Felix Joseph Mottl was one of the most important conductors of the Wagnerian school. He started his musical career as a boy soprano at Löwenburg Seminary in Vienna, where he was taught general subjects and music. Later, he studied at the Vienna Conservatory, where his theory teacher was composer Anton Bruckner, he studied composition with Dessoff, and his conducting teacher was Hellmesberger. He became a répétiteur (singers' rehearsal coach) and conductor of the Academic Wagner Society in Vienna. In 1876, the feverish preparations for the first Bayreuth Wagner Festival were underway. This would also be the first complete production of Wagner's four-opera Ring cycle. Mottl came to the attention of conductor Hans Richter, who hired him as an assistant in the mammoth job of musical preparation for this event. In 1880, an opera of Mottl's, Agnes Bernauer, was produced with the backing of Franz Liszt in Weimar, but it made no permanent impression on the repertory. But in 1881, he was hired as the conductor of the Court Opera and the Philharmonic Society in Karlsruhe. In addition to presenting all of Wagner's operas, he favored the neglected works of Berlioz, presenting Béatrice et Bénédict, and the first performance anywhere of the complete five-act version of Les troyens. He elevated Karlsruhe to the top rank among German opera houses. In 1886, he accepted an offer to become a conductor at Bayreuth and that year, began with Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. From then on, he was known as one of the leading Wagner conductors. He re-orchestrated and revived Peter Cornelius' opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, which has remained in the German operatic repertory since then. In 1894, he gave his first all-Wagner concert in London and four years later, a complete Ring. He was praised for the great dramatic contrasts of his performances. His first New York appearance was conducting Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera. He was engaged to lead Parsifal there, but withdrew when the Wagner family, desiring to keep the "sacred" opera in Bayreuth, protested. He did not make a strong impression in America; according to Alma Mahler, this was his fault for "not taking the American public seriously." On his return, Mottl took over as director of the Munich opera and the Akademie der Tonkunst there and again he raised artistic standards. He revived Bellini and Donizetti operas in his own arrangements and orchestrated various lieder and piano works. He collapsed from a heart attack while conducting Tristan und Isolde. On his death bed, he married his longtime mistress, soprano Zdenka Fassbender.