Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a German composer, conductor and writer who transformed opera into what he called music drama. Born in Leipzig, he rose to the court opera at Dresden, where Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser were staged, then fled into twelve years of exile after the 1849 uprising. In Switzerland he wrote the theoretical works and began the four operas of The Ring of the Nibelung, completed only in 1874 after King Ludwig II of Bavaria rescued him from debt. Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers and Parsifal followed, and he built his own theater at Bayreuth. He dictated his autobiography, My Life, to his wife Cosima.