Richard Wagner differed surprisingly from the picture usually painted of him. Joachim K?hler presents an unfamiliar side of the Genius of Bayreuth: the comedic tragedian, who loved laughter, above all at himself and his own works. Not merely the creator of some of the greatest operatic works in Western music, he was also an amateur acrobat, and an inveterate prankster in the footsteps of Till Eulenspiegel. Wagner emerges in this book as a warmer,...