After his father's death, Richard lived in Eisleben with Geyer's younger bachelor brother, where he was enthused about the town's famous resident tightrope walker. Richard worked hard at learning the rudiments of this art, while working not so hard at learning the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. When Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Geyer married in 1822, Richard returned to his mother's home. She was taking in boarders, which included the famous composer Louis Spohr; the home was frequented by actors and musicians. Richard was fascinated to no end.
At the end of 1822 he was enrolled as Wilhelm Richard Geyer in the Dresden Kreuz School. He took some kind of piano instruction from a Latin tutor, but preferred to spend his time crudely playing theater overtures by ear. He apparently could not manage a scale correctly.
The excitement of the theater that was brought into the home by the actors and musicians caused Richard's thoughts to be filled with the stage and its magic. He began a chivalric drama for performance in his own puppet theater. He loved every aspect of the theater, the props, the scenery, the costumes, the make up, all of which fired his somewhat ghoulish imagination. He patterned his wardrobe from the outlandish costumes of the theater. He espied jeering devils in the stair window, whose shapes were perpetually altered. Demonic visions invaded his sleep; even the furniture in his room seemed to come to life, and he would wake up screaming.
When Richard was 13 his mother moved to Prague; Richard stayed in Dresden with the Boehme family, planning to visit his mother in Prague as often as possible. During his first visit, he was so enchanted with Prague's Catholic "mystery" that the next year he and a friend went on a walking tour to Prague, Richard begging funds along the way. They caroused, drank the local wines, and slept on straw.
When he returned to school in Dresden, the only things that held his interest were Greek mythology and Greek history. He didn't have enough patience to master grammar. He left the Boehme home and rented a cramped attic where he turned his attention away from school and to the composition of a giant tragedy, "Leubald."
After visiting Leipzig the next summer, he returned to Dresden, told the school officials that his family had called him to Leipzig, packed his few belongings, and showed up unexpectedly at his mother's door. It was about this time that he took the last name of Wagner.
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