Being Wagner: The Story of the Most Provocative Composer Who Ever Lived
<b>Simon Callow, the celebrated author of <i>Orson Welles</i>, delivers a dazzling, swift, and accessible biography of the musical titan Richard Wagner and his profoundly problematic legacy--a fresh take for seasoned acolytes and the perfect introduction for new fans.</b><br /><br />Richard Wagner's music dramas have never been more popular or more divisive. His ten masterpieces, created against the backdrop of a continent in severe political and cultural upheaval, constitute an unmatched body of work. A man who spent most of his life in abject poverty, inspiring both critical derision and hysterical hero-worship, Wagner was a walking contradiction: belligerent, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, demanding, visionary, and poisonously anti-Semitic. Acclaimed biographer Simon Callow evokes the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner lived and takes us through his most iconic works, from his pivotal successes in <i>The Flying Dutchman</i> and <i>Lohengrin</i>, to the musical paradigm shift contained in <i>Tristan and Isolde</i>, to the apogee of his achievements in <i>The Ring of the Nibelung</i> and <i>Parsifal</i>, which debuted at Bayreuth shortly before his death. <i>Being Wagner</i> brings to life this towering figure, creator of the most sublime and most controversial body of work ever known.