Lecture Access

This lecture will be available to view until 7 September 2026

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OVERVIEW

Watch on Demand | Online Lecture


Born in Leipzig in 1813, German composer and theorist Richard Wagner reshaped nineteenth-century music and drama, and left a legacy that continues to shape operatic performance and cultural debate. 

His operas, from The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and his great tetralogy, The Ring of the Nibelung, expanded the scale and ambition of the art form, drawing on literature, philosophy, and myth, while his theoretical writings challenged established ideas about how music and drama should function together. 

Wagner’s works remain central to the repertoires of major opera houses, not only for their musical demands but for the questions they raise about art, authorship, politics, and audience experience across time. 

In this lecture, Professor Carol Reynolds examines Wagner’s influence across music, literature, and philosophy, focusing on key innovations such as Gesamtkunstwerk, the use of leitmotif, and his distinctive orchestral sound.

LECTURER

Biography

Prof. Carol Reynolds is a musicologist who specialises in Russian, East European, and German cultural history. Carol spends much of her time as a curriculum developer, and consultant engaged in the revival of Classical Education. With her husband Hank, a music theorist and copyright attorney, she has written books and created courses in history and the Fine Arts. She works closely with Memoria Press, Classical Academic Press, the Circe Institute, and teaches in a Great Books Masters’ Program at Memoria College.

Prof Carol Reynolds

Musicologist