The relationship between the then Deputy Kapellmeister and the Professor of Architecture can be characterised as two powerful egos carefully circling each other over a 35-year period. At one of their earliest encounters, in 1844, Semper laid into Wagner for choosing 'Tannhäuser' as an opera subject. 'Minnesingers and the pilgrimage-obsessed Middle Ages had no place in art and [he] let me know that he despised me for having chosen such material'. Wagner's surprise was therefore considerable when he came across the architect purchasing a copy of the 'Tannhäuser' libretto. 'With a rather stilted earnestness, Semper now told me that it was obviously advisable to get to know the work well in order to form an adequate judgement'. (note 1)

This mutual prickliness carried through even into their most innocent domestic encounters. In 1856 Semper writes to Wagner to complain that he had been invited to tea without any invitation being extended to his wife. 'My view of women is about the same as yours, but I honour in them the husbands to whom they belong if they are my friends. Besides, my wife is as harmless as can be, nor is she more stupid than another, although she has never learned stilted phrases about art…' (note 2)

Wagner and Semper often used to meet in the salon of the composer Hiller and his exotically beautiful wife, (both of whom Wagner mocked and attacked relentlessly in his later anti-Jewish diatribes), which became a favourite resort of the Dresden intelligentsia. Here, according to Wagner once again, 'it fell to Semper to enliven our conversations in his extraordinary way, and he used to do this by arguing with me so violently that Rietschel [ the sculptor]….was often horrified and complained of our lack of restraint' . (note 3)

These provincial intellectual excitements, and the careers of the two men, were brutally interrupted by the Dresden Revolution of 1849. Amongst its leaders were other members of the circle, including the writer (and Wagner's deputy as conductor) Röckel and the anarchist Bakunin. Semper's architectural expertise was put to use in constructing barricades; Wagner's involvement was more verbal than practical. The revolution quickly faltered; Semper and Wagner escaped, but were heavily sentenced in their absence (Röckel served 13 years in prison for his part).

Whilst Wagner eventually fled to Switzerland, Semper ended up trying his hand in England, where he helped construct the Duke of Wellington's funeral carriage in 1852 and was employed by Henry Cole at the School of Design (which later evolved into the Victoria and Albert Museum). To assist his career he had arranged for friends in Dresden to collect and forward to him a number of his architectural papers and drawings. (note 4). These perhaps included his designs for the Dresden synagogue, which could explain how he still came to have the drawings in 1870. The friends kept in touch and met in Paris, and when Wagner came to London to conduct in 1855. It was Wagner who made the initial moves enabling Semper to take up the post of Professor at the Zurich Polytechnic (now the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochscule or ETH) in that year.

The old relationship revived somewhat in Zurich, with violent arguments (for which Wagner admitted his responsibility in a letter to his inamorata Mathilde Wesendonck), and occasional meetings - but in Wagner's opinion Semper lived 'only for [his] own troubles and cares'. (note 4a) . Semper remained at the Polytechnic until 1871 and greatly increased both the reputation and enrolment for the Department of Architecture. He also gained many substantial commissions for Swiss buildings.

However a major crisis in the relationship resulted from Wagner's proposal that Semper design the new Munich Festival Theatre which his sponsor, King Ludwig of Bavaria, wished (at Wagner's instigation) to construct to enable the performance of the 'Ring' cycle. This complex affair, which is a saga in itself (note 5 ), led to Semper undertaking, in good faith, an enormous amount of work and producing a superb design, which would have been one of the great buildings of the nineteenth century. However due to court intrigues it was never built and Semper never received proper compensation for his work. In 1869 Wagner sent Semper a letter, hypocritically accusing the architect of bad faith and misbehaviour. The philosophic Semper noted in pencil on this document 'This letter, of which I could make neither head nor tail, I have left unanswered'. (note 6) In the meantime it is perhaps worth remarking that Semper had become involved in a Ring-cycle of his own; many of the buildings in Vienna's Ringstrasse, including the Burgtheater, were designed by him.

This was how matters lay at the time when Cosima originally wrote to Nietzsche in 1870 about the Dresden lamp. Given this history and Semper's fiery temper, it is clear why no direct approach to Semper could be made by her.

The Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876

The story of Wagner and Semper was however not yet over. When the time came to erect a

theatre at Bayreuth, Wagner obtained Semper's designs from Munich and coolly arranged (without of course the architect's permission) for them to be cannibalised as regards the stage and interior. The Bayreuth Theatre, originally intended as a temporary structure, therefore still preserves many significant elements conceived by Semper - amongst them the noted 'double proscenium'. In 1875 the two men met and something of a reconciliation took place; Wagner invited Semper (who accepted) to the first Bayreuth Festival of 1876 and sheepishly confessed to him a year later 'what Semper certainly knew, that “the theatre, even if crude and artistically lacking, was executed after your design.”' (note 8 ) . Two years later Semper was dead.

onwards to Eternal Flame

Note 1: Wagner, 'My Life ' (ML), English translation, (1992), p. 314 back to text

Note 2: 'Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection' (1950), p. 506 back to text

Note 3: ML p. 321 back to text

Note 4: W. Herrmann, 'Gottfried Semper: In Search of Architecture' (1984), p. 11back to text

Note 4a: ML p. 370 back to text

Note 5: see Newman, 'The Life of Richard Wagner', vol III pp.409-437 back to text

Note 6: ibid. p. 437 back to text

Note 7: reproduced in H. F. Mallgrave, 'Gottfried Semper, Architect of the Nineteenth Century', (1996), p. 260 back to text

Note 8: ibid, p. 267 back to text