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 […]
I was interested in Terry Quinn’s book, Richard Wagner: The Lighter Side because of its title. It was intriguing to think that a biography or study might be assembled using Wagner’s humane, even funny, personality – his quirkiness, his climbing trees or standing on his head, his affection for his dogs and his devotion to […]
The Wagner Society of Washington, DC, not content to offer first-class symposia, block tickets to performances, and convivial social gatherings, also contributes to scholarship by publishing books on various topics of interest to Wagnerians. Several years ago I bought and enjoyed J.K. Holman’s Wagner Moments: A Celebration of Favorite Wagner Experiences not knowing that the […]
A special issue of The Wagner Journal comprises, in its entirety, Emma Warner’s new translation of Wagner’s essay “The Artwork of the Future.” It is eye-opening, even riveting, and as important a piece of writing on topics Wagnerian as I have read since Magee’s Tristan Chord. My own past efforts at reading Wagner’s prose have […]
One of the several Wagnerian whimsies that I have collected on my bookshelf is a 1931 translation by Hannah Waller of a 1912 book by Julius Kapp originally titled Richard Wagner Und Die Frauen: Eine Erotische Biographie (tempered in the American translation to The Women in Wagner’s Life). It’s one of those confident admixtures of myth, devotion, scholarship and popular literature...
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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