Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner was one of the most significant figures in 19th-century culture. His work sent shock waves across Europe, his operas expressing deep insights into the nature of the human condition, influencing fields as diverse as philosophy, politics, and psychiatry. A charismatic and often capricious figure, Wagner was – and remains – one of the most controversial and influential composers in musical history. Born into a family that was devoted to theatre, Wagner himself was a lively child with boundless enthusiasm for the music of Beethoven. Hearing the great diva Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient sparked his ambition to become a composer of opera. He gained experience as a conductor in provincial theatres, and married an actress. His first operas, Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot date from these early years. Der fliegende Holländer ("The Flying Dutchman"), a more characteristically German Romantic opera with a legendary, rather than historical theme, was the first of Wagner's operas to explore a subject that would become a lifelong obsession: redemption through love. In the early 1850s, Wagner wrote a series of lengthy polemical essays, most notably Opera and Drama, proposing a new kind of opera with drama as its focus and where music, costumes, lighting, and other associated arts would exist solely to enhance the drama. In the wake of this theorising, he set out on the most ambitious project of his career, the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ("The Ring of the Nibelung"). The last ten of Wagner's 13 operas remain among the most dominant works in the international repertoire. He expanded the boundaries of the harmonic universe of his time, created works of unprecedented musical richness and complexity, and paved the way for many developments that would define the coming century. Towards the end of his life, he designed the Bayreuth Festival Theatre, which enabled him to perform his works under optimal conditions. At his death, he had become a true icon of European culture.