User Reviews

I will admit that this miniseries was almost too much - but the subject was such an incredible one that the viewer who gave it a chance really got to appreciate the production. My only regret is that I saw the abbreviated version - not the nine hour version. Also, to keep in mind, this was the last role in the career of Richard Burton, and as such it was certainly large enough to be a fitting monument to his own career.

Richard Wagner was that rarity: a great composer who became a serious multi-cultural figure in his own lifetime. That was because, unlike any of his rivals in the field of opera composition (including his only real rival, Giuseppi Verdi) Wagner did more than write music. He wrote the librettos of his operas. You can say they were the closest to fully "organic" works of music by any opera composer of the 19th Century.* Besides that, Wagner was (at least up to 1848) a political revolutionary, getting involved in revolutionary activities in Munich (then the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria) and Vienna (then the capital of the Austrian Empire. He would write political pamphlets on German nationalism throughout his lifetime. He would also write (and far less happily) pamphlets attacking the Jews - which in time would be picked up by fellow German anti-Semites, such as Adolf Hitler. If you recall in the film HELLO DOLLY, when Vandergelder (Walter Matthau) is marching in the huge 14th Street Parade, there is a float in honor to Wagner from a German society. This was not usual with other prominent composers in the 19th or 20th Centuries (even Beethoven or Brahams or Tschaikowski).

[*Back in 1972, I was in the rare book and map room at the old B. Altman Store on Fifth Avenue and E. 34th Street. I was shown a manuscript for Lohengrin that was being sold. It was the first published manuscript in Italian of that opera. Wagner's writing was on some of the pages - he was re-translating the Italian translation of his lyrics back into German!]

This fellow, flaws and all, was a really fascinating one. He was more than just the average racist and bigot. He was a scoundrel, frequently spending huge sums of money that did not belong to him - and leaving some misguided arts patron footing a huge debt at the end (this happens in the series when Wagner has to flee Vienna in the 1860s after his debtors threaten court action). He was over sexed, betraying his first wife many times (even before he betrayed his best friend Von Bulow, the conductor, by wooing away the latter's wife Cosima). In the end even Cosima, who shared her husband's vitriolic hates and super-nationalism was betrayed by him...although she had the privilege of watching him die of a stroke.

Burton played the role well, showing the mental strength and the character weaknesses of a man who, for better or worse, helped shape the culture (or kultur) of Europe for seventy years. It was not only dramatic moments, such as his confrontation with officialdom (John Guilgud as one of several Munich government ministers who try to corral or deal with him) but comic ones, such as his dealing with his firmest ally, the ...err...eccentric King Ludwig II of Bavaria (Lazlo Galfi). The scene when Ludwig arrives incognito to learn at the feet of his maestro in Switzerland is pure high comedy, with a perplexed Burton and a nervous Vanessa Redgrave (Cosima) wondering how to handle having this royal nut without hurting his feelings (and even probing whether his desire to abdicate is worth pursuing - it turns out it isn't!). In the end Ludwig did create the permanent Bayreuth festival center for Wagner's operas to be performed. Like his three mad castles in Bavaria, the Bayreuth center remains active.

The series also strengthens our grasp on another cultural icon of the age who was briefly in tandem with Wagner: Friedrich Nietzche (Ronald Pickup - who curiously portrayed Verdi in a mini-series a few years earlier). Nietzche gradually became disillusioned by the great Richard. The theory of the superman was a universal idea, not specifically for Germans (as Wagner suggested). More interesting was the effect of Wagner's racism. Nietzche was anti-Semitic too, but after hearing the table talk at Richard and Cosima's parlor (which suggested hideous mass murder ideas), Friedrich started realizing there was a limit to racism before it was too late - he repudiated Wagner before the latter's death in 1883. But by then most of Wagner's friends had repudiated the man.

As said before the super racists like Hitler picked up on Wagner's crack-brained racial ideas. Hitler would place his full seal of approval on Wagner in the 1930s and 1940s by attending performances at Bayreuth, acting like a member of the composer's family (they referred to him as "Uncle Wolf" - a suitable nickname, unless you like wolves). However, one questions Hitler's actual admiration for Wagner's music, with it's use of leitmotifs and themes, and odd sexual habits (incest among them). It is known that after the second act of the operas Hitler would leave...he is not known for sitting through an entire performance. Given that some of the operas run over five hours, this is understandable.

For all the flaws of the great composer, the music remains to entice us into listening. Burton caught the genius and the flaws quite well. Redgrave, Pickup, Guilgud, Richardson, Olivier (again using his "Bassermann" accent - see I WAS A CRIMINAL)do well in the series. I recommend it - it does show much that is glossed over in music appreciations courses.

