Travel tips for opera lovers – Bordeaux and Richard Wagner

Bordeaux was the venue for one of Richard Wagner’s many spicy affairs with women. He met the Englishwoman Jessie Taylor in 1848 in Dresden, who had approached him shyly as a devoted follower. After another meeting in Paris, a letter from Jessie Laussot, by now a married wine merchant in Bordeaux, reaches the meanwhile exiled in Zurich. Wagner hastily leaves Zurich for Bordeaux and is glad to get some distance to his wife Minna. To his friends he gives Jessie’s name as his address (26 Cours du XXX Juillet), but to his wife that of her husband. He reads from Die Walküre to the excellent pianist and perfect German speaker Jessie, and Wagner already sees her as his future wife.

When Wagner has to leave Bordeaux again, Jessie’s husband intercepts a letter. He is outraged and threatens murder. Wagner comes to Bordeaux to mediate. He stays again at the Hotel des 4 Soeurs in room 22, but there he is welcomed by policemen, because the wise wine merchant had left Bordeaux with his wife for safety’s sake. Thus ended the short but heated liaison with Jessy Laussot.