I’ve recently read two older Wagner books that lend insight not only into their subject topics, but into the times in which they were written. These are Wagner’s Parsifal, by Maurice Kufferath (Henry Holt 1904), and The Racial Thinking of Richard Wagner, by Leon Stein (Philosophical Library 1950). Maurice Kufferath was a Belgian music critic and later director of Théâtre de la Monnaie. In his...
I knew the name Angelo Neumann only as an impresario who had arranged the European train tour of the Ring Cycle in 1881-83. I was delighted to read his Personal Recollections of Wagner (Schirmer 1915, Livermore trans.) and discover what an interesting life he led. Neumann started off as a performer of some accomplishment. Indeed his first encounter with Richard Wagner occurred in 1862 in...
I recently acquired a volume, published in 1877 by Schott and Co. of London, of a translation into English of Wagner’s Ring by Alfred Forman. The title page brags that the translation is “in the alliterative verse of the original,” which bodes ill. And one need not venture far into the book to have one’s worst fears realized. Wotan to Loge, Scene 2 of Rheingold: The hoop to have with me Hold I...
If, to the playwright, all the world’s a stage, and if, to a hammer, all the world’s a nail, then to a political prisoner, all the world’s a jail. Or so it may seem from the current production of Parsifal, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, at the Vienna State Opera. The production, which was first presented in April 2021 and which I saw in April 2023, was prepared while the...
Atlanta Opera is building a Ring Cycle over the next several seasons – the city’s first – and has made an auspicious start with Das Rheingold – again, the city’s first. It is an exciting and promising project. Rheingold was staged by the organization’s General & Artistic Director, Tomer Zvulun. When he appeared in front of the curtain before the performance began, he greeted the audience as...
The Wagner Blog is a forum for discussion of contemporary themes arising from the works of Richard Wagner. Discussions relating to Wagner’s musical, literary, theatrical, philosophical, political and theoretic work are all appropriate for this forum.