Wagner, (Wilhelm) Richard

German opera composer. He revolutionized the 19th-century idea of opera, seeing it as a wholly new art form in which musical, poetic, and scenic elements should come together through such devices as the leitmotif. His operas include Tannhäuser (1845) Lohengrin (1850), and Tristan und Isolde (1865). In 1872 he founded the Festival Theatre in Bayreuth; his masterpiece Der Ring des Nibelungen/The Ring of the Nibelung, a sequence of four operas, was first performed there in 1876. His last work, Parsifal, was produced in 1882.

Wagner's early career was as director of the Magdeburg Theatre, where he unsuccessfully produced his first opera Das Liebesverbot/Forbidden Love (1836). He lived in Paris in 1839–42 and conducted the Dresden Opera House in 1842–48. He fled Germany to escape arrest for his part in the 1848 revolution, but in 1861 was allowed to return. He won the favour of Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1864 and was thus able to set up the Festival Theatre. The Bayreuth tradition was continued by his wife Cosima (1837–1930 (Franz Liszt's daughter), whom he married after her divorce from Hans von Bülow); by his son Siegfried Wagner (1869–1930), a composer of operas such as Der Bärenhäuter; and by later descendants.