Richard Wagner sites Graupa
In Graupa (since 1998 incorporated into Pirna ), not far from Dresden , there is a Richard Wagner Museum (Lohengrin House) and Wagner's largest monument in Liebethaler Grund in Saxon Switzerland . During his time as Hofkapellmeister in Dresden (1842–1849) Richard Wagner took “vacation” for a few weeks (15 May to 20 July) in the summer of 1846 and lived with his wife Minna at Schäferschen Gut to design his opera Lohengrin . Essential parts of the Lohengrin composition were created in Graupa. Wagner later enjoyed looking back on the wonderful time in Graupa and visited his place of work again with his family on September 8, 1881.
Lohengrinhaus memorial
Gustav Adolph Kietz installed the first Lohengrin memorial plaque on Schäferschen Gut ( map ) in 1894. In 1907 Max Gaßmeyer from Dresden founded the world's first Richard Wagner Museum there. After temporary other uses, the community took over the building and museum in 1935 and made it accessible to the public. After the war it was used for other purposes and reopened in 1982 after an extensive renovation. From 2005 it had to be completely renovated and was able to reopen again in 2007 for the 100th anniversary of the museum. Various rooms can be visited that are furnished with furniture from Wagner's time. Furthermore, writings and texts by Richard Wagner are presented. Readings and concerts take place regularly in the small hall.
Hunting lodge
In July 2011 the nearby hunting lodge ( map ) from the 18th century was set up as the Richard Wagner Museum. There one deals with the subject of Richard Wagner in Saxony , because Wagner spent more than 25 years of his life in Saxony (childhood in Leipzig and Dresden, Hofkapellmeister in Dresden) and wrote or conceived many of his works there (early works, Tannhäuser , Lohengrin , Siegfried's death ). The financing of the museum equipment was secured by donations of around one million euros.
A Richard Wagner hiking trail with a series of information boards about his life has been set up around and in the palace gardens.
Liebethaler Grund memorial
The memorial ( map ) depicts Wagner as a knight of the grail . At his feet, five figures embody the elements of his music: the spherical , the lyrical , the dramatic , the Dionysian and the demonic . Richard Wagner's 4.2 meter high sculpture stands on an 8 meter high sandstone plinth. The monument has a total height of 12.5 meters. It is the first Richard Wagner monument in Saxony and the largest in the world.
The bronze was designed by the sculptor and painter Richard Guhr in 1911/12 . He was a professor of monumental art at the Dresden Academy and a passionate Wagnerian. Guhr had set himself the goal of expressing with his works that German painting and Germanness as a cultural and state unit can only regenerate themselves from old German painting and act as a means of popular education, whereby the artistic imagination should be evaluated as an autonomous myth-creating principle . On his own initiative, he designed his monumental Wagner monument. It was completed in 1912. Originally it was supposed to be erected in the Great Garden in Dresden after completion , but the outbreak of the First World War and the economic crisis prevented this. The memorial was forgotten. It was not until the early 1930s that the artist Sizzo Stief rediscovered bronze and had it erected on a pedestal at the current location on Wesenitz . The innkeeper of the so-called Lochmühle in Liebethaler Grund in Saxon Switzerland had made a rock area available on his property. He hoped that this would attract tourists. But the location also meant an integration into the poet-musician-painter path , a hiking tradition that Guhr was enthusiastic about. Wagner too had sought peace in Saxon Switzerland when he composed Lohengrin .
Richard Guhr financed the construction of the monument and the sandstone plinth. The final erection and inauguration of the monument was not due to take place until May 21, 1933. This was the eve of Wagner's 120th birthday and the date coincided with the 700th anniversary of the city of Pirna. The musicologist Eugen Schmitz gave the inauguration speech. In it he said among other things:
“As the herald of all the glories of God's free nature, Richard Wagner's art achieved monumental things. This monumental time in the midst of God's free nature should be a witness to this. "
In addition, Schmitz says that Wagner expressed Germanness and folk art in a monumental way in his art. In King Heinrich's appeal in the Lohengrin it was said: "To preserve the realm's honor, whether east or west [...], what German land means, put in battle troops, then probably nobody will revile the German realm".
Eugen Schmitz saw a direct reference to the present:
"... because we too were threatened by hostile hordes from the East, by the Communists and Bolsheviks [...] The fact that they did not reach their goal is thanks to the new beginnings of the nation under Adolf Hitler's leadership. And so also applies to Hitler's Germany what was true of King Heinrich's Germany and what should apply to our fatherland as long as the world stands: 'Hordes should never travel victoriously to Germany in the most distant days / from the East.' "
Richard Guhr reported numerous opposition to his Wagner honor. In 1942 the memorial was supposed to be melted down for war purposes. The then Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education Bernhard Rust wrote a letter to the artist in which he asked for understanding for this "sacrifice for the future of the nation and the preservation of German art and culture ...". However, Guhr was able to prevail and the monument was preserved.
The surface renovation, which was carried out for the first time in over 80 years in 2013, caused unexpected difficulties, so that the entire procedure had to be carried out again by the commissioned restoration company only one year later in September and October 2014. The reason was that the memorial - as only a deep laboratory examination showed - had been painted over with a pigment layer of iron oxide black , so-called magnetite , in the 1930s and there were no records whatsoever for this process. Because new wax and magnetite did not get along, the monument's surface became “pimply”.
All old layers had to be completely removed in painstaking detail. The bronze surface was then heated piece by piece and coated with wax so that it was evenly distributed. The surface was then polished by hand. The costs were shared by all three parties involved - the company carrying out the work, the municipality of Lohmen and the State Office for Monument Preservation.
The bronze knight of the grail (monument status before renovation 2013/2014)
Monument status after the renovation in 2013/2014
Bronze plaque in the base
A plaque carved into the rock between the Lochmühle and the monument
Inscriptions on the tablets
- Bronze plaque: "Under the protection of the Pirna administration, the master of grateful admirers erected the first monument in Saxony here at the Lohengrin Werdestaette with the voluntary help of the working youth from the surrounding communities - Muehlsdorf-Lochmuehle / in the Wagner year 1933."
- Tablet in the rock: "The singer who won the prize in art singing, especially the people - 1933"
literature
- Sizzo Stief, Ulrike Eichhorn (ed.): The Lohengrin House in Graupa and the Richard Wagner Memorial in Liebethaler Grund: Researched and experienced, ISBN 978-3-8442-0048-5 (print), ISBN 978-3-8442- 0912-9 (ePub) . Berlin 2010.
Web links
- Materials on the Lohengrin House in Graupa in the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ See also Graupa website ( Memento from August 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Schwanenritters vacation spot in: FAZ of August 27, 2011, page 34
- ↑ See also the website of the museum
- ↑ Prof. Eugen Schmitz speech on the inauguration of the Wagner monument in Liebethaler Grund, quoted from Solveig Weber: Richard Wagner's picture. Iconographic inventory of an artist cult. Mainz 1993. p. 170
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