23. Grand Opera

Neuschwanstein

In 1848, Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883) adapted the tale into his popular opera Lohengrin—based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s thirteenth-century Grail epic Parzifal—which probably the work through which the story of the Knight of the Swan is best known today.[1] Wagner could claim descent from the Swan Knight himself, as, according to Wagner’s son-in-law, Houston-Stewart Chamberlain (1855 – 1927), Wagner’s mother, Johanna Rosine, was a former mistress of Prince Frederick Ferdinand Constantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, as has often been reported, but his illegitimate daughter.[2] Prince Frederick was the brother of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, sponsor of Weimar Classicism, and like his brother, a member of the Illuminati.[3] Wagner’s closest friends were associated with the Asiatic Brethren, the Frankfurt Judenlodge, and the Hamburg Temple, from the network that surrounded Moses Mendelssohn. Nevertheless, while Mendelssohn worked towards the emancipation of the Jews, he was also highly admired by the central figures of German Romantic movement tied with Weimar Classicism, from which Pan-German nationalism was born, and of which Wagner was one of the most important exponents.

Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, the brother of Karl August’s mother, Duchess Anna Amalia, was a friend of Israel Jacobson, the founder of the Hamburg Temple.[4] Michael Bernays (1834 – 1897), the son of Isaac Bernays, the Hakham of the Hamburg Temple, was baptized and achieved the position of Professor of German at the University of Munich and Lerh-Konsul to King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845 – 1886), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, built the famous castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, inspired by Wagner’s operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, about the tale of the Knight of the Swan and the Sängerkrieg that took place at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach. Michael’s conversion, as noted David Bakan, was typical of a pattern associated with Sabbateanism.[5]

The Castle of Neuschwanstein is located in the Swabia region of Bavaria, in the municipality of Schwangau—literally translated the Swan District—above the village of Hohenschwangau, which is also the location of Hohenschwangau Castle. A fortress Schwangau was first mentioned in historical records dating from the twelfth century. The von Schwangau family was a family of ministerials in the Welfs and had their seat on the site of today’s Neuschwanstein Castle. Margareta von Schwangau was the wife of minnesinger Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376 or 1377 – 1445), who was inducted as a high-ranking member of the Order of the Dragon by Emperor Sigismund in 1431.[6] The coat of arms of the municipality is based on the one shown in the Codex Manesse as that of the minnesinger Hiltbolt von Schwangau (before 1221– c. 1254).

The castle was purchased in Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria (1573 – 1651), the son of William V, Duke of Bavaria (1548 – 1626) and Renata of Lorraine, the daughter of Francis I, Duke of Lorraine (1517 –  1545), grandson of Rene II of Lorraine, Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys, himself the grandson of René of Anjou, founder of the order and Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Maximilian I’s first cousin was Christina of Lorraine, a patron of Galileo, and the wife of Cardinal Ferdinando I de Medici, a sponsor of Caravaggio. Maximilian I’s portrait was painted by Hans von Aachen (1552 – 1615), wearing the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece and gesturing the secret hand-sign of the Marranos.[7] Aachen’s eroticized pagan scenes were particularly enjoyed by his principal patron, Emperor Rudolf II, who maintained an occult oriented-court that attracted John Dee.[8] Maximilian I’s sister, Maria Anna of Bavaria, was the wife of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Maximilian I’s married her daughter, and his niece, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria. In the Thirty Years’ War, Maximilian I was able to conquer the Upper Palatinate region, as well as the Electoral Palatinate affiliated with the electoral privilege of his cousin, Frederick V of the Alchemical Wedding.

