Richard Wagner’s Venetian Gondolier. Drawn by Giacomo Favretto.
]
In the autumn of 1882, Wagner went to live in Venice. His health had
been failing. He recuperated sufficiently to conduct a performance of
his youthful Symphony in C; but on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1883, as M. Jullien
relates, “as he was about to step into his gondola, some discussion
arose, and he gave way to a fit of anger; suddenly he started up from
his seat, choking, and cried, ‘I feel very badly!’ He fell fainting.
They carried him to his bed, and when his physician, Dr. Keppler,
arrived, in all haste, he found him dead in the arms of his wife, who
believed him sleeping.” On Feb. 18 he was buried in the garden of his
villa, “Wahnfried” (“Fulfillment of Ideal”), at Bayreuth. He left one
son, Siegfried, the fruit of his second union.
This outline of a remarkable career, in which artistic success was
pursued by pecuniary embarrassment, in which envy, malice, and
vituperation barked at the heels of progressive intellect, will best be
closed by the quotation of a few lines concerning the man’s personality.
M. Jullien, who writes with kindness and yet with candor, says:—
“The most striking thing about Richard Wagner, at first sight, was the
extraordinary life and energy which animated this insignificant body,
surmounted by a very large head, with an enormous frontal
development.... His bright eyes and pleasant glance softened the
strongly marked face, and his mouth, notwithstanding the undue
prominence of nose and chin, had a singular expression of sweetness and
affability. With his extreme rapidity of movement, gait, and gesture, he
gave from the first an impression of unusual and powerful originality;
he fascinated by his conversation, so animated was he on all subjects
which interested him, and he always acted out his discourse. He was
violent, even explosive in temper; with him gayety, like wrath, was
tempestuous and overflowing.”
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