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87-526: Guardian founder Hugo Wesendonck , a German civil rights lawyer, participated in the 1848-49 revolution and helped draft a constitution for a united Germany. Accused of treason, he fled post-revolution Europe and landed in the U.S. With start-up funds from fellow German refugees, he opened Germania Life Insurance Company in 1860 on Wall Street in Manhattan, to cover the growing number of German immigrants arriving on American shores. Two years later, he opened

174-561: A "death sentence." His parents sued Guardian and lost the case in October 2009, when a federal judge found that Guardian had the right to terminate the entire plan. The Pearl family appealed to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and to the media, and publicized a memo that emerged during the trial, which characterized high cost policies like the one Pearl had, as "dogs" and "trainwrecks." Guardian publicly and personally apologized to

261-668: A Berlin court on 18 July 1870. Richard and Cosima's wedding took place on 25 August 1870. On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance (its premiere) of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life. Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle. He had not abandoned polemics: he republished his 1850 pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under

348-536: A branch in San Francisco , and later across the country, reaching territories such as Colorado , New Mexico , North Dakota , and South Dakota . In 1868, Germania became the first U.S. insurance company to start an agency in Europe. By the early 20th century, almost half its business was outside North America, until the pressures of World War I forced it to stop its business in Europe. As operations expanded,

435-517: A daughter, named Isolde , a child not of Bülow but of Wagner. Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult , who had left her husband for Franz Liszt . Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with Wagner, though nevertheless the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner also fell into disfavour with many leading members of

522-566: A distance, [was] a menace to his peace of mind." Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with her husband Otto, who maintained his financial support of the composer. In an 1859 letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan : "Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible . This final act!!!—I fear the opera will be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad." In November 1859, Wagner once again moved to Paris to oversee production of

609-523: A head in 1849, when the unsuccessful May Uprising in Dresden broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role . Warrants were issued for the revolutionaries' arrest. Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zürich where he at first took refuge with a friend, Alexander Müller . Wagner was to spend the next twelve years in exile from Germany. He had completed Lohengrin ,

696-425: A lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel).... At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening [emphasis in original]. Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856). He began work on

783-481: A letter to Mathilde from him. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice , where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian , while Minna returned to Germany. Wagner's attitude to Minna had changed; the editor of his correspondence with her, John Burk, has said that she was to him "an invalid, to be treated with kindness and consideration, but, except at

870-748: A new revision of Tannhäuser , staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich , whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris. The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were a notable fiasco . This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club , which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in Act ;1 (instead of its traditional location in

957-432: A pastoral opera based on Goethe 's Die Laune des Verliebten ( The Infatuated Lover's Caprice ), written at the age of 17, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), on which Wagner worked in 1832, and the singspiel Männerlist größer als Frauenlist ( Men are More Cunning than Women , 1837–1838). Die Feen ( The Fairies , 1833) was not performed in the composer's lifetime, and Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love , 1836)

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1044-542: A piano transcription of the 9th Symphony. He was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart 's Requiem . Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period. In 1829 he saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient , who became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in

1131-453: A pseudonym, under his own name in 1869, extending the introduction and adding a lengthy final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim. In 1871, Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth , which was to be the location of his new opera house. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for

1218-655: A reconciliation with Minna during this Paris visit, and although she joined him there, the reunion was not successful and they again parted from each other when Wagner left. The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in the North German Confederation after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in 1862. The composer settled in Biebrich , on the Rhine near Wiesbaden in Hesse . Here Minna visited him for

1305-626: A scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven , which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris , where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis. He also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. During this stay he completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and Der fliegende Holländer . Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. With

1392-415: A small pension which she maintained until 1859. With help from her friend Jessie Laussot, this was to have been augmented to an annual sum of 3,000 thalers per year, but the plan was abandoned when Wagner began an affair with Mme. Laussot. Wagner even plotted an elopement with her in 1850, which her husband prevented. Meanwhile, Wagner's wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi ,

