Richard Wagner: Difference between revisions

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'''Wilhelm Richard Wagner''' (1813-1883), [[Dichter and Denker|German composer]] of the [[Romanticism]] era, primarily of [[Opera]] (though he also produced a distinguished, [[Tear Jerker (/Music)|melancholy]] song-cycle, the ''Wesendonck-Lieder''). Wagner was highly influential in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, promoting a great increase in full orchestration and chromaticism in musical language (leading to the typically "lush" Late Romantic sound), the development of nationalistic styles, and the popularizing the use of themes and motifs ([[Leitmotif]]) to represent ideas and characters. His copious writings also promoted developments in the stagecraft of his period, developing the concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' or "total art work" as a fusion of all elements of a performance, words, dance, music, staging, and so on, to form a single unified experience. Being a man of consequences, eventually he wrote, composed, stage-designed, directed AND conducted his operas himself.

* ''[[DerThe Ring Desof Nibelungenthe (Theatre)Nibelung|Der Ring Des Nibelungen]]'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), consisting of four parts:

* ''Tristan und Isolde''

Besides serving as models for composers of dramatic music (such as [[Bernard Herrmann]], [[Alfred Newman]], [[Erich Wolfgang Korngold]], and [[Max Steiner]]) up to the present, these works have themselves been frequently adapted for use in dramatic productions -- asproductions—as, for example, the Bridal Chorus „''Treulich geführt''‟ from ''Lohengrin'', which has become a [[Standard Snippet]] synonymous with weddings, and his "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]" from ''Walküre'', ubiquitous in contexts of war and flying. Though Wagner was by no means incapable of delicacy, his compositions have typically been used in contexts of ''Sturm und Drang''. Classic [[Looney Tunes]] cartoons seem particularly addicted to [[Public Domain Soundtrack|Wagner's music]] -- and—and two of the composer's greatest works were gloriously parodied in the famous short "[[What's Opera, Doc? (Film)|What's Opera Doc]]".

His extreme nationalism caused him to be adopted very soon as a symbol of [[Useful Notes/Germany|Germany]], particularly in its most [[Prussia|militaristic and]] [[Imperial Germany|imperialist modes]], and his virulent anti-Semitism and the fact that [[Adolf Hitler]] [[Hitler Ate Sugar|loved his music]] has made Wagner the ideal musical symbol of the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi Reich]]: depictions of the downfall of Nazi Germany are almost automatically accompanied by "Siegfried's Funeral March" from (naturally) ''Götterdämmerung''. (Wagner's anti-Semitism may have been a case of [[Boomerang Bigot|Boomerang Bigotry]]ry, as Ludwig Geyer, the man whom he suspected of being his biological father, was also (apparently incorrectly) reputed to be of Jewish ancestry.) Was once [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] with [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] before [[We Used to Be Friends|they had a huge falling out.]]

=== Other works{{examples|Works by Richard Wagner providewith examplestheir of:own ===trope pages include:}}

* [[AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle]]: Beckmesser's serenade in ''Meistersinger'' is faulted for this by „''Merker Hans Sachs''‟, as with „''die MIR wohl GEfall'n THUT''."

** In fact, during [[WW 2]], his music was banned even in English speaking countries like America and Britain.

* [[Combat Byby Champion]]: When Elsa is accused by murder, Lohengrin shows up to serve as her champion and defeat her accuser Telramund in single combat and thereby establish her innocence.

* [[Dreadful Musician]]: Wagner was a horrible pianist, but he said that he played it "a great deal better than Berlioz" -- who—who couldn't play the piano '''''at all'''''.

* [[Engagement Challenge]]: In ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' by Richard Wagner, Walther must win the <s> Nuremberg's Got Talent</s> song contest at the feast of St. John before he gets the hand of Eva.

** ''[[DerThe Ring Desof Nibelungenthe (Theatre)Nibelung|Der Ring Des Nibelungen]]''.

* [[Famous Last Words/Real Life|Famous Last Words]]: „Meine Uhr!‟ ("My watch!") — He had had a heart attack ,<ref> possibly brought on by a violent quarrel with his wife Cosima over a pretty young "Flower Maiden" in Parsifal</ref>, and was dying in his wife's arms when the watch fell from his pocket onto the floor.

* [[Fanfare]]: Several of Wagner's [[Leitmotif|Leitmotifs]]s (''e.g.'', Lohengrin's motif) have the character of fanfares; more conventional examples introduce the Overture to ''Rienzi'' and the Festival March from ''Tannhäuser''. At Bayreuth, certain motifs are [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQW8oYVMt1U played as fanfares] from the balcony of the ''Festspielhaus'' to announce the beginning of an act.

* [[German Language]]: While ''[[Leitmotif|Leitmotiv]]'' was actually coined rather by Hans von Wolzogen rather than by Wagner, we do owe to Richard that suitably impressive Teutonic term, ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' -- the—the "total art work" or combinations of all forms of art, music, theater, painting, dance, and so on, to make up one unified art-form.

* [[Kill'Em All|Kill 'Em All]]: Wagner started on the path of Everyone Dies early. His boyhood tragedy ''Leubald'' featured twenty-four deaths; by the last act, he had killed off so many that he had to bring some characters back as ghosts.

** Played out to a very literal and final conclusion in Götterdämmerung. The world is destroyed and literally everyone except the Rhine Maidens (Yes even the Gods) is killed.

* [[Love Potion]]: Shows up in ''Tristan und Isolde'' -- with—with [[Serious Business|portentous consequences]].

* [[Malicious Slander]]: In ''Lohengrin'', Elsa is falsely accused of killing her little brother Gottfried, the child-Duke of Brabant {{spoiler|(who had actually been turned into a swan by the [[Evil Sorcerer|Evil Sorceress]] Ortrud.}} Then the eponymous [[Knight in Shining Armor]] comes to her rescue.

