Wagner, Wilhelm Richard

Wagner, Wilhelm Richard (1813-83), German composer.

Richard Wagner's step-father was an actor, and as a child Richard was often in theaters.

He learned to play the piano and later had lessons in composing music. Then he began to write operas.

His first opera to be praised was Rienzi, performed at Dresden in 1842. Wagner finished writing this opera in a prison in Paris. He had been sent there for owing money.

He led a stormy life and in 1848 he had to flee from Germany because he was mixed up in a plot by some rebels.

By the age of fifty, he had written some outstanding operas but he still had difficulty in having them produced.

Finally he opened his own theater at Bayreuth in Bavaria and there, in 1876, produced the Ring, a series of four operas.

Wagner's other operas include The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Lohengrin and his last and perhaps greatest work, Parsifal.

Wagner wrote the words as well as the music of his operas which were based on German legends.

His work is now performed in opera houses all over the world and each year there are special performances in a Wagner Festival at Bayreuth.

See William Berger Wagner Without Fear