1479-402: A web-based tool to manage employee's return to work. In 2015, they grew this business by acquiring Aon Hewitt 's absence management business. In 2006, Guardian acquired 65% of RS Investments. RS provides its services to pensions, investment companies, high net worth individuals, corporations, and banks. It also has a selection of mutual funds which it offers to clients. In 2007, RS Investments

1566-486: Is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations. Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on 26 May. Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered a series of increasingly severe angina attacks. During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on 29 August, he entered

1653-482: The Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like arias and recitatives . He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in

1740-536: The Centennial March for America, for which he received $ 5,000. Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal , his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons. From 1876 to 1878 Wagner also embarked on the last of his documented emotional liaisons, this time with Judith Gautier , whom he had met at the 1876 Festival. Wagner

1827-620: The Financial District . In April 2017 the company announced plans to move several hundred employees to Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey . Guardian is the 6th largest dental provider in the US, with 6.4 million participants as of February 2015. Guardian acquired First Commonwealth in 1999, and acquired Premier Access in 2014, and Avesis in 2016. In July 2001, Guardian merged with Berkshire Life Insurance Company. As of February 2015,

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1914-599: The National Theatre Munich on 10 June 1865, the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld , was hoarse and needed time to recover.) The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow , whose wife, Cosima , had given birth in April that year to

2001-471: The Philharmonic Society of London , including one before Queen Victoria . The Queen enjoyed his Tannhäuser overture and spoke with Wagner after the concert, writing in her diary that Wagner was "short, very quiet, wears spectacles & has a very finely-developed forehead, a hooked nose & projecting chin." Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted

2088-514: The Ring cycle (which was not resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan . While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder , five songs for voice and piano, setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "studies for Tristan und Isolde ". Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in 1855 with

2175-568: The Ring , and the other operas Wagner planned. Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben , at the King's request. Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer , and regretted that "this operatic master, who had done me so much harm, should not have lived to see this day." After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at

2262-935: The Berlin Democratic Congress and in the anti-parliament. From March to May 1849 he edited the parliamentary correspondence of the Left in Frankfurt am Main. In the same year he became a member of the Second Chamber of the Prussian Landtag. After the escalation of the imperial constitution campaign, an investigation was brought against Wesendonck in Düsseldorf in July 1849 for high treason and treason, which he evaded in December by fleeing to

2349-771: The Corps Saxonia. After completing his military service and completing his studies in Berlin, he began a civil service career as an auscultator (trainee lawyer) at the district court in Elberfeld in 1837. In 1842 Wesendonck became a lawyer in Dusseldorf. After the outbreak of the March Revolution in 1848, Wesendonck was a co-founder of the Association for Democratic Monarchy in Düsseldorf and took part in

2436-602: The Emperor Pedro II of Brazil , Anton Bruckner , Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky . Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later his attitude towards the productions was "Never again, never again!" Moreover, the festival finished with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried meant that Wagner still sought further sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions such as

2523-639: The French newspaper Le Figaro , which called the music "the dream of a lunatic". The disillusioned included Wagner's (then) friend Friedrich Nietzsche , who, having published his eulogistic essay "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" before the festival as part of his Untimely Meditations , was bitterly disappointed by what he saw as Wagner's pandering to increasingly exclusivist German nationalism; his breach with Wagner began at this time. The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I ,

2610-608: The Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden . Until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father. Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel. In late 1820, Wagner

2697-565: The Pearls and agreed to continue coverage for Ian and two other patients in similar situations. Ian Pearl lives in New York State, and as a result of the controversy, New York passed "Ian's Law" that among other things, requires that insurance companies that cancel insurance plans must offer similar replacement coverage to policy holders under the cancelled plan. Hugo Wesendonck Hugo Wesendonck (24 April 1817 - 19 December 1900)

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2784-823: The United States via Switzerland and France. In 1850, Wesendonck was sentenced to death in absentia. In the United States, Wesendonck began with the help of his older brother Otto, who emigrated with his wife to Zurich, a trading business with manufactured goods based in Philadelphia. In 1860, he founded Germania Life Insurance and the Deutsche Sparbank in New York. Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( / ˈ v ɑː ɡ n ər / VAHG -nər ; German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ] ; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883)