The only thing that would have made Richard Wagner's life complete is for his friend and patron King Ludwig of Bavaria to have become the Kaiser of a united Germany rather than that Hohenzollern bunch from Prussia. He'd have had it made if that was the case.

Wagner was a genius not only in the composition of music, but in the production end as well. He might well be regarded as the Cecil B. DeMille of grand opera, the themes he wrote about were epic in nature requiring productions that were also epic. Wagner was constantly in need of money to support his grand style of living that he felt a genius ought to indulge in, but also for his productions. He searched for years before lighting on the King of Bavaria who had grand ideas about high living and felt it an honor to be the grand patron of the foremost German composer of his time.

Richard Burton in this long mini-series has plenty of time and plenty of dialog to capture the character of Wagner in all its aspects. Good thing the man was a genius because no one else would have put up with his bad behavior. Friends were there to serve him, even giving up their wives for his occasional passion and in one case for his great love, second wife Cosima played by Vanessa Redgrave.

The three classical acting knights, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, and John Gielgud are all ministers to King Ludwig played by Hungarian actor Laszlo Galffi. They turn in fine performances of men driven to their wit's end serving a king who bungles into a war with Prussia that he loses and at the same time bankrupts his country both in creating grand palaces as his ancestors lived and in bankrolling the genius of Wagner.

Richard Wagner's ideas of German superiority of raving anti-Semitism and of the unshakable belief in his own genius for good or ill reflected a lot of the bad in German culture. He was the Nazi's favorite composer and knowledge of that puts many off from his work today. Still his music does transcend the man and the one thing the mini-series Wagner has in abundance is his music. That and the multi-layered performance of Richard Burton is enough reason to watch Wagner even though it does bog down occasionally.

If you weren't familiar with Wagner's music and his life, you would find this film very tough to follow. Even with that knowledge, it tends to be murky and confusing. Seldom have so many theatrical giants been in a film to so little effect. Burton, Redgrave, Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson. Thats a theatrical galaxy! It should have been a tour de force but it wasn't. The film is never shown and tapes are extremely rare. (I found mine at a flea market in Burk's Falls Ontario.) Still it's an interesting side trip for an opera fan. I wouldn't reccomend it at all for someone who is not.I'm sorry there was not more music and less talking. It was criminal to cut short and talk over Tristan Und Isolde! Mark Twain said that Wagner's music is really much better than it sounds. Unfortunately, this movie is not as good as it looks.

I just finished watching the Kultur 4 DVD set of this epic bio-pic, taken at a leisurely pace over five daily installments.

Tony Palmer directs a dream cast, headed by an inimitable Richard Burton as Richard Wagner.

Vittorio Storaro's sensitive cinematography on stunning European locations put this viewer immediately in that era. Too bad this transfer didn't get a digital remastering.

Sets & costumes are convincingly authentic.

Graham Bunn's exemplary editing spins an involving web of interest and keeps pace, seldom failing.

All in all, a compelling work of an expansive, complex musical genius.

With a stupendous cast headed by Richard Burton, this film takes on the life of Wagner and seems to raise the same complaints his audience had regarding his operas: long bacchanals of passion and excess. Art imitates life? You bet! Burton's monologues are brilliant as usual (I'm a long-time Burton fan) full of emotion and brilliantly performed. As to why everyone including royalty continued to support and love his music, chosing to ignore for the most part his despicible life in which he treated everyone shabbily including his wife, lovers, patrons, etc. . . .is it any different today? Don't we love our music/film icons ignoring their dark side? This film also made me want to rush to history books to read more about the era, especially about the young king of Bavaria. Take two nights to watch the video.

What can say about this epic apart from the word, 'Magnificent'. To see such great actors in one film is really quite extraordinary. This is the only time Gielgud, Richardson and Olivier ever acted together on film. To see this is sheer heaven in its brilliance. The world is a sadder places without these geniuses. In the lead is Richard Burton who is really a magnificent Wagner. The young actor who plays Ludwig II is also wonderful. Vanessa Redgrave as Cosima is really superb as is Joan Plowright and many, many other performers such as Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Gemma Craven and the beautiful Martha Keller. Sit back and let it all wash over you. The creation of period is absolutely sensational as is the sheer beauty of Germany and Switzerland and other places. This is truly a glittering gem and should be screened more often.

