Prequel to The Ring of the Nibelung: How Wagner's Three Canonical Operas (The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin) Paved the Way to his Mature Music Dramas

Scholars of Richard Wagners works have long noted his numerous comparisons between their characters and plots in his letters, essays, and recorded remarks. Yet no one has previously attempted to assess their implications for our understanding of his art systematically. Paul Heises quest to grasp the allegorical unity underlying Wagners canonical artworks began in the 1970s. Following his allegoric...