From M/Cyclopedia of New Media
- Richard Wagner was born in 1813 in Liepzip on the 22nd of May and died in Venice on the 13th of February 1883. At the age of 15 he wrote his first play and at the age of 16 he started writing his first compositions (Boynick, 1996).
- In total Wagner wrote 13 operas and numerous other compositions as well as a large number of books and articles, in total approximately 230. His literary spectrum ranges from theories on opera to political program. Indeed Wagner had an incredible influence on many of the cultural and historical movements of his time, as he inspired both artists and musicians alike (Salmi, 2003).
- However Wagner’s primary legacy were his operas. Indeed through his operas and some of his theoretical essays, Wagner exerted an extremely strong influence on the operatic medium. Wagner was possibly one of the first people in history to recognize that the integration of various art forms could heighten the artistic experience. He was an advocate of a relatively ‘new’ form of opera which he called ‘music drama’, in this medium all the elements of music and drama were fused together (Wikipedia, 2004).
- In 1849 Wagner wrote the essay ‘The Art-Work of the Future’ in this extremely influential essay he described how opera could serve as a single vehicle for the unification of all the arts into a single medium. Indeed ‘Wagner believed that the future of music, music theatre and all the arts, lay in the embrace of Gesamtkunstwerk or 'total artwork’. He described his theory of Gesamtkunstwerk as an alliance between music, poetry, the visual arts and dance (Packer, 2000). This theory was one of the first to unify separate art forms and a vital step in the progression of Multimedia Art.
- Wagner was anxious to have a special opera house for the complete work of the Ring (possibly on of his most well know operas) and spent a lot of energy trying to raise money for just that. The house was built at Bayreuth designed by Wagner as a home for his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk and the first festival was held there in 1876, an artistic triumph but financial disaster (Boynick, 1996). The Festpielhaus (festival house) Theatre was where Wagner applied his innovations to the operatic format these included: darkening the house, surround sound reverbrance, round house seating to focus audience attention on the stage.
- Wagner is considered one of the most progressive composers in history. He has been connected with nearly all the major trends in German history of the 19th century and 20th century. He has been classified as many things; an anarchist and socialist and simultaneously a fascist and nationalist and anti – Semite (Chew 1996). However it would be hard to underestimate his contribution or his influence on modern art. His theory of the total artwork and his operas are some of the first attempts to integrate multiple art forms into an integrated medium. Indeed he is often billed as one of the most important people in the progression of Multimedia Art.
Bibliography & Further Reading:
- (2000) ‘Transfer Interrupted!- Temple of Richard Wagner,’ [Online] Available: http://sangha.net/messengers/wagner.htm [2004, October, 24].
- (2004), ‘Richard Wagner,’ Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia, [Online] Available: http://ww.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner [2004, October, 5].
- Boynick, M. (1996), ‘Richard Wagner,’ the Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, [Online], Available: http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/wagner.html [2004, October, 20].
- Chew, R. (1996),‘Richard Wagner- German Opera Composer,’ Lucid Interactive, [Online] Available: http://www.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96may/wagner.html [2004, October, 12]
- Packer, R. (2000), ‘Richard Wagner,’ Multimedia – From Wagner to Virtual Reality, [Online], Available: http://www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/timeline/Wagner.html [2004, October, 24].
- Salmi, H. (2003), ‘Richard Wagner,’ [Online], Available: http://users.utu.fi/hansalm/wagner.spml [2004, October, 24].
Lauren Porter 12:25, 9 Sep 2004 (EST)
Lauren Porter 09:58, 29 Oct 2004 (EST)
