"Wagner, (Wilhelm) Richard (b. Leipzig, 22 May 1813; d. Venice, 13 Feb. 1883). Composer and author. He was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner (b. 1770), a police actuary, and Johanna Rosine Wagner (b. 1774), former mistress of Constantin, prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. When Wagner's father died of typhus on 23 November 1813, the infant and his mother had been living for months in Teplitz, Bohemia, with Ludwig Geyer (b. 1780), an actor, playwright, and close family friend. Geyer married Wagner's mother in August 1814. Known as Richard Geyer for his first 14 years and treated as a favorite son, Wagner in his maturity suspected that Geyer was his natural father. He also suspected--wrongly--that Geyer was Jewish. In 1820 Wagner was placed in Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he also received instruction in piano. After Geyer's death on 30 September 1821, Wagner's mother settled in Dresden, where Wagner continued piano study with Humann. Equally important to his subsequent development was the residence there of Weber, Spohr, and Marschner, the three chief figures of German Romantic opera. In 1826 his mother and sisters moved to Prague, where Joanna Rosalie (b. 1803) had an offer for the stage. Left behind at school, Wagner began a play, `Leubald und Adelaide,' that was, by his own account, a cathartic bloodbath. In 1827 his mother moved to Leipzig, where his sister Luise Constanze (b. 1805) had accepted a state role; this time circumstances permitted Wagner to follow. "In Leipzig Wagner's first instruction in composition was taken in 1828-31 with Christian Gottlieb Muller. During these years he wrote copiously: piano sonatas in D minor, F minor, and B-flat major (four-handed); an Overture in B-flat major, a Politische Overture, an Overture in E-flat major, and an Overture in D minor (Concert Overture no. 1). The first- and last-named overtures were performed under Heinrich Dorn in Yuletide concerts at the Konigliches Sachsisches Hoftheater in 1830 and 1831. In 1831-32, while enrolled at the Thomasschule, Wagner took further lessons with Christian Theodor Weinlig, a theorist and composer who was music director at the Thomaskirche. Weinlig's pedagogy seems to lie behind a fugue and a two-handed arrangement of Haydn's Symphony no. 103. Wagner's talent was such that Weinlig refused all payment and arranged to have a Sonata in B-flat published by Breitkopf & Hartel (as op. 1). To this may be added a Fantasie in F-sharp minor and a Grosse Sonate in A op. 4 for piano; an overture and incidental music to Ernst Raupach's Konig Enzio (premiered 17 Feb. 1832); an Overture in C major (Concert Overture no. 2); and a Symphony in C major (clearly modeled on Beethoven). A performance of the C major overture by the Musikverein Euterpe in March 1832 marked Wagner's debut as conductor. Performances of the symphony at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and the Standisches Konservatorium in Prague brought him favorable notice as far away as London.

"Wagner now turned his attention to opera. While in Prague for the performance of his symphony he began the libretto to Die Hochzeit; back in Leipzig in December he began setting the text. In January 1833 Wagner's brother Karl Albert (b. 1799), who sang at the theater in Wurzburg, arranged for him to become chorusmaster there. The same month Wagner began drafting a new libretto, Die Feen (The Fairies; after Carlo Gozzi's La donna serpente). In February Die Hochzeit was abandoned and the music for Die Feen begun, reaching completion in January 1834, then revised that spring. Although the opera's musical and aesthetic premises are derived from Weber's Oberon and Marschner's Der Vampyr, they are nonetheless realized with a skill and attractiveness quite exceptional in a young man's first opera.

"Wagner's intellectual life had gained a notable stimulus in 1832 when the composer became friends with Heinrich Laube, along with Heine a leading figure in the Young Germans, an informal literary society that rejected the Romantic movement of the century's first decades in favor of a more politically conscious posture. The pages of Laube's Zeitung fur die elegante Welt provided Wagner with his first forum as a belle-lettrist. In `Die Deutsche Oper,' published in June 1834, Wagner began the practice, typical for him but unusual at that time, of working out a specific aesthetic or theory in print before trying it out in music. According to this article, Germans needed to learn from recent achievements in Italian opera. The same month he sketched the story of an opera in which he would heed his own advice, Das Liebesverbot; oder, Die Novize von Palermo (The Censure of Love; after Shakespeare's Measure for Measure), a grosse komische Oper in two acts.

