Museums for Composers of opera and classical music

Caruso met Ada Giachetti in Livorno in 1897, where they sang together in “Tosca”. They fell in love and had two sons. After Caruso moved his career to the United States in 1903, he bought the Villa Bellosguardo in Lastra a Signa for Ada and the children in 1906. He found out that she was cheating on him with the chauffeur, and she fled with the employee and tried to blackmail Caruso. When she was threatened with prison, she disappeared to Argentina.

Villa Bellosguardo (with a beautiful view, as the name suggests!) is now home to a beautiful Enrico Caruso Museum with villa memorabilia and collectibles from his life. The municipality had bought back the house and set up the museum. A walk through the Garen is also recommended.

Villa Bellosguardo:

A look into the Museum:

https://villacaruso.it/it/

The Chopin family settled in Warsaw with their firstborn Fréderic 7-months after his birth in 1810. Chopin’s father made a satisfactory living at the Lyceum, where he, a native of France, served as a French teacher. They lived in the middle of Warsaw and Fréderic, whose talent was quickly recognized, received a good musical education. He began composing at a tender age, at seven he created his first polonaise, and at eight he was already performing at the Palais Radziwill with a piano concerto by a Polish composer and was “passed around” in the salons as “the Polish Mozart.”

On November 2, 1830, Chopin left Warsaw with Titus Woyciechowski. His father urged him to leave before the threat of revolt towards Vienna

and later reached Paris

. On the last evening, friends presented him with a jar of Polish soil and sang him a farewell song. Chopin never returned to Warsaw.[/sc_fs_faq]

TO THE FULL BIOGRAPHY OF CHOPIN

The Chopin Museum is an elaborately designed multimedia museum. In a beautiful palace, visitors are introduced to Chopin’s life on 5 floors in thematic rooms. On display are treasures such as his precious Pleyel grand piano from his last years or his death mask. One room is dedicated to the women in his life. Music is also played regularly in the museum. Students from the nearby university perform regularly; see the website for the program.

Chopin Museum:

A look inside the museum:

https://muzeum.nifc.pl/en/

Chopin’s stay in Mallorca

Chopin and Georges Sand’s stay in Mallorca became one of the most famous episodes of Chopin’s life. It was here that he composed the Raindrop Prélude, which became emblematic of his messed-up sojourn in what was supposed to be paradise.

Chopin had just fallen in love with George Sand when the two decided to spend the winter of 1838/39 in the supposedly mild Mallorca. The reason was Sand’s son’s health problems and Chopin’s hope for recovery or at least relief from his lung disease. On November 7 they arrived in Palma de Mallorca and the whole thing started well. When they arrived at Villa Son Vent in Establiments on November 15, they began by enjoying the mild temperatures.

Soon the weather turned and an icy wind blew through the unheated house. Possibly the owner of the house drove them out for fear of tuberculosis and forced the couple to pay for the furniture, which he had burned for fear of infection. In any case, the son Maurice and Chopin caught cold and they moved to the Charterhouse of Valldemossa, from which the monks had been expelled in riots three years earlier. They lived in an empty building surrounded by cemeteries, which stimulated their romantic imagination, but they continued to suffer in this stone building from the cold and rainy weather that never let up.

Added to this were the hostile reactions of the locals, who were suspicious of the unmarried inhabitants of the sacred place and who feared infection from the coughing Chopin. On February 13, they left Mallorca enervated, first for Marseilles,

later for Paris

. Chopin had been violently ill for a long time, and George Sand, to her chagrin, was not only a mother and writer, but also a nurse. She later described this stay in the famous essai “A Winter in Majorca”.

The Charterhouse

The Charterhouse of Valldemossa is today the most visited building in Mallorca after Palma Cathedral and is privately owned. Among other things, you can visit the two cells including memorabilia, which Chopin and Sand respectively inhabited. In Chopin’s cell there is even Chopin’s Pleyel piano, on which he composed his Préludes. He had to have it brought from Paris, because he could not find a decent instrument in Mallorca and it had to be hauled up by donkeys.

