In a letter Wagner penned to fellow composer Franz Liszt in 1857, while Wagner was working on the opera Siegfried, he wrote, “…for ten days, after I had finished the sketch for the first act of Siegfried, I was literally not able to write a single bar without being driven away from my work by most tremulous headaches…this is a life fit for a dog.”

Now, researchers at the Kiel Headache and Pain Centre in Kiel, Germany, have analyzed Siegfried to see how Wagner’s debilitating headaches shaped his famous opera, which is still performed around the world today.

“When you have a migraine, you really can’t do anything else, and people are totally dysfunctional. Besides being light and sound sensitive, they also get worse with movement,” said Dr. Mark Green, a professor of neurology, anesthesiology, and rehabilitation medicine and? Director of Headache and Pain Medicine at the? Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “There are also a lot of cognitive problems with migraine—they become very tired and can’t think clearly.”

RTWT