Adophe Appia was a visionary Swiss theatre theorist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His ideas of stage space defined by light rather than by painted sets had a profound influence on Edward Gordon Craig, David Belasco and other early 20th century practitioners. But never have Appia’s theories been so triumphantly vindicated 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 second installment in the Metropolitan Opera’s new Ring Cycle is a theatrical triumph. It places the exciting drama in a bold, imaginative theatrical space; evokes a profoundly romantic world depicted with contemporary flair; casts new and enlightening insights onto the familiar story; and provides an evening of music theatre that rivals any in the […]
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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