Richard Wagner (1813-1883) started out as a conductor and composer of
operas, but he soon reacted against the "whole clinking, twinkling,
glittering, glistening show, Grand Opera!" Wagner (RW) concluded that what
was wrong with the operas of the early 19th century was that drama had
become nothing more than an excuse for the performance of music.  Wagner
intended to reverse this, and to create "music-dramas" (not a term 
introduced by RW but one that has often been applied to his later dramas) 
in which music would serve the purposes of drama. Therefore ideally the 
orchestra would be invisible and the action on stage would be 'deeds of 
music made visible'. In order to achieve a closer unity between poetry 
and music, RW became one of the first operatic composers to write their 
own texts.

RW is perhaps best known for his cycle, 'The Nibelung's Ring', a massive
work that took him almost 27 years to write. During the composition of
this work, RW realized that there was no stage in Europe suitable for the
'Ring'. He set about raising money to build his own "Festival Theatre" in
the small German town of Bayreuth. Although the first festival was a
financial disaster, the Bayreuth Festival, which was the begetter of the
whole festival idea, survives to this day. 

In addition to his talent for musical composition on the largest of
scales, RW was a man of the theatre. His theories, innovations and
experiments had a profound effect on the staging of opera and attitudes to
opera everywhere. 

"A man with a genius for many arts has brought those arts, in his own
work, more intimately into union than they have ever before been brought;
and he has delighted the world with this combination of arts as few men of
special genius have ever delighted the world with their work in any of
these arts." (Arthur Symons, 1905)