Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a German composer, conductor and theater director who reshaped opera as music drama, uniting music, poetry and staging in a single work of art. Born in Leipzig, he won success with Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman, then Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, which draw on medieval legend and Christian themes of redemption. His part in the Dresden uprising of 1849 led to years of exile, mostly in Switzerland, where he planned the four-part cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, based on Germanic and Norse myth. The turning point came in 1864, when King Ludwig II of Bavaria became his patron, enabling him to complete the Ring and build the Bayreuth Festival Theater, which opened in 1876 and still hosts an annual festival. His last work, Parsifal (1882), centers on the Holy Grail and compassion. His leitmotifs, recurring themes tied to characters and ideas, influenced much later music.
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Giants of the Romantic Era
Romanticism prized feeling, imagination and national spirit. Beethoven's music bridged the Classical and Romantic eras. Victor Hugo led French Romantic literature, from the drama Hernani (1830) to Les Misérables (1862). Chopin, who settled in Paris in 1831, gave the piano a new poetic voice. Wagner, who revered Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, reshaped opera as music drama, and Tchaikovsky brought Russian Romanticism to the world with Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.
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