"In July Wagner was offered the position of music director with Heinrich Bethmann's theatrical company, based in Magdeburg. The company was failing, and Wagner at first refused the post, then accepted it after meeting one of the troupe's actresses, Christine Wilhelmine `Minna' Planer (b. 5 Sept. 1809). In August he made his debut as an opera conductor with a production of Don Giovanni, began a Symphony in E major, and drafted the libretto to Das Liebesverbot, completing it in December. The same month he wrote an overture and incidental music to his friend Theodor Apel's Columbus. In April 1835 Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient, famous for the force of her characterizations and for creating Leonore in Fidelio, sang with the company; it was the beginning of an association between the diva and the composer that would include premieres of three subsequent operas.

"The music to Das Liebesverbot was begun in January 1835 and completed in March 1836. In it Wagner does indeed learn from recent scores by Bellini and Rossini--and also by Auber; but the foreign influences, rather than supplanting the native idiom of German Romantic opera, are integrated into it. The premiere on 29 March was so ill prepared that major roles were, in effect, improvised. Shortly afterward the Bethmann company folded. Minna was invited to join the theater in Konigsberg. There she campaigned for the conductor's post on Wagner's behalf. Wagner followed, and the two married on 24 November 1836. It took only a few weeks to learn that the marriage would be a stormy one.

"After his fiasco with the modest, insolvent Bethmann company, Wagner determined to produce works on a scale that could only be undertaken by major opera companies. French grand opera, especially as typified in the five-act librettos of Scribe, served as his model. Wagner's first attempt was the five-act Die hohe Braut; oder, Bianca und Giuseppe, in July (later set by Kittl). He then turned to instrumental genres. An overture, Polonia (1836), may have been performed in Konigsberg that winter; a new overture, Rule Britannia, was given there on 23 March 1837. On 1 April Wagner was appointed conductor. But the Konigsberg theater also proved to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Over the summer, with the help of Dorn, Wagner obtained the post of music director at the theater in Riga. He also began his second five-act libretto, Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes; after Edward Bulwer-Lytton), a grosse tragische Oper. This work marked the beginning of an interest in historical subjects.

"Wagner arrived in Riga on 21 August. For two seasons he conducted opera there as well as occasional orchestral concerts. In summer 1838 he began a singspiel, but quit it to finish the libretto to Rienzi; the music to Rienzi was begun in August 1838. In March 1839 Wagner learned that his contract was not being renewed; together with Minna he left Riga and his creditors under cover of night, heading for Paris over the stormy Baltic.

"The couple arrived in Paris 17 September. As in most political and cultural centers, money and connections played an important role in Parisian life. Wagner lacked both, and his two years in Paris turned into a bitterly disappointing experience, all the more so for beginning with great promise. After a chance meeting, Meyerbeer was persuaded to wield his considerable clout on Wagner's behalf; but the doors the older composer opened led to dead ends. Having exhausted his small capital, Wagner eked out something less than a living by making arrangements for the publisher Schlesinger, by writing articles and stories for the Paris Revue et gazette musicale and the Dresden Abend-Zeitung, and by composing a number of popular melodies.

"He managed at the same time to complete Rienzi (in November 1840) and to conceive and realize Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman; after Heline), a romantische Oper in three acts. This time text and music were conceived more or less in parallel: the libretto between May 1840 and July 1841, the setting between May 1840 and November 1841. In this work Wagner sought to eliminate the operatic conventions that impeded the unfolding of the drama. The last months of the Wagners' stay in Paris, while no less difficult, were brightened by the news (received June 1841) that Rienzi had been accepted for production by the Dresden theater. Wagner sketched two more librettos before leaving Paris, the first for a third five-act grand opera, Die Sarazenin, in 1841, the second for a Romantic opera, Die Bergwerke zu Falun (after Hoffmann), in three acts, in February and March 1842. Wagner and Minna left Paris for Dresden 7 April.

"Rienzi, considered by many today to be Wagner's least convincing opera, was finely gauged for audiences of its era. Its Dresden premiere on 20 October 1842 was a huge success (despite this, the opera was twice revised, in 1843-44 and 1847). In the wake of his triumph Wagner was offered, and accepted, the position of co-music director at the Dresden court. Thus began one of the more stable periods in his life. Material security freed him to pursue even more vigorously new paths in music drama. In the first of the new works, the Dutchman, the break with the conventions of number opera was by no means complete, but it was sufficient to challenge its first audiences. After its Dresden premiere, 2 January 1843, Wagner revised the scoring on three occasions (1846, 1852, 1860), partly to expunge traces of grand opera.

