DR. HANS RICHTER
The famous conductor, in charge of the orchestral forces at Bayreuth in 1876 and after
Moreover—and this is the most important point—in Gluck’s operas, as Wagner himself pointed out in 1850, “aria, recitative, and ballet, each complete in itself, stand as unconnected side by side as they did before him, and still do, almost always, to the present day.”
It was this defect of the opera—this incoherence of its parts—that Wagner set himself the task of remedying. The result was the Music Drama—the “Artwork of the Future,” as exemplified in the Ring of the Nibelung as well as in “Tristan and Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger” (mice-ter-singer), and “Parsifal.”
DIFFERENT FROM ORDINARY OPERAS
These seven music dramas differ radically in their structure from what had been known for centuries as operas. Operas are made up of “set numbers”; that is, solo arias, duos, ensembles (ahnsahmbles) for three or four voices, besides choruses, instrumental pieces, and dances. Wagner also himself wrote some operas: “The Fairies,” “Rienzi,” “The Flying Dutchman,” “Tannhäuser” (ton-hoi-ser), and “Lohengrin,” in all of which there are set numbers which are played and sung once and do not recur.
Beginning with the “Flying Dutchman,” however, we have, besides the set numbers which do not recur, others which do recur, and these are the far-famed “motives” (German, leitmotive), usually called “leading motives,” or guiding themes.
LUDWIG II OF BAVARIA
The young king who befriended Wagner and made his plans possible