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Richard Wagner was a larger than life figure, and his innovations as a composer changed Western music forever. To this day, there is no in between for people concerning Wagner. They either love him or they hate him.
The people who love Wagner, and his music, are often referred to as Wagnerheads. They take trips to Europe, known as a pilgrimage, to walk the streets Wagner once walked. The highlight of their trip is to Wagner’s theater in Bayreuth. |
Wagner had spent a lot more money than he had to spend, so Ludwig promised to pay all his debts and then, funded the construction of Wagner’s theatre in Bayreuth. Wagner’s theatre was built to make sure that the sound of the music could be heard clearly from every seat in the house. It was ornate on the outside, but the inside was plain and simple. The seats are arranged in a single, steeply-shaped wedge that allows every seat a complete and uninterrupted view of the stage. Unlike other opera houses of the time, the orchestra was hidden from the audience.
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As we learned on Tuesday, Wagner was born in the Jewish quarter in Leipzig; however, he was not Jewish. He thought his father was, and he held a lot of anger because his father died when he was so young. Many music historians believe that, for that reason, Wagner wrote a lot of anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic, messages in his music.
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What famous leader do you think was attracted to messages like that? Adolf Hitler! Of course! In 1936, Hitler attended a grand production of Wagner’s Lohengrin at Bayreuth and was bowled over by it. It’s even rumored that Hitler ordered Wagner’s music be played through the loud speakers throughout Dachau, a concentration camp, to try to retrain the Jewish people’s brains. Hitler was such a fan that he sought out Wagner’s family, made friends with them and even made the Wagner estate, Wahnfried, his second home.
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