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 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...
In the (excellent) issue of The New Yorker Magazine dated January 18, 2021, music critic Alex Ross reports on an experiential encounter with Wagner that was provided by artist David Hockney. Ross got his hands on an auto route that Hockney had laid out, accompanied by segments from Wagner’s works that Hockney had selected, sequenced, timed and “curated.” The route began at the...
Axel Englund, Professor of Literature at Stockholm University, suggests that the core of our fascination with opera is its deviance. In his book Deviant Opera: Sex, Power & Perversion on Stage (Univ. Cal. Press 2020), Englund posits that this form of theatre is distinguishable by its deviance from expected norms: Its characters are overblown, its costumes and setting are extravagant, its...
In London last June, walking back from Quaker Meeting at Friends House on Euston Road, a lovely Sunday afternoon was made even lovelier by the discovery of Judd Books, on Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury. There, amid the used and dusty books, I found Wagner: A Case History, by Martin van Amerongen. I not only did not have this 1983 volume in my library; I did not even know of its existence, and at...
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.
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