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...
Psychoanalysts Steven H. Goldberg, M.D., and Lee Rather, Ph.D., have edited an enjoyable collection of essays under the title “Opera on the Couch: Music, Emotional Life, and Unconscious Aspects of Mind” (Routledge 2022). Three of the essays address Wagner characters: Senta, Walther and Tristan. L. Eileen Keller, Ph.D., a psychoanalyst in private practice in California, authored...
I recently tripped upon the name Edward Dannreuther in the context of the establishment of the London Wagner Society. Upon further digging, I learned of his short treatise, Richard Wagner: His Tendencies and Theories (1873), and the good fortune of Cornell University’s rendering it into a digital, and eventually physically reprinted, format. It is well worth the short time it takes to read...
Very high musical and production standards in a jaw-dropping theatre
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.