The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner were conceived to be a congomloration of artistic fields - Music, Acting, Stage movements, singing and the like, with no part over-dominating the other. This is quite different than the Italian opera, where often the Dramatic momentum of the plot is stopped at intervals for such things as arias, duets, and chorus’ each section being distinct unto itself. Alternatively, all of Wagner's later operas (The Ring, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersingers, and Parsifal) are based on a concept of the Music Drama as a universal art form, Gesamtkunstwerk, in which all the constituent arts are transfigured, sacrificing their individual identity and some of their special characteristics for the new association. Music is no longer divided into traditional arias and recitatives; instead, the music is a continuous flow.  Wagner even took this further in a way, writing not only the music in a way that would merge it extremely closely with the plot, by having the play’s flow be unbroken, and the music continuous, but also bought to play the idea of a ‘Total Artwork’ in the way that every single element of the Music Drama is written by the composer (in this case Wagner), libretto included. “…Wagner’s main quarrel with opera as it existed in his time was that music occupied in it a too subservient position. An Opera was basically simply a stage play with music. A story was unfolded, either by means of spoken dialogue or recitative, and at certain moments the action was halted so that a situation or emotion could be exploited in a set aria or ensemble… Wagner’s ambition was not to make the music of paramount importance – for that would have been merely to turn opera into symphony – but to create a balance between music, words and action so that each could play its part in realizing the composer’s conception of the work.”
In light of this, it is little surprise that the music of the Operas of Wagner have a very close relationship to the storyline, and this relationship is really heightened by the Leitmotifs. It is the use of leitmotifs which is a major distinguishing factor in Wagner’s music, and a major part in showing plot in is Operas also. From the obviously associated leitmotifs of The Ring, associated with characters, objects, races and places (for instance, the hero Siegfried’s theme, or the Rheingold or the Giants, or the Nibelungen Forge) to the more intricate and in some ways, subtle use of leitmotifs in Tristan and Isolde, with the beginning and ends of leitmotifs often being blurred to the point that they almost become a seamless melody, itself a musical representation of an important idea in the Music Drama, the intertwining of the Ivy and the Vine, two souls bound together in eternal love.
In all, it is this feature of his music, and also his agreement with many of Schopenhauer’s philosophies on the nature of music and the idea that it does not just describe emotion but actually is the embodiment of such emotions, that makes the traditional Operatic forms inappropriate for the Music Dramas of Richard Wagner. It is generally accepted that the musical form of Wagner’s Music Dramas are primarily dictated by the plot and action, and to a large extent, this is true. Perhaps the most notable exception to this is Die Meistersingers von Nuremberg. The Meistersingers is a special case however because of Wagner’s portrayal of a real place in a real time. He uses real forms of the Meistersingers for reasons that are fairly obvious. Analysts have even proposed that the entire opera is composed as a three part poem in the correctness of the original Meistersingers songs, though certainly the songs within the bounds of the storyline are correct, and in one notable example, sometimes composed by actual Meistersingers from the 16th century (in this example by the real life figure of Hans Sachs, one of the major characters in the Opera). Certainly a good many parts of this opera are quite uncharacteristic of Wagner’s work in general, and in some notable constructions, even contradict some of his own philosophies on the construction of a true Gesamtkunstwerk (most of which were directed against the Traditional Italian Opera’s use of Distinct Arias, and most of all, ensemble singing and chorus). However in Meistersingers the use of Chorus’s and ensemble pieces (for instance the Quintet of singers in the Third Act) have a fairly important role in either plot or scene setting. It is Wagner’s striving to be historically correct in most instances of these uncharacteristic forms being delved into, and this is most obvious in the Chorals, composed much in the same strain as chorals of J.S. Bach. There are two such chorals in the Meistersingers, and they both for all intents and purposes are designed to set the scene in a very believable way. The first such chorale exists immediately after the Prelude to Act One , where the plot depicts a church service, and the congregation singing a hymn, in the style of a Bach Chorale, as would have been typical of a Lutheran German Church in Nurnburg at the setting’s time. The Quintet on the other hand is an unusual feature in a work of this period of Wagner’s Composing career and maturity, though certainly not uncommon in opera, yet very much against his own philosophies of Dramatic construction in a Music Drama. One may however explain this passage by noting that at all five characters are ‘in perfect communion of ideas, and this relieves it from being in any way illogical.’  A slight concession might be made with evidence of this section having been sketched out long before the rest of the score, but indeed, the characters involved are far more in communication of ideas in the literal sense than, say, a similar scene in a Verdi opera where the plot action stops, while a simple performance is put on to the audience, singers interacting with the audience more than with the plot. Indeed it would be unfair and naive to suggest that the ensemble piece in the ‘Quintet of Babtism’ section of Meistersingers had much in common with that genre, apart from the makeup of the ensemble involved.