Ludwig II was descended from Maximilian I’s sister, Magdalene of Bavaria, who married Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuburg (1578 – 1653), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Wolfgang was the son of Anna of Cleves, from a family who claimed descent from the Knight Swan, and Philipp Ludwig, Count Palatine of Neuburg (1547 – 1614), the grandson of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse and Christine of Saxony. Christine was the daughter of George, Duke of Saxony, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Barbara Jagiellon, who was named after her great-grandmother, Barbara of Cilli, who co-founded the Order of the Dragon with her husband Emperor Sigismund. Barbara was the Sister of Sigismund I the Old, who created the Duchy of Prussia in a deal brokered by Martin Luther. Sigismund I’s daughter Anna Jagiellon married Stephen Bathory, sponsor of John Dee and uncle of Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess.” The court of Wolfgang’s nephew, Christian Augustus, Count Palatine of Sulzbach, included the Kabbalists Knorr von Rosenroth and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont.[9] Christian August’s grandson, Count Palatine Joseph Charles of Sulzbach (1694 – 1729), married Wolfgang’s great-granddaughter, Countess Palatine Elisabeth Auguste Sofie of Neuburg.

Their grandson, and Ludwig II’s great-grandfather, was Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (1756 – 1825), prince-elector of Bavaria from 1799 to 1806, then King of Bavaria from 1806 to 1825. Maximilian I’s private secretary was Maximilian von Montgelas, who came into conflict with Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, after he was exposed as a member of the Illuminati. Charles Theodore, who had issued a ban against the order in 1784, was married to Maximilian I Joseph’s aunt, Countess Palatine Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach. Maximilian I Joseph continued the relationship with Montgelas and appointed him to the government council in 1795, Privy Council in 1796, and Prime Minister of Bavaria in 1799. Montgelas was also appointed Foreign Secretary, a Minister of the Interior and a Minister of Finance. Between 1799 and 1817, Montgelas achieved almost absolute political power. During this time, “all the monasteries were secularised, the monastic orders were eliminated and a secular educational system with comprehensive attendance requirements for the whole population was established.”[10] Historians have labeled him the “creator of modern Bavaria.”[11] Until 1813, Maximilian I Joseph was the most faithful of Napoleon’s German allies, and cemented the relationship by the marriage of his eldest daughter to his stepson with Josephine, Eugène de Beauharnais (1781 – 1824), the military commander who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was probably the savior of the career of Wagner, who had a notorious reputation as a philanderer, and was constantly on the run from creditors. Like his father, Maximilian II (1811 – 1864), and his grandfather, Ludwig I (1786 – 1868), the son of Maximilian I Joseph, Ludwig II was also a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. An admirer of ancient Greece and the Italian Renaissance, Ludwig I patronized the arts and commissioned several neoclassical buildings, especially in Munich. Ludwig I was King of Bavaria from 1825 until the Revolutions of 1848, after which he abdicated in favor of his eldest son, Maximilian II. As crown prince, in the castle of Hohenschwangau near Füssen, which he had rebuilt, he gathered around him a circle of artists and intellectuals, and devoted his time to scientific and historical studies.[12] Maximilian II’s Personal Private Secretary was Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810 – 1886), whose work collecting the folklore and traditions of the people of the Upper Palatinate won him the admiration of the Brothers Grimm and made him a model for other collectors of folklore.[13] By his wife, Maria of Prussia, daughter of Prince William of Prussia, a younger brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Maximilian II had two sons, Ludgwig II and Otto, King of Bavaria (1848 – 1916), who were both judge to suffer from mental illness.

Richard Wagner

Wagner was born in 1813 in Leipzig’s Jewish quarter, as the ninth child of Freemason Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner and his wife Johanna.[14] He was baptized at St. Thomas Church. Richard was influence by his uncle, Ludwig Wagner, who studied with Fichte and Schelling, but his philosophical outlook was mostly shaped by Hegel.[15] Wagner’s father died just six months later. After the death of his father, Wagner’s brother Julius was temporarily placed in a Dresden Masonic educational institute. Five months later, his mother married the Jewish actor, singer, poet and painter Ludwig Geyer (1779 – 1821), a member of the Masonic lodge Ferdinand zur Glückseligkeit in Magdeburg. In 1938 Henri Malherbe’s authoritative French study proved beyond doubt that Geyer was Wagner’s real father.[16] Wagner later described his stepfather as his real spiritual father. But he too died in 1821, leaving Wagner fatherless again at the age of eight. He and his mother lived in the immediate vicinity of the Old Theater, which brought the young Wagner into contact with the theater and theater people at an early age.

