Mathilde Wesendonck was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 poet and author. She is best known as the friend and possibly mistress of Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, who set five songs to her words, called the Wesendonck Lieder

Wesendonck Lieder

The Wesendonck Lieder is a song cycle composed by Richard Wagner while he was working on Die Walküre. This, and the Siegfried Idyll, are his only two non-operatic works that are still regularly performed....

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Biography

Agnes Mathilde Luckemeyer was born in Elberfeld

Elberfeld

Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...

 (now Wuppertal

Wuppertal

Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...

) in the Rhineland

Rhineland

Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

 of Germany in 1828. She married the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck (sometimes erroneously seen as von Wesendonck). Otto was a great admirer of Wagner's music, and after he and Mathilde met the composer in Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 in 1852, he placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal. By 1857, Wagner had become infatuated with Mathilde. It is not known whether she returned his affections to the same degree, or if the affair - if there was one - was ever consummated. Nevertheless, the episode inspired Wagner to put aside his work on Der Ring des Nibelungen

Der Ring des Nibelungen

Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

 (which would not be resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan und Isolde

Tristan und Isolde

Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

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In 1858, Wagner’s wife Minna

Minna Planer

Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer was a German actress and the first wife of composer Richard Wagner to whom she was married for 30 years, although for the last 10 years they often lived apart. Seduced at an early age by an Army officer, she had an illegitimate daughter, who was brought up as...

 intercepted a romantic letter from Wagner to Mathilde. After the resulting confrontation, Wagner left Zürich alone, for Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. Minna went to Dresden to stay with her family. She wrote to Mathilde before departing for Dresden:

"I must tell you with a bleeding heart that you have succeeded in separating my husband from me after nearly twenty-two years of marriage. May this noble deed contribute to your peace of mind, to your happiness."

In her autobiographical reminiscences Mathilde later wrote about Wagner's stay in Zürich, but made no mention of troubles with Minna. She died in Altmünster

Altmünster

Altmünster is a market town located about 3 kilometres south of Gmunden in Upper Austria, on the west shore of the Traunsee. Its economic base consists primarily of tourism, light industry, and as a bedroom community for people working in larger communities such as Gmunden and Vöcklabruck....

 (Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

) in 1902, and she is buried at the Alten Friedhof with the Wesendonck family in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Germany.

Selected works

• Gedichte, Volkslieder, Legenden, Sagen (ca. 1864)
• Natur-Mythen: Mai 1865 (1865)
• Märchen u. Märchen Spiele (1864)
• Genovefa: Trauerspiel in 3 Aufzügen (1866)
• Gudrun. Schauspiel in 5 Akten (1868)
• Deutsches Kinderbuch in Wort und Bild (1869)
• Friedrich der Grosse: dramatische Bilder nach Franz Kugler (1871)
• Edith, oder, Die Schlacht bei Hastings: ein Trauerspiel (1872)
• Gedichte, Volksweisen, Legenden und Sagen (1874)
• Der Baldur-Mythos (1875)
• Odysseus: ein dramatisches Gedicht in zwei Theilen und einem Vorspiel (1878)
• Alte und neue Kinder-Lieder und Reime (1890)
• Alkestis: Schauspiel in vier Aufzügen. (1891)

Popular culture

Mathilde Wesendonck was portrayed by Valentina Cortese in the 1955 film Magic Fire

Magic Fire

Magic Fire is a biographical film about the life of composer Richard Wagner, released in the United States on March 29, 1956 by Republic Pictures. It had been released in the United Kingdom on July 15, 1955...

, and by Marthe Keller

Marthe Keller

Marthe Keller is a Swiss actress and opera director. She studied ballet as a child, but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16...

 in the 1983 miniseries Wagner

Wagner (mini-series)

Wagner is a 1983 film on the life of Richard Wagner. The title role was played by Richard Burton, who said it was the role he was born to play...

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Her legacy as assumed lover of Richard Wagner lives on with reference to her in Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Stewart Ransom Miller II , better-known as Rhett Miller is the lead singer of the alternative country band Old 97's and a successful solo musician. He graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas, a private boys' school in Dallas in 1989 and briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College on a creative...

's song Our Love from the album The Instigator

The Instigator

The Instigator is the second studio album by American country/rock band performer, Rhett Miller, lead singer of the Old 97's. Miller's first album came more than a decade before, languishing in folk obscurity, but The Instigator received airplay and as much commercial success as any Old 97's...

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External links