I saw Wagner as I am a big classical music and opera fan and I love Richard Wagner's music, especially Wotan's Farewell from Die Walkure, Overture to Tannhauser and Prelude to Act 1 and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde.

Wagner is just magnificent, and one of my favourite series or anything to do with composers. For one thing, I found the story presented well structured and interesting, although I knew a good deal about Wagner beforehand, there was stuff here that I didn't know and found it presented in an insightful way.

Wagner is also very authentic in its look and the atmosphere it creates. Watching it I actually felt I was there, and the period recreation, costumes, settings and photography are not only gorgeous but very vivid too.

The music is outstanding, and this is really a brilliantly written programme, thoughtful, brooding and also quite moving. The acting is across the board faultless with Richard Burton embodying the title role to magnificent effect and Vanessa Redgrave very effective. There are also great performances from Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Gemma Craven, Ronald Pickup, Ralph Richardson, Marthe Keller and Vernon Dobtchof.

And Andrew Cruishank's narration is the ideal icing on the cake. Overall, Wagner is simply magnificent. Massive? Yes. Worth watching? Absolutely yes. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This movie was almost perfect! It was both informative and accurate, and very, very beautiful, suggestive, and romantic. It was a really, really good tribute to Wagner, who was - in my opinion - the greatest composer of all time. He has given so much joy to so many! :-) Richard Burton was also perfect in the role, except for the fact that he looked a bit too old and weary in the scenes where Wagner should still be a man in younger middle-age. But it was worth it to have Burton in the role, I think, because he had that strange quality which drew women even when he looked really worn and haggard towards the end of his life. The same quality that Wagner himself must have had, considered all the young mistresses he had even up to his death.

The only flaw - which is the reason I do not give the movie 10 stars - is that one got to see too little of the operas in their finished state. I wish they would have included at least a few minutes of master-pieces such as the love duet between Siegfried and Brünnhilde in the last act of Siegfried, or Siegmund's song to spring in the first act of Walküre, or "Feuerzauber" in the third act of the same.

Because as it was, I believe that even if Wagner's music was in the background for most of the score, people who did not know Wagner's great operas before they watched this title, did not get to realize his greatness from it...

I quickly bought the 300 minute version listed here when it first came available. Although I love Wagner and his music I almost couldn't get through the tapes. Terrible stuff. How could they do this? Then I found the answer.

The original mini-series was 9 hours long. They cut FOUR HOURS out of the story. I've seen the whole series and now I can say -- GREAT STUFF. Well, if your a Wagner fan to begin with, that is. It really is MUCH better than the edited version.

I hope I never get an enemy so evil I want to give them my 300 minute Wagner tape set. I hope I find a real friend who will buy me the 9 hour version as a gift!

it is one of most precious memories from my childhood. a history music lesson. correct, precise, magnificent. because, after years, it is a proof of identification, in amazing measure, of an actor with his role. Richard Burton is Wagner and this fact makes all different. it is a precise hard work of a great team. accuracy, impressive acting and an unique actor swan song. so, in many moments, the story of German composer can be reflection of fights, searches, victories of his interpreter. and the atmosphere is that detail who makes the things in right place. it is example of bitter beauty of art. and source for discover traces of a special master of music. it is not a film for his admirers. only a open window to an universe out of death. far from definition. light, rain, cold air, drops of storm. all as bones of a memorable existence. and will of a Welsh silhouette.

ouff… I made it … a 9 hours series (and I never watch series!) very pompously made about a very pompous Richard Wagner played by an equally pompous Richard Burton.

Produced truly on an epic scale! Wagner composed some beautiful melodies but the majority of his music is just so loud, overbearing and far too aggressive to my taste … he must have been the Motörhead of his generation. Sitting through a full length Wagner Opera is torture to me, so the snippets of his music and arias here and there accompanying the movie/story were just enough. My love for Richard Burton and the historical curiosity kept me going, but to be honest, I only recommend this to hard-core Wagnerians or those who appreciate a good historical period drama.

Sets and costumes are beautifully authentic and gorgeously visualised, although with some abrupt editing. It is historically and biographically lovingly accurate and one does learn a lot about the historical events, the composer's private and professional life and how these influenced his creations. Many other well known actors such as Vanessa Redgrave and Sir Laurence Olivier play key roles. Despite the movies' length, we only enter Wagner's life when he is already in his early 30s. Chronologically starting around the 1848 German Revolution, through his exile in Switzerland, his relationship with his young and romantic but very influential groupie, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who became one of his main patrons, to his travels to Paris and Venice as well as his last triumph in Bayreuth and death. Wagners' radical and revolutionary political ideas, his anti-Semitisim and German nationalism are set in context with his musical dream of grandeur. His ultimate fall out with Nietzsche is interesting to read up on in more detail.

