OTD in Music History: Legendary composer and conductor Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) dies suddenly, of a massive heart attack, in his opulent study at "Ca' Vendramin Calergi," a magnificent 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice. Unlike most opera composers throughout history, Wagner wrote both the libretto (i.e., the text) and the music for each of his mature stage works. After initially establishing his reputation as a composer of stage works in the grand “romantic” vein of Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826) and Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864), Wagner went on to revolutionize the entire genre of opera through his controversial but brilliant concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk” (the "total work of art"), through which he actively sought to synthesize the poetic, visual, musical, and dramatic arts into a unified whole into which an audience could be fully immersed -- essentially, a comprehensive and shockingly modern conception of what we now know as cinema, envisioned decades before movie-making technology was even invented. Wagner described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852, and he ultimately most fully realized these ideas in his epic four-opera cycle, “Der Ring des Nibelung” (“The Ring of the Nibelung," first performed in 1876). Wagner’s late compositions are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and elaborate and highly sophisticated use of “leitmotifs” -- individual musical phrases that are associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. In the 1870’s, Wagner also had his own opera house built (the “Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus” in Bayreuth, Germany) which introduced many novel design features which have since been regularly incorporated into new opera houses. Both the complete “Ring Cycle” (1876) and his final opera, “Parsifal” (1882), were premiered at the Bayreuth Festival, and a regular Summer music festival dedicated solely to Wagner's works founded by Wagner, which continues on to this day. PICTURED: A plaster copy of Wagner's death mask.