Three of Wagner’s older sisters, who would later support their younger brother financially for a time, embarked on stage careers as actresses and singers. His sister Rosalie’s husband, Prof. Oswald Marbach (1810 – 1890), became a Freemason in 1844 and was Grand Master of the lodge Balduin zur Linde in Leipzig for thirty years.[17] In 1836, Wagner married the actress Minna Planer. After living in Königsberg and Riga, the couple fled from creditors in an adventurous on a sailing ship via London to Paris. In Paris, Wagner continued work on his first opera Rienzi. In Paris, Wagner also made the acquaintance of Heinrich Heine, from whom he took material for the Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser. He also met Franz Liszt, who was accepted into the Frankfurt Masonic lodge Zur Einigkeit in 1841 and promoted and elevated in the Berlin Illuminati lodge, Zur Eintracht.[18]

Geyer sometimes performed under the direction of Carl Maria von Weber (1786 – 1826).[19] Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, as a tutor for her son Grand Duke Karl August, hired Illuminatus Christoph Martin Wieland, who is best-remembered for having written the Geschichte des Agathon, first Bildungsroman, as well as the epic Oberon, which formed the basis for the opera of the same name by Weber. Weber’s operas had a major impact on subsequent German composers including, Wagner and his friend, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864), and his compositions for piano influenced Felix Mendelssohn, Liszt and the Frankist Chopin.[20] Meyerbeer, who with Felix was a student of Goethe’s friend, Karl Friedrich Zelter, was described as “the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner.”[21]

Meyerbeer’ father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer, a leader of the Berlin Jewish community, and a supporter of Samuel Jacobson, founder of the Hamburg Temple.[22] Meyerbeer’s mother, Amalie Beer, achieved fame with her literary salon at Tiergartenstraße, which was occasionally honored by the presence of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1783 – 1851), the son of Golden and Rosy Cross member Frederick William II.[23] Jacobson and Beer would often invite well-known Christian composers to write music for their services such as Zelter and Meyerbeer’s teacher Weber. Like Jacobson and his father, Giacomo was also member of the Gesellschaft der Freunde. Meyerbeer’s 1815 Hallelujah Cantatine was written expressly for Jacobson’s New Reform Temple in Berlin.[24]

Meyerbeer was also in close contact with Beethoven as he played timpani at the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in December 1813. Earlier that year, Meyerbeer was appointed Court Composer by Karl August’s brother-in-law, Louis I, Grand Duke of Hesse (1753 – 1830). The Grand Duke Ludwig was also in correspondence with the Weimar court, and with Goethe and Schiller. Grand Duke Louis I’s sister, Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, was married to Frederick William II of Prussia, a member of the Golden and Rosy Cross. His other sister Natalia Alexeievna, married Paul I of Russia. Their daughter, Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach married Grand Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Their son, Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1818 – 1901), retained the tradition of Weimar’s classical period, and became a protector of Wagner and Liszt. At the Grand Duke’s palace Liszt established an artistic center that was truly international.[25]

Maria Pavlovna was sister the of Tsar Alexander I, who came under  influence of the famous psychic Madame von Krüderer, a friend of Madame de Staël. Maria maintained a lifelong correspondence with Vasily Zhukovsky (1787 – 1852), a Freemason  who is credited with introducing the Romantic Movement into Russia. Schiller dedicated one of his last poems to Maria, and Goethe hailed her as one of the worthiest women of his time. As tutor for her young son, she engaged Swiss scholar Frédéric Soret (1795 – 1865) who became a close acquaintance to Goethe. Drawing on a suggestion by Goethe that the Wartburg would serve well as a museum, Maria and her son also founded the art collection (Kunstkammer) that became the nucleus of today’s museum. Charles Alexander ordered the reconstruction of Wartburg in 1838 and erected the Herder monument and the double monument for Goethe and Schiller in Eisenach. In her later years, Maria invited Liszt to her court and appointed him “Kapellmeister extraordinaire.”

