Richard Wagner did not just write operas — he invented the total theatrical experience that cinema would later copy in every detail. He darkened the auditorium, hid the orchestra, built a custom theater, demanded audiences sit in silence, and created continuous music that manipulated emotions with a sophistication filmmakers still study. Every time you sit in a dark theater watching a score swell under a dramatic scene, you are living in Wagner's invention.

This episode traces Wagner from his revolutionary politics and years of exile through the Ring Cycle, the construction of Bayreuth, and the artistic innovations and anti-Semitic ideology that make him the most contested figure in the history of music.

• Wagner's revolutionary politics, the 1849 Dresden uprising, and the years of exile that followed
• The Ring Cycle — twent ...