The sea was Richard Wagner’s inspiration for his 1843 opera Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman). In July to August 1839, Wagner travelled from Riga to London, crossing the Baltic Sea and the North Sea on what proved to be

In 1870, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) married his second wife, Cosima Liszt. His first wife, Minna, had died in 1866 but he’d had a relationship with Cosima, the illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult, since 1863 when she was

We were visiting the Richmond Museum of Fine Arts the other week and noticed two wonderful pieces of particular musical interest. In the Museum’s extensive holdings of silver items, we found two pieces commemorating operas by Richard Wagner. A sterling

Richard Wagner (1813-1883), not for the first or last time in his life, had to flee his creditors in 1839. His employment in Riga had left him and his wife Minna heavily in debt, and police officials had even impounded

Birthday presents come in all forms, shapes and sizes. When Cosima Wagner awoke on 25 December 1870 to celebrate her 33rd birthday, a group of 17 musicians had assembled on the stairs leading to her bedroom. With Richard Wagner conducting,

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was the manliest man in a manly world of manly composers! Creator of theatrical and musical dramas lasting the better part of eternity, his works are perpetually in danger of drowning in gigantic puddles of testosterone. As

Hoping to gain financial independence, Richard Wagner was eager to establish an annual music festival that would realize his particular vision of music and theatre. Initially he contemplated Munich, but his extravagant and scandalous behavior in that city caused him

The new Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House, a co-production with Opera Vlaanderen, is musically a very fine production. What it lacks, however, is a unifying concept. Neither direction (David Alden), stage set (Paul Steinberg) nor costumes (Gideon Davey) came