A musician but also a playwright, philosopher and director, Richard Wagner (Leipzig 1813 – Venice 1883) was unrivalled in Germany in his time. Through his writing and direction, opera was transformed into a “total work of art”, a complete spectacle, using the techniques of through-composition and leitmotiv. The stamp represents Der Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle of four operas also called a tetralogy and inspired by Germanic and Scandinavian mythology. Wagner took nearly 30 years to write and compose this complex work.