Distressing news from the fledgling Hartford Wagner Festival. The production of Das Rheingold scheduled for this August has been cancelled. The immediate cause is not poor ticket sales, but rather the withdrawal of several artists from the endeavor. The planned use of a “digital orchestra” in the performances prompted not merely curiosity — and condemnation […]
My reading pile has grown exponentially larger over the past few months and unfortunately has stayed that way despite conscious and time-consuming effort. It looms over my bed and is starting to totter. It sits on the right-hand corner of my desk and scowls at me. In the midst of it are three Wagner-related books: Trippett’s Wagner’s […]
Washington National Opera has announced that the Ring production that it co-commissioned with San Francisco Opera, directed by Francesca Zambello, will be presented in three cycles from April 30 to May 22, 2016, at the Kennedy Center Opera House. The conductor is Philipp Auguin, music director of the WNO, whose Tristan last year was terrific. […]
A good friend met my brother a few years ago when visiting the University of Texas at Austin, where my brother was teaching. My friend reported that, after a bit of conversation, he observed that both my brother and I were “erudite.” “Yes,” my brother reportedly replied, “but I am more eruditer.” This takes us […]
Richard Wagner is not the only artist who has provoked controversy because of his non-artistic conduct. Many lovers of art have reviled the artist. We can think of Ezra Pound, Philip Larkin, Christopher Marlowe, George Gordon Lord Byron, Albert Speer, and Robert Frost among those whose art we are eager to teach our children, but […]
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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