In his book, Wagner’s Ring: A Listener’s Companion & Concordance, J.K. Holman attaches an Appendix that stands as tribute to our inexhaustible admiration for Wagner’s storytelling through music. Holman follows a single motif from its first appearance in the first scene of Rheingold through the entire Ring, to its final appearance in the final scene of the […]
In a recent trip to my absolutely favorite second-hand bookstore, I came across a 1948 volume titled Esoteric Music Based on the Musical Seership of Richard Wagner, by Corinne Heline. Reading it has been a delight, and an eye-opener.
Jeongwon Joe and Sander L. Gilman have edited a 475-page tome on Wagner & Cinema, a bushel-basket of essays by a host of contributors on topics so wide-ranging that there’s guaranteed to be something to stimulate (and to something to bore) you. There’s stuff on Fritz Lang but also on Mildred Pierce. Discussions of Nazism […]
During the recent San Francisco Ring, the projected sur-titles informed the audience that the Norns had once laid cable at the World Ash tree, and were unclear where they should connect the cable they were working on now. Mime asked Loge whether he had been “raised in a barn;” Wotan referred to the Giants as […]
In Act II of Francesca Zambello’s production of Die Walküre, Wotan instructs Brünnhilde concerning Siegmund’s selection to Valhalla by referring to a square of cardboard, about 2 x 2, bearing his photograph. Later, as the Walküres assemble in Act III, each is bearing a similar photograph, black-and-white, closely cropped and resembling the photos of “this week’s […]
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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