Ninety seconds on Richard Wagner Museum
From 1866 to 1872 this villa on the Tribschen shore was Richard Wagner's home, where he finished Die Meistersinger and Siegfried. You walk his rooms with an audio guide, then sit on the lawn by the water.
The Érard grand piano, made in Paris in 1858, is the star of the collection. Wagner took it to every home until debts forced him to sell it, and he bought it back ten years later. It still plays, and it is used for concerts, some held with the public guided tours.
The staircase is where the Siegfried Idyll was first performed, on Christmas Day 1870, as a birthday surprise for his wife Cosima. Around it, the rooms hold restored furnishings and original pieces Wagner owned, with letters, portraits and facsimile scores. There are few display cases, so the house reads as a lived-in home.
Wagner also revised his antisemitic essay Judaism in Music while living here, and the museum examines it in its permanent and special exhibitions.
Bring your own headphones and a charged phone. The audio guide is included with admission, comes in languages including English and Japanese, and downloads straight to your smartphone. Nine steps with a sturdy handrail lead up to the entrance.
Inside, the audio guide leads you room by room through Wagner's Lucerne years, with short texts beside individual objects. Leave the flash off and spend your time at the piano, the letters and the views from the windows. The special exhibition is upstairs, reached only by stairs.
A guided tour is optional, since the audio guide covers the house on its own. The museum's Wagner in Tribschen tour runs about an hour in German, English, French, Italian or Spanish, and covers his music, his unconventional family life, his guests, his household staff and his animals.
Request one through the contact form on the museum's website, and treat it as booked only once the museum confirms. Admission is charged on top, per person, and a large group is split into two short tours.
Pack a swimsuit in summer: the lake here is a local place to swim. The summer café on the forecourt opens when the weather allows, on weekends from Easter.
Entry is free with a Swiss Travel Pass, Swiss Museum Pass or Lucerne Museum Pass, and for children under 10.
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