1887, the quaysides are considered an important milestone in the development of Zürich. The construction of the lake fronts transformed the medieval small town on the rivers Limmat and Sihl to a modern city on the Lake Zürich shore. The project was managed by engineer Arnold Bürkli.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sukkulenten-Sammlung Zürich</span> Garden od succulent plants in Zurich (Switzerland)

Sukkulenten-Sammlung Zürich, literally succulent plant collection of the city of Zürich, is a botanical garden in the Swiss municipality of Zürich. It also houses a botanic library, a herbarium and the International Organizations for Succulent Plant Research (IOS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Villa Tobler</span> Theater, mansion and park in Canton of Zürich, Switzerland

Villa Tober, also known as the Theater an der Winkelwiese, is a protected building in Zürich-Hottingen that comprises the mansion built in 1853, and a public park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Wagner Museum, Lucerne</span>

The Richard Wagner Museum is a cultural site in Lucerne, Switzerland, situated on the shore of Lake Lucerne in the district of Tribschen. The composer Richard Wagner lived here from 1866 to 1872; in 1933 it was opened as a museum.

References

  1. Millington (undated a)
  2. 1 2 3 Stadt Zuerich

47°21′28″N8°31′50″E / 47.3579°N 8.5305°E / 47.3579; 8.5305