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Read on for an introduction into the life and work of the composer Richard Wagner, whose operas – including the epic Ring cycle – brought hitherto undreamed-of musical and emotional drama into the form.<\/p>
Richard Wagner revolutionised opera during the 19th century with his theory of Gesamtkunstwerk – <\/em>a music drama in which the music, poetry, and dramatic elements were completely inseparable. He popularised the use of leitmotifs –<\/em> musical phrases which represented specific characters – wanting a listener to be able to hear the physical dramatic action in the orchestral score.<\/p> Which are Wagner’s best and most famous operas?<\/a><\/strong><\/p> The composer’s most renowned works include, of course, Der Ring des Nibelungen <\/em>(The Ring Cycle<\/a><\/strong>). Completed in 1876, this was an epic story of a magic ring told in four full-length operas. These are Das Rheingold<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (The Rhinegold), Die Walk\u00fcre<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (The Valkyries), Siegfried<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (The Twilight of the Gods).<\/p> Other famous Wagner works include Tristan und Isolde<\/a><\/strong> <\/em>(1865). This was based on the classic tale of two lovers. Then there’s Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (1868), a consummately beautiful comic opera explores the heart of the human soul. <\/p> Three of these works – Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em> (The Valkyries), Tristan und Isolde<\/em> and Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg<\/em> – featured in our list of the 20 greatest operas ever written<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p> Wagner was b<\/strong><\/b>orn in 1813 in Leipzig, Germany. He was the ninth child of Johanna Rosine, the daughter of a baker, and Carl Friedrich Wagner, a police actuary. <\/p> In 1822 the family moved to Dresden and Wagner started school. He showed little interest in academic study, preferring poetry and music. He began taking harmony lessons (initially in secret) at around age fifteen.<\/p> In 1831<\/strong>, Wagner enrolled at Leipzig University to study music. He also began private tuition with Christian Theodor Weinlig (Kantor of the Thomaskirche) for a short time. <\/p> In 1834<\/strong> Wagner met and fell in love with Christine Wilhemine \u2018Minna\u2019 Planer, a much in demand stage actress, while working with Heinrich Bethmann\u2019s travelling theatre company. They married two years later. Though both had affairs, the couple’s marriage lasted 30 years until Minna’s death in 1866.<\/p> In 1836, a<\/strong> new post took him to Riga in Latvia. Here, he shared a tiny apartment with Minna, her sister and a wolf cub! Then, in 1839, in debt and without passports, Wagner and Minna made their way to Paris, the home of grand opera. Unfortunately, their two and a half years there were not terribly successful. The composer was forced to make a living by way of uninspiring arrangements and music journalism. <\/p> In 1848 <\/strong>Wagner started work on the text for what would become \u2018The Ring<\/em>\u2019, an epic opera cycle of unprecedented scale and grandeur. He envisioned a music-drama linking that intrinsically links the libretto with the music. <\/p> In 1864, he began a romantic involvement with Cosima von Burlow, daughter of Franz Lizst<\/a><\/strong> and wife of conductor Hans von B\u00fclow. Their first child, Isolde, is born the following year. After Minna\u2019s death in 1870 Cosima divorced her husband and married Wagner.<\/p> 1868 <\/strong>Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg <\/em>premieres at K\u00f6nigliches Hof- und National-Theater<\/a><\/strong> in Munich to considerable audience acclaim.<\/p> 1872 <\/strong>The foundation stone is laid at the theatre for what will become the Bayreuth Festival, Wagner\u2019s own opera gala. Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony is played and the first official festival is announced for the following year.<\/p> 1882<\/strong> After the second Bayreuth Festival and a major heart attack, the composer and his family relocate to the Palazzo Vendramin, Venice. <\/p> In 1883 <\/strong>a further heart attack proves fatal for Wagner and he died on the 13 February. His body was taken by gondola to the train station and back to Bayreuth where he was buried in a private ceremony in the grounds of his home.<\/p> We named Wagner one of the greatest composers of all time<\/a><\/strong> and, of course, one of the greatest opera composers<\/a><\/strong> ever.<\/p> by Bayan Northcott<\/em><\/p> In a letter to his father-in-law Franz Liszt, Wagner once remarked: \u2018Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being \u2013 musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.\u2019 And that \u2018anything else\u2019 ranged from journalist, theatrical reformer and cultural ideologue to vegetarian, revolutionary activist and anti-Semite \u2013 a range of concerns which, under the guise of Wagnerism, exerted a vast influence over the cultural life of Europe for decades after his death.<\/p> Wagner\u2019s standing among composers depends upon no more than 12 scores. Granted, ten of them, including the four comprising Der Ring des Nibelungen<\/em>, are evening-length music-dramas: while the Wesendonck Lieder (1857) are studies for Tristan und Isolde<\/em> and the Siegfried Idyll<\/a><\/strong><\/em> is a spin-off from Act III of Siegfried<\/em>. Yet this simply underlines the fact that all that really matters to us in Wagner comes out of his involvement with a specific form of theatre.<\/p> He may have aspired to unite Gluck<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s reformist drive for opera as drama with the symphonic impetus of Beethoven<\/a><\/strong>; aspired even to establish at Bayreuth a musical theatre which would become the conscience of the German nation. Yet the dramatic themes, and musical imagery of his stage works derive mainly from the world of early 19th-century Romantic opera, with its chivalry and evocations of Nature, its omens, talismans and potions, its dramas of black magic and love unto death.<\/p> What\u2019s remarkable is the way in which Wagner transformed his Romantic themes and materials. Take the device of the fatal ring. <\/p>What are Wagner’s most famous works?<\/h2>
When and where was Wagner born?<\/h2>
When did he move to Dresden?<\/h2>
When did Wagner get married?<\/h2>
When did Wagner start composing The Ring?<\/h2>
Who was Wagner’s second wife?<\/h2>
When and how did Wagner die?<\/h2>
Wagner: a style analysis<\/h2>
What is Wagner’s style?<\/h2>