Henriette von Pereira-Arnstein, the granddaughter of Daniel Itzig, hosted important artists such as Liszt, Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Grillparzer, Stifter, Brentano and Theodor Körner, a friend of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schlegel.[26] Liszt had an affair with Bettina von Arnim, who numbered among her closest friends Goethe, Beethoven, Schleiermacher, with whom she attended Sara Itzig Levy’s salons, as well as Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, and Johanna Kinkel, the wife of Gottfried Kinkel.[27] Bettina was the sister of Clemens Brentano, who married Achim von Arnim, who belonged to the Gesetzlose Gesellschaft (“Lawless society”) with Tugendbund member, Ernst Moritz Arndt, a friend of salonnière Henriette Herz, whose husband was a close friend of Moses Mendelssohn and David Friedländer.[28] Selected poems from Arnim and Brentano’s famous Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Boys Magic Horn”), which Illuminatus Baron vom Stein commended for its important role in arousing Volk patriotism to overthrow the French, have been set to music (Lieder) by a number of composers, including Weber, Mahler, Schubert, Loewe, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Zeisl and Webern.[29]

Körner wrote a letter to Henriette von Pereira-Arnstein, after he had been severely wounded in the head by a saber, signed Ihr verwundeter Sänger (“Your wounded singer”).[30] Körner became a national hero in Germany after he inspired his comrades by patriotic lyrics like Schwertlied (“Sword Song”), composed only a few hours before his death, and Lützow’s wilde Jagd (“Lützow’s Wild Hunt), each set to music by both Carl Maria von Weber and Franz Schubert. Wagner was also a close friend of Wendelin Weißheimer (1838 – 1910), who had  studied with Liszt and was in close contact with Hans von Bülow, Ferdinand Lassalle and August Bebel. Weißheimer became music director in Augsburg. After scoring songs and ballads of the German Minnesang, as well as from Goethe and other poets, he dealt with his first opera Theodor Körner.

Another founding member of the Judenlodge was Justus Hiller, who participated in Napoleon’s Sanhedrin, and whose son was Ferdinand Hiller (1811–1885), a successful composer who converted to Christianity and became friends with Wagner, as well as composer Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856).[31] Through a recommendation from Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778 – 1837)—a member of the Anna Amalia zu den drei Rosen Masonic lodge[32] and a close friend of Beethoven—Hiller gained access to the salons of leading musicians and poets, where he met, among others, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Berlioz and Franz Liszt as well as Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Börne, Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo.[33]

Another friend of Wagner was the Austrian painter Ludwig Passini (1832 – 1903), who married Anna Warschauer, the daughter of Robert and Mary Warschauer, the great-granddaughter of Joseph Mendelssohn and the great-great-granddaughter of Moses Mendelssohn. When Wagner died at Vendramin Calergi in 1883, Passini, along with fellow painter Wolkoff, suggested a death mask for Wagner. The idea was at first rejected by Wagner’s wife Cosima, but was carried out by Passini and the sculptor Augusto Benvenuti under the agreement of Cosima’s daughter, Daniela.[34]

