May 22 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of German composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner, one of the most celebrated composers of the 19th century. He is best known for the Ring Cycle of four operas, as well as the operas "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tristan and Isolde," sometimes described as marking the start of modern music. Though his music is highly influential, Wagner's legacy is controversial, the result of his nationalist and anti-Semitic writings, which later became a source of inspiration for Adolf Hitler.
Opera Fans Mark Richard Wagner's Bicentennial
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A bust of Richard Wagner is on display at a new permanent exhibit on the composer in his hometown of Leipzig, Germany.
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German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, a devotee of Wagner's music and writings, with the late composer's daughter-in-law, Winifred Wagner, and her two sons, Wolfgang and Wieland, in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1937
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Vasily Gorshkov (left) as the fire god Loge and Viktor Chernomortsev as Nibelung Alberich in Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" at the Mariinsky Theater in Moscow in 2005
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A performance of the opera "Lohengrin" in Moscow in 2008
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A visitor looks at artist Fyodor Fedorovsky's sketch of stage sets for a performance of Wagner's work at the Bolshoi Theater.
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A signed letter from Wagner to the Dresden lawyer Franz Adolf Schmidt, dated September 28, 1863. The letter is part of the collection of the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden.
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Katharina Wagner talks to her father, Wolfgang Wagner, one of the composer's grandsons, during a celebration of his retirement as manager of the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany.
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Yelena Mikhailenko performs in a play based on Wagner's operas, staged to celebrate the composer's bicentennial, at the Helikon Opera Theater in Moscow in February 2013.
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German weekly "Der Spiegel" marks Wagner's 200th birthday with a cover story titled "The Mad Genius."
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A young woman carries an oversized Wagner stamp in Leipzig, Germany. The German Finance Ministry issued a commemorative 10-euro coin and a postage stamp to mark the composer's bicentennial.