Wagner really should have hired a competent librettist.
“Wagner really should have hired a competent librettist.” [BenLurkin, post 55]
Doing so would have been unthinkable, to Richard Wagner.
He is the poster child for outsize ego among artists: megalomania might be too poor a word. Drawing much of his plot material from Teutonic myth, German legend, and other North Euro sources, he would never have given the first thought to the possibility that any wordsmith could express ideas better than he.
Wagner did not like calling his creations “operas.” He convinced himself that he was in the vanguard of an entirely new art form: “music drama,” which (he claimed) would combine plot, music, performer talent, and showmanship in ways never before imagined, bringing audiences a “next level” experience.