Former German infantryman Hans Himsel lived through scenes in 1944 at the Bayreuth opera house worthy of the finale of Richard Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” when Valhalla goes up in flames. In this ...

For the first time in its 150-year history, the Bayreuth Festival staged Wagner’s Rienzi, Hitler’s favorite opera, reopening questions about propaganda and antisemitism.

This is the introduction to Plot Twist, our weekly culture newsletter, in which correspondents spotlight important authors and performers, and tell you about the works of art and the stories they love ...

David Rosenthal’s little book about Richard Wagner’s influence on European art is an introduction to paintings, lithographs and drawings inspired by the subjects of his operas. The title is misleading ...

Whenever the music of Richard Wagner is performed, the composer’s famously antisemitic views come back into sharper focus. With a harrowing conflict in the Middle East and rising antisemitism ...

Richard Wagner had a special hall built to his exact specifications for the performance of his operas. The industrial town where it was built, Bayreuth, is now known for little other than productions ...

A manuscript by Richard Wagner that has remained in the hands of Sicily’s Tasca d’Almerita family for more than 140 years has ...