Der Freischütz

At the age of nine, Wagner was much impressed by the Gothic elements of Weber’s opera Der Freischütz (“The Marksman” or “The Freeshooter”), which he saw Weber conduct.[35] It premiered on June 18, 1821, at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin, and is considered the first German Romantic opera.[36] One theory posits that the term Freikorps for the Lützow Free Corps was the source of Der Freischütz.[37] The Freischütz tale became widely circulated in 1810 when Johann August Apel included it as the first tale in the first volume of the Gespensterbuch, and is included in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Devil’s Elixirs.[38] Apel’s friends included Fouqué and Carl Borromäus von Miltitz, who held a literary circle, known as the Scharfenberger Circle, at his ancestral castle Schloss Scharfenberg for about six years from 1811, including Novalis, Fouqué, Apel, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, who established the principles of musical romanticism, and Christian Gottfried Körner, a friend of Schiller who edited the works of his deceased son Theodor Körner.[39]

Hoffman’s circle of Die Serapionsbrüder included Julius Eduard Hitzig, the grandson of Daniel Hitzig, member of the Asiatic Brethren and founder of the Frankfurt Judenloge, and also Motte Fouqué, who also participated in the salons of Rahel Varnhagen, friend of Henriette Herz.[40] Rahel’s home became the meeting place for artists, poets and intellectuals such as Schlegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ludwig Tieck, Jean Paul, and Friedrich Gentz. Fouqué’s circle of friends also included E.T.A. Hoffmann, August von Kotzebue—who was murdered by the militant member of the Burschenschaften Karl Ludwig Sand—and Julius Eduard Hitzig. Kotzebue was a major inspiration on Wagner’s step-father Geyer.[41] Wagner on the other hand, hailed Sand as a German hero for having killed the “buffoon.”[42]

Linda Siegel has shown that Wagner drew extensively from Julius Eduard Hitzig’s friend E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose gothic tales he was introduced to his uncle, Adolph, who knew Hoffmann quite intimately.[43] As a youth Wagner frequently attended the performances of his sisters in the stage adaptations of Hoffmann’s tales. Wagner admitted that his opera Die Hochzeit (“The Wedding,” 1832) was prompted by his fascination with Hoffmann’s treatment of the occult. Magic also plays a part in Die Feen (“The Fairies,” 1833), based on a dramatic fairy tale by Carlo Gozzi, a writer whom Hoffmann brought to the attention of the public in Der Dichter und der Komponist (“The Poet and the Composer”). The terrifying world of dreams is the core element in the plot of Wagner’s Die Bergwerke zu Falun (“The Mines of Falun,” 1842), based on Hoffmann’s story of the same name, which also stimulated Wagner’s interest in the occult. Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen (“Master Martin the Cooper and his Apprentices”), provided Wagner with the essential details of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The Master-Singers of Nuremberg”).[44]

It was Julius Edward’s sister, Sara Itzig Levy, who recommended to her niece, Leah Mendelssohn, that Goethe’s friend Karl Friedrich Zelter become her son Felix’s music teacher. In 1839, Wagner met Giacomo Meyerbeer, who with Weber was a fellow student of Zelter. Meyerbeer’s 1831 opera Robert le diable (“Robert the Devil”), is regarded as one of the first grand operas at the Paris Opéra, building on the success established by the genre popularized by Weber’s Der Freischütz, performed in France as Robin des bois (Robin Hood).[45] The opera was immediately successful from its first night on November 21, 1831, at the Opéra. Chopin, who was in the audience, said, “If ever magnificence was seen in the theatre, I doubt that it reached the level of splendour shown in Robert… It is a masterpiece… Meyerbeer has made himself immortal.”[46]

 

Tannhäuser

Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg. Wagner fell in love with one of the leading ladies there, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer, and followed her to Königsberg, where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre. They married in 1836. In 1837, Wagner moved to Riga, but in 1839 the couple fled from their creditors to London on a stormy sea passage, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der fliegende Holländer (“The Flying Dutchman”), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine.[47] The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839, staying there until 1842. Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor.

