Wagner's Death in Venice

Richard Wagner lived the last months of his life in the Palazzo Vendramin on Venice’s Grand Canal. He died there of a heart attack on February 13, 1883.The room in which he died is open to the public, along with two other rooms on the mezzanine of the palazzo which these days serves as the winter quarters of Venice’s casino.

Wagner drew on mythology as the inspiration for operas such as the colossal Ring of the Nibelungen, and his own life and death are wreathed in myth and fantasy. Was he, as was claimed, the best-read man of the nineteenth century? The subject of more books than any other person except Christ. A womanizer? Had an argument with his wife Cosima over Carrie Pringle, a young Scottish soprano, set off the heart attack that would kill him? Did Cosima really hold him in her arms for 24 hours after he died?Romantically inclined visitors to these rooms in Venice even claim that, when the breeze from the canal blows in the right direction, you can still catch the scent of one of Wagner’s favourite French perfumes.

All that is sure on the guided visit to the Wagner rooms is that they contain replicas and some originals of the composer’s manuscripts and letters (including one from father-in-law Franz Liszt) a copy of the couch on which he died and that, while you wander, some of the most sensuous, luminous, transcendent music ever to issue from a human brain will be playing in the background.I think that’s quite enough for one Saturday morning in Venice.

Guided tours only – on Saturday mornings. Reservations should be made by phone on Fridays between 10 and 12am at + 39 349 5936990. The tours are free but with a donation suggested. Address: Palazzo Loredan-Vendramin-Calergi, Cannaregio - Venezia