"The first opera conceived in Dresden, Tannhauser und der Sangerkrieg auf Wartburg (Tannhauser and the Contest of Singers on the Wartburg), a grosse romantische Oper in three acts, carried the process further, though its considerable success over the next century was due to the effectiveness of what were, in fact if not in principle, individual numbers. The libretto of Tannhauser was written between June 1842 and April 1843, the music from July 1843 almost up to the premiere, 19 October 1845. Dissatisfied with parts of the opera, Wagner worked at revisions from October 1845 to May 1847 and again in 1851.

"In July 1845 Wagner had sketched a prose draft for another three-act historical opera with a song contest, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. But his earlier discovery of Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie and, subsequently, of the old epics and eddas was inclining him in a different direction. A reading of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzifal inspired Wagner to make prose sketches for two operas, Parsifal and Lohengrin. The libretto of the latter was written from August to November 1845, the music from early 1846 through April 1848. In this opera the music of the scenes is much more of a piece. Although not lacking in grandeur, Lohengrin is suffused, above all, with an intense lyricism that made it, by the end of the century, Wagner's most-performed opera. The conclusion to act 1 was given in concert September 1848; the premiere of the whole, under Liszt at Weimar, 28 August 1850 (Wagner first heard the opera in 1859).

"Wagner next turned to two librettos on figures whose historicity is overshadowed by their mythic dimension: the first a five-act libretto for Jesus von Nazareth (for which there are music sketches); the second, in three acts, reflecting his study of Greek drama, Achilleus. But revolution came to Dresden in 1849, and Wagner became deeply involved, to the extent of obtaining hand grenades for the fight. When the uprising was crushed by Prussian troops Wagner fled to Weimar, where Liszt arranged for his safe transport to Paris. From there Wagner moved to the safe haven of Zurich. Almost immediately he wrote Die Kunst und die Revolution (Art and Revolution), a tract that argues a necessary connection between the two endeavors. Then, in Die Kunst der Zukunft (The Artwork of the Future) and Oper und Drama, he elaborated at length the cultural, aesthetic, and (for the creator) practical consequences of this position. A number of shorter essays followed, among which the most historically significant has been `Das Judentum in der Musik' (Jewishness in Music), published under the pseudonym K. Freigedank. In all these works Wagner synthesizes ideas that were already abroad.

"The same is true of his next and largest operatic project, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Heine had selected many of the same mythic elements for his 1839 treatment of the Nibelungs. The philosopher Vischer, in 1844, suggested in his Aesthetik that the legend of the Nibelungs would make a suitable subject for German opera. Luise Otto (in 1845) and, more prominently, Franz Brendel (in 1846) advanced the same idea in the pages of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik. Wagner did not pen his first sketch on the topic, `Die Nibelungensage (Mythus),' until March or April 1848, but he later recalled becoming aware of the potential of the Nibelung legends in 1846. He began with a single work, Siegfrieds Tod, the text begun in October 1848, the music in 1850. But it soon became clear that more of the story was needed, so he began writing a preliminary opera, Der junge Siegfried, in May 1851. By October his overall conception had emerged: an operatic tetralogy. He worked on the texts of all four operas intermittently, completing Das Rheingold in November 1852, Die Walkure in July 1852, Der junge Siegfried (later Siegfried) and the revised Siegfrieds Tod (later Gotterdammerung) in November or December 1852. The musical composition of Das Rheingold occupied Wagner from November 1853 to September 1854; that of Die Walkure from June 1854 to March 1856; that of Siegfried (in short score) from September 1856 to August 1857. Time for creation was gained through the generosity of friends, especially Otto Wesendonck, who advanced Wagner large sums and eventually provided a house for him.

