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
The Flying Dutchman (opera) conducted the premiere at the Königliches Hoftheater in Dresden in 1843. This work shows early attempts at operatic styles that would characterise his later music dramas. In "Der fliegende Holländer" Wagner uses a number of leitmotivs (literally, "leading motifs") associated with the characters and themes. The leitmotifs are all introduced in the overture, which begins with a well-known ocean or storm motif before moving into the Dutchman and Senta motifs. Wagner originally wrote the work to be performed without intermission – an example of his efforts to break with tradition – and, while today's opera houses sometimes still follow this