Richard wagner biography movie stars

Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.

Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in Pontrhydyfen to Edith Maude (Thomas) and Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner.

With the strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer, it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre (Hofoper) in the Kingdom of Saxony and in 1842, Wagner moved to Dresden. The two wed in 1990.

Wagner remained active with his career. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for the theatre.

Twice married to actress Natalie Wood, Wagner was with her the night she drowned in November 1981; the circumstances surrounding her death remain under investigation.

Early Life

Robert John Wagner Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 10, 1930. According to him, they composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art.

In "Opera and Drama" (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of drama that he was using to create the Ring operas.

"Judaism in Music" (1850) was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest").

This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that the music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. He appeared with fellow acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese (1978) about mercenaries in South Africa. The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter).

Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on 21 June the following year. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice, where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian, while Minna returned to Germany. Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts, and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and the other operas Wagner planned.

As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas ...

I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by a lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel). ...

At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening [emphasis in original].

Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856).

However, he won another Oscar nomination for his excellent performance as a concerned psychiatrist in Equus (1977). Questions about Wood's death had circulated for years — as she was scared of deep water, it struck some as unlikely that she would have ventured near the dinghy on her own. Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th Symphony.

Wagner was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal, and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. On the one hand, I was numb and felt like I was in some sort of dream state - I couldn't believe Natalie was gone, but I knew it was true.