13895 Wagner News 174 - Wagner Society of England

No: 206 July 2012

Number 206 July 2012
INSIDE
4 From the Committee Andrea Buchanan
5 Wagner Society Website Ken Sunshine
6 2012 Prague Congress Andrea Buchanan
8 2013 Leipzig Congress Andrea Buchanan
9 Travel for the Arts offer to members Roger Lee
10 ENO Holländer Guide review Andrew Medlicott
11 ENO Opera Guides offer to members
12 Wagner Dream Karel Werner
14 “Wagnerjobs” + Wagner at the Proms
15 Parsifal in Cardiff Bill Bliss
16 Parsifal at the Barbican Katie Barnes
28 Parsifal: “Total Immersion” Paul Dawson-Bowling
22 Dan Sherman: Wagner at The Met Andrea Buchanan
23 Oxford Wagner Society concert Roger Lee
24 ENO Dutchman Katie Barnes
28 Forthcoming Wagner Society events Andrea Buchanan
30 New York Metropolitan Opera Ring Richard Miles
31 Fulham Opera Die Walküre Robert Mansell
32 Bayreuth Bursary Auditions Andrea Buchanan
34 Tristan at Cardiff Bill Bliss
35 Translating Wagner Katherine Wren
36 DVD review: The Lübeck Ring Chris Argent
40 Bayreuth booking methods Adrian Parker
41 Professor Hans Vaget talk Richard Everall
42 Tristan at Aachen and Birmingham Paul Dawson-Bowling
44 Das Geheimnis der Liebe: The Mystery of Love Chris Argent
45 Dame Gwyneth Jones’ Wagnerin project Roger Lee
46 Essential Wagner: Turns David Edwards,
Lionel Friend
48 Israel Wagner Society’s cancelled concert Jonathan Livny
49 German tuition offer for members Katja Wodzinski
50 Interview with Anthony Negus Michael Bousfield
54 Presteigne Weekend: 21st to 24th September
55 Wagner Society Contacts
56 Diary
Cover: Jonathan Livny, Founder of the Wagner Society of Israel (See: page 48)
Printed by Rap Spiderweb – www.rapspiderweb.com 0161 947 3700
–2–

EDITOR’S NOTE
One of the contributors to this issue of Wagner News is
Jonathan Livny who is pictured on the front cover. As the son of
a Holocaust survivor he is among those whose lives were
atrociously damaged from the 1930s onward by the actions of
the Third Reich and those who did the bidding of its leaders.
No sane and rational person could possibly wish to add to the
suffering endured in these eight decades by so many of our
fellow human beings the world over.
The work of a composer who challenges us with the proposition
that love has supremacy over power can inspire all of us to take
up the duty of dismantling the legacy of fascism which has so
blighted human history. It is the responsibility of all of us to
work for a future for all such victims which frees them from the
agony of their past.
Discussions aimed at helping to relieve such people of burdens
which they have carried since the darkest years of the twentieth
century demand the utmost in respect and sensitivity. To have
the remotest prospect of success such engagement could only be
attempted by those who can identify with the people whose lives
were so severely damaged or destroyed during the Nazi era.
Fully qualified on this account is Daniel Barenboim, whose
work with the East-West Divan Orchestra which he founded
with Edward Said ten years ago is surely worthy of recognition
in Nobel Peace Prize terms. In his footsteps now treads Jonathan
Livny who founded the Wagner Society of Israel a couple of
years ago. He passionately believes that the people of Israel are
as entitled as everyone else in the world to opportunities to
listen to Richard Wagner’s life-affirming music and it is his aim
to offer them the chance to do so.
Livny’s courage and that of his musicians in pursuing this aim
was demonstrated by their recent attempt to break the taboo on
performing Wagner’s music in Israel. Such a taboo serves to
perpetuate a pernicious form of cultural confinement and
deprivation upon the people to which it is applied.
The cancellation of a planned Wagner concert in Tel Aviv was
widely reported by the world’s news media. On page 48 you can
read Jonathan Livny’s own account of this affair which he has
written specially for Wagner News.
–3–

NEWS FROM THE COMMITTEE
Summary of the Minutes of the Committee Meeting held on 25th April 2012
Andrea Buchanan
The Committee held a regular meeting on 25th April in central London. All members of the
Committee were present, with the exception of Roger Lee and Geoffrey Griffiths.
The minutes of the January 18th and February 28th meetings were approved and the
ensuing actions were reviewed.
The Committee voted on the proposal to elect Richard Miles as Chairman Elect of the
Wagner Society subject to ratification by members at the forthcoming AGM