Ludwig Geyer
Ludwig Geyer (21 January 1779 – 30 September 1821) was a German actor, playwright and painter.
Born in Eisleben, he was the stepfather of composer Richard Wagner, whose biological father had died some six months after his birth. He married Wagner's mother Johanna Rosine (née Pätz) after Wagner's birth; for his first few years Richard went under the surname Geyer.
In his 'Autobiographic Sketch' Wagner describes him as 'a comedian and a painter; he was also the author of a few stage plays, of which one, [...] The Slaughter of the Innocents, had a certain success'. On his deathbed, according to Wagner, Geyer asked his mother 'has he perchance a talent for music?'.[1]
Geyer grew up in Artern and attended gymnasium in Eisleben. He started studying jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig but had to quit in 1799 when his father died after an accident. Geyer made his hobby to his profession and earned the living expenses for his family by selling small portrait paintings.
In 1801 he came back to Leipzig where he met Friedrich Wagner who cared for him like a father. It was his advice that Geyer went to the stage. He performed in little theaters as in Magdeburg, Braunschweig, Stettin and Breslau. In Magdeburg he became a Freemason.[2] In 1809 Geyer joined the well known Secondasche Gesellschaft in Leipzig, whose members were given the rank of court actors.
Friedrich Wagner died after the Battle of Leipzig of typhus and Geyer married the widow. In 1814 his theatre company became part of the royal ensemble in Dresden where he made friendship with Carl Maria von Weber. In 1815, Geyer's daughter Augusta Cäcilie was born who later married the publisher Eduard Avenarius and was the mother of Richard Avenarius and Ferdinand Avenarius.
In his later years Wagner found some letters that led him to speculate that Geyer might have been his biological father, and that Geyer was Jewish.[3] Geyer's relation to Wagner was one of several controversies surrounding the composer during his lifetime and afterward.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Wagner, Richard, tr. W. Ashton Ellis (1993) The Art-Work of the Future and other Works Lincoln and London ISBN 9780803297524
- ^ Richard Wagner - sein Leben und seine Werke (www.internetloge.de)
- ^ Gutman, Robert (1968, revised 1990). "Richard Wagner : The Man, His Mind and His Music". Harcourt Brace Jovanovich ISBN 015677615 4 pbk
[edit] External links
- An article that relates Ludwig Geyer to Richard Wagner
- My life By Richard Wagner, Andrew Gray, Mary Whittall
- Meixner, Elisabeth: Geyer, Ludwig Heinrich Christian. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 6. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, p. 359 f. (German)
- Geyer in Dresden