The view from the Charterhouse is wonderful and the building and the village have preserved their beauty. In addition to the Chopin souvenirs, in the Charterhouse you can also admire the church, a historical library and a historical pharmacy. The village is located a little 30 minutes by car from Palma.

Chopin’s cell:

Chopins Pleyel:

https://www.cartoixadevalldemossa.com/de/

Annually, the Charterhouse hosts a Chopin Festival in August.

https://www.festivalchopin.com/

Casa natale (Birthplace)

The Donizetti family lived in poor conditions in the Borgo Canale, the underground apartments of the families who worked for the rich aristocrats. Donizetti lived in these rooms, which can still be visited today, during his first 9 years. The basement has only 2 rooms: a bedroom, where the whole family slept and a lounge and workroom. There are another 2 rooms in the basement, which were used by another family. The visit is short, but very impressive.

TO THE DONIZETTI BIOGRAPHY

Casa natale:

Öffnungszeiten beachten, teilweise nur an Wochenenden offen.

https://casanatale.donizetti.org/it/

Museo Donizetti

The museum houses a small collection of exhibits and shows stages of his life.

Museo Donizetti:

https://www.museodellestorie.bergamo.it/en/place/museo-donizettiano/

This small museum, just outside the center of Prague, is housed in a beautiful villa and brings the life and work of the composer closer.

https://www.nm.cz/en

DVORAK IN PRAGUE

The Händel Museum

Handel lived 36 years until his death in the house in Brookstreet and wrote there many operas, his Fireworks Music and the Water Music. In 2001 the house was turned into a museum and can be visited, for Handel fans of course a must. With the entrance fee you can also visit an apartment where Jimi Hendrix lived for a few weeks, that’s why the house is called Handel-Hendrix House.

The music room in the Handel House:

https://handelhendrix.org/

Haydn was 29 years old when he was offered a vice-conductor position with Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, the most important noble family in Hungary. Before taking up the post, he married Anna Keller. However, the marriage was unhappy and childless, and Haydn had several affairs during his life. In 1766 he was appointed liveried (uniformed) Kapellmeister and the prince obliged him to buy a house in Eisenstadt so that he would have a representative home. He also had to accompany his prince to his other residences, so the busy Haydn spent part of the year with his wife in Eisenstadt and others in Vienna or Esterhazy.

Haydn and his wife lived in the present Haydn House from 1766 to 1778. Haydn had to finance it with debts and, to make matters worse, it was badly damaged twice during town fires at that time. Once the prince helped him out and the second time he was insured. Haydn’s handwritten list of insured items can be seen in the museum.

Today the house houses a Haydn museum. Haydn then occupied the upper floor with its five rooms. The visitor gets an excellent insight into Haydn’s life and a dwelling of the 18th century. Among other things, his official clothes and a fortepiano are on display.

The Haydn House also includes a garden set off from the house and planted in the Baroque style as a spice garden, be sure to stop by!

Haydn House:

A look inside the museum:

https://haydnhaus.at/

Janáček came to the Moravian city of Brno as a teenager. After briefly studying music in Prague, he settled in Brno. He married a former piano student and became the director of a music school.

He composed alongside his profession; he began his first masterpiece, the opera “Jenufa,” in 1894, but did not finish it until 1904, when it was premiered at the National Theater in Brno. It remained largely unnoticed, however; only a 1916 version made the work known (along with an essay by Max Brod in Germany), and the now 62-year-old received wider attention for the first time. All the remaining masterpieces (Tara Bulba, Sinfonietta, The Cunning Little Vixen, Katya Kabanova, etc.) were written in the last decade of his life.

