Richard Wagner classical music. His "Tristan und Isolde" is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music. Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The "Ring" and "Parsifal" were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants. His thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" ("The Mastersingers of Nuremberg"). Until his final years, Wagner's
Richard Wagner 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. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became the four-opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen". He initially for a single opera, "Siegfrieds Tod" ("Siegfried's Death"), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded the story with the opera "Der junge Siegfried" ("Young Siegfried"), which explored the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for