"By 1856 Wagner found himself growing tired of the Nibelungs. During his years at this herculean labor he had, under the influence of Schopenhauer, moved beyond the poetic embodied in its conception. Already he had taken time out in January 1855 to revise the Faust overture and in May 1856 to make a prose draft (with music sketches) for Der Sieger. At the end of 1856 he began musical sketches for a work that would, he confided to Liszt, embody his unfulfilled dreams of love. However metaphysical the scope of these dreams, they were closely connected at the time with the object of his quotidian dreams, Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of Otto. In August and September 1857 he turned in earnest to writing the libretto for the new work, Tristan und Isolde. During its composition he also composed the Funf Gedichte (the Wesendonck Lieder) on very Wagnerian texts penned by Mathilde. Wagner was still in the throes of composition when deteriorating relations between Minna and Mathilde necessitated a move to Venice. Tristan was completed there in August 1859 (then touched up in December). The opera, in part because of its chromaticism, became Wagner's most influential and most analyzed work.

"Wagner's next project was to conquer Paris, city of his deepest humiliations. This time he had an entree to the Opera, and for that stage he made a major revision of Tannhauser. At the opening night, 13 March 1861, and also the second and third performances young aristocrats of the Jockey Club, wishing to humiliate Wagner and his patrons, created constant disturbances that drowned out the opera. Tannhauser was withdrawn, and Wagner hurriedly left Paris (and Minna) for Karlsruhe. There, between November 1861 and January 1862, he took up once again the Meistersinger libretto, composing act 2 between April 1862 and September 1864.

"The years following the Paris fiasco were difficult ones for Wagner. Not only was he between lovers, but also his friends had drifted away, and with them his lines of credit. In a foreword to the 1863 edition of the Ring Wagner wondered if, somewhere, they was a German prince with the means and the vision to support dreams such as his. There was. Upon his accession to the throne in 1864, Ludwig II, King of Bavaria (b. 1846), answered this cry for help and installed Wagner (in May) in a sumptuous villa in Munich. Soon thereafter, Cosima von Bulow (b. 1837), daughter of Liszt and wife of the brilliant Munich music director Hans von Bulow, answered another kind of cry for help by joining Wagner in his villa. Wagner's first project was to work on the libretto to Parsifal, but he soon turned to the scoring of Siegfried, act 2 (September 1864-December 1865), this being slowed down by the premiere of Tristan (June 1865). In January 1866 he returned to Die Meistersinger, completing it at his new home at Tribschen, on Lake Lucerne, in October 1867. The Munich premiere, 21 June 1868, was a complete success, and it whetted Ludwig's appetite for more. Against Wagner's better judgment, the king commanded a Munich production of the Ring's first two parts (1869, 1870). Meanwhile, during 1868, Wagner had sketched two new opera librettos: Romeo und Julie (April-May) and Luthers Hochzeit (August). The next year he returned to Siegfried, composing and scoring act 3 (mar. 1869-Feb. 1871) in alternation with work on Gotterdammerung (Oct. 1869-Nov. 1874). He was also producing children with Cosima: Isolde (1865), Eva (1867), and Siegfried (1869). In January 1866 Wagner's wife, Minna, had died in Dresden. In July 1870 Cosima's marriage to von Bulow was annulled; she and Wagner were married in Lucerne 25 August. For Christmas 1870 he wrote the Siegfried Idyll for her.

"In 1871 Wagner decided to build his long-dreamed-of festival theater in Bayreuth and began trying to raise the necessary capital. The Bayreuth town council favored the idea, land was donated, and in 1872 the Wagners were confident enough to move there. In 1874 King Ludwig `lent' Wagner funds to cover the major expenses. The festival theater finally opened in Bayreuth in summer 1876; it was afterward conceded by all but his most adamant critics that, on the whole, Wagner's achievement had matched his conception. Financially, however, the festival proved a disaster, and Wagner never again heard his tetralogy in Bayreuth.

"After a rest Wagner returned to Parsifal; he finished the libretto (Feb.-Apr. 1877) and composed the music (Sept. 1877-Jan. 1882). As he conceived this work, the boundary in it between art and religion was so thoroughly dissolved that only a theater `consecrated' for the purpose--that is, only Bayreuth--could mount a production. Such was the respect in which Wagner was held that the atmosphere at the premier, 26 July 1882, was one of hushed reverence. Less hushed was Cosima's reaction to Wagner's infatuation with one of the opera's Flower Maidens, Carrie Pringle. On 13 February 1883, after learning of the girl's impending visit to their winter quarters in Venice, Cosima confronted her husband; a stormy scene ensued. Hours later Wagner was found slumped over an unfinished essay on the eternal feminine, dead of a heart attack."