Don't be scared of Wagner Unlike other opera composers, Wagner thought like an intellectual and wrote his own librettos. Critics including Michael Tanner and Bryan Magee have delved into the philosophy that inspired the operas. The influence of Kant and Schopenhauer was deeply felt, especially in his romantic masterpiece Tristan und Isolde. None the less, Tristan grips the heart before it engages the mind. While composing the opera, Wagner wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck, the married singer who may also have been his mistress: "This Tristan is turning into something terrible! This final Act!!!! - I fear the opera will be banned... only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad. You do get an unmistakable out-of-control feeling while listening to Tristan. The opera is about the erotic longing between Sir Tristan and Princess Isolde. It is an unlikely pairing. He has killed her husband in battle and she is betrothed to his master, King Mark. All social and moral conventions must be defied for them to be together. The dramatic situation is musically embodied in the famous opening chord of the overture, which has a melancholy, unresolved quality that grows increasingly hypnotic. Just as the lovers break the rules, so does the music. The chord is repeated throughout the opera, still unresolved until the last moments when it is finally, almost orgasmically, fulfilled. This kind of analysis is ripe for parody. (W H Auden joked that the title characters had to be lesbians, because "A man making love to a woman... couldn't really get into that rapturous state. He'd be thinking about something else!") But Wagner's music penetrates the soul; it taps into volatile, unconscious feelings that are hard to acknowledge. Wagner in person was disturbingly magnetic: a monumental egotist who charmed other men's wives as easily as he did King Ludwig of Bavaria, who paid for his specially built theatre in Bayreuth. He spent years gestating each opera, figuring out how to project his astonishing musical charisma. What is regarded as his most intimidating work - and at 15 hours it is certainly the longest - is Der Ring des Nibelungen­ ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), three full operas and a prelude. But it is actually his most accessible mature work. Unlike Parsifal or Tristan, the Ring's plot drives forward and, with its cast of dwarves, giants, gods and heroes, it is immediately appealing to anyone who likes myth. Last autumn, the Royal Opera put on the Ring in a production that was sold out for a year. This summer, Daniel Barenboim will be conducting a full cycle with a fantastic cast at the BBC Proms. When tickets went on sale 10 days ago the website crashed due to demand. So what's so special about the Ring? As Sir Antonio Pappano pointed out in his recent BBC documentary, the Ring starts with the creation of the world and ends with the destruction of the gods. Like The Lord of the Rings, it features a magical cursed ring that will destroy anyone who desires it. Unlike Tolkien, though, Wagner is steeped in sex. Wotan, the head of the gods, is an all-powerful figure gradually stripped of his illusions - a bit like King Lear. His daughter, Brünnhilde, is a fearsome demi-god whose misplaced loyalty to her father leads her to being demoted to human status. Once mortal, though, she can experience the ecstasy of love. With its conflicted characters and twists of fate, the Ring is like a Greek tragedy. It even has a spot of incest - though unlike in Oedipus Rex, the brother and sister who fall in love actually know they are related and carry on regardless. Typically of Wagner, their love duet has the most ravishing music in the entire cycle. The music truly makes the Ring - from the opening bars of the prelude, Das Rheingold, that emerge from the depths of time, to the magic fire music at the end of the first opera, Die Walküre. Each object or character has a theme or leitmotif that's played when they appear. This is fairly simple to follow in Das Rheingold, but as the cycle progresses the themes merge with greater sophistication. Like many great works of art, it teaches you how to understand it. Wagner was a theatrical innovator as well. He was the first person to turn down the lights in a theatre when the production started in order to create a better atmosphere. His operas are composed as musical wholes, rather than being divided into aria and recitative. This continuous flow commenting on the action is a precursor of the film score. His music has been used in many films and television shows: the Ride of the Valkyries from the Ring in Apocalypse Now; the end of Tristan in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet; the opening of Das Rheingold in Terrence Malick's The New World; an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm is based around the Siegfried Idyll - and who could forget Charlie Chaplin as the Great Dictator dancing with a globe to the Lohengrin prelude? John Williams clearly took much from Wagner when he scored Star Wars - another epic battle between good and evil. Wagner's operas are magical creations that fully draw you into their world. He could also knock out strings of memorable tunes. Next time you're at a wedding, listen out for that popular favourite Treulich geführt ziehet dahin from act three of Lohengrin- popularly known as "Here Comes the Bride." Whether we know it or not, deep down there is a Wagnerian in us all. Sameer Rahim's column 'The Opera Novice" appears at telegraph.co.uk/opera