Comparison and Contrast Essay: Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi

Richard Wagner was a German composer while Giuseppe Verdi was an Italian composer, but both had a different perspective towards each other's art of work. They both wrote opera although their subjects as well seemed to conflict as well as how they did their work. Different sources claim the two never met, but they had a good idea of each other's work and found faults within each other's work. It is possible to compare and contrast the work of both Ricard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, as for this paper, we get to address the issue.

Verdi the Italian compose wrote opera that was normally performed by the major companies which clearly drew a clear cut of his audience and some of his most famous work involve the Aida and the La Traviata which is about a woman who has to decide to give up her carefree ways of life on the ground whether she loves a man that much. On the other hand, Wagner composed opera of staggering creativity and ambition with one of his most famous work being The Ring Cycle and the Tristan and Isolde which were about two doomed lovers. Wagner was a complete contrast of Verdi he was usual in debt and was an anti-Semite and a womanizer as referred by different sources and documentaries. This clearly draws a difference between the two composers, from the look of things Verdi had more respect for the female gender as seen in his work. The love a woman can get to the extent of changing her ways unlike in Wagners work domed love being the theme of one of most famous works. His depicted personal character as well is questionable.

There was a huge difference in the nature of work they both produced, Italian opera was written with the singer I mind which meant that the opera showed off the singers skills which included soaring melodies which were exemplarily beautiful. The singer's style was referred as bel Canto' which when translated into English meant beautiful singing. This fell under the style of opera composed by Verdi. His work was greatly entertaining as it was meant for entertainment purposes where the people came to hear the singer hit the high note applause. This was completely different from Wagner's opera style. This view also varied with respect to how Wagner saw opera. As per Wagner, he thought of Opera as a Social Ritual whereby the audience came to witness a huge massive scope of an artistic venture and expression of the artist's picture to different things. He referred to this idea as the Gesamtkunstwerk which when translated into English meant All things coming together for a particular objective. This meant that in Wagners work he was completely in control of everything which included writing the words, writing the music, he was involved in the staging activities, lighting settings of the stage, as well as creating performance space where his piece of work would be shown which is the current Bayreuth in Germany. He completely took charge of his entire work at the end of the day unlike Verdis style of work.

Both seem to have so many differences to the point of criticizing each other's work, but it happens they had a similarity in relation to the level of quality of there production. The gave the audience some of the most renown opera work for the past two centuries. Their work has been performed over the years, for example, Waltraud Meier performed Wagner's work Tristan Und Isolde, La Scala in the year 2007 while for Verdi, Renee Fleming performed La Traviata in Los Angeles Opera in the year 2006. This shows a similarity in the composers quality of their productions.

Bibliography

Cohen, Mitchell. "Verdi, Wagner, and Politics in Opera. Bicentennial Ruminations." (2013).

Conrad, Peter. Verdi And/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries. Thames & Hudson, 2011.