In December I had the chance to attend two performances and a dress rehearsal of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Die Meistersinger, and felt (as I so often do) mystified to be blessed so plentifully. The last time I had attended Meistersinger was March 2007, when I saw this production. I had watched some DVD […]
The current issue of the Wagner Journal features a perceptive article by one of my heros, Simon Williams, titled Timely Timeless: Regietheater at Bayreuth in the 1970s. Prof. Williams, who teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara (nice gig!), is the author of one of my “desert island” books, Richard Wagner and the […]
While visiting a used book store in Chapel Hill, NC, a while ago I came across a slim biography and musical introduction titled Wagner, by Robert L. Jacobs. The copyright dates are 1935 and 1965, and it was published as part of a “Master Musicians” series by J.M. Dent in London and Farrar, Straus and […]
The worst thing a writer on the arts can do is to discuss a work he has not seen. I once lambasted the excellent critic for the New Yorker, Alex Ross, for writing about the staging of the Metropolitan Opera’s Ring Cycle when he had seen each of the works but not the Cycle itself. […]
Evan Baker’s book From the Score to the Stage: An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and Staging (Univ. Chicago Press 2013) is the best study of its kind: scholarly, entertaining, and comprehensive in its grasp of this wonderful subject. Baker seems infused with enthusiasm for the topic, lingering deliciously on such topics as early […]
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.
Recent Comments