22 May 1813, Leipzig – 13 February 1883, Venice
Wagner lost his father at an early age and grew up in the home of his second father, the dramatic actor Ludwig Geyer. He was not a wunderkind like Mozart or Rossini – he was fascinated more by literature and his relatives believed that he would become a poet. The art of music also attracted him, he started playing the piano, studying the music of Beethoven and composing. At the age of twenty he was concert master of the opera in Würzburg, where he composed his first stage work – “Die Feen”, in the spirit of the wide spread at that time German fantastic fairy-tale operas. Then followed “Das Liebesverbot” after Shakespeare’s comedy “Measure for Measure”, which brought him his first success, although it was produced just once. Still then Wagner decided that he must reform the opera genre and has to create a new type of music spectacle, combining equally in rights music, theatre and literature. This type of spectacle he called “music drama”, according to him would possess an “immense effective power” and could become a “powerful weapon for social reorganization of society”. A first attempt in this direction was “Der fliegende Holländer” – a work in which, although partially, were realized these reforming quests. The idea of the opera – redemption of sin through love self-sacrifice, we shall find also in the next stage opuses of the composer. With “The Dutchman” Wagner started using widely his favourite technique for music characteristics, called “leitmotiv”, or leading motive. With the leitmotivs he reveals the sense of what is happening on the stage, the thoughts and the feelings of the characters, he gives a hint about the course of the further events.
In the 40s of the XIX century the composer was fascinated by the legendary chivalrous plots and wrote two of his most beautiful operas: “Tannhäuser” (1843-1845) and “Lohengrin” (1845-1848). In them he went more far in his reform, but he didn’t break up entirely with the good opera traditions too.
After the revolution from 1848, which shook Europe, Wagner was in emigration till 1862 and was politically persecuted because of his participation in the Dresden Upraising from 1849. During these years he started working over “the work of his life” – the tetralogy “Der Ring des Nibelungen” after motifs from the German-Scandinavian epic. At that time he wrote also his famous articles – manifests: “The Artwork of the Future”, “Art and Revolution” and “Opera and Drama”, in which he formed exactly his ideas about the reform in opera.
In 1874, the tetralogy was completed. In it enter four monumental music dramas: “Das Rheingold”, “Die Walküre”, “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung”. The first performance was in Bayreuth, where for the court composer Wagner was constructed a special theatre by the young Bavarian King Ludwig. In our days there is hold annually a big summer opera festival, at which are being presented in new productions Wagner’s stage opuses.
Wagner’s last opera “Parsifal” was written a year before his death. The action takes place in the mystical heavenly kingdom of the Grail.
After Wagner the opera already cannot be the same. His influence is enormous and reaches out even to Verdi – “Otello” and “Falstaff” follow some of the principles of his aesthetics. “The expression and the instrumentation by Wagner – writes Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, – the glance and the incredible expression strength and power of his orchestra are really amazing.”
Ognyan Stamboliev