For the 15th time in my life I’m about to attend a performance of the complete Ring Cycle. Since first seeing the complete Ring at the English National Opera in 1975, I’ve attended full productions in New York, Bayreuth, Berlin, Boston, and San Francisco. Every time has been a thrill and a privilege. Each production has prompted […]
It being Karfreitag, I’m about to settle in to a sweet four hours or so of Parsifal. This time I’m going audio-only, dipping back into the recording from which I learned the piece in 1968, the Knappertsbusch 1951 Bayreuth. Listening to Parsifal on Good Friday is a tradition upon which many — including Wagner, I […]
The re-entry of a particular theme at the end of Götterdämmerung — heard only once before, in Act III of Die Walküre — has moved listeners and puzzled analysts since 1876. The entire Ring Cycle closes with this theme, in D-flat (the same key as Wotan’s greeting Vahalla in Das Rheingold). Early commentators labeled it […]
The Richard Wagner Society of New York is the largest Society in North America. For years it has offered U.S. Wagnerians opportunties “to learn, to teach, to share,” as its motto goes. Now it has established a site on YouTube that permits Wagnerians around the world to delight in some of its many offerings. The site […]
Has anyone seen the Ring end this way? VASSALS AND WOMEN TOGETHER: Wotan! Wotan! Ruling god! Wotan, bless the pyre! Burn hero and bride, Burn the faithful steed: So that free of wounds and pure, All-father’s free companions, Valhalla can greet them United in eternal bliss!
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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