In 1917 he met the 26-year-old Kamila Stösslova, who became his (platonic) muse, which put a strain on his marriage. With the Sinfonietta (originally a one-movement commissioned work), he wrote a monument to the city of Brno with the movement titles “Fanfares, Castle, The Queen’s Monastery, Street and City Hall,” which he later retracted. Ironically, the Sinfonietta was the only one of Janacek’s larger works not to be premiered in Brno. Janáček died in 1928 in a hospital in Ostrava.

His house (from 1910) and the attached music school form the memorial of the Moravian composer. The house is in original condition, the study and his piano where he wrote his most important works after 1910 are part of the tour.

Janacek’s study:

Uffugo became World famous through Pagliacci

Montalto Uffugo became “world famous” through Leoncavallo’s ”

Pagliacci

“. It came about this way: Leoncavallo’s father was a judge and so his family got around to different regions. Among other places, the family also came to Montalto Uffugo, a medieval, picturesque town in the hills of Calabria. Leoncavallo later studied literature as well as music and thus became his own librettist. He wrote the libretto to his world-famous “Pagliacci” himself and it is based on a true incident which Leoncavallo himself says he witnessed on the evening of March 4, 1865 in Montalto Uffugo: “The then eight-year-old was attending the performance of a troupe of comedians together with a servant. When, during the play, the servant was having fun backstage with the bajazzo’s wife and was caught by the jealous husband, both were stabbed to death by the frenzied man” (source: Krause, Philipps). Historically, this anecdote cannot be substantiated, according to the principle “se non è vero, è ben trovato”. Possibly Leoncavallo served as a basis for the drama Mendès “La femme de Tabarin”. Leoncavallo was well versed in French literature, having studied in Paris for several years. He was subsequently sued by Mendès, whereupon Baus, another writer, sued Mendes for plagiarism, claiming the latter had copied his work “Un drama Nuevo”. Mendes subsequently withdrew the suit against Leoncavallo to let the dust settle.

Leoncavallo’s family soon left Montalto, but the town did not forget the famous resident, made him an honorary citizen in 1903, created a museum and founded a festival.

Montalto Uffugo:

Leoncavallo memorabilia is displayed in the museum.

A view of the museum:

https://www.museoleoncavallo.it/

Festival Leoncavallo

Every year at the end of August the performances are given in the beautiful Piazza del Duomo. The program includes works by Leoncavallo, but also other composers.

Concert in the Piazza del Duomo:

https://www.leoncavallofestival.it/

After his youthful years, Liszt returned to Hungary for the first time in 1839, and the 29-year-old was hailed there like a hero at a January 4, 1840 concert. This was because 18 months earlier Franz Liszt had given many benefit concerts in Vienna to help the victims of the Budapest flood disaster. After that, he returned to Budapest from time to time for short visits. It was not until 1871 that he was in Budapest more regularly and had his own service apartment next to the Academy of Music, which Liszt was committed to. This apartment was later transformed into the Liszt Museum.

The Liszt Museum was established in 1986 in the former Liszt apartment. Based on photographs, an attempt was made to make the apartment as true to Liszt as possible. The pride of the collection are various instruments that belonged to Liszt, including truly unique pieces. For example, a Bösendorfer “piano desk”, a mixture of a desk and a pianino.

Bösendorfer piano desk:

In addition, furniture, fonts and sheet music collections and other memorabilia.

https://lisztmuseum.hu/en

The Mendelssohn House, where he lived and died from 1845-47, has been used as a music salon since 1997 and is the only Mendelssohn museum anywhere. The salon has been faithfully recreated and houses many memorabilia. It also hosts regular concerts and even a piano festival in the summer (see website for programs).

Mendelssohn’s study:

https://www.mendelssohn-stiftung.de/

Wolfgang Amadeus’ father Leopold was a native of Augsburg. His famous son visited Augsburg four times. Because of this relationship of origin and Wolfgang Amadeus’ trips to there, this Bavarian city is one of the three places called “Mozart City”.

