The largest Wagner monument in the world
Near Graupa, where Richard Wagner lived during his work on the opera Lohengrin, is the largest Richard Wagner monument in the world, a place of pilgrimage for many Wagnerians.
The monument depicts Wagner as a Grail knight. At his feet are five figures representing the elements of his music: the spherical, the lyrical, the dramatic, the Dionysian and the demonic. The bronze figures are over four metres high, and together with the sandstone base the monument has a height of 12.5 m.
The monument was designed in 1911/12 by the sculptor and painter Richard Guhr. He was a professor of monumental art at the Dresden Academy and a passionate Wagnerian. Originally, the monument was to be erected in the Great Garden in Dresden, but the outbreak of the First World War and the economic crisis caused it to be forgotten.
Wagner friends rediscovered the monument in the 1930s and had it erected at its present location on the Wesenitz. The Staude family, at that time owners of the Lochmühle in Liebethaler Grund, where Wagner wrote parts of his operas Lohengrin and Tannhäuser in 1846, made the land available for this purpose free of charge, and Richard Guhr financed the erection of the monument and the sandstone base. On 21 May 1933, the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death, the monument was unveiled, making it the first Wagner memorial in Saxony.
The monument depicts Wagner as a Grail knight. At his feet are five figures representing the elements of his music: the spherical, the lyrical, the dramatic, the Dionysian and the demonic. The bronze figures are over four metres high, and together with the sandstone base the monument has a height of 12.5 m.
The monument was designed in 1911/12 by the sculptor and painter Richard Guhr. He was a professor of monumental art at the Dresden Academy and a passionate Wagnerian. Originally, the monument was to be erected in the Great Garden in Dresden, but the outbreak of the First World War and the economic crisis caused it to be forgotten.
Wagner friends rediscovered the monument in the 1930s and had it erected at its present location on the Wesenitz. The Staude family, at that time owners of the Lochmühle in Liebethaler Grund, where Wagner wrote parts of his operas Lohengrin and Tannhäuser in 1846, made the land available for this purpose free of charge, and Richard Guhr financed the erection of the monument and the sandstone base. On 21 May 1933, the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death, the monument was unveiled, making it the first Wagner memorial in Saxony.