Richard Wagner: A Life In MusicBy Martin Geck(University of Chicago Press, 423 pages, $35) THE JUNE 1980 issue of Esquire asked rhetorically on its cover: “Is anyone in America not writing a screenplay?” Similar queries could be posed about present-day Wagneriana: Is anyone in…

Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth CenturyBy Paul Kildea(Allen Lane, 665 pages, $45) THANKS TO THE CENTENARY of his birth this year, Benjamin Britten–related books are truly gushing from English publishers, what with Neil Powell’s Benjamin Britten: A Life…