When he was 21 years old, during a stay in Augsburg on his trip to Paris, he had amorous adventures with his cousin (“Bäsle”) Maria Mozart, to whom he wrote the famous “Bäsle letters”.

The house where Leopold was born has become a museum that sheds light on the Swabian branch of the Mozart family, documents the family’s European travels, and displays manuscripts and original instruments from the time of Leopold and Wolfgang. You can also see a fortepiano that was played by the two. In eleven thematic rooms the Mozarts are brought closer to the visitors in an entertaining way.

https://www.augsburg.de/kultur/museen-galerien/mozarthaus

The Pskov Museum Authority manages the Naumovo estate in Mussorgsky’s homeland as the composer’s only museum. The village of Naumovo is the heart of this museum complex, which also includes the estate’s main house, servants’ quarters, barn, greenhouse, dairy, and blacksmith shop. In the southern part of the estate, some centuries-old trees are preserved.

Chirikov estate:

http://museums.pskov.ru/home?lang=en

The city of Saronno already honored her by naming its theater after the singer and, since 2019, with a museum made possible by a donation from a collector. The museum in Villa Gianetti shows in five rooms a collection with a total of 667 objects, paintings, lithographs, stage decorations, furniture, scores and letters that belonged to the singer and her relatives.

Glance into the museum:

Adress: Via Roma, 20, 21047 Saronno (no Website available)

Museo

In 2015, a museum was established in his last home in Modena. The spacious museum shows, the house furnished by Luciano himself, with many personal items, where he received his friends and cooked for them.

You can visit his make-up room, where he used to do his own make-up for the performances for Pavarotti and friends. There also hang some valuable stage costumes that he wore during his career.

Ristorante Europa 92

This restaurant near Pavarotti’s house belonged to him and he often ate there. The restaurant is still dedicated to him and you can enjoy his favorite dishes there. For example, Bono, Zucchero and Lady Di ate there the risotto all’aceto balsamico.

http://www.ristoranteuropa92.com/

https://www.casamuseolucianopavarotti.it/en/

The museum is located in Prokofiev’s last apartment in Kamergersky Lane. One can see there everyday objects as well as stage sets, books and sheet music. The apartment consists of a living room, the study and two other rooms.

In addition, on the first floor there is also a small concert hall with its grand piano.

The visitor information is in Russian.

View into the museum:

http://www.glinka.museum/

With the income from the “Bohème” he bought the tower, renovated it and expanded the estate into a stately residence. He composed many of his operas (Tosca, Il Trittico, La Rondine and Fanciulla del West) in this Art Nouveau villa. He maintained contact with local artists and fishermen who met regularly as a “bohemian club.” He enjoyed bike rides, speedboats and pursued his hobby of hunting wildlife such as snipe. The museum is inspiring, music sounds through the rooms and it is authentically furnished, a worthwhile destination to visitlast, and last but not least, the chapel also houses the tomb of the master.

A bus runs from Viareggio to the Museo

Torre del lago:

https://www.giacomopuccini.it/

View into the Museo Puccini:

Festival Puccini

Annually, the Puccini Festival is held on the lake during the months of July and August. Several operas of Puccini are given on a large open-air stage.

https://www.puccinifestival.it/

Rimsky-Korsakoff’s apartment was a meeting place of many famous composers. Today, his residence at 28 Zagorodny Prospekt, where he spent his last 15 years, houses a small museum in a grand piano, which displays the premises of the house and memorabilia of the composer, as well as his work.

View of the Rimsky-Korsakov Museum:

www.theatremuseum.ru/english.html

Rachmaninov also acted as an estate manager on Ivanova and lent a hand. After the Rachmanonovs left the estate in the wake of the Russian Revolution, it was plundered and fell into disrepair. In the seventies the famous owner was remembered again and the estate was restored. Today it functions as a museum and Rachmaninov’s living situation has been recreated and the stages of his life documented in a permanent exhibition.

