The March 2024 issue of The Wagner Journal

The March 2024 issue (vol.18, no.1) of The Wagner Journal contains the following feature articles:

• Barry Millington on Wagner and the ‘English Musical Renaissance’

• Derek Hughes on Wagner and the ‘Jew Guggenheim’

• Richard Moukarzel on ‘Wagnerian Irony, a German Romantic Affair?’

• Edward and Paula Bortnichak: Reflections on Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Der fliegende Holländer

plus reviews of: Covent Garden Das Rheingold, Opera Australia Ring, Lohengrin in San Francisco and Paris, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in Basel, the London Opera Company Die Walküre; Jonas Kaufmann’s Parsifal, Simon Rattle’s Siegfried, Andris Nelsons’ Wagner excerpts and a string septet paraphrase of Tristan und Isolde on CD; and an edition of correspondence between Robert and Clara Schumann and their Swiss contemporaries.

Subscribe here: www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk

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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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