Richard Wagner

Wagner's step-father was a playwright, and Wagner acted in his plays as a child.

Wagner wasn't particularly interested in music until he realized that successful plays were set to music.

Wagner's first complete opera, Die Feen, wasn't performed until after his death.

Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for each of his stage works.

In her diary, Queen Victoria described Wagner as "short, very quiet, wears spectacles and has a very finely-developed forehead, a hooked nose & projecting chin."

Wagner's children, Eva and Siegfried, were named after characters in his operas.

Facing a stormy sea voyage while fleeing creditors inspired Wagner's opera, The Flying Dutchman.

While Wagner was in exile for his revolutionary activities, his friend Franz Liszt staged and conducted his opera Lohengrin for him.

It took Wagner twenty-six years to complete the four operas in his Ring Cycle. 

Wagner wrote an autobiography, but his wife Cosima destroyed all the copies she could find after his death.

Attracted to luxury, Wagner liked perfumes, silks, and satins. 

Wagner built his own opera house in Bayreuth.