Rachmaninov on the estate:

View inside:

Consult website for hours of operation, museum is open primarily in summer months

https://ivanovka-museum.ru/

This museum was opened recently. The quality of the exhibition is guaranteed by the Fondazione Rossini. It consists of 10 rooms where you can follow his biography and compositions with many multimedia elements.

A room of the museum:

Schönberg was a native of Vienna. His parents came from neighboring countries to the east and were of Jewish descent. Schoenberg converted to Christianity at the age of 24, in part to escape rampant anti-Semitism. His first musical phase was late romantic with the main work “Transfigured Night”, later he composed atonally e.g. “Pierrot Lunaire” and then in the twelve-tone technique e.g. “Variations for Orchestra”.

With his writings on compositional theory, he became an influential theorist and thus developed the foundation of modern, newer music, called the “New Viennese School”.

The Museum

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Arnold Schönberg’s Mödling residence from 1918-1925 was posthumously turned into a museum. Since he had developed the twelve-tone technique there, it is also called the birthplace of 12-tone music. In this house one experiences multimedia his life stages, sees personal objects and learns about his compositional technique.

https://www.schoenberg.at/index.php/de/arnoldschoenbergcenter/schoenberghaus

Schubert Museum

Franz Schubert war nie in Hohenems, trotzdem pilgern Schubertfreunde nach Hohenems und Schwarzenberg im österreichischen Vorarlberg. Grund ist die Schubertiade, gegründet 1976.

Divided into two floors, the visitor learns about his life stages as well as compositions on the first floor and his impact on posterity on the upper floor. The museum is closed in the winter months, group tours can be arranged.

https://www.hohenems.at/de/kultur/museen/franz-schubert-museum-1

Museum Dreimäderlhaus

Im «Dreimäderlhaus» werden Kuriosa und Kitsch präsentiert die aus der Schubert-Verehrung entstanden sind wie Porzellanfiguren, Postkarten etc.

Please note the limited opening hours.

http://www.erlebnis-hohenems.at/sehenswertes/dreimaederlhaus-museum/

The Schumanns lived in four houses during their four years together in Düsseldorf. The last one is the only one that is still preserved. It has become a small Schumann museum, is currently undergoing a total renovation and cannot be visited until further notice.

https://www.duesseldorf.de/heineinstitut/museum/schumann-gedenkstaette.html

For Smetana fans, a museum was established in his honor. At the end of Novotného lávka, in front of the Museum of Bedřich Smetana, a monument to the composer was unveiled in 1984.

This museum was opened in 2015 and is dedicated to the Strauss dynasty. Its main representatives are Johann Strauss father and his sons Johann Strauss son, Josef and Eduard. The latter had a son Johann, who also became a musician (Johan Strauss grandson).

The museum:

https://www.strauss-museum.at/

Museum:

https://www.wienmuseum.at/de/standorte/johann-strauss-wohnung

http://www.mozarthausvienna.at

In this research site there are also 2 rooms that are open to the public. Offered is an overview of his life and headphones invite you to immerse yourself in his work.

http://www.richard-strauss-institut.de/

Richard Strauss Institute:

The estate in this city where 80,000 people live today is located 90 kilometers outside Moscow. It was already transferred to the museum after Tchaikovsky’s death. His servant Sofronov and his brother Modest furnished it with personal belongings of the musician. After Modest’s death, the museum had a troubled past: “As a result of the Second World War, most of the museum inventory was evacuated to Votkinsk, Udmurtia. From the end of November until December 15, 1941, Klin was in the occupation zone of the German Wehrmacht, which severely damaged the museum. The first floor served as a motorcycle garage and cobbler’s workshop. The upper floor became quarters for 100 soldiers, who used wooden furniture left in the house as firewood.

