Editing Richard Wagner (section)

==== "Music dramas" (1851–1882) ====

===== Starting the ''Ring'' =====
{{Main|Der Ring des Nibelungen|Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the music|Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the poem}}
[[File:Ring22.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Brünnhilde]] the [[Valkyrie]], as illustrated by [[Arthur Rackham]] (1910)|alt=A youthful [[valkyrie]], wearing armour, cloak and winged helmet and holding a spear, stands with one foot on a rock and looks intently towards the right foreground. In the background are trees and mountains.]]

Wagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces. ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', commonly referred to as the ''Ring'' or "''Ring'' cycle", is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of [[Germanic mythology]]—particularly from the later [[Norse mythology]]—notably the [[Old Norse]] ''[[Poetic Edda]]'' and ''[[Volsunga Saga]]'', and the [[Middle High German]] ''[[Nibelungenlied]]''.<ref>See {{harvnb|Millington|2001a|p=286}}; Donington (1979) 128–130, 141, 210–212.</ref> Wagner specifically developed the libretti for these operas according to his interpretation of ''[[Alliterative verse#Old High German and Old Saxon|Stabreim]]'', highly alliterative rhyming verse-pairs used in old Germanic poetry.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|pp=239–240, 266–267}} They were also influenced by Wagner's concepts of [[ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] drama, in which [[tetralogy|tetralogies]] were a component of [[Athenian festivals]], and which he had amply discussed in his essay "[[Oper und Drama]]".{{sfn|Millington|2008|p=74}}

The first two components of the ''Ring'' cycle were ''[[Das Rheingold]]'' (''The Rhinegold''), which was completed in 1854, and ''[[Die Walküre]]'' (''The Valkyrie''), which was finished in 1856. In ''Das Rheingold'', with its "relentlessly talky 'realism' [and] the absence of lyrical '[[Number (music)|numbers]]{{'"}},{{sfn|Grey|2008|p=86}} Wagner came very close to the musical ideals of his 1849–1851 essays. ''Die Walküre'', which contains what is virtually a traditional [[aria]] (Siegmund's ''Winterstürme'' in the first act), and the quasi-[[choral music|choral]] appearance of the [[Valkyrie|Valkyries]] themselves, shows more "operatic" traits, but has been assessed by Barry Millington as "the music drama that most satisfactorily embodies the theoretical principles of 'Oper und Drama'...&nbsp;A thoroughgoing synthesis of poetry and music is achieved without any notable sacrifice in musical expression."{{sfn|Millington|2002c}}

===== ''Tristan und Isolde'' and ''Die Meistersinger'' =====
While composing the opera ''[[Siegfried (opera)|Siegfried]]'', the third part of the ''Ring'' cycle, Wagner interrupted work on it and between 1857 and 1864 wrote the tragic love story ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' and his only mature comedy ''[[Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg]]'' (''The Mastersingers of Nuremberg''), two works that are also part of the regular operatic canon.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|pp=294, 300, 304}}

[[File:Betz Franz.png|thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[Franz Betz]] (by {{ill|Fritz Luckhardt|de}}), who created the role of Hans Sachs in ''Die Meistersinger'', and sang Wotan in the first complete ''Ring'' cycle|alt= A photograph of a bearded white man with male-pattern baldness wearing glasses]]''Tristan'' is often granted a special place in musical history; many see it as the beginning of the move away from conventional [[harmony]] and [[tonality]] and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=301}}{{sfn|Dahlhaus|1979|p=64}}{{sfn|Deathridge|2008|p=224}} Wagner felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines.{{sfn|Rose|1981|p=15}} Completed in 1859, the work was given its first performance in Munich, conducted by Bülow, in June 1865.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=298}}

''Die Meistersinger'' was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to ''Tannhäuser''.{{sfn|McClatchie|2008|p=134}} Like ''Tristan'', it was premiered in Munich under the baton of Bülow, on 21 June 1868, and became an immediate success.{{sfn|Gutman|1990|pp=282–283}} Millington describes ''Meistersinger'' as "a rich, perceptive music drama widely admired for its warm humanity",{{sfn|Millington|2002a}} but its strong German [[nationalism|nationalist]] overtones have led some to cite it as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.<ref>See e.g. {{harvnb|Weiner|1997|pp=66–72}}</ref>

===== Completing the ''Ring'' =====
When Wagner returned to writing the music for the last act of ''Siegfried'' and for ''[[Götterdämmerung]]'' (''Twilight of the Gods'') as the final part of the ''Ring'', his style had changed once more to something more recognisable as "operatic" than the aural world of ''Rheingold'' and ''Walküre'', though it was still thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer and suffused with leitmotifs.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|pp=294–295}} This was in part because the libretti of the four ''Ring'' operas had been written in reverse order, so that the book for ''Götterdämmerung'' was conceived more "traditionally" than that of ''Rheingold'';{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=286}} still, the self-imposed strictures of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' had become relaxed. The differences also result from Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he wrote ''Tristan'', ''Meistersinger'' and the Paris version of ''Tannhäuser''.{{sfn|Puffett|1984|p=43}} From Act&nbsp;3 of ''Siegfried'' onwards, the ''Ring'' becomes more [[chromaticism|chromatic]] melodically, more complex harmonically and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs.{{sfn|Puffett|1984|pp=48–49}}

Wagner took 26 years from writing the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until he completed ''Götterdämmerung'' in 1874. The ''Ring'' takes about 15 hours to perform{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=285}} and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages.

===== ''Parsifal'' =====
Wagner's final opera, ''[[Parsifal]]'' (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a "''Bühnenweihfestspiel''" ("festival play for the consecration of the stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the [[Holy Grail]]. It also carries elements of [[Buddhist]] renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=308}} Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card".{{sfn|Cosima Wagner|1978|loc=II, p. 647. Entry of 28 March 1881.}} It remains controversial because of its treatment of Christianity, its eroticism, and its expression, as perceived by some commentators, of German nationalism and antisemitism.{{sfn|Stanley|2008|pp=169–175}} Despite the composer's own description of the opera to King Ludwig as "this most Christian of works",{{sfn|Newman|1976|loc=IV, pp. 578. Letter from Wagner to the King of 19 September 1881.}} Ulrike Kienzle has commented that "Wagner's turn to Christian mythology, upon which the imagery and spiritual contents of ''Parsifal'' rest, is idiosyncratic and contradicts Christian [[dogma]] in many ways."{{sfn|Kienzle|2005|p=81}} Musically the opera has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style, and Millington describes it as "a diaphanous score of unearthly beauty and refinement".{{sfn|Millington|2002b}}