Former German infantryman Hans Himsel lived through scenes in 1944 at the Bayreuth opera house worthy of the finale of Richard Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” when Valhalla goes up in flames. In this ...

A descendant of Richard Wagner, Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer, promised to hand over the correspondence of her late father to the Bavarian State Archives. Katharina Wagner, a great-granddaughter of ...

The world had plenty of reasons to forget Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle, “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” None of the four makes sense without the others—they premiered together in 1876—but the prospect ...

Staging any opera is rarely a modest undertaking, but if that opera happens to be by Richard Wagner, “modest” must go out the window. Typically, one needs a large theater, an outsized orchestra, and ...

Siegfried by Richard Wagner comes to Opéra Bastille next year. As part of the RING Festival 2026, performances will run from 10 to 19 November 2026. With Siegfried, staged in Calixto Bieito’s new ...

Ben Bernie, that endlessly entertaining old maestro, used to tell about his lads, explaining that one of them had gone to medical school. “He was the subject,” added Maestro Bernie. Something like ...