Wagner was born in Leipzig during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars; his father died soon afterward. His stepfather was a fascinating actor and writer, and the boy turned into a decided intellectual. Wagner’s early interests, literature and music (his idols were Shakespeare and Beethoven), later expanded to include philosophy, mythology, and religion.

As a young man he worked as an opera conductor, and he spent an unhappy year in Paris trying to get one of his works produced at the very important opera house there. The virulent anti-French sentiments in his later writings stemmed from this experience. Back in Germany, he produced the first of his impressive operas, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, and wrote Lohengrin. Though these works basically adhere to the early Romantic opera style of Carl Maria von Weber, they already hint at the revolutionary ideal for opera that Wagner was pondering.

This he finally formulated after being exiled from Germany (and from a job) as a result of his part in the revolution of 1848–49. He wrote endless articles and books expounding his ideas — ideas that were better known than his later operas, for these were extremely difficult to stage. His book Opera and Drama set up the principles for his “music drama” The Rhine Gold, the first segment of the extraordinary four-evening opera The Nibelung’s Ring. He also published a vicious essay attacking Felix Mendelssohn, who had just died, and other Jews in music. Fifty years after Wagner’s death, his anti-Semitic writings (and his operas) were taken up by the Nazis.

Wagner’s exile lasted thirteen years. His fortunes changed dramatically when he gained the support of the young, unstable, and finally mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Thanks to Ludwig, Wagner’s mature music dramas were at last produced (The Rhine Gold, completed in 1854, was not produced until 1869). Wagner then promoted the building of a special opera house in Bayreuth, Germany, solely for his music dramas — an amazing concept! These grandiose, slow-moving works are based on myths and characterized by high-flown poetry of his own, a powerful orchestral style, and the use of leitmotivs (guiding or leading motives). To this day the opera house in Bayreuth performs only Wagner, and tickets to the yearly Wagner Festival are almost impossible to get.

A hypnotic personality, Wagner was able to spirit money out of many pockets and command the loyalty and affection of many distinguished men and women. His first marriage, to a singer, ended in divorce. His great operatic hymn to love, Tristan and Isolde, was created partly in response to his love affair with the wife of one of his patrons. His second wife, Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt, had been married to an important conductor, Hans von Bülow, who nonetheless remained one of Wagner’s strongest supporters. Cosima’s diaries tell us about Wagner’s moods, dreams, thoughts, and musical decisions, all of which he shared with her. After the death of “the Master,” Cosima ruled Bayreuth with an iron hand.

Half con man and half visionary, bad poet and very good musician, Wagner created a storm of controversy in his lifetime that has not died down to this day. He was a major figure in the intellectual life of his time, a thinker whose ideas were highly influential not only in music but also in other arts. In this sense, at least, Wagner was the most important of the Romantic composers.

Chief Works: Early operas: The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin ◼ Mature “music dramas”: Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (a brilliant comedy), Parsifal, and The Nibelung’s Ring, a four-opera cycle consisting of The Rhine Gold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods ◼ Siegfried Idyll, for small orchestra (based on themes from Siegfried; a surprise birthday present for Cosima after the birth of their son, also named Siegfried)

Encore: After selections from The Valkyrie, listen to “Wotan’s Farewell” from the same work (Act III); Prelude and Liebestod (love-death) from Tristan and Isolde.

Image credit: Richard Wagner Museum, Lucerne, Switzerland.