Richard Wagner Overview

The portion of the nineteenth century that posterity has dubbed the Romantic era saw the birth of one of Western culture's greatest archetypes: the Romantic genius. The spirit of the age was incarnated in several dozen men and women, artists whose... [more]

The portion of the nineteenth century that posterity has dubbed the Romantic era saw the birth of one of Western culture's greatest archetypes: the Romantic genius. The spirit of the age was incarnated in several dozen men and women, artists whose powers of expression were matched only by the originality and force of their visions. Never since the Roman Empire had art so utterly surpassed both religion and politics in its grandeur, appeal, and ability to inspire the most impassioned flights of theoretical thought. The composer Richard Wagner was the titanic embodiment of Romanticism. Sublime yet deeply subjective, his music epitomized the Romantic aesthetic, and his essays on art illumined and clarified the meaning of beauty. Wagner raised opera to such heights that the genre virtually died with him, burned from the inside by its own glory. His works, as Schopenhauer described them, were "acts of music made visible." Born in Leipzig, Richard Wagner was the youngest of nine children in a prosperous and talented family. By the time he entered grammar school, four of his older sisters were successful actresses and one older brother was an opera singer. Wagner was a poor student, his energies entirely consumed by his twin obsessions, theater and music. Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller inspired him to dabble in playwriting, and he threw himself into musical composition under the influence of Mozart, Weber, and especially Beethoven. Wagner completed his formal musical training at Leipzig University, where his extraordinary talents were immediately recognized and cultivated. Upon receiving his degree, he worked as chorus master at various theaters and opera houses. He also began work on several operas of his own, writing both the libretti and the scores. Every aspect of creation was under Wagner's control, since he also directed the orchestra and singers for all debut performances. This control would be essential to the total effect that Wagner called "music drama," in which musicians and singers were given equal weight, working together to create a fuller, more plot-driven performance. In 1836, Wagner began a difficult marriage with actress Minna Planer. Minna already had an illegitimate daughter, who lived with her as her sister; after her marriage she continued her philandering, and Wagner found himself chasing Minna and her lover Dietrich (whom he sincerely wished to kill) all over Europe. Nonetheless, when she begged to return to him, Wagner could never say no. His pursuit of Minna caused him many trials: a few months of poverty in Paris ended with a stint in a debtor's prison, but also with the seeds of "Tannhauser" which was to be Wagner's first great opera. "Der Fliegende Hollander" ("The Flying Dutchman"), which Wagner called his "storm-swept ballad," had already been written and performed, but to no particular critical acclaim. Unfortunately, political disfavor intensified his personal and artistic isolation; exiled for his role in the revolution on 1848, Wagner fled to Zurich with his family. There he began the first of his essays on aesthetic theory, as well as a long poem about the pagan gods. He also befriended Franz Liszt, who directed his next spectacle, "Lohengrin." In 1852, Wagner completed the long poem, now titled "Der Ring des Nibelungen," and began work on the first of the cycle's scores. The project would eventually grow into an epic composition made up of four operas, "Das Rheingold," "Die Walkure," "Siegfried," and "Gotterdammerung." They were completed in 1874, having consumed more than 20 years of Wagner's life. Meanwhile, Wagner was conducting an affair with Liszt's daughter Cosima, then the wife of conductor Hans Von Bulow. After bearing two of Wagner's children, Isolde and Eva, she belatedly divorced her husband to marry her lover. A third child, Siegfried, soon appeared. Fame bestowed her charms upon the composer at last, with Charles Baudelaire's 1861 eulogy in the Revue Europeene. Wagner enjoyed tremendous popularity from then on, and his death in 1883 was all but overlooked in the torrential applause for his work. [show less]