Wahnfried was the name given by Richard Wagner to his villa in Bayreuth.[1] The name is a German compound of Wahn (delusion, madness) and Fried(e) (peace, freedom).
Financed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the house was constructed from 1872 to 1874 under Bayreuth Carl Wölfel's supervision after plans from Berlin architect Wilhelm Neumann, the plans being altered according to some ideas of Wagner. He and his family moved in on 28 April 1874,[2] while the house was still under construction. Engraved across the portal is Wagner's motto: Hier wo mein Wähnen Frieden fand – Wahnfried – sei dieses Haus von mir benannt ("Here where my delusions have found peace, let this place be named Wahnfried"), which initially caused some amusement among local townsfolk.[3]
Wagner did not spend the closing days of his life at Wahnfried, leaving Bayreuth on 6 September 1882 for the sixth and final time for Venice, where he resided until his death 13 February 1883 at the Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi. Wagner's body was repatriated to Wahnfried in a public procession through Bayreuth on 18 February,[4] and his grave lies next to that of his wife, Cosima on its grounds.
Leading up to and during World War II, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and Wahnfried were frequently visited by Adolf Hitler,[5][6] himself an avid admirer of Wagner, but in 1945 the living room with its rotunda and the guest room located on the side and rear of the house were destroyed by allied bombing, along with two-thirds of the rest of Bayreuth. Books, paintings and archives had been secured beforehand in the basement of the Winifred Wagner Hospital, however a Gestapo official stopped Winifred from removing historic furnishings such as Wagner's writing desk, accusing her of "defeatism". As a result, these were later destroyed in the bombing.[7][8]
From 1949, after expropriation was lifted on the Festspielhaus, Richard Wagner's grandson Wieland Wagner, with his wife and their four children, returned to live in the habitable part of the hastily repaired Wahnfried, while Winifred lived at her late husband, Siegfried Wagner's house next door. Upon Wieland's death in 1966, Wahnfried ceased to be a dwelling, after Wieland's brother, Wolfgang Wagner, had the house measured and asked his widow, Gertrud (née Reissinger), to pay rent,[9] thereby forcing her to move out with her children. From 1953, Wolfgang had been settled in a house built on the edge of the Festpielhaus, with Winifred remaining in Siegfried's house until her death in 1980.
In 1973, Wolfgang and Winifred gifted Wahnfried to the city of Bayreuth. Over the next three years, the war- and weather-damaged parts of the house were restored to their original state with the recreation of the rotunda, salon and guest room, so that the official inauguration of the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth was able to go ahead as planned on July 24, 1976.
The house was closed again in 2010 for extensive restoration and renovation at a cost of 20 million Euros. On 26 July 2015, there was a grand re-opening of the villa, with archive rooms and a new pavilion.[10][11][12]
Along with the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Wahnfried has become a shrine for admirers of Wagner. Visitors can take a walk in the remote Hofgarten, the baroque park of Bayreuth's New Castle, to where a path directly leads.
Gallery
The Wagner Family and friends in front of Villa Wahnfried in 1881. Above, from left to right: Blandine von Bülow, Heinrich von Stein (Siegfried's teacher), Cosima & Richard Wagner, Paul von Joukowsky (family friend); below, from l to r: Isolde, Daniela von Bülow, Eva and Siegfried.
Wagner's Steinway grand piano in the Wahnfried drawing room. (2005)
Grave of Richard Wagner
The Cosima Wagner grave in the Wahnfried garden.
Back side of Haus Wahnfried during renovation early 2014
Bayreuth, Haus Wahnfried, Siegfriedhaus
Wagner's library at Wahnfried
Restored lobby, showing the combined "composition piano" and writing desk specially made by Bechstein for Wagner, with a large music stand and space for papers
↑ Kiesel, Markus; Mildner, Joachim (2016). Wahnfried, Das Haus von Richard Wagner[Wahnfried, the Home of Richard Wagner] (in German). Regensburg: ConBrio Verlagsgesellshaft. ISBN978-3-940768-59-9.