I was never bored nor impatient and actually enjoyed it. Of course, as a balletomane, my favourite passage was the depiction of the quarrels between Wagner and Marius Petipa at the Opera de Paris, concerning that 'every Opera in Paris MUST have a Ballet and that it HAS to be in the 2nd act for the important gentlemen patrons of the town to enjoy' … therefore Wagner calls the 'ballet-master' the 'whore-master' and decided provocatively to put the ballet into the 1st act ... made me giggle.

Beautifully visualised, acted and scripted - whoever said "boring script" must set Terminator or Rambo as his ideal. My chief criticism: the death of King Ludwig was oddly placed (too early making that part of the film disjointed). Perhaps too long but the subject merited it; I saw it in a club showing, but would have preferred to spread it over 2 days.

The problem with this epic film is in the decision to use an abstract patchwork quilt approach to the subject matter. A more straight forward narrative would have worked much better.

Right from the start there's confusion, entering the biography when the main subject is already a mature 35 years of age. Then the usual jumps in time and situation follow.

The screen is not filled with clear narrative, only erratic glimpses of a life that cries out for clarity of design and structure. In the lead, Richard Burton does the best he can, given the script and direction. The photography looks rather ordinary as do the sets. Only the work of Georg Solti on the soundtrack lends dramatic brilliance.

Irregardless of the considerable length and scope of this TV work, one looks forward to another film effort on this fascinating subject.

I hadn't seen Tony Palmer's epic film 'Wagner' since 1985 when it was screened in the original 9 hour version at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco as part of its production of Wagner's 'Ring' cycle. I recall the film being a seemingly endless, excruciating experience and I don't remember if I made it back after the 2nd meal break to see the end.

Over the years I have wondered if my memory did justice to this film and so have wanted to see it again. Finally I found a copy of the 9 hour version at a fairly reasonable price and have just sat through a seemingly endless, excruciating experience.

I happen to love Wagner's music and wanted to like this movie enough that I was able to pry out the few good aspects of it. There are two, count 'em, two excellent performances out of a cast of many; Gemma Craven is very touching and visceral as Minna Wagner, Richard's first much put-upon wife. The other fine acting comes from Richard Pasco as Otto Wesendonck, husband of Mathilde, Wagner's most important mistress. For the rest, the usual suspects show up in the roster, notably the ubiquitous, though always entertaining, trio of John Gielgund,Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, doing an upper crust Three Stooges routine. They at least offer some comic respite from the heavy-handed, galumphing script that sinks the rest of the cast; a cast that is by and large horribly MIS-cast.

Richard Burton was too old, tired and infirm to bring any energy at all to the title role. He seems comatose most of the time and is an utter bore. At the time he mentioned this as the worst film he'd ever made. Vanessa Redgrave hasn't a clue as to Cosima Wagner's nature and consequently turns in one of her petulant-rebel performances that is more suitable to 'Isadora' or 'Blow Up' than to a 19th century Baroness. Redgrave is further in a scene involving her and the great Wagnerian soprano Gwyneth Jones, who acts far more expertly and believably than her famous co-star.

Some vapid Hungarian puppy plays King Ludwig II and is ghastly. By the way, Palmer buys into the incorrect notion that King Ludwig II drowned himself after murdering the psycho-analyst who had him imprisoned in one of the castles. In point of fact, when an autopsy was performed on Ludwig's body they found no water in his lungs. His death remains an unsolved mystery. But details don't concern Tony Palmer. I often found myself wondering if he bothered to direct his all-at-sea cast.

The editing is sloppy and the terrible cutting of the musical score is jarring and carelessly done. Some of the acting is horrendously bad, especially when they are trying to conduct an orchestra or play a piano. The actor playing Hans von Bulow is especially bad in this regard. All in all a typically shallow Tony Palmer production full of "powerful" visions, like burning horses galloping out of a fiery barn, and dripping, severed limbs during the battle of Dresen. The usual Palmer attempt to wrench gasps from his glazed-eyed audiences.

Wagner was a fascinating person, the kind of creature that happens once every 150 years or so and deserves a first class bio-pic. This isn't it.

By all means rent this if you are a die-hard Wagnerian, otherwise skip it, and by no means buy the dvds.

One thing I would like to know is the name of the very beautiful choral composition that accompanies the credits.

