Richard Wagner

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1813 age 0

   Born

2. 1883 age 69

   Died

3. 1929 age 69

   CreditUn Chien Andaloucomposer

4. 1957 age 69

   CreditLove in the Afternooncomposer

5. 1977 age 69

   CreditThat Obscure Object of Desirecomposer

6. 2011 age 69

   CreditMelancholiacomposer

• LBLuis Buñuel2 titles
• JHJohn Hurt1 title
• SSStellan Skarsgård1 title
• KDKirsten Dunst1 title
• BWBilly Wilder1 title
• IDI. A. L. Diamond1 title
• JCJesper Christensen1 title
• AHAudrey Hepburn1 title
• CRCharlotte Rampling1 title
• KSKiefer Sutherland1 title

• "I believe in God; and Mozart, and Beethoven as his only sons."

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

• It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews … The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The oldest, truest, most beautiful organ of music, the origin to which alone our music owes its being, is the human voice.

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Recently, while I was in the street, my eye was caught by a poulterer's shop; I stared unthinkingly at his piled-up wares, neatly and appetizingly laid out, when I became aware of a man at the side busily plucking a hen, while another man was just putting his hand in a cage, where he seized a live hen and tore its head off. The hideous scream of the animal, and the pitiful, weaker sounds of complaint that it made while being overpowered transfixed my soul with horror. Ever since then I have been unable to rid myself of this impression, although I had experienced it often before. It is dreadful to see how our lives—which, on the whole, remain addicted to pleasure—rest upon such a bottomless pit of the cruellest misery! This has been so self-evident to me from the very beginning, and has become even more central to my thinking as my sensibility has increased … I have observed the way in which I am drawn in the [direction of empathy for misery] with a force that inspires me with sympathy,

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

• I had translated the first twelve books of the Odyssey. For a while I learnt English also, merely so as to gain an accurate knowledge of Shakespeare; and I made a metrical translation of Romeo's monologue. Though I soon left English on one side, yet Shakespeare remained my exemplar, and I projected a great tragedy which was almost nothing but a medley of Hamlet and King Lear. The plan was gigantic in the extreme; two- and-forty human beings died in the course of this piece, and I saw myself compelled, in its working-out, to call the greater number back as ghosts, since otherwise I should have been short of characters for my last Acts. This play occupied my leisure for two whole years.

  Richard Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0

Nationalities

Kingdom of Saxony, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria

Cause of death

myocardial infarction

Languages

German

Years active

1832–

Instruments

piano

Genres

opera, choral symphony, classical music

Notable works

The Flying Dutchman, Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser, Das Rheingold, Lohengrin, Der Ring des Nibelungen

Education

Kreuzschule, Leipzig University, Thomasschule zu Leipzig