As well as the Festival Theatre outside Bayreuth there are a number of other museums connected to Wagner which may be visited:
The Villa Wahnfried was where Wagner and his family lived during their time in Bayreuth and now serves as the Richard Wagner Museum. It is situated just off the Hofgarten behind the New Palace.
Wagner built the villa after obtaining a loan from King Ludwig which enabled him to buy the land near the gardens. The construction work began in 1872 and Wagner moved in two years later.
According to Cosima, Wagner's wife, the house was named after a town in the neighouring province of Hessen whose name could be translated into the German words for "delusion" and "peace". An insciption on the house reads "This place should be named Wahnfried - the location where my delusions were pacified."
Wagner died in Italy and his body was returned to Germany and buried in the villa gardens. The ashes of Cosima were placed alongside Wagner after her death in 1930.
Following Wagner's death and because of the strong anti-Semitism of the composer and especially of some of his descendants and their associates, the villa became closely associated with the rise of the Nazis. Adolf Hitler, who was a great fan of the composer and his ideas about Germanic heritage, was invited to the villa frequently by Wagner's descendants and used the guest villa during some Festival performances of the Thirties.
The villa was occupied by the American forces with the defeat of Germany, who used it variously as an officers' club and, allegedly, for less salubrious activities. Part of the main building was returned to the Wagner family in 1949, with the guest villa given back in 1957. The villa was donated to the town of Bayreuth in 1973, who restored it and turned it into the Richard Wagner Museum.
The permanent exhibition about Wagner, the festival and the operas has attracted criticism for whitewashing the history of anti-Semitism and the close connections to the Nazis. Fresh restoration work, closing the villa and museum, started in 2013 and, at the time of writing (summer 2014), the project is still ongoing.
More information:
www.wagnermuseum.de
Of course, the closest relationship between Richard Wagner and Liszt was the affair with and subsequent marriage to Cosima, one of Liszt's illegitimate daughters.
But Liszt had been one of Wagner's supporters and sponsors and, despite disagreements, became closer to his fellow composer as he grew older. After Wagner's death, Liszt continued presenting the composer's work and died in 1886 during the Bayreuth Festival where he had been conducting Parsifal.
The house where he died was turned into the Franz-Liszt-Museum and showcases a collection of memorabilia purchased by the town as well as relevant items from the Wagner archives.
Jean Paul was a German writer and poet who died in Bayreuth in 1825 after having spent the last 20 years in the town. The museum is located near the Richard Wagner Museum.
The Wagnerian connection comes through the fact that it is the former house of Wagner's daughter Eva and her husband Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Eva and her husband were early proponents of Aryan racial superiority and had close connections to Adolf Hitler and other leading Nazis, leading them to visit Wahnfried and the Wagner family over the years.
The map controls to the left enable zooming in and out of the museums view. The control at the top right enable switching between a 'satellite view' and a 'map view'.
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