Richard Wagner (1813-1833)
Germany

After the death of Carl Maria von Weber in 1826, German opera stagnated. Only until Richard Wagner's Rienzi (1837-1840) was performed in 1842 did German opera sustain an audience. How this happened can only be explained through Wagner's abandonment of traditional "number" opera and his many reformations of 19th century opera. He viewed his opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total art work). This Gesamtkunstwerk demanded more from the singer and more from the orchestra; operas were now to be based on legend and myth and constant implementation of the lietmotiv would serve as a unification device. His most "romantic" opera is Tannhäuser (1845). Yet Wagner was not to specialize in opera alone. In 1850, exiled away in Zürich, Wagner wrote an anti-Semitic tract and a statement on musical theater, Oper und Drama (Opera and Drama). It was also at this time that he began to develop his most famous opera-cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen (which will take 22 years to complete), of which many remnants remain in modern entertainment; who has not seen a parody of the fat, Viking opera singer donning a horned-helmet, and who has not heard the melody of The Ride of the Valkyries featured at least one Simpsons episode? In 1864, Ludwig II invited Wagner to stay in his Bavarian castle. It was also at this time that Wagner engaged in an adulterous affair, which cost him his social standing in Bavaria. Ludwig would later assist Wagner in the development of a revolutionary theater in Bayreuth suitable enough for The Ring. But the theater was too much of a drain on Wagner's wallet, and in 1877, Parsifal would appear as part of his attempts to correct the balance. Parsifal was not performed until 1882. In between 1877 and 1882, Wagner concentrated on his musical and political writings. In 1833, while in Venice, Wagner died of heart failure. Yet despite his shoddy character, questionable heritage, and blatant anti-Semitic views, Wagner indubitably remains the savior of 19th century German opera.

Works

Orchestral
- A Faust Overture (1840)
- Siegfried Idyll (1870)
Opera:
- Rienzi (1840)
- Der fliegende Holländer ("The Flying Dutchman", 1841)
- Tannhäuser (1845)
- Lohengrin (1848)
- Das Rheingold (1854)
- Die Walküre (1856)
- Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1867)
- Siegfried (1871)
- Götterdämmerung (completing Der Ring des Nibelungen, 1874),
Music Drama:
- Tristan und Isolde (1859)
- Parsifal (1882)

Sources:

Richard Wagner: Zenith of German Romanticism. Charles K. Moss, M.M.Ed., M.Mus. 18 May 2001 < http://classicalmus.hispeed.com/articles/wagner.html>

Longyear, Ray M. Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988.

Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Sony Classical. Sony Music Entertainment. 2001. <http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/eras/romhist.html>