>>59
I speak German fluently and have Tannhäuser, Der fliegende Holländer and the Nibelungen Cycle on DVD/BD/CD. Which one of those would you recommend to get into Wagner? I was always somewhat interested in him, but the few excerpts I heard never really impressed me too much (I rarely listen to music).

>>60
The standard recording of Tannhauser is the Solti, there's not many good recordings of that one unfortunately. Tannhauser is definitely the best starting place for Wagner, very simple, a more traditional opera but still brilliant drama and music.

But before you get into the operas I would recommend listening to all the major excerpts from each, like the overtures, siegfried's funeral music, parsifal verwandlungsmusik, pilgrim's chorus, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COhLnFwGaT0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXh5JprKqiU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s88hmJ_osjY

>>61
Thank you for your reply, I will start with Tannhäuser then. I own the recording by Konwitschny and a libretto, so I will likely listen to that one instead of Solti. Also because Fischer-Dieskau is one of the few singers I actually manage to understand.

I also remembered a funny Wagner-related anecdote from the circle around Stefan George: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBk002KDYEE&t=1724

>>62
A George related Wagner story! that's pretty rare. I'm surprised he didn't stay awake for it, since some of George's earlier poems (like Algabal and Litanei) are on Wagnerian topics, but I guess they must have been inspired more by general culture at the time than a specific interest in Wagner.

Thanks for the cool story.

>>59
Quick run down of Wagner? New to this subject.

>>66
Wagner was the greatest and most influential composer after Beethoven, wrote operas early on in his career but later rejected the idea for the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (total-artwork), in which all the arts join together in equal importance, which is something that has been unseen since the Greeks, hence it’s a return to both the culture and art of Ancient Greece, but with the advantage of the full development of the arts of music and painting, which Ancient Greece only had in a more primitive form. So Wagner was equally a dramatist and theorist as a composer, and his dramas and theories have had an enormous influence on literature and various important philosophers in modernity.

>>66
What the guy above said and also…
You know how movies use certain theme songs or melodies for specific characters or scenes? Wagner invented that.