Tribschen

Tribschen is a suburb of Lucerne, in the Canton of Lucerne in central Switzerland.

Tribschen is best known today as the home of the German composer Richard Wagner from 30 March 1866 to 22 April 1872. When Wagner was obliged to leave Munich in March 1866, he moved to a spacious villa in Tribschen on a headland projecting into Lake Lucerne. It was while he was living here that Wagner completed the score of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, composed his “Emperor March” and the third act of Siegfried, and began Götterdämmerung. It was also at Tribschen that he composed his Siegfried Idyll as a birthday gift to his second wife, Cosima, who had recently given birth to the couple’s first son Siegfried. The Idyll was performed for the first time on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1870 (Cosima’s thirty-third birthday) by an ensemble of fifteen players on the stairs of the villa. Today Wagner’s villa at Tribschen is a museum.