About the book: 2011 / Wagner’s genius occupies one of the first places in the world musical heritage, and his work constitutes an entire era in the history of music. However, controversy around him still does not subside. Wagner's works cause fanatical delight among some, and persistent rejection among others. The Saxon authorities persecuted him for his revolutionary activities, and the Russians commissioned him to “National Anthem.” He received huge fees and was a pathological debtor due to his insatiable love of luxury. The composer was friends with the Russian revolutionary M. Bakunin, the Bavarian king Ludwig II, the philosophers A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche, and became related to F. Liszt. For many contemporaries, Wagner was the personification of “unbridled morals,” a destroyer of family homes, but he himself sincerely loved and found happiness in family life, surrounded by children and dogs. Wagner is called the forerunner of the Nazi ideology of the Third Reich and Hitler's favorite composer. He insisted that art should have a moral impact on the public; the core of his plots were humanistic ideas that were found only in ancient myths. After his death, his very fate became a myth…