- ously involved in the heated political discussions and uprisings that succeeded
the Revolution at Paris. In 1849 he was forced to flee as a suspect to Liszt at Weimar, whence he was smuggled off to Paris, and soon settled at Zurich.
The fifteen years that followed were mainly occupied by literary work and composition. His essays and books, with the productions of his earlier operas at various places, brought him some money, but he was partly supported by Liszt and other friends. His inquisitive mind prompted him to extensive researches in the history of the drama and in the stores of legend from which drama may be fed. His eagerness for expression found relief in copious literary production, both polemic or philosophic prose and highly original poetry. And soon began to come forth the titanic operatic cycle in which he embodied his ultimate theory of the opera and by which his fame was later to be established. From 1854 he became deeply interested in the writings of Schopenhauer (d. 1860), whose pessimistic philosophy plainly affected all his subsequent thought and art. The spell of his personality drew some friends around him, like the revolutionary poet Herwegh (d. 1875), the Berlin merchant Wesendonck (d. 1896) and his poetic wife (d. 1902), the musician Baumgartner (d. 1867), and others. The young Bulow followed him as a special pupil. Through him and Abt (till 1852 director at the Zurich theatre) he had some contact with dramatic music, and from time to time he undertook subscription-concerts, at which extracts from his operas were given. In 1855 Tannhäuser was produced at Zurich. In 1855, also, he served as conductor for the London Philharmonic, there again meeting Berlioz. The prose drama 'Wieland der Schmiedt' (intended as the basis for a French opera) and the poems of the Nibelungen Tetralogy were completed before 1853. The music for Das Rheingold was drafted in 1853-4, that for Die Walküre in 1854-6, and that for Siegfried begun in 1857. In 1857-9 he turned aside to complete Tristan und Isolde, for which he hoped soon to get a hearing at Carlsruhe. In 1858 began the difficulties with his wife that ended in their separation in 1861 (she died in 1866 at Dresden). He moved to Venice and Lucerne, whence in 1859 he went to Paris. In 1860 he hazarded concerts there and at Brussels which involved him in debt and roused much hostile criticism. Some partisans on his side were won, however, and in 1861, by direction of Napoleon III., Tannhäuser was produced at the Paris Opéra, but was soon driven from the stage by riotous opposition. Happily, just here his banishment from Germany was revoked, and he was called to Vienna to assist in the giving of Lohengrin (which he had never heard) and the laborious, but fruitless rehearsals of Tristan. On his way back, Liszt and the Weimar circle gave him a memorable reception, and at Mannheim he found an opening for a new work, Die Meistersinger, to which he now devoted himself at Paris (not finished till 1867) In 1862-4 he gave concerts at Leipsic, Vienna, Prague, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Pesth and other cities, being received with special enthusiasm in Russia. But he was in despair over his finances and the impossibility of completing the immense works on hand. At this juncture, while at Stuttgart, he received a summons from the young Ludwig II. of Bavaria, who had just come to the throne, to settle in Munich and there work out with ample support his dramatic ambitions. (Curiously, the day that this invitation came, Meyerbeer died at Paris.)