2871-490: The architect Gottfried Semper . Wagner's involvement in left-wing politics abruptly ended his welcome in Dresden. Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin . He was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ludwig Feuerbach . Widespread discontent came to

2958-648: The arts throughout the 20th century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. Richard Wagner was born on 22 May 1813 to an ethnic German family in Leipzig , then part of the Confederation of the Rhine . His family lived at No 3, the Brühl ( The House of the Red and White Lions ) in Leipzig's Jewish quarter . He was baptised at St. Thomas Church . He

3045-684: The company moved to the Germania Life Insurance Company Building at Union Square in 1911 – a location that would serve as Guardian's headquarters for more than 85 years. In 1918 the company changed its name to The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.[4] In 1979, Guardian began to regionalize many Home Office functions, and satellite offices are now located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ; Appleton, Wisconsin ; Spokane, Washington ; and Norwell, Massachusetts . In 1999, Guardian relocated to 7 Hanover Square in

3132-492: The couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga on the run from creditors. Debts plagued Wagner for most of his life. Initially the pair took a stormy sea passage to London, 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 . The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839 and stayed there until 1842. Wagner made

3219-560: The court, who were suspicious of his influence on the King. In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him. Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen , beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne . Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on 21 June

3306-433: The development of classical music; his Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music . As he matured, he softened his ideological stance against traditional operatic forms (ie. arias, ensembles and choruses ), reintroducing them into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ( The Mastersingers of Nuremberg ) and Parsifal . To properly present his vision of

3393-485: The family home, " Wahnfried ", into which Wagner, with Cosima and the children, moved from their temporary accommodation on 18 April 1874. The theatre was completed in 1875, and the festival was scheduled for the following year. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima: "Each stone is red with my blood and yours." For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of

3480-435: The festival was deferred. To raise funds for the construction, " Wagner societies " were formed in several cities, and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. By the spring of 1873, only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the project on the verge of collapse, the King relented and provided a loan. The full building programme included

3567-479: The first evening of the complete Ring cycle; the 1876 Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended. The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter ). At the end, critical reactions ranged between that of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg , who thought the work "divinely composed", and that of

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3654-588: The first half of the 16-hour, four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of the Nibelung , also known simply as The Ring ). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures , rich harmonies and orchestration , and the elaborate use of leitmotifs —musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres , greatly influenced

3741-444: The following year. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring , Das Rheingold and Die Walküre , were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870, but Wagner retained his dream, first expressed in "A Communication to My Friends", to present the first complete cycle at a special festival with a new, dedicated, opera house . Minna died of a heart attack on 25 January 1866 in Dresden. Wagner did not attend

3828-416: The funeral. Following Minna's death Cosima wrote to Hans von Bülow several times asking him to grant her a divorce, but Bülow refused to concede this. He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner: another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger , and a son Siegfried , named after the hero of the Ring . The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by

3915-428: The ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house in Munich. Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these include darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience. The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August 1876 with Das Rheingold , at last taking its place as

4002-524: The importance of the orchestra is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role in the later operas includes the use of leitmotifs , musical phrases that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminate the progression of the drama. These operas are still, despite Wagner's reservations, referred to by many writers as "music dramas". Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Abandoned works include

4089-778: The impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire". In 1831, Wagner enrolled at the Leipzig University , where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity . He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig . Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons. He arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major (which

4176-415: The insurance plan that covered Ian Pearl, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and requires 24-hour nursing care, which costs approximately million dollars a year. Under the federal ERISA law Guardian was obligated to continue the coverage for one year after it cancelled the plan and thus policy under the plan. Guardian offered no comparable plan to replace it, and his parents characterized the cancellation as

4263-540: The journal Bayreuther Blätter , published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen . Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal , was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism , and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals. Many of these later articles, including "What

4350-563: The last of his middle-period operas, before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850. Nevertheless, Wagner was in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any regular income. In 1850, Julie, the wife of his friend Karl Ritter, began to pay him

