Minna Planer

Wilhelmine " Minna " Wagner, née Planer ( born September 5, 1809 in Oederan, † January 25, 1866 in Dresden) was a German actress and the first wife of Richard Wagner, with whom she lived about 20 years, married 30 years was.

Life

The first years with Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner learned the attractive, four years older Minna Planer know in 1834 in Magdeburg when he music director of Bethmann's theater company was for a short time in which it was one of the leading ladies. Minna was at the age of 15 years, a victim of seduction and had an illegitimate daughter, who spent his life as her younger sister Natalie. The 23- year-old Richard Wagner married in November of 1836 in the Tragheim Church in Königsberg, where Minna had found a position at the theater. A little later, the couple moved to Riga, where Richard Wagner accepted a post as music director.

Because of the exalted life change Wagner's there was much contention in the marriage. Minna was a secret love affair with a merchant named Dietrich and Wagner left end of May 1837 but returned in October back to him. It was a traumatic experience for Wagner, he should reflect The Flying Dutchman in his next opera in which it comes to redeeming eternal fidelity of a wavering between two men woman. Finally, in the summer of 1839 both had to flee from his creditors from Riga and came across the Baltic and North Sea to London and Paris. In Paris, they lived in extremely modest circumstances in which Wagner to abide by musical and literary contract work over water tried because he could not bring to performing his newly composed opera Rienzi in Paris. In 1842, he managed to get a job in Dresden and to establish themselves there. The world premiere of his Rienzi brought a first great success, which Wagner made ​​famous overnight. A few months later, his Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden, Wagner was then appointed to the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. Here Minna flourished and Wagner was an indispensable assistant, so that he his position as Kapellmeister and free composer ( he composed in Dresden Tannhäuser and Lohengrin ) could meet.

In Dresden and Zurich

Due to the political activities of her husband and his friendship with August Rockel and Michael Bakunin, there were 1847 again and again dispute, which then escalated when Wagner had to flee into exile because of participation in the May uprising in Dresden in 1849 to Zurich. Both lost all privileges. It was a very emotional letter exchange in which Wagner asked his wife to understand, to engage in future exclusively as an artist and she begged to meet him. Minna was skeptical and wrote inter alia:

Minna eventually moved with her daughter to Zurich, where they in turn lived in modest circumstances. Just a few months later it came on the occasion of Wagner affair with Jessie Laussot (born Taylor), who was married to a wealthy wine merchant in Bordeaux, to renewed tensions. While it was back together, but lived in the "other worlds ", as Wagner 1854 wrote to his friend Franz Liszt: " None of my last years has passed from me, except that I would not have even been in it at the very end of the decision, my life to end. It's all so process it, so lost! Through a hasty marriage in 23 years with a respectable, but I quite unangehörigen woman I have become an outlaw for life. Truly, I lived up to my 36th year before I was that terrible desolation quite hold. Until then, my being received by the balance of two competing elements of desire in me of which I was looking for a quench through my art while I took the other period, by fervent, fantastic, sensual excesses air! "

The break and the last years

A few years later, Wagner worked on his Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan and Isolde, it came in the summer of 1858 to the final break. Because of the more intense become friends with Mathilde Wesendonck, who looked at Wagner as his muse, Minna let it come to a head, left in consequence of Wagner Zurich and traveled to Venice to settle there and to continue to work on Tristan, while Minna to their relatives moved to Dresden.

When Wagner 1860 again settled in Paris, funded by a generous fee Otto Wesendonck, his wife came back to him again. Together they experienced the " Tannhäuser " scandal at the Paris Opera, a reactionary circles audience enforced by interfering with the performances of his opera Tannhäuser deposition. Without a common future, they parted again. The now suffering from heart Minna traveled several times to the spa town of Bad Soden, later to Dresden. In February 1862, there was one last time to a personal encounter, as Wagner in Wiesbaden -Biebrich worked on his Meistersinger. After ten days, however, they parted again, recognizing the hopelessness of ever again live amicably together.

Wagner came despite its strained financial circumstances life continues for them. Minna taught him in Dresden " a little room " one, in the hope that could turn everything to good again. However, it turned out differently, Wagner fell in love with Cosima von Bülow, with which he and later lived in Munich soon after Minna's death in Triebschen near Lucerne together. After he had come with the help of King Ludwig II of Bavaria to a small fortune, he pointed Minna a large sum of money so that she could lead a modest life. In one of her last letters she wrote to her old friend Benedict Kietzmann, she summed up:

Minna died on January 25, 1866 from the effects of their long heart disease. Her grave is in the Old Anne Cemetery in Dresden, L burial ground, a few meters away from the grave of his artist friends and family Julius Ludwig Schnorr von Carol Field.

Effect

Minna Wagner was considered charming and more " domesticated ". In the first phase of life Wagner she was his grip, less in the artistic, yet in everyday affairs. The correspondence ( about 100 letters ) Minna Wagner was later by her daughter Natalie (later Bilz planners ) in the Letters Collection " Mary Burrell ", an English admirer of Wagner's published. You are responsible for Wagner research is of great importance because they also give information about how the works of Wagner, such as Der Ring des Nibelungen.