Richard Wagner`s Women : Boydell Press : 9781843836858 : 1843836858 : 20 Oct 2011 : A well-researched and exhaustive analysis of the role of women in Wagner's operas. Richard Wagner's music contains some of the most powerful portrayals of emotions in all opera, particularly love. Eva Rieger presents a new picture of the composer, showing how the women at his side inspired him and how closely his life and art intertwined. We follow Wagner's restless hunt for the 'ideal woman', her appointed task being to give him shelter, warmth, inspiration, adventure and redemption, all in one. He could hardly have desired anything more contradictory, and this is reflected in the female characters of his operas. They are all in some way torn, faltering between their own desire for self-realization and the societal constraints that impel them to sacrificethemselves for their men. Rieger bids farewell to essentialist, naturalized notions of femininity and masculinity. Her investigations are both comp