Yawn!!! How can one do that when faced with the beauty of Venice and the palaces of Germany and France? Easy, when you're dozing through two tape-fulls of Richard Burton's phone-in recitation of drivel!! Is it because we can't stand Minna's resigned acceptance of Wagner's continual infidelities flaunted in her face? Maybe, except that you soon almost don't blame him, as she is characterized so dully.

The music is gorgeous of course, and you get the picture real fast of what a hypocrite, lech, arrogant and generally disgusting guy this Wagner was. (Could anyone be so yukky?) If so, why were so many people willing to support him and buy into his overinflated opinion of himself? It must have been the music, which is played over the gorgeous scenery of Venice, Lake Geneva and the mountains of Bavaria. As a travelogue accompanied by splendid music, I can well recommend it.

We will have to wait for a more objective, better written life of Wagner. I can't help but believe that our revulsion toward Nazism and knowledge of his music being Hitler's favorite had something to do with this film's slant. One example is Wagner's spoken words of hatred of royalty and protestations of not taking money from kings, which he then contradicts by doing exactly that--silken gowns, gorgeous dwelling, etc. from the young king Ludwig. He hates Jews, but then sells various items to the Jewish lender. He is continually running from his creditors, overbuying on others' money. There was not ONE good thing about this jerk, other than his splendiferous music. How can that be?

A waste of time for Vanessa Redgrave, Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Richard Burton and the rest. They must have had bills to pay.

Richard Burton is perfectly cast as Richard Wagner in this magnum opus.

Gemma Craven has the best role of her career since "The Slipper and the Rose" as his long-suffering first wife driven half-mad by drug abuse and Wagner's coldness toward her; while Vanessa Redgrave is practically the image of Cosima.

Most of the famous names in the cast are relative cameos. At best, however long they appear, they play in support of Burton. But the stunt casting of the "Three Knights" (Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson) works, providing them with a surprising length of screen time, if not early on. When they finally step in they are hardly ever seen apart but they are not swallowed by the spectacle.

And it's a good-looking spectacle that barrels from Germany to Paris and Venice, celebrating the life of this difficult if extraordinarily gifted man (who had no doubt about that himself: like Sherlock Holmes he did not list humility among the virtues). And running throughout the film is Wagner's glorious music.

Richard Pascoe and Ronald Pickup play just two of the people Wagner took up, used up and threw away when they were of no more use to him, or who left him when they thwmselves were fed up with the amazingly self-centered man.

Wagner was a truly creative artist with worlds in his head that could not be realized in a world without CGI; and in these days where anything is possible on-screen, who makes CGI movies about grand opera?

When you feel you've had just about enough of "Wagner" they play a snatch from one of his operas and for all the pity you have for the man's victims you feel it was worth devoting his life (and theirs) to his art. Wanger's music always seduces the viewer back.

I try never to confuse or conflate artists and the art. But despite liberties taken here (though not, I feel, as many as in "Amadeus") Wagner the man, producer of such lovely stage-work that can, more than any other operas, become an obsession, comes across as just plain awful.

Burton's performance, however, is calculated to soften Wagner's dreadfulness. An acclaimed stage actor whose power was often blunted in film, Burton was nominated for the Oscar seven times and in this performance one may see why.

But whatever Wagner did, his art came first. The often dreadful human being doesn't contradict the beautiful, sensitive artist. A life like his deserves a huge, overwrought canvas like this daring, beautiful, interminable but ultimately rewarding melodrama (no other form could capture the man).

One highlight is Wagner's rivalry in Paris with Meyerbeer (Vernon Dobtcheff). Wagner tosses out the name Verdi, but those two operatic titans, two men who not only produced superb operas but whose works were also instrumental (pun intended) in fomenting revolution.

Long, yes; but for someone who loves Wagner's music, worthwhile as we get a sense of the genius behind the tunes. So often artists are presented as tortured. They may also be megalomaniacal mental-torturers.

This Teutonic monster once seduced me for a bit. This cinematic monstrosity provided me the stake to rid my world of him. Trump's favorite movie, except himself.

a biography of Wagner. not the best but fascinating for the manner of Richard Wagner to translate the image not exactly of a composer but a revolutionary figure. the atmosphere, the performances, the music are pieces of an interesting fresco for a period, a struggle and foundation of a new vision. and each becomes useful to define the essence of a fall of period. only sin - the seductive way to be Wagner by Burton. one of his last roles, Wagner becomes cloth for the career of a fascinating actor. the identity between lead character and his interpreter has a thin line as border. a virtue. and, maybe, one of the details who gives specific flavor to a biographic series.