RICHARD WAGNER

COMPOSER OF OPERAS

BY

JOHN F. RUNCIMAN

LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1913




TO
HAROLD HODGE



INTRODUCTION


It is now one hundred years since Richard Wagner was born, thirty
since he died. In every land he has his monument in one shape or
another; his music-dramas can be heard all the world over; all the
ancient controversies as to their merits or demerits have died down.
The Bayreuth theatre, the outward and visible sign of his inner
greatness, has risen to the point of its most splendid glory and
lapsed into the limbo of tenth-rate things. Every one who really cares