Quotes by Richard Wagner

About Richard Wagner:


Wilhelm Richard Wagner is primarily known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, and which was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

Author Bio


  • NameRichard Wagner
  • DescriptionGerman composer, conductor
  • AliasesWilhelm Richard Wagner
  • BornMay 22, 1813
  • DiedFebruary 13, 1883
  • CountryGermany
  • ProfessionComposer; Librettist; Conductor; Essayist; Theatre Director; Autobiographer; Writer
  • WorksDas Liebesverbot; Der Ring Des Nibelungen; Lohengrin