Heath Lees, Transformation at Tribschen: How a French Literary Trio Became a Wagnerian Musical Trio

March 2014, Volume 8, Number 1, 4–18.

In the vast and still-expanding literature that exists on Wagner and the French, the two Tribschen visits by Judith Gautier (1845–1917), Catulle Mendès (1841–1909) and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1838–1889) usually appear as something of a pleasant social interlude during the happy consolidation of Richard and Cosima’s family life. Biographers, if they attach any importance to it at all, tend to see it as a foreshadowing of the so-called love affair between Wagner and Judith, starting in 1876 and lasting some four years before dwindling back to friendship, or in Judith’s case, discipleship.

But it was Judith who made the first trips happen.