This article examines how a media space was built around Richard Wagner’s writings in mid-19th century Germany. The contribution takes into account the reception by the German press of all the composer’s theoretical texts, from his first essays to Zurich’s writings on opera reform. It is clear that the reception of his writings in the specialized and daily press and the liveliness of the debates they gave rise to play a decisive role not only in the birth of the Wagner phenomenon, but also in the way in which his dramatic work was perceived through analyses that were sometimes precise, but often reductive or even erroneous.