4437-477: The last time: they parted irrevocably, though Wagner continued to give financial support to her while she lived in Dresden until her death in 1866. In Biebrich, Wagner, at last, began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , his only mature comedy. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in 1845, and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in 1860, where he

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4524-531: The masses in order to achieve fame and financial success, rather than creating genuine works of art. In " Opera and Drama " (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen . He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfried's Tod ( Siegfried's Death ), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded

4611-516: The most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, sometimes categorised as " philosophical pessimism ". He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life. One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will. This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that

4698-418: The music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose. Aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti. A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with

4785-414: The newly formed Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America subsidiary administers all disability products for Guardian. Guardian acquired Reed Group in 2012 and through it, provides human resources to companies dealing with employees on absence due to disability. It helps manage and administer claims related to employee absences, offers "LeavePro", a software to manage absences, and offers "MDGuidelines",

4872-478: The operas he had previously written through Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical " A Communication to My Friends ". This included his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring cycle: I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by

4959-618: The pit unseen during act 3, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi , and led the performance to its conclusion. After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 13 February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi , a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal . The legend that the attack was prompted by an argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in

5046-565: The poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck , the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks, who were both great admirers of his music, in Zürich in 1852. From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest"). During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on

5133-693: The pre-parliament. From 18 May 1848 until the end of the rump parliament on 18 June 1849, Wesendonck was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly for the Düsseldorf constituency. There he was a member of the left parliamentary groups Deutscher Hof and Donnersberg as well as secretary of the Central March Association. Wesendonck was one of the speakers at the people's assembly on the Pfingstweide in Frankfurt am Main in September 1848. In October he took part in

5220-441: The second act); but the opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III . It was during this visit that Wagner met the French poet Charles Baudelaire , who wrote an appreciative brochure, " Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris ". The opera was withdrawn after the third performance and Wagner left Paris soon after. He had sought

5307-744: The singer Carrie Pringle , who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence. After a funerary gondola bore Wagner's remains over the Grand Canal, his body was taken to Germany where it was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth. Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects. The first complete scholarly edition of his musical works in print

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5394-423: The story with Der junge Siegfried ( Young Siegfried ), which explored the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre ( The Valkyrie ) and Das Rheingold ( The Rhine Gold ) and revising the other libretti to conform to his new concept, completing them in 1852. The concept of opera expressed in "Opera and Drama" and in other essays effectively renounced all

5481-632: The strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer , it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre ( Hofoper ) in the Kingdom of Saxony , and in 1842 Wagner moved to Dresden. His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his " Autobiographic Sketch " of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris, "For the first time I saw the Rhine —with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland." Rienzi

5568-412: The task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". From 1849 onwards, he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama" (although he later rejected this term), in which all musical, poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the Gesamtkunstwerk . Wagner developed a compositional style in which

5655-546: The theatre in Würzburg . In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen ( The Fairies ). This work, which imitated the style of Weber, went unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883. Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love ), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . This

5742-459: The theatre. The two married in Tragheim Church on 24 November 1836. In May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man, and this was only the first débâcle of a tempestuous marriage. In June 1837, Wagner moved to Riga (then in the Russian Empire ), where he became music director of the local opera; having in this capacity engaged Minna's sister Amalie (also a singer) for the theatre, he presently resumed relations with Minna during 1838. By 1839,

5829-401: The theatre. The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid. Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle was presented complete, for 1873, but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed and the proposed date for

5916-557: The third Ring drama, which he now called simply Siegfried , probably in September 1856, but by June 1857 he had completed only the first two acts. He decided to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde , based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult . One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , notably his The World as Will and Representation , to which Wagner had been introduced in 1854 by his poet friend Georg Herwegh . Wagner later called this

6003-426: The throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich. The King, who was homosexual, expressed in his correspondence a passionate personal adoration for the composer, and Wagner in his responses had no scruples about feigning reciprocal feelings. Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts and proposed to stage Tristan , Die Meistersinger ,

