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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 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.
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