Richard Wagner developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs. Wagner took 26 years from writing the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until he completed "Götterdämmerung" in 1874. The "Ring" takes about 15 hours to perform and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages. Wagner's final opera, "Parsifal" (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a ""Bühnenweihfestspiel"" ("festival play for the consecration of the stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail. It also carries
Ernst August Wagner Ernst August Wagner Ernst August Wagner (22 September 1874 – 27 April 1938) was a German mass murderer who, on 4 September 1913 killed his wife and four children in Degerloch. He subsequently drove to Mühlhausen an der Enz where he set several fires and shot 20 people, of whom at least nine died, before he was beaten unconscious by furious villagers and left for dead. He was the first person in Württemberg to be found not guilty by reason of insanity after several psychiatric assessments diagnosed him to suffer from paranoia. He was brought to an asylum in Winnenthal,