Wilhelm Richard Wagner (/ˈvɑːɡnər/; German: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ] (About this sound listen); 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is ...

You cannot escape Richard Wagner. If this review has reached you, anywhere in the world and by whatever means, you have already had your life affected in some way by a 19th-century megalomaniacal ...

Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, and WEB Du Bois all drew on his work. Hitler was his most fateful disciple. Has the composer’s legacy been misunderstood? At the beginning of Siegfried, the third opera in ...

Staging any opera is rarely a modest undertaking, but if that opera happens to be by Richard Wagner, “modest” must go out the window. Typically, one needs a large theater, an outsized orchestra, and ...