333 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS RICHARD WAGNER By Franklin Peterson, Mus. Bac. R 1 Hx^ (1813-1883) ichard Wagner's personality has been so overshad- owed by and almost merged in the great contro- versy which his schemes of reform in opera raised, that his life and character are often now sorely misjudged — just as his music long was — by those who have not the time, the inclination, or the ability to understand the facts and the issues. Before briefly stating then the theories he propounded and their development, as shown in suc- cessive music dramas, it will be well to summarize the story of a life (1813-83) during which he was called to endure so much vicissitude, trial and temptation, suffer- ing and defeat. Born in Leipsic, on May 22, 1813, the youngest of nine children, Wilhelm Richard was only five months old when his father died. His mother's second marriage entailed a removal to Dresden, where, at the Kreuzschule, young Wag- ner received an excellent liberal education. At the age of thirteen the bent of his taste, as well as his diligence, was shown by his translation (out of school hours) of the first twelve books of the " Odyssey." In the following year his passion for poetry found expression in a grand tragedy. " It was a mixture," he says, " of Hamlet and Lear. Forty-two persons died in the course of the play, and, for want of more characters, I had to make some of them reappear as ghosts in the last act." Weber, who was then conductor of the Dresden opera, seems to have attracted the boy both by his personality and by his music ; but it was Beet- hoven's music which gave him his real inspiration. From 1830 to 1833 many compositions after standard models are evidence of hard and systematic work and in 1833 he began his long career as an operatic composer with " Die Feen " which, however, never reached the dignity of performance till 1888 — five years after Wagner's death. After some time spent in very unremunerative routine work in Heidelberg, Konigsberg, and Riga (where in 1836 he married), he re- solved, in 1839, to try his fortune in Paris with " Rienzi," a new opera, written on the lines of the Paris Grand Opera and with all its great resources in view. From the mdnth's terrific storm in the North Sea, through which the vessel struggled to its haven, till the spring of 1842, when Wagner left Paris with " Ri- enzi " unperformed, heartsick with hope deferred, his lot was a hard and bitter one. Berlioz, in similar straits, supported himself by singing in the chorus of a second-rate theatre. Wagner was refused even that humble post. In 1842 " Rienzi " was accepted at Dresden, and its signal success led to his appointment
