ABSTRACT
Richard Wagner's opera is not opera in the Italian sense at all; it is transcendental rather than emotional. This chapter discusses crossroad between philosophy and music that is more explicit in Wagner than anywhere else before his time, and possibly since. Wagner's works are Schopenhauer's philosophy as art, principally as music. And it is the inner logic of Schopenhauer that Wagner correctly worked out along the lines of his own inspiration. Wagner continues the exultant sensibility found in Beethoven, sweeping up love and suffering toward a further horizon. Wagner took from Beethoven what he called "unending melody", which is to say the continuity of musical argument such as the "Eroica". Wagner's music dramas are an aesthetic experience and are, as one hopes to be able to appreciate, of the highest order. Redemption through love is the major theme of all Wagner's music dramas.
