Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany to parents Carl Friedrich
Wagner, a police clerk, and Johanna Rosine Paetz, a baker's daughter. Losing his
father to typhus when he was just six months old, Wagner was raised by his
mother and step-father, playwright Ludwig Geyer. Inheriting Geyer's love of the
theatre, Wagner was sent to the Kreuzschule boarding school where he had piano
lessons and developed his skill for playwriting. Graduating to Leipzig
University, Wagner studied composition and published his first official work in
1831, Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, Op. 1....