6090-521: The works, Wagner had his own opera house built to his specifications: the Bayreuth Festspielhaus , which featured many innovative design elements intended to immerse the audience in the drama. The premieres of The Ring and Parsifal took place there, and his most important stage works are performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival . The early success of the festival was secured by the efforts of his wife, Cosima Wagner , and has since been maintained by their descendants , attracting audiences from around

6177-452: The world. Wagner's unorthodox operas, essays, and personal dealings engendered considerable controversy during his lifetime, and continue to do so. Declared a "genius" by some and a "disease" by others, his music is widely performed, but his views on religion, politics, and social life are debated—most notably on the extent to which his antisemitism finds expression in his stage and prose works. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of

6264-461: Was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, " music dramas "). 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

6351-473: Was a German entrepreneur, lawyer and politician. Wesendonck was the third son of five children of the businessman August Wesendonck and his wife Sophia. One of his brothers was Otto Wesendonck, whose wife Mathilde Wesendonck was a close friend of Richard Wagner . Hugo Wesendonck studied after his Abitur at Gymnasium in Elberfeld 1834-1837 Law at the University of Bonn, where he was one of the founders of

6438-714: Was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal , and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll ) to the publisher Schott . Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views. These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in

6525-627: Was commenced in 1970 under the aegis of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur of Mainz , and is presently under the editorship of Egon Voss . It will consist of 21 volumes (57 books) of music and 10 volumes (13 books) of relevant documents and texts. As at October 2017, three volumes remain to be published. The publisher is Schott Music . Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy. Unlike most opera composers, who generally left

6612-525: Was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as Wagner's Op. 1. A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major , a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833. He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), which he never completed. In 1833, Wagner's brother Albert managed to obtain for him a position as choirmaster at

6699-539: Was determined to set it to music and persuaded his family to allow him music lessons. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven 's 7th Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th Symphony , both at the Gewandhaus . Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote

6786-543: Was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear . Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule , the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor , at the expense of Geyer's brother. At the age of nine he

6873-567: Was falling into a deepening depression . Wagner fell victim to ill health, according to Ernest Newman "largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing. Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zürich was a set of essays. In " The Artwork of the Future " (1849), he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), in which music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts and stagecraft were unified. " Judaism in Music " (1850)

6960-577: Was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber 's opera Der Freischütz , which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (the standard listing of Wagner's works) as WWV 1, was a tragedy called Leubald . Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe . Wagner

7047-466: Was inspired by Titian 's painting The Assumption of the Virgin . Throughout this period (1861–1864) Wagner sought to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna. Despite many rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible" to sing, which added to Wagner's financial problems. Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to

7134-525: Was one of the largest stockholders in Corrections Corporation of America , with 2,486,866 shares. In 2016, Victory Capital acquired RS Investments. In September 2016, Guardian sold their 401(k) business to Ameritas Life . Additionally, Guardian owns a full service broker-dealer Park Avenue Securities (PAS). PAS was established in 1999 by Guardian. In 2009, Guardian was the subject of controversy when, in December 2008, it cancelled

7221-426: Was staged at Magdeburg in 1836 but closed before the second performance; this, together with the financial collapse of the theatre company employing him, left the composer in bankruptcy. Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer , and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg , where she helped him to get an engagement at

7308-508: Was staged to considerable acclaim on 20 October. Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. During this period, he staged there Der fliegende Holländer (2 January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19 October 1845), the first two of his three middle-period operas. Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and

7395-498: Was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. In this polemic Wagner asserted—often with vulgar, abusive language—that Jews lived as "outsiders" amid European societies and were disconnected from the national spirit ( Volksgeist ) of these countries, thus capable of producing only shallow and artificial imitations of European art music, despite having achieved technical proficiency in its study. According to Wagner, Jews such as Meyerbeer commercialised music catered to

7482-434: Was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Pätz), the daughter of a baker. Wagner's father Carl died of typhoid fever six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards, his mother Johanna lived with Carl's friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer . In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married, although no documentation of this has been found in

7569-520: Was withdrawn after its first performance. Rienzi (1842) was Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged. The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre , and they have been performed only rarely in

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