Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like arias and recitatives. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the 16-hour, four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs-musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements.