Richard Wagner | Total Artwork <1849>

"The future of music, music theater, and all the arts, lay in an embrace of Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork, a fusion of the arts that had not been attempted on this scale since the classic Greeks."

German opera composer Richard Wagner believed that the future of music, music theater, and all the arts, lay in an embrace of Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork, a fusion of the arts that had not been attempted on this scale since the classic Greeks. In 1849, Wagner wrote the essay, The Art-work of the Future, defining the synthesis of the arts in which opera served as a vehicle for the unification of all the arts into a single medium of artistic expression.

The Festpielhaus (Festival House) Theater

• darkening the house

• surround-sound reverberance

• amphitheatrical seating to focus audience attention on stage

The Festpielhaus (Festival House) Theater opened in 1876 in Bayreuth, Germany, where Wagner applied his theatrical innovations including: darkening the house, surround-sound reverberance, and the revitalization of the Greek amphitheatrical seating to focus audience attention on stage. This approach to opera foreshadowed the experience of virtual reality, immersing the audience in the imaginary world of the stage.