After the recapture of Klin by Soviet soldiers, British Secretary of State Anthony Eden and Soviet Ambassador of Great Britain Ivan Maiski surveyed the damaged museum as early as December 19, 1941, as part of a diplomatic mission with more than 20 correspondents. After the renovation of the house, Tchaikovsky’s removed items were returned to the museum in November 1944, which reopened with a ceremony on May 6, 1945.” (Source: Wikipedia). The house has become a central place of Tchaikovsky’s memory and all famous musicians such as Gilels, Horowitz, Richter, etc. visited the place and played in the music hall located on the premises, where occasional concerts are held.

Tchaikovsky House:

https://tchaikovsky.house/

The great Italian singer of the post-war years had a large following. Her greatest roles were from operas by Puccini, Verdi and other Italian composers. Her competition with Maria Callas was nurtured by the media and she fought with her American-Greek rival for supremacy at La Scala and the Met. There is a nice anecdote about her to the opera “Adriana Lecouvreur”: Rudolf Bing, the Met director of the sixties hated this opera. Renata Tebaldi, his star soprano with the pretty dimples on her face, was adamant about singing Adriana and threatened never to perform at the Met again if she couldn’t sing it. Bing gave in and commented later: «Renata looked innocent, but her dimples are made of iron».

A sample of her skills you can find her in the link with an excerpt from La forza del destino. In the role of Leonora and the “pace, pace” Renata Tebaldi was possibly unrivalled. Her angelic piano turns this aria into a monument and is one of the most beautiful recordings of this great singer.

«Pace, pace» aus «La forza del destino» gesungen von Renata Tebaldi :

https://opera-inside.com/la-forza-del-destino-by-giuseppe-verdi-the-opera-guide-and-synopsis/#Pace

She grew up in Pesaro and the pretty museum about her artistic life was launched in 2014.

https://www.museorenatatebaldi.it/

Verdi was always enraged by the singers’ arbitrariness in enriching their pieces to their own liking. When, at a relatively old age, he heard of a young conductor named Toscanini, he was highly impressed by his faithfulness to the works and later spoke highly of his compatriot. Toscanini subsequently became the most important Verdi conductor and left his mark on the Verdi interpretation deep into the second half of the last century. Toscanini was a headstrong and sophisticated person. A fanatic, obsessive and irascible conductor feared by all musicians.

In Parma, in the house where he was born, a small but fine museum has been set up that is absolutely worth a visit.

Arturo Toscanini in his american years:

A look into the museum:

http://www.museotoscanini.it/it-IT/home-museo-toscanini.aspx

Villa Verdi is an outstanding place to visit, which, although a museum, has been left as Verdi had left it in his will. It is cared for by his descendants and impresses with a wide variety of exhibits, ranging from the fortepiano to the carriage stable and the death mask. A beautiful park invites you to take a walk.

It is possible that the museum is closed for renovation when you read these lines. Please check before visiting.

Villa Verdi in Sant’Agata:

https://en.villaverdi.info/

A passionate Wagner devotee named Oesterlein collected small and big things of the master. From playbills to original scores. The city of Eisenach bought the collection and established a small Wagner museum. Next to Bayreuth, it is Wagner’s most important museum site.

View into the museum:

https://www.eisenach.de/kultur/museen/reuter-wagner-museum/rundgang

His birthplace

Weber was born in the very picturesque town of Eutin in Holstein Switzerland. The Weber family left the town in the first year of his life, and Weber returned twice more for visits. The small town maintains Weber’s memory in an exemplary manner.

Weber’s father wrongly held the title of nobility because the line had died out. His half-brother, Fridolin Weber, was the father of Mozart’s wife Constanze, from the Augsburg line. Thus Carl Maria is a cousin by marriage of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

A plaque in the still existing birthplace commemorates the famous resident. The two-story half-timbered house at Lübeckerstrasse 48 houses a coffee shop on the lower floor.

In 1890, a memorial was erected to which Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann and Russian Tsar Alexander III, among others, contributed financially. It is located in the nearby weavers’ grove. Behind the monument is a wall with a relief of a scene from Freischütz.

Birthplace:

Weber Monument: