Role Play: Chris Walton is stimulated by a new study of Wagner’s view of women

Eva Rieger is already known to Wagnerians as the author of a biography that placed the much-maligned Minna Wagner in a more just perspective. She has recently also published a book describing Wagner’s Alpine wanderings that puts new emphasis on an often forgotten, but highly important, aspect of his life during his Swiss exile. The book under review here, ‘Richard Wagner’s view of woman as reflected in his music’, focuses as much on the music as it does on the man, investigating how his biography – more specifically, the women in his life and his relationships with them – had an impact on his works and is reflected in it.