We did the walk from our hotel to the Wagner House but missed turning down "Richard Wagner Weg". We ended up going a little further down the lake before turning towards the shoreline which meant we approached the house from below. The large 2 story home sits high on a bluff and the grounds in front of the house, the area between the house and the lake, offers a sweeping vista of the lake from the house.
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| I'm not sure how we missed this sign while walking |
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| The Richard Wagner House in Tribschen, Lucerne overlooking Lake Lucerne |
Once inside we met an English speaking Lady, Susan, from Australia working at the front desk.
Susan was chatty and gave us an intro to Wagner's life, mistresses and the time spent in this house.
It was fun talking with her about her life and her move to Switzerland. I learned a few details about Wagner such as he was a short guy who always arranged pictures of himself with Cosima so that he was standing while she was seated. This is obvious in many of the paintings and photographs throughout the house.
After the chat with Susan we proceeded to walk through the rooms of the house looking at memorabilia.
Wagner's music was softly playing in the rooms of the house, setting the mood for this important museum in the Opera world.
In the foyer of the home is this 1882 pencil sketch of Wagner. The surprise to me was the artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The museum has various memorabilia of Richard and Cosima Wagner including jewelry, clothes, documents, photos and other mementos. One of the treasures is this original score for his Opera "Die Meistersinger". We recently saw this Opera in a Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcast to movie theaters. It was special to be in the home where this opera was written and to actually see the original score complete with notes to Cosima who did the editing for her husband.
It was fun talking with her about her life and her move to Switzerland. I learned a few details about Wagner such as he was a short guy who always arranged pictures of himself with Cosima so that he was standing while she was seated. This is obvious in many of the paintings and photographs throughout the house.
After the chat with Susan we proceeded to walk through the rooms of the house looking at memorabilia.
Wagner's music was softly playing in the rooms of the house, setting the mood for this important museum in the Opera world.
In the foyer of the home is this 1882 pencil sketch of Wagner. The surprise to me was the artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
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| Wagner portrait by Renoir |
The museum has various memorabilia of Richard and Cosima Wagner including jewelry, clothes, documents, photos and other mementos. One of the treasures is this original score for his Opera "Die Meistersinger". We recently saw this Opera in a Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcast to movie theaters. It was special to be in the home where this opera was written and to actually see the original score complete with notes to Cosima who did the editing for her husband.
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| Original Die Meistersinger score in glass case |
One of the rooms in the house overlooking the Lake contains Wagner's original piano. A pan around the room reveals other memorabilia and the glass case containing these items.
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| Wagner's Piano |
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| Pan view of Lakefront room |
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| Pan of Lakefront room with memorabilia display cases, photos, furniture |
On one wall in the house I found this Wagner family tree. I like the style they used for displaying this genealogical tree.
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| Wagner Family Tree |
Looking back as we left the Wagner House we can see the only entrance to the hotel . When Wagner wrote the Sigfried Idyll he had it performed on the steps of the villa for Cosima as a birthday present. I suspect these steps in this picture are more functional than the original steps and were probably not the steps where Sigfried Idyll was performed but they may be the ones!!! This is my parting Wagner mystery.
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| Wagner House sole entrance |
