Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love, WWV 38), is an early comic opera in two acts by Richard Wagner, with the libretto written by the composer after Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Described as a Große komische Oper, it was composed in early 1836. Restrained sexuality versus eroticism plays an important role in Das Liebesverbot; these themes recur throughout much of Wagner's output, most notably in Tannhäuser, Die Walküre, and Tristan und Isolde. In each opera, the self-abandonment to love brings the lovers into mortal combat with the surrounding social order. In Das Liebesverbot, because it is a comedy, the outcome is a happy one: unrestrained sexuality wins as the carnival of the entire population goes rioting on after curtain-fall. Das Liebesverbot was Wagner's second opera and his first to be performed, when the budding composer was just 22 years of age. It has many signs of an early work, carrying a style modeled closely on contemporary French and Italian comic opera. It is also referred to as the forgotten comedy, being one of Wagner's only two comic works, the other being the better-known Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Das Rheingold (German: [das ˈʁaɪnɡɔlt] ; The Rhinegold), WWV 86A, is the first of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It premiered as a single opera at the National Theatre of Munich on 22 September 1869, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 13 August 1876. Wagner wrote the Ring librettos in reverse order, so that Das Rheingold was the last of the texts to be written; it was, however, the first to be set to music. The score was completed in 1854, but Wagner was unwilling to sanction its performance until the whole cycle was complete; he worked intermittently on this music until 1874. The 1869 Munich premiere of Das Rheingold was staged, against Wagner's wishes, on the orders of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, his patron. Following its 1876 Bayreuth premiere, the Ring cycle was introduced into the worldwide repertory, with performances in all the main opera houses, in which it has remained a regular and popular fixture. In his 1851 essay Opera and Drama, Wagner had set out new principles as to how music dramas should be constructed, under which the conventional forms of opera (arias, ensembles, choruses) were rejected. Rather than providing word-settings, the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, by using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas and situations. Das Rheingold was Wagner's first work that adopted these principles, and his most rigid adherence to them, despite a few deviations – the Rhinemaidens frequently sing in ensemble. As the "preliminary evening" within the cycle, Das Rheingold gives the background to the events that drive the main dramas of the cycle. It recounts Alberich's theft of the Rhine gold after his renunciation of love; his fashioning of the all-powerful ring from the gold and his enslavement of the Nibelungs; Wotan's seizure of the gold and the ring, to pay his debt to the giants who have built his fortress Valhalla; Alberich's curse on the ring and its possessors; Erda's warning to Wotan to forsake the ring; the early manifestation of the curse's power after Wotan yields the ring to the giants; and the gods' uneasy entry into Valhalla, under the shadow of their impending doom.

Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), WWV 63, is a German-language opera, with libretto and music by Richard Wagner. The central theme is redemption through love. Wagner conducted the premiere at the Königliches Hoftheater Dresden in 1843. Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write the opera following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839. In his 1843 Autobiographic Sketch, Wagner acknowledged he had taken the story from Heinrich Heine's retelling of the legend in his 1833 satirical novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski). This work shows early attempts at operatic styles that would characterise his later music dramas. In Der fliegende Holländer Wagner uses a number of leitmotifs (literally, "leading motifs") associated with the characters and themes. The leitmotifs are all introduced in the overture, which begins with a well-known ocean or storm motif before moving into the Dutchman and Senta motifs. Wagner originally wrote the work to be performed without intermission – an example of his efforts to break with tradition – and, while today's opera houses often still follow this directive, it is also performed in the published three-act version. The autograph manuscript of the opera is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Richard Wagner's works for the stage, representing more than 50 years of creative life, comprise his 13 completed operas and a similar number of failed or abandoned projects. His first effort, begun when he was 13, was a prose drama, Leubald, but thereafter all his works were conceived as some form of musical drama. It has been suggested that Wagner's wish to add incidental music to Leubald, in the manner of Beethoven's treatment of Goethe's drama Egmont, may have been the initial stimulus that directed him to musical composition. Wagner's musical education began in 1828, and a year later he was producing his earliest compositions, writing words and music, since lost, for his first opera attempt, Die Laune des Verliebten. During the subsequent decade he began several more opera projects, none of which was successful although two were completed and one was staged professionally. His first commercial success came in 1842 with Rienzi, by which time he had completed Der fliegende Holländer, in which for the first time he used the device of the leitmotiv, a characteristic that became a feature of all his later works. After accepting the post of Kapellmeister at the Dresden court of the King of Saxony in February 1843, Wagner continued to compose operas and plan various large-scale projects. His political activities forced him to flee the city in 1849, beginning a long period of exile. In Zürich, his first refuge, he wrote the essay Die Kunst und die Revolution ("Art and the Revolution"), in which he introduced the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), or "drama-through-music". This idea was developed in the extended discourse Oper und Drama ("Opera and Drama"), 1850–51. A different form of verse-setting, which Wagner termed Versmelodie, was proposed, in which the music would grow out of the verse, this unification overriding such traditional operatic considerations as display arias written as showcases for the talents of individual singers. According to Wagner historian Robert Gutman: "The orchestra with its many tongues would take over the traditional operatic tasks of the chorus". Beginning with Das Rheingold (1853–54), the principles of Gesamtkunstwerk became the basis of all Wagner's stage work, in which, quoting Wagner chronicler Charles Osborne, "the drama presented on a conscious level by the words [...] would be pursued on a deeper, unconscious level in the orchestra."

