Verdi and Wagner

The world of opera of the 19th century was dominated by Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi was an Italian born in 1813 and dying in 1901. Wagner, also born in 1813, lived until 1882. Verdi's operas were much more practical and worldly than were Wagner's. They dealt with events in history or literature. They represented a peculialrly Italian practicality where beauty and brilliance are sought, but there is a recognition that they will never be attained and that there is a certain absurdity in the attempt.

That absurdity was Wagner's universalistic attempt to transcend art and create Art in the general sense. He attempted to synthesize all the fine arts of music, architecture, voice, and dance into a whole artistic expression. At the risk of generalizing, this was a quintessentially Germanic quixotic grandiosity bordering on pompousity. The genius of Wagner is that he very nearly succeeded in the attempt. Verdi always was disgusted by Wagnerian arrogance, as he saw it.