Wagner's People and Works

Question 1

Johanna, Ludwig Geyer

Answer 1

Mother and Stepfather; a painter and actor

Question 2

Christian Theodor Weinlig

Answer 2

Teacher/Composer at Leipzig university, but Wagner considered himself self-taught

Question 3

Wilhelmine (Minna) Planer

Answer 3

1st wife, a singer and actress. Married from 1836 to her death in 1866 but had many affairs

Question 4

Franz Liszt

Answer 4

Virtuoso pianist/composer who influenced Wagner and helped him escape Dresden. Had an affair turned marriage with his daughter Cosima

Question 5

Cosima Liszt

Answer 5

2nd wife, daughter of Franz Liszt who Wagner was romantically involved while she was still married to Hans von Bulow. Had 3 children and married in 1870

Question 6

Hans von Bulow

Answer 6

Conductor and former husband of Cosima Liszt. He premiered his Tristan und Isolde in 1865

Question 7

Grieg, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky

Answer 7

Attended the first Bayreuth Festival

Question 8

Strauss, Mahler, Schonberg

Answer 8

Future composers inspired by Wagner’s work

Question 9

Leipzig

Answer 9

German city of birth and upbringing/training

Question 10

Wurzburg

Answer 10

Took first job as choral master for a theater there

Question 11

Riga

Answer 11

Latvian city where Wagner took a conducting post

Question 12

Paris

Answer 12

French city where Wagner wrote opera, but survived as an arranger and writer/journalist, sometimes for the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik

Question 13

Dresden

Answer 13

German city was Wagner got a job as a conductor for the Court of Saxony. Forced to flee during revolution due to activism

Question 14

Zurich

Answer 14

Swiss City where Wagner escaped Dresden from with help of Franz Liszt. Switched to a literary focus there writing essays like Opera and Drama, Art and Revolution, and Artwork of the Future

Question 15

Munich

Answer 15

German city where Wagner moved to at the request of an admirer; teenage King Ludwig II of Bavaria

Question 16

Bayreuth

Answer 16

German city of death in 1883, and home to the Bayreuth festival theater and Bayreuth Festival

Question 17

Opera (Excluding The Ring Cycle):

Answer 17

Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, Rienzi, Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Parsifal

Question 18

Opera in Der Ring des Nibelungen (In Order):

Answer 18

Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung

Question 19

Orchestral:

Answer 19

Works such as Faust overture, Siegfried Idyll (Symphonic Poem)

Question 20

Vocal:

Answer 20

Works such as Wesendonck Lieder

Question 21

Literary:

Answer 21

Works such as Art and Revolution, Artwork of the Future, Opera and Drama