Richard Wagner was born in Leipizig in 1813. His father, Carl Wagner, died six months after his birth. His mother, Johanna Rosine, remarried Ludwig Geyer, and the family moved to Dresden. Wagner enrolled at Leipizig University in 1831. Wagner completed his first opera at the age of 20. In 1836, he married Christine Planer, an actress that starred in his opera titled Madeburg. Planer left him in 1837 but rekindled their relationship in 1838. Having moved to Riga in 1837, the couple had to flee in 1839 to Paris to due to debt. During his time in Paris, he finished to his most famous operas called Rienzi and Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). In 1842, he moved back to Dresden but was exiled to Switzerland in 1849 due to his socialist German Nationalist political involvement. In 1858, he moved to Venice and left behind Planer who had discovered he was seeing someone else. He moved to Paris a year later to oversee a production of Tannhäuser. In 1862, he was able to move back to the German region and settled in Biebrich. Finally, he moved to Bayreuth where he built an opera house. Wagner died at the age of 69 in 1883 in Venice.