Wagner’s middle stage output began with Der fliegende Holländer (“The Flying Dutchman,” 1843), followed by Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850). Wagner’s Lohengrin was based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s story of the Knight Swan in Parzival, which was composed at Wartburg Castle, site of the Miracle of the Roses of Elizabeth of Hungary, and where Martin Luther translated the New Testament of the Bible into German. Tannhäuser was based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and on the Wartburgkrieg, when Wolfram produced Parzival as part of a minstrel contest against Heinrich von Ofterdingen and magician Klingsor of Hungary, who foretold the birth of Elizabeth of Hungary. For the plot of Tannhäuser as well, Wagner turned to the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Tannhäuser is based on the Minnesinger Heinrich von Ofterdingen, revived by Novalis in his eponymous fragmentary novel written in 1800, and by Hoffmann in his 1818 novella Der Kampf der Sänger. The legend is told in Hoffmann’s Die Serapionsbrüder, which were well known to Wagner. Despite Wagner’s use of the Tannhäuser story, it was Hoffmann’s Der Kampf der Sänger that supplied the bulk of the opera’s characters, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Biterolf, and their patron, Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia.[48]

Wagner wove a variety of sources into the narrative of the opera Tannhäuser. According to his autobiography, he was inspired by finding the story in “a Volksbuch (popular book) about the Venusberg,” which he said “fell into his hands,” although he admits knowing of the story from Hoffmann’s story, Der Kampf der Sänger and Tieck’s Phantasus, a number of his earlier stories and dramas collected in three volumes from 1812 to 1817. Tieck’s tale, which names the hero Tannenhäuser, tells of the minnesinger-knight’s amorous adventures in the Venusberg, his travels to Rome as a Pilgrim, and his repudiation by the Pope.

In the early twentieth century, nationalistic German writers portrayed Heinrich as a defender of veritable German poetry and even as author of the Nibelungenlied poem. Sigurd der Schlangentödter, ein Heldenspiel in sechs Abentheuren (“Sigurd the Snake-killer, a heroic play in six episodes,” 1808), by Motte Fouqué, was the first modern German dramatization of the Nibelung. In 1828, Fouqué, a member of Hoffman’s Die Serapionsbrüder, published his play, Der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg (“The Song Contest on the Wartburg”). Carl Borromäus von Miltitz, who was part of the literary circle that included including Novalis, Körner, Fouqué, Apel and E.T.A. Hoffmann, wrote Die zwölf Nächte (“The Twelve Nights”), a story set at a castle near the Venusberg, which the hero and Venus return to haunt once a year. An account of the Wartburgkrieg was also found in the Grimm Brothers’ Deutsche Sagen. In Heinrich Heine’s essay Elementargeister (“Elemental spirits”), there appears a poem about Tannhäuser and the lure of the grotto of Venus, published in 1837 in the third volume of Der Salon.

According to Tim Ashley, “…it was in Tannhäuser, more than any of Wagner's other operas, that many in the late 19th century found a reflection of their moral and sexual concerns.”[49] Speaking of Oscar Wilde’s interest in Wagner, Nicolai Endres asks, “Why did Wagner make such a splash?” and answers, “Homoeroticism, for one.”[50] As Endres notes, two of Wagner’s most famous disciples, Ludwig II of Bavaria and Nietzsche, were homosexuals. There was the painter Ernst Benedikt Kietz, whom Wagner considered adopting as his son and advised: “God be with you. Don’t do too much pederasty!” Wagner dined almost every night when staying in London in 1855 with the gay couple Prosper Sainton and Carl Lüders, who lived “as man and wife.” There was the Russian painter Paul von Joukowsky, a close friend, maybe lover, of psychologist Henry James. Wagner famously ordered a pink dressing-gown and other fineries from  his tailor Bertha Goldwag.[51]

A Dr. Theodor Puschmann, in Richard Wagner: Eine psychiatrische Studie (1873), diagnoses Wagner as “psychisch nicht mehr normal” (“psychologically no longer normal”), because of, among other reasons, his interest in Männerliebe (“love of men”). Hanns Fuchs’ Richard Wagner und die Homosexualität (“Richard Wagner and Homosexuality,” 1903) and Wilhelm Stekel’s Nietzsche und Wagner: Eine sexualpsychologische Studie zur Psychogenese des Freundschaftsgefühles und des Freundschaftsverrates (“Psychogenesis of the feeling of friendship and betrayal of friendship,” 1917) assume sexual attraction between Wagner and King Ludwig, and Wagner and Nietzsche. Oskar Panizza’s Bayreuth und Homosexualität (“Bayreuth and Homosexuality,” 1895) refers to Parsifal’s “spiritual sustenance for paederasts.” Wagner’s son Siegfried was a known homosexual, enjoying all-male gatherings where he and his friends would quote Plato’s Symposium in Greek and assembling around himself in Bayreuth a gay cult following.[52]


[1] Frederick L. Toner. “Richard Wagner.” In Norris J. Lacy. The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1991), pp. 502–505.

[2] Wagner Dominik. Familienunternehmen Hartz IV : Soziale Reproduktion von Armut in Familie und Biografie (Budrich, Barbara, 2016); Pascal Bouteldja. “Les Parent de Richard Wagner.” Le Musée Virtual Richard Wagner. Retrieved from https://richard-wagner-web-museum.com/personnalite/parents-richard-wagner/

[3] Melanson. Perfectibilists.

[4] Jacob Rader Marcus. Israel Jacobson: The Founder of the Reform Movement in Judaism (Hebrew Union College Press, 1972), p. 17.

[5] David Bakan. Sigmund Freud and The Jewish Mystical Tradition (Princeton University Press, 1958), p. 196.

[6] Albrecht Classen. The Poems of Oswald von Wolkestein: An English Translation of the Complete Works (1376/77–1445) (Palgrave, 2008), p. 13.

[7] Ralph Oppenhejm. Spain in the looking-glass, trans. K. John (McBride: New York, 1956) p. 54; cited in D. Lazzeri, F. Nicoli, Y. Zhang. “Secret hand gestures in paintings.” Acta Biomed (December, 2019). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7233791/

[8] “Hans von Aachen.” Getty Museum Collection. Retrieved from https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/103KQ2

[9] Elizabeth W. Fisher. “‘Prophesies and Revelations’: German Cabbalists in Early Pennsylvania.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 109:3 (1985), p. 306.

[10] Wolfgang Behringer. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 387.

[11] Melanson. Perfectibilists.

[12] Hugh Chisholm (ed.). “Maximilian II., king of Bavaria.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 17, 11th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1911), p. 921.

[13] “Schönwerth – Lebenslauf” Stadt Marketing Amberg (April 17, 2008). Retrieved from https://archive.ph/20130211222325/http://www.stadtmarketing-amberg.de/de/2008/04/17/schonwerth/#selection-264.0-264.1

[14] “Richard Wagner – sein Leben und seine Werke” Retrieved from http://www.internetloge.de/arstzei/mswagn.htm

[15] Joachim Köhler. Richard Wagner (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 10.

[16] Viereck. Metapolitics.

[17] “Richard Wagner – sein Leben und seine Werke.”

[18] Ibid.

[19] Köhler. Richard Wagner, p. 12.

[20] Michał Galas. “The Influence of Frankism on Polish Culture.” in Antony Polonsky (ed.), Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 15: Focusing on Jewish Religious Life, 1500-1900 (Liverpool, 2002; online edn, Liverpool Scholarship Online, 25 Feb. 2021).

[21] Matthias Brzoska. “Meyerbeer [Beer], Giacomo [Jakob Liebmann Meyer ].” Oxford Music Online (2015), Introduction.

[22] Meyer. The Origins of the Modern Jew, pp. 133-137.

[23] Wilhelmy. Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahhundert.

[24] Samuel Teeple. “The New Reform Temple of Berlin: Christian Music and Jewish Identity During the Haskalah.” Masters Thesis. Graduate College of Bowling Green State University (August 2018).

[25] Berita Paillard & Emile Haraszti’s article. “Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner in the Franco-German War of 1870.” The Musical Quarterly, 35 (1949). Cited in Salmi. Imagined Germany, p. 390.

[26] “Pereira, Pereira-Arnstein, Henriette, Henrietta (Jette) (Judith) Freiin von, geb. von Arnstein.” Europäische Instrumentalistinnen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Sophie Drinker Institut. Retrieved from https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/pereira-henriette

[27] Nigel Cawthorne. The Mammoth Book of Sex Scandals (Little, Brown Book Group, 2012).

[28] “Schloss Scharfenberg.” Schloss Scharfenberg. Retrieved http://www.schloss-scharfenberg.de/

[29] Viereck. Metapolitics.

[30] Körner. Theodor Körners Briefwechsel mit den Seinen, p. 248.

[31] “Hiller, Ferdinand.” Encyclopedia Judaica, Second Edition, Volume 9.

[32] “Anna Amalia zu den drei Rosen (Weimar).”

[33] “Ferdinand Hiller.” Hyperion. Retrieved from https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C1251

[34] John W. Barker. Wagner and Venice (University of Rochester Press, 2008), p. 57.

[35] Robert W. Gutman. Wagner: The Man, His Mind and His Music (Orlando: Harvest Books, 1990), p. 78.

[36] David D. Boyden. An Introduction to Music (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 339.

[37] J. Wrey Mould (ed.). “An Account of Weber’s ‘Der Freischütz’.” Der Freischütz: a Lyric Folk-Drama. The Standard Lyric Drama. Vol. 5. (London: T. Boosey and Co., 1849), p. xxvii;  Johann Friedrich Kind. “V. Erläuterungen.” Der Freischütz: Volks-Oper in drei Aufzügen (Leipzig: G. J. Göschen, 1843), p. 215.

[38] Ronald Taylor. “Part 1, Chapter 3: The Adventures of the Journey.” The Devil's Elixirs (Richmond: Oneworld Classics, 1963), pp. 95, 101, 107.

[39] “Schloss Scharfenberg.” Schloss Scharfenberg. Retrieved http://www.schloss-scharfenberg.de/

[40] Katz. Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723-1939, p. 82.

[41] Köhler. Richard Wagner, p. 11.

[42] Ibid., p. 24.

[43] Linda Siegel. “Wagner and the Romanticism of E. T. A. Hoffmann.” The Musical Quarterly, 51: 4 (1965), p. 597.

[44] Ibid., pp. 598–599.

[45] William L. Crosten. French Grand Opera: An Art and a Business (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1948), p. 92.

[46] Clive Brown. “Giacomo Meyerbeer.” in Amanda Holden (ed.). The New Penguin Opera Guide (New York: Penguin / Putnam, 2001), p. 572.

[47] Barry Millington. The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner’s Life and Music (Revised ed.). (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1992), p. 277.

[48] Linda Siegel. “Wagner and the Romanticism of E. T. A. Hoffmann.” The Musical Quarterly, 51: 4 (1965), p. 600.

[49] Tim Ashley. “Wagner’s Tannhäuser.” The Guardian (December 11, 2010). Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/dec/11/richard-wagner-tannhauser-opera

[50] Nicolai Endres. “Wilde Wagner: Tannhäuser and The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The Wildean, 48 (2016), p. 70.

[51] Stefan Alschner. “What’s that for? Richard Wagner’s Pink Dressing Gown.” Deustche Historisches Museum (May 11, 2022). Retrieved from https://www.dhm.de/blog/2022/05/11/whats-that-for-richard-wagners-pink-dressing-gown/

[52] Nicolai Endres. “Wilde Wagner: Tannhäuser and The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The Wildean, 48 (2016), pp. 70–72

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