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 […]
I treat myself pretty well when it comes to attending Wagner performances. But in 2011, when I had a ticket to see Gerald Finley perform Hans Sachs at Glyndebourne, I just couldn’t afford the ticket, the flight over, the hotel, the time to do it, or even maybe the bananas and grapes during the interval. So […]
Halfway through the collection of “Legendary Performances” released by the Met this year, several surprises came to the fore. One was how poor the chorus at the Met was in the 1940s and 1950s. It was as if they dragged folks in from the street to have a go at the Pilgrim’s Chorus. Apparently the […]
In his recent book, Sorcerer of Bayreuth, Wagner expert Barry Millington comes down hard on Wagner the anti-Semite. He rejects the “misapprehension that Wagner’s anti-Semitism is like a superfluous integument that can be peeled away from his oeuvre without leaving a trace, when in fact it is so intrinsic to his aesthetic that it is no […]
Meistersinger appears on its face to be a paean to German art, expressed in a tribute to German musical heritage. And most pronounced in that heritage is the mastery of counterpoint and of well-tempered tuning. So the great work begins in C-major, ends in C-major, and features passages of fugal writing (such as the Act II riot) […]
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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