Richard Wagner

This composer and theorist, active in the Romantic era, was born in Leipzig in 1813. He became interested in music after listening to the works of Beethoven and Weber. His first work - an orchestral overture, could be heard in Leipzig when he was 16 years old. From 1833 to 1839, he worked in operas in Würzburg, Magdeburg, Königsberg, and Riga, composing works such as 'The Flying Dutchman', 'The Ban on Love', and many orchestral works including a symphony.
He then traveled by ship to London, creating his second outstanding opera titled 'The Flying Dutchman'. In 1842, he presented his opera 'Rienzi' at the Hoftheater in Dresden, which was a great success and allowed him to also promote 'The Flying Dutchman' and eventually become the director of the Hoftheater. The next opera Wagner presented to the public in Leipzig was 'Tannhäuser', which, due to its innovative character, did not appeal to the audience. The artist decided to seek help from his friend Franz Liszt, who staged the opera 3 years later in Weimar. The same situation occurred with the opera Lohengrin, which also did not please the Leipzig audience and was presented by Liszt in Weimar.
In 1847, he joined revolutionaries in Germany and had to flee to Zurich. There, he worked on his four-part scenic drama 'The Ring of the Nibelung', based on Das Nibelungenlied, a German epic poem from the 13th century. Claiming that the last part of this work 'Twilight of the Gods' required refinement, he created another part called 'Siegfried'. In 1859, his remarkable opera 'Tristan and Isolde' was composed, and its premiere took place after his return from Zurich to the country in 1865 in Munich. In 1872, Wagner composed the final part of 'The Ring of the Nibelung', and the entire tetralogy had its premiere at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, a theater created specifically for staging Wagnerian operas. Later, he began work on another work titled 'Parsifal', a drama based on the legend of the Holy Grail, which premiered in 1882. In the same year, the artist began to have health problems and in the hope that a better climate would improve his condition, he went to Venice. There, he died a few days later in 1883. He was buried in the mausoleum of his villa in Bayreuth.