The November 2021 issue of The Wagner Journal has been published

November 2021 issue of The Wagner Journal

The November 2021 issue (vol.15, no.3) has been published and contains the following feature articles:

Philip White on a decade working as an assistant chorus master at the Bayreuth Festival

Ben Winters on the 1955 film Magic Fire featuring Alan Badel as Wagner

Charlotte Purkis writes on British female Wagnerites ‘out and about‘ around 1900 and introduces a humorous feminist take on visitors to the shrine at the turn of the century, ‘Buggins at Bayreuth‘, by Israfel Mondego (alias Gertrude Hudson).

Roger Allen outlines the context of Wagner‘s 1871 essay ‘On the Destiny of Opera‘, his new translation of which is to be published in a subsequent issue.

Reviews

Stefan Herheim‘s Das Rheingold from Berlin
Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s Fliegender Holländer from Bayreuth
Simon Stone‘s Tristan from Aix
Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s Tristan from Munich
Amy Lane‘s Die Walküre from Longborough
streamed performances of Holländer, Parsifal and Die Walküre from Klaipe˙da, Vienna and Munich
DVDs of Rheingold and Walküre from Sofia
The CD Boten der Liebe by the Voyager Quartet
Jean-Jacques Nattiez‘s Musical Analyses and Musical Exegesis: The Shepherd‘s Melody in Wagner‘s ‘Tristan und Isolde‘
Christian Bührle et al‘s Prachtgemäuer: Wagner-Orte in Zürich, Luzern, Tribschen und Venedig
Simon Kannenberg‘s Joachim Raff und Hans von Bülow

www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk

Social Media

One of the finest monuments in sound ever to have been raised to the everlasting glory of music. (Claude Debussy on Parsifal)

"The thing about Wagner is that there can be no true success in any production of his operas, only degrees of failure. There is so much in these bloody pieces, all you can do is try to live up to them." (Keith Warner, The Guardian)

"I have never come across an audience with so much hatred, so much anger, such a thirst for revenge. They take everything personally. It makes you a little bit scared, and it's really quite terrifying." (Lance Ryan on the audiences at Bayreuth)

"People sometimes complain that Wagner operas are too long, that they get stiff and sore about 10.30 because they have rushed in to hear one of his works straight from work and are not properly prepared for listening to his music. The audience, as much as the artists, must be prepared for a performance."
(Benjamin Britten to Alan Blyth, Gramophone)

"I was bowled over. It was the year after Wieland Wagner had died; to be able to see his productions was a total knock-out. These bare stagings, where everything was done with lighting. The light changed with the music, and the shadows and patterns seemed as archetypal as the music itself. Nobody had done that on the stage before. I thought it was extraordinary and wonderful."
(Patrick Carnegy to The Guardian)

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