WAGNER
Richard Wagner was born at Leipzig on 22nd May, 1813; died at Venice, 13th February, 1883. He was educated at Dresden and Leipzig, where he also studied music. Poetry was a passion with him as a boy; and verse and play-writing occupied his mind until a great enthusiasm for Beethoven turned it into a musical direction. He was Musical Director at the Magdeburg Theatre from 1834-36, Conductor at Königsberg in 1836, Music Director at Riga in 1837-39, and lived in Paris in 1839-42, where he struggled in vain to obtain a footing. His opera Rienzi was produced at Dresden in 1842 with a success which obtained for him the post of Kapellmeister at the opera-house there. The Flying Dutchman was produced the following year at Dresden, and marked a new epoch in his artistic history. Tannhäuser, the first of his creations from the German myth-world, was also produced at Dresden in 1845. After this he got into pecuniary difficulties; and his sympathies also being with the revolutionary movement of 1849, he was proscribed, and escaped to Paris. By the efforts of Liszt, Lohengrin was produced in 1850 at Weimar. After ten years of exile, Wagner was pardoned, and took up his residence at Munich, where King Ludwig of Bavaria became his enthusiastic and generous patron. Tristan and Isolda was produced at Munich in 1865; and this genuine music-drama marked a new epoch in operatic art. Die Meistersinger followed in 1868. Wagner was now world-famous, and his colossal genius began to receive the support it deserved. In 1872 his own great theatre at Bayreuth was founded; and upon its completion in 1876, his noble tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen was produced there. His last dramatic effort and crowning achievement, Parsifal, was produced at Bayreuth in 1882. Wagner's early years were full of struggle, opposition, and strife; but through all his disappointments he clung firmly to the new and great ideals of art he had formed, and in the end he conquered, his latter years being crowned with success and enthusiastic appreciation.