The RICHARD WAGNER PLAYS in Graupa have been enriching Saxony's cultural landscape since 2013. Johannes Gärtner's new production now takes the audience to Lake Lucerne and Graupa's castle pond for the first time.
"It was hard to have to spend six years as an opponent of the person you admired the most," wrote Friedrich Nietzsche on Wagner's death. A friendship of the century began in the spring of 1869: the greatest composer of his time and the philologist who would go down in history as one of the most eloquent philosophers met on Lake Lucerne. Cosima, Wagner's second wife, created an atmosphere in Tribschen in which this intimate friendship could flourish and in which both geniuses found inspiration. Wagner philosophized, but when Nietzsche also began to compose, "Wagner and Cosima almost fell under their chairs with laughter." The inequality of this relationship became evident: what began as an idyll turned into bitter and public antagonism after several years.
A reconciliation never took place during their lifetimes. What remains is their mutual enthusiasm, which is echoed in both of their works.
Experience a summer evening with letters, diary entries and dialogues, with songs by Nietzsche and Wagner and witness a friendship that shaped an entire era like no other - a feast for the eyes and ears!