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (German: [diː ˈmaɪstɐˌzɪŋɐ fɔn ˈnʏʁnbɛːɐk]; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera. The story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of Meistersinger (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depiction of the Nuremberg of the era and the traditions of the master-singer guild. One of the main characters, the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, is based on a historical figure, Hans Sachs (1494–1576), the most famous of the master-singers. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg occupies a unique place in Wagner's oeuvre. It is the only comedy among his mature operas (he had come to reject his early Das Liebesverbot) and is also unusual among his works in being set in a historically well-defined time and place rather than in a mythical or legendary setting. It is the only mature Wagner opera based on an entirely original story, and in which no supernatural or magical powers or events feature. It incorporates many of the operatic conventions that Wagner had railed against in his essays on the theory of opera: rhymed verse, arias, choruses, a quintet, and even a ballet. The autograph manuscript of the opera is preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

Die Walküre (German pronunciation: [diː valˈkyːʁə]; The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is the second of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876. As the Ring cycle was conceived by Wagner in reverse order of performance, Die Walküre was the third of the four texts to be written, although Wagner composed the music in performance sequence. The text was completed by July 1852, and the music by March 1856. Wagner largely followed the principles related to the form of musical drama, which he had set out in his 1851 essay Opera and Drama under which the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas, and situations rather than the conventional operatic units of arias, ensembles, and choruses. Wagner showed flexibility in the application of these principles here, particularly in Act III, when the Valkyries engage in frequent ensemble singing. As with Das Rheingold, Wagner wished to defer any performance of the new work until it could be shown in the context of the completed cycle, but the 1870 Munich premiere was arranged at the insistence of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Die Walküre has achieved some popularity as a stand-alone work and continues to be performed independently from its role in the tetralogy. The story of Die Walküre is based on the Norse mythology told in the Völsunga saga and the Poetic Edda. In this version, the Volsung twins Sieglinde and Siegmund, separated in childhood, meet and fall in love. This union angers the gods, who demand that Siegmund must die. Sieglinde and the couple's unborn child are saved by the defiant actions of Wotan's daughter, the title character, Valkyrie Brünnhilde, who as a result faces the gods' retribution.

Götterdämmerung (German: [ˈɡœtɐˌdɛməʁʊŋ] ; Twilight of the Gods), WWV 86D, is the last of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the whole work. The title is a German calque of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. As with the rest of the Ring, Wagner's account diverges significantly from these Old Norse sources. The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Richard Wagner's works for the stage, representing more than 50 years of creative life, comprise his 13 completed operas and a similar number of failed or abandoned projects. His first effort, begun when he was 13, was a prose drama, Leubald, but thereafter all his works were conceived as some form of musical drama. It has been suggested that Wagner's wish to add incidental music to Leubald, in the manner of Beethoven's treatment of Goethe's drama Egmont, may have been the initial stimulus that directed him to musical composition. Wagner's musical education began in 1828, and a year later he was producing his earliest compositions, writing words and music, since lost, for his first opera attempt, Die Laune des Verliebten. During the subsequent decade he began several more opera projects, none of which was successful although two were completed and one was staged professionally. His first commercial success came in 1842 with Rienzi, by which time he had completed Der fliegende Holländer, in which for the first time he used the device of the leitmotiv, a characteristic that became a feature of all his later works. After accepting the post of Kapellmeister at the Dresden court of the King of Saxony in February 1843, Wagner continued to compose operas and plan various large-scale projects. His political activities forced him to flee the city in 1849, beginning a long period of exile. In Zürich, his first refuge, he wrote the essay Die Kunst und die Revolution ("Art and the Revolution"), in which he introduced the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), or "drama-through-music". This idea was developed in the extended discourse Oper und Drama ("Opera and Drama"), 1850–51. A different form of verse-setting, which Wagner termed Versmelodie, was proposed, in which the music would grow out of the verse, this unification overriding such traditional operatic considerations as display arias written as showcases for the talents of individual singers. According to Wagner historian Robert Gutman: "The orchestra with its many tongues would take over the traditional operatic tasks of the chorus". Beginning with Das Rheingold (1853–54), the principles of Gesamtkunstwerk became the basis of all Wagner's stage work, in which, quoting Wagner chronicler Charles Osborne, "the drama presented on a conscious level by the words [...] would be pursued on a deeper, unconscious level in the orchestra."

Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1914; however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled that it was legal. Wagner described Parsifal not as an opera, but as Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play). At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Richard Wagner's works for the stage, representing more than 50 years of creative life, comprise his 13 completed operas and a similar number of failed or abandoned projects. His first effort, begun when he was 13, was a prose drama, Leubald, but thereafter all his works were conceived as some form of musical drama. It has been suggested that Wagner's wish to add incidental music to Leubald, in the manner of Beethoven's treatment of Goethe's drama Egmont, may have been the initial stimulus that directed him to musical composition. Wagner's musical education began in 1828, and a year later he was producing his earliest compositions, writing words and music, since lost, for his first opera attempt, Die Laune des Verliebten. During the subsequent decade he began several more opera projects, none of which was successful although two were completed and one was staged professionally. His first commercial success came in 1842 with Rienzi, by which time he had completed Der fliegende Holländer, in which for the first time he used the device of the leitmotiv, a characteristic that became a feature of all his later works. After accepting the post of Kapellmeister at the Dresden court of the King of Saxony in February 1843, Wagner continued to compose operas and plan various large-scale projects. His political activities forced him to flee the city in 1849, beginning a long period of exile. In Zürich, his first refuge, he wrote the essay Die Kunst und die Revolution ("Art and the Revolution"), in which he introduced the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), or "drama-through-music". This idea was developed in the extended discourse Oper und Drama ("Opera and Drama"), 1850–51. A different form of verse-setting, which Wagner termed Versmelodie, was proposed, in which the music would grow out of the verse, this unification overriding such traditional operatic considerations as display arias written as showcases for the talents of individual singers. According to Wagner historian Robert Gutman: "The orchestra with its many tongues would take over the traditional operatic tasks of the chorus". Beginning with Das Rheingold (1853–54), the principles of Gesamtkunstwerk became the basis of all Wagner's stage work, in which, quoting Wagner chronicler Charles Osborne, "the drama presented on a conscious level by the words [...] would be pursued on a deeper, unconscious level in the orchestra."

Siegfried (German: [ˈziːk.fʀiːt] ), WWV 86C, is the third of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring cycle. The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Tannhäuser (German: [ˈtanhɔʏzɐ]; full title Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, "Tannhäuser and the Minnesängers' Contest at Wartburg") is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner (WWV 70 in the catalogue of the composer's works). It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work. The opera remains a staple of major opera house repertoire in the 21st century.

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on Gottfried von Strassburg's medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult. First conceived in 1854, the music was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865, with Hans von Bülow conducting. While it is performed by opera companies, Wagner preferred the term Handlung (German for "plot" or "action") for Tristan to distinguish its structure of continuous narrative flow ("endless melody") as distinct from that of conventional opera at the time, which consisted of recitatives punctuated by showpiece arias, which Wagner regarded with great disdain. Tristan und Isolde was inspired in part by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and by Wagner's relationship with his muse Mathilde Wesendonck. It explores existential themes such as that of mankind's insatiable striving and the transcendental nature of a love beyond death, and incorporates spirituality from Christian mysticism as well as Vedantic and Buddhist metaphysics, subjects that interested Schopenhauer. Wagner was one of the earliest Western artists to use concepts from the Dharmic religions in their work. Tristan und Isolde is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of Western art music, intriguing audiences with philosophical depths not usually associated with opera, and the "terrible and sweet infinity" of its musical-poetic language. Its advanced harmony, immediately announced by the Tristan chord of its prelude, marks a defining moment in the evolution of music, characterized by unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and prolonged harmonic suspension. These innovations initially divided audiences, but the opera grew in popularity and became enormously influential among Western classical composers, directly inspiring Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Benjamin Britten. Composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky formulated their styles in contrast to Wagner's musical legacy.