↑ Wagner, Cosima (1978). "Entry for Apr. 28, 1874". Cosima Wagner's Diaries. Vol.I (1869-1877). Glasgow: William Collins. ISBN0-00-216130-3.
↑ Watson, Derek (1979). "Chapter 12: The Master of Bayreuth". Richard Wagner, A Biography. London: J. M. Dent. ISBN0-460-03166-X.
↑ Watson, Derek (1979). "Chapter 14: Art and Religion". Richard Wagner, A Biography. London: J. M. Dent. ISBN0-460-03166-X.
↑ Spotts, Frederic (1994). "Chapter 6: All that lives and soon must die". Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN0-300-05777-6.
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.
Bayreuth is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of Upper Franconia and has a population of 72,148 (2015). It hosts the annual Bayreuth Festival, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented.
Winifred Marjorie Wagner was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the Bayreuth Festival after her husband's death in 1930 until the end of World War II in 1945. She was a friend and supporter of Adolf Hitler, himself a Wagner enthusiast, and she and Hitler maintained a regular correspondence.
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of stage works by 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.
Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner, and with him founded the Bayreuth Festival as a showcase for his stage works; after his death she devoted the rest of her life to the promotion of his music and philosophy. Commentators have recognised Cosima as the principal inspiration for Wagner's later works, particularly Parsifal.
Siegfried Helferich Richard Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.
The Bayreuth Circle was a name originally applied by some writers to devotees of Richard Wagner's music who attended and supported the annual Bayreuth Festival in the later 19th and early twentieth centuries. As some of these devotees espoused nationalistic German politics, and some of them were supporters of Adolf Hitler from the 1920s onwards, this group of people has been associated by some writers with the rise of Nazism.
Wolfgang Wagner was a German opera director. He is best known as the director (Festspielleiter) of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's death in 1966. From then on, he assumed total control until he retired in 2008, although many of the productions which he commissioned were severely criticized in their day. He had been plagued by family conflicts and criticism for many years. He was the son of Siegfried Wagner and he was the great-grandson of Franz Liszt.
Wieland Wagner was a German opera director, and grandson of Richard Wagner. As co-director of the Bayreuth Festival when it re-opened after World War II, he was noted for innovative new stagings of the operas, departing from the naturalistic scenery and lighting of the originals.
Karl Eduard Maria Elmendorff was a German opera conductor.
Friedelind Wagner was the elder daughter of German opera composer Siegfried Wagner and his English wife Winifred Williams and the granddaughter of the composer Richard Wagner. She was also the great-granddaughter of the composer Franz Liszt.
The family of the composer Richard Wagner:
Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann was a leading German operatic heldentenor especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. He gave important premieres in France, Germany, England and the United States, and played Siegmund in the first complete production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Verena Wagner Lafferentz was the fourth child and younger daughter of Winifred and Siegfried Wagner, and the youngest granddaughter of German composer Richard Wagner. She was also a great-granddaughter of the composer Franz Liszt.
The Richard Wagner Foundation was formed in 1973, when, faced with overwhelming criticism and infighting amongst the descendants of Richard Wagner, the Bayreuth Festival and its assets were transferred to the newly created Foundation. The board of directors included members of the Wagner family and others appointed by the state.
Eva Maria Chamberlain was the daughter of Richard Wagner and Cosima Wagner, and the wife of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. When she was born, her mother was still married to Hans von Bülow. Through her mother, she was also a granddaughter of Franz Liszt. With her siblings Isolde and Siegfried, Eva was brought up by a house teacher.
Isolde Josefa Ludovika Beidler was the first child of the composer Richard Wagner and his wife, who is generally known as Cosima Wagner.
Emil Preetorius was a German illustrator and graphic artist. He is considered one of the most important stage designers of the first half of the 20th century.
The Bayreuth premiere cast of Parsifal lists the contributors to the new productions of Richard Wagner's inaugural stage play Parsifal, including the premiere, which took place on 26 July 1882 at the Bayreuth Festival.
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.
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