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 audience went nuts at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House on Wednesday night (June 29, 2011) when Nina Stemme came out for her bows after a triumph as the Walküre Brünnhilde. She has chosen San Francisco to make her Ring Cycle role debut, and is in good company: Birgit Nilsson made her U.S. […]
Edward R. Haymes of Cleveland State University has newly translated two Wagner prose works from 1848: the narrative of The Nibelung Myth and Siegfried’s Tod. These clear and straightforward translations are accompanied by a scholarly explanation of both the context of the two works and the various sources that Wagner relied upon while writing the Niebelungen story […]
The Economist reports that the German government is challenging the priority of ticket allocations by the Bayreuth Festival. In a brief electronically posted note, the magazine notes that fewer than half of the Festival’s tickets are made available to the public. The large majority are allocated to corporate sponsors, Friends of Bayreuth, labor unions and other […]
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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