The work of the Wagnerian theorist and analyst Alfred Lorenz (1869-1939) has had a profound influence upon both Wagnerian scholarship and music analysis in the twentieth century, and yet it has never been properly evaluated. Analyzing Wagner's Operas outlines the origins and development of the expressive aesthetic in writings by Wagner and others, as well as in early twentieth-century theories of musical form, and the book considers Lorenz's work and contributions in this light. It also hopes to show, to the extent possible, where the work by Lorenz acted as a sort of "musical metaphor" for German nationalist ideology during the Nazi era.