Round the Houses: Chris Walton enjoys a lavishly illustrated tour around some of the most significant places in Wagner’s itinerant life

Review of Christian Bührle, Markus Kiesel and Joachim Mildner, eds, Prachtgemäuer. Wagner-Orte in Zürich, Luzern, Tribschen und Venedig (ConBrio, 2020).

November 2021, Volume 15, Number 3, 91–2.

This is the fourth volume in a ‘tetralogy’ of works by Kiesel and Mildner, in collaboration with assorted co-editors and authors, about the places where Wagner lived and worked. After books on the Festspielhaus and Wahnfried, followed by a Wagnerian travel guide (Wandrer heisst mich die Welt, reviewed by the present author in TWJ in July 2020), they have now published a book focusing on four specific places that were of special significance to the composer: Zurich (where he spent nine years from 1849 to 1858), Lucerne (where he stayed briefly in 1850 and for several months in 1859), Tribschen (1866 to 1872) and Venice (where he stayed six times between 1858 and 1883, and where, of course, he died). The title ‘Prachtgemäuer’ – ‘magnificent walls’ – is a quote from Loge in Das Rheingold when he sings of Valhalla.