Opera
In the 19th century Richard Wagner (1813-1883) continued Gluck’s ideas. Wagner had very personal ideas about how his operas should be performed, and he liked to train the singers himself. He wanted them to take the drama of his operas seriously instead of treating the music as a way of showing off their voices. He always wrote the libretti (words for the opera) himself, and they were always in German. They are mostly about serious subjects from German folklore and myths, although he did write one comic opera: The Mastersingers of Nürnberg. Wagner used “leitmotifs” which means that there are tunes which are used for particular characters or ideas in the opera. This allows the music to develop with the story, and can be used in interesting ways. For example: when Sigmund (in the opera Die Walküre) says that he does not know who his father is, we hear his father’s tune in the orchestra! The audience, of course, know (this is called: dramatic irony).