Wagner, vahg'nur, WILHELM RICHARD (1813-1883), the most celebrated of modern composers, born at Leipzig. He received his education at Leipzig and Dresden, and after 1834 he filled various musical engagements at Magdeburg, Riga and Konigsberg. In 1839 he went to Paris and London and there composed his operas Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman. The brilliant success of the operas secured him the conductorship at the Royal Opera of Dresden in 1843. He joined the insurrectionary movement of 1848 and was compelled to exile himself. Until his return to Germany, in 1864, he spent most of his time in Switzerland, Italy, Paris and London. His Tannhauser and Lohengrin appeared in 1845 and 1850, respectively. The king of Bavaria, Louis II, became an enthusiastic patron of Wagner, and the theater at Baireuth, especially built for Wagner by the contributions of Wagner societies throughout the world, was chiefly supported from the king's purse. Here the famous tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, consisting of Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung, was first performed in 1876. About a year before his death Wagner produced his last creation, Parsifal, which has since been produced with emphatic success. He gave to his works a national character by selecting his subjects from old German legends. His theory, founded upon the ideas of Gluck and Weber, was that in a perfect musical drama, the three arts, poetry, music and dramatic representation, should be welded together into one well-balanced whole. His particular views on music are embodied in a well-known work, entitled Oper und Drama. See OPERA.