The Wagner Society of New York is holding its renowned annual seminar on Sunday afternoon February 5. Wagnerians come from all over to this event every year, where they mingle with fellow enthusiasts, learn really good stuff from some of the world’s experts, pick up cool books, DVDs and CDs, and meet some of their favorite singers, conductors and stage directors.
This year’s seminar is on Götterdämmerung. Will Crutchfield, conductor and musicologist, will offer a lecture entitled “The Construction of Memory.” Several members of the cast of the Metropolitan Opera production will take part in a roundtable (which I again will have the delight to host), including Jay Hunter Morris (Siegfried), Eric Owens (Alberich) and Wendy Bryn Harmer (Gutrune). I intend to exercise my privilege as interviewer to ask Mr. Morris to autograph my program from Master Class, a Broadway play by Terrence McNally that I saw in January 1996 in which he co-starred with Zoe Caldwell!
The seminar will also feature presentations by Marian Burleigh-Motley of the Metropolitan Museum of art; Ryan Minor of SUNY Stony Brook; Hilan Warshaw, a filmmaker who will link Wagner’s “Apocalyptic Visions” with science fiction in the movies; and Joe Pearce, President of the Vocal Record Collectors Society, who can be relied upon to provide the opportunity to test whether “The Golden Age” was really as golden as they say.
Sunday February 5, 2012, 12:00 – 5:30 p.m. (prompt — the host is a cruel timekeeper!) St. Joseph’s School, 420 East 87th Street (between First and York Avenues). You can just walk in if you want, but it gets pretty popular so the online registration is here.
See you there!
