We have received a press release from the Hartford [CT] Wagner Festival, announcing a new production of Das Rheingold in August 2014 at the Roberts Theater of the Kingswood Oxford School in West Hartford, CT. The plan is to mount one drama each summer and to present two complete Ring Cycles each year beginning in […]
The current issue of the invaluable Wagner Journal includes an article by Michael Trimble, Dale C. Hesdorffer and Robert Letellier on “The Mystery of Wotan’s Missing Eye.” It reports on a study of production photographs concluding that, though the author never provided for instructions, nearly all actors playing Wotan portrayed a damaged left eye rather […]
The second half of the Seattle Ring was cause for more reserved admiration. The scenic wonders continue,d but to a great extent repeated themselves, as sets were re-purposed from the first two works, resulting in some interest but much more disappointment. And the performances, while vocally very strong, seemed to hit dead-ends in their characterization. […]
Halfway through the Ring at the Seattle Opera, there is nothing to report but bliss. The settings are lushly romantic but at the same time not clichéd or illustrative. Great handsome vistas, massive rocks, gnarled tree limbs, impenetrable forests — they invite you to lose your bearings and enter into a world of mythical creatures […]
Tom Artin, of Sparkill, NY, has been kind enough to send me a copy of his book The Wagner Complex: Genesis and Meaning of The Ring (Free Scholar Press 2012). It is an interpretation of the characters and action of the Ring through a Freudian lens, and it has been an interesting though challenging read. I became prejudiced and close-minded […]
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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