Composer Profile
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) by Kristin Rasmussen
Composer, conductor, theater director and polemicist, Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a revolutionary figure in the history of opera. Musically ambitious from a young age and inspired by the German romantic greats, particularly Carl Maria von Weber, he began his musical education early in his adolescence and was already making his foray into operatic projects in his teens.
His works in the romantic styles of Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer established his early reputation as a composer. Wagner’s first successfully staged production, Rienzi (1842), was influenced by the Parisian grand operas of Meyerbeer and modeled after the French and Italian traditions of the period. The work was purposefully constructed so that it “should outdo all previous examples with sumptuous extravagance.” Wagner’s middle-period operas, including The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer), marked an important phase in his operatic evolution, with renewed focus on the dramatic essentials and continued advancements in his treatment of themes and portrayal of emotions. In his 1849 essay “The Artwork of the Future,” Wagner described how he sought to synthesize the arts into a vision of opera that he called Gesamtkunstwerk, in which the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts would be perfectly integrated to create his idea of a “total work of art.”
The concept of Gesamtkunstwerk was most fully realized in Wagner’s epic four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The Ring and Wagner’s other later period operas, particularly Tristan und Isolde, illustrate powerful advancements in his musical language: extreme chromaticism, shifting tonal centers, complex textures and rich harmonies. Wagner's later works also make extensive use of leitmotifs—musical themes associated with characters, feelings, ideas, places, or plot elements, a technique later widely adopted by film composers. Furthermore, The Ring brought about one of the most important physical landmarks in Western music history: Wagner’s own opera house, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered in Bayreuth, and the Festspielhaus has annually staged the whole of The Ring and three to four of his other operas for more than a century.
Wagner’s life was characterized by political upheaval, exile, love affairs and debt. His outspoken political writing and antisemitic views, particularly evident in his essay Jewishness in Music (Das Judenthum in der Musik), have sparked much debate about the themes and symbolism present in his works. Still, his ideals and artistic approach significantly impacted late romantic and early modern composers, influenced greatly by his concepts of musical form and chromaticism. Wagner’s influence has spread far beyond composition, into philosophy, literature, theater and the visual arts; and in the post-Wagnerian period, it is nearly impossible to be a creative and not be touched by his still-dominant presence.