Richard Wagner

Wagner's epic meditation on love turns 150. Projected on a cosmic level, the music triggered a seismic shift in Western music.

Get Richard or die trying: For one opera company, it's go big or go home. In Texas, Rio Grande Opera is performing Wagner's epic Ring operas back to back and over and over until $8 million is raised.

At 44, the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann may be the most popular tenor of his generation in the international opera world, and one of the most versatile. Among his recordings this year are albums dedicated to both Verdi and Wagner, celebrating the bicentennials of their birth.

Summer reading can be a blast, but it doesn't have to be the latest thriller from the NY Times, or a cheap romance novel. I was delighted to see so many…

I recently came across a steal. A friend on a social network posted that a recording was $6. That may seem normal for an mp3 release, or mildly cheap if…

Wagner's incredible and improbable success is one of the fairytale's of high art. The late Jacques Barzun referred to his position in later life as: "That…

For the 200 anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth, William Berger, author of Wagner Without Fear, guides us through five of his favorite Wagner moments — musical episodes that keep the composer's extraordinary dramas in our lives today.

In "Siegfried" we return to the origins of Wagner's conception of "The Ring." Before there was an explanation and an event, a plot before a back…

The Norse god Wotan - like his counterparts in the south, Zeus and Jupiter - got around as they say. He wasn't named "all-father" for nothing. The second…

After a decades-long struggle, the patience and slavish commitment of numberless friends, an inspiration that can truly be called superhuman, and a streak…