The purpose of the project is to analyse the influence of Wagner in Swedish opera between 1880 and 1920 from different perspectives like aesthetics, and reception and compositional history. The focus is on the three most important composers inspired by Wagner: Andreas Hallén (1846-1925), Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867-1942), and Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927). Wagner's influence is a complex phenomenon and Stephen Huebner points out that it is manifest both on a broad level of aesthetics and dramaturgy, and on a more local level, revealing the effect of individual operas, and even individual passages. Therefore, one main problem is to investigate which Wagnerian models the Swedish composers emulated. Another main problem concerns the relationship between the Wagnerian influences and important Swedish and Nordic trends during the covered time-span. Wagner's influence is one of the most important aspects of late 19th and early 20th century music history. Therefore, the project is a part of a wider international area of research, and a preliminary paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in Atlanta 2001. Departing from the German and American Wagner and opera research of the last 30 years, a theory and method can be developed in order to analyse the Wagnerian influences in Swedish opera in depth.