In all other respects, as one would expect with a work conceived as a Gesamtkunstwerk, the relationship between the music and the action is quite close, and the use of Leitmotifs is the way in which the music is made to comment on the plot. This is very common of Wagner’s composition style, and often the orchestra will hint on the action to come before words are spoken to indicate this action.
In the Meistersingers, this happens often, although certainly not as often as many other of the Wagnerian operas such as the Ring Cycle operas. At other times, leitmotifs can be used to indicate what a character is thinking or feeling in a certain situation. One easily accessible example is during the Choral, which opens Meistersingers. Interspersed between the Bach-style choral3, is the “Waking Love” leitmotif, indicative of the growing love between Eva and her knightly love, Walter.
The leitmotifs in Meistersingers are quite clear-cut, and also portray the character of their descriptions quite well for all intents and purposes. This is to be expected though, as Wagner was a very experienced composer by this time in his career. From the grand and noble march of the Meistersingers  to the incessant warbling of Beckmesser (a musical portrait of his whiney and highly sceptic nature) the music’s portrayals are very convincing in their emotive content. Indeed this is very much in keeping with Wagner’s ideas in line with Schopenhauer’s, typical Wagner’s Post-Ring period.
 Both external ‘events’ and internal ‘emotions’ are often portrayed in Wagner’s Music Dramas, and with few exceptions these events are portrayed in the music, either sung, or played by the orchestra. The Orchestra’s role in the Opera’s is far more important than just accompanying the singers with Wagnerian Opera, indeed once could say that the orchestra is a cross between a supreme, yet sublime narrative role, and a creator of emotive ‘base’ for the action to take place in. There are many examples of both roles in Wagner’s Music Dramas, but perhaps the most unique role, certainly a role not many if any composers used for the orchestra, is the role of Orchestra as narrator. The mechanism of this role is fundamentally the use of Leitmotif.
 Leitmotifs will often be attached to a single and documented idea, object or character. Many examples of this exist in many of Wagner’s Operas; perhaps the most famed examples being in the Ring cycle. The Leitmotifs in the opera Parsifal can be shown to have subjects attached which are not specifically characters, but an action or ideal. The opening of this opera includes at least two such items, the “Love’s Feast” motif, often called “the Communion”, and the “Faith” motif. Although many times these motifs are often developed symphonically, sometimes without a fully quantifiable plot reasons, they are, as their names would suggest, descriptions of ideas; Internal action for all intents, rather than events acted out, or spoken of, on the stage. At other times, the motif of a specific character, for instance Parsifal (in the Opera of the same name) when he returns from his years of wondering the earth, can be used in a way that lets the audience have a foresight into what is about to happen, often times before the characters in the motion of the plot, are shown to know. In this example it is quite before Parsifal reveals his identity that the orchestra suggests the ‘Parsifal’ leitmotifs. The music’s role is not only in this ‘symphonic like’ continual development of leitmotif either, indeed the relationship between scene and music is also apparent in many areas. Indeed in many counts, the change of scene to scene is characterised by the music, with the music commenting on the nature of the new scene. Many times this change of scene may induce a sort of ‘mini overture’, where the orchestra’s role is not just to fill space, but introduce the leitmotif of a new character or place. Das Rheingold’s ‘The Forge’ leitmotif is one such example, being introduced in full orchestration, both conjuring a foreboding of the evil of the enslaver (Alberich) and the pain and work of the slaved Nibelungens (the hammering of the anvils of the forge) all while the scenery and stage changes are being made. Indeed with Wagner being in control over every element in his production of the Music Dramas as he was, even the settings of the stage were very much controlled by him. To this end, the music was able to be manipulated in length at times to enable much of the, at it’s time, revolutionary staging and movements, to be performed. In the premier of Parsifal however, a number “...of these episodes (were) a perpetual trouble; always the music gave out before the machinery had accomplished its work… But when, after many experiments, Fritz Brandt once more asked for still more music to give him more time to work his machinery (Wagner) lost his temper and swore he would wash his hands of the whole business. The situation was saved by Humperdinck, who… Drafted a few extra bars, submitted them timorously to Wagner, and, rather to his astonishment, had them approved… and at the next rehearsal the timing was correct”
Of course by this time in Wagner’s Career, Parsifal being the last opera he ever completed, Wagner was well experienced in achieving the desired effect on emotional content of his music. His mastery of the Orchestral palate and melodic sensibilities of his audience, and extension of the harmonic language of music into realms of chromaticism in search of new emotive ground in music. “He expressed the unquenchable love of his protagonists in Tristan Und Isolde through chromatic melodies and unresolving harmonies that prevent the music from ever feeling centred,”  Wagner’s main use of this as always is for the emotion it presents to it’s audience, or as Schopenhauer would say, the Emotion it causes the audience to partake in, and it is the essence of his compositional and dramatic style.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bibliography:

http://www.operaed.org/learningcenter/parsifal/int.htm

Wagner at Bayreuth. Experiment and tradition. George Braziller New York c1965

Donnington, Robert; Wagner’s Ring and its Symbols. 1984; Faber and Faber

The life of Richard Wagner by Ernest Newman Volume IV; NY Knoph 1966-1969

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/rom/wagner.htm

Die Meistersingers von Nürenberg Richard Wagner: Full Orchestral Score; New York : Dover Publications, c1976