* [[Mood Motif]]: One of the basic functions of the ''[[Leitmotif|Leitmotiv]]''.

* [[Music of Note]]: Even more famous than the "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]" is the [[Standard Snippet]] „''Treulich geführt''‟ (AKA "Here Comes the Bride") from ''Lohengrin'' -- but—but Wagner works are stuffed so full of [[Music of Note]] that it would be easier to list his "American Centennial March" right away.

* [[Opera]]: Uh...yeah. Wagner did compose a few other works, such as the ''Wesendonck-Lieder'' and the ''Siegfried-Idyll'' -- but—but the music-dramas constitute the composer's most extensive and important achievement.

* [[Prequel]]: ''Parsifal'' can be thought of as a prequel to ''Lohengrin''.

* "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]": The [[Trope Namer]] comes from ''Die Walküre''.

* [[Serial Escalation]]: Where Wagner took opera -- Iopera—I mean, ''Bühnenfestspiel''.

* [[Tenor Boy]]: Erik, Lohengrin, Walther, Siegfried and Parsifal -- theParsifal—the more "boyish" Wagnerian rôles. Perhaps subverted in ''Tannhäuser,'' in which the more sensual Heinrich is a tenor, the more innocent Wolfram a baritone.

* [[Trial Byby Combat]]: Lohengrin fights a judicial combat for Elsa of Brabant in his eponymous opera.

* [[Valkyries]]: It is Wagner's version that most people think of when imagining these mythological "Gatherers of the Slain" -- however—however, it is worth noting that unlike the popular conception, Wagner's original Valkyries did '''not''' wear horned helmets, but winged ones; did '''not''' ride winged horses, though they were aerial ones; and, though intended to be rather manly, ungentle women, were intended to be statuesque in the 19th century manner, rather than grossly obese.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?|What The Hell, Hero?]]: ''Parsifal'' actually introduces its eponymous hero this way, with him being reprimanded for senselessly killing a swan. Of course, he's [[The Fool]] and has a lot to learn -- helearn—he doesn't even know his name at this point.

* One of the planned sequences for [[Walt Disney]]'s ''[[Fantasia]]'' was the "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]."

* In ''[[Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen]]'', Tristan and Isolde turns out to be {{spoiler|the two halves of Baron Ashura.}}

* Episode 61 of ''[[Legend of the Galactic Heroes]]'' features a character sitting at the performance of ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''.

* ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'': In which, of course, the ''Walkürenritt'' provides a [[CrowningAwesome Music of Awesome (Sugar Wiki)|Crowning Music of Awesome]] for the "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]".

* ''[[Blade Runner]]'': Roy Batty mentions the Tannhauser Gate in his dying speech, though it is not clear whether this is a [[Shout-Out]] to Wagner or to the actual [[The High Middle Ages|thirteenth century]] Minnesinger. He pronounced it "Tann-howz-er".

* The film ''[[Excalibur (Filmfilm)|Excalibur]]'' makes use of the Preludes to ''Tristan'' and ''Parsifal'', as well as the Siegfried's Funeral March from ''Götterdämmerung''.

** Wagner is also mentioned briefly in ''[[Annie Hall (Film)|Annie Hall]]'', when Alvy is worried that the record store owner was making an anti-Semitic joke by mentioning that he was having a sale on Wagner.

* ''[[Valkyrie (Filmfilm)|Valkyrie]]'': Tom Cruise makes the [[Anvilicious|obvious]] invocation.

* In ''[[One, Two, Three]]'', the German doctor is a big fan of him and sadly missed the 3rd act of ''Die Walküre / The Valkyrie''.

* In [[James Herriot]]'s ''All Creatures Great and Small'' books, Siegfried and Tristan Farnon got these names because their father was a fan of Wagner.

* The main character of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (Literature)|The Cat Who Walks Through Walls]]'' also admits to cribbing the plot for one of his books from ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''.

* In Haruki Murakami's short story "The Second Bakery Attack," the narrator recalls a bakery robbery he and a friend had committed in college, in which the baker had allowed them to take as much as they wanted as long as they agreed to listen to listen to a full Wagner record.

* On ''[[Kir Royal (TV)|Kir Royal]]'', the protagonists use the aliases [[Richard Wagner|"Siegfried" and "Wieland"]], the names of Richard's son and grandson (while posing as the nephews of a Jewish composer, of all things).

* [[Grave Digger (Music)|Grave Digger]]'s ''Rheingold'' a [[Concept Album]] which is based on ''The Ring of the Nibelung''.

* ''[[Gabriel Knight (Video Game)|Gabriel Knight]]'': In the second game of the series, Wagner appears with King Ludwig of Bavaria in a [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy]] plot in which one of his music-dramas is a [[Literary Work of Magic]].

* In ''[[Bionicle]]'', the music played when the Le-Matoran are preparing to attack the Nui-Rama Hive is the "[[Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|Ride of the Valkyries]]".

* A brief snippet of the ''Meistersinger'' overature introduces the [[Classic Disney Short]], "[[Der FuehrersFuehrer's Face (Disney)|Der Fuehrers Face]]".

* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Mr. Burns gets to fight in a tank ("I've been waiting 25 years for this"), and he plays "[[The Ride of the Valkyries (Music)|The Ride of the Valkyries]]" as the [[Crowning Music of Awesome]]. He gets [[Rickroll|Rickrolled]]ed.

* The [[Looney Tunes]] short, "[[What's Opera, Doc? (Film)|What's Opera Doc]]" (and its 1945 precursor, ''Herr Meets Hare'').

[[Category:TheaterPlaywrights]]

[[Category:German MediaMusicians]]