Richard Wagner was, and still is today, arguably the most controversial figure in classical music. A self-appointed deity and hyperdriven genius, Wagner is often considered the ultimate megalomaniac.

To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, WQXR offers a week of music and commentary on his life and works.

Sir John Tomlinson, whose thoughts specifically about the Prom Parsifal in which he sang the role of Gurnemanz follow below, says it all about clutter versus simplicity: “people talk about directors ...

Discover the world of Wagner, the controversial composer whose work has graced box office movies, kids’ cartoons and some of classical music’s longest, most brooding operas. Here’s how to get your ...

If, like me, you prefer your opera recordings to be heard and not seen, make an exception for this DVD of Peter Sellars’s remarkably lucid staging of John Adams’s Nixon in China. A work which, as ...

Richard Wagner was, and still is today, arguably the most controversial figure in classical music. A self-appointed deity and hyperdriven genius, Wagner is often considered the ultimate megalomaniac.

A) Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer, who provided the soundtrack for the Third Reich, albeit 50 years after his death. B) Classical music’s most infamously outspoken anti-Semite. C) A willful, ...