Richard Wagner (1833-1877) A List of Wagner's Stage Works
Along with Giuseppe Verdi, Wagner was the greatest opera composer of the
Late Romantic era. He wrote little other than his 13 completed operas. He was
unique not only in also being the librettist of his operas, he wrote some of the most
inventive orchestra music for these works. He and Franz Liszt were the two most
renowned composers of the New German School during the War of the Romantics.
Tristan und Isolde (1857-59) A ground-breaking work that influences many orchestra composers.
Wagner's greatest achievment is Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the
Nibelung), a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed over a 26
year period. The four operas are: Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold) (1869), Die Walküre
(The Valkyrie) (1870), Siegfried (1876), and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)
(1876).
The operas:
Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) 1841 / 1843
(Tannhäuser and the Song Contest on the Wartburg) 1843–45 19 October 1845;
Lohengrin 1846–48 /
Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) 1853–54 / 22 September 1869
Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) 1854–56/ 26 June 1870
Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde) 1857–59 / 10 June 1865
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) 1861–67 21 June 1868
Siegfried 1856–71 / 16 August 1876
Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) 1871–74 / 17 August 1876
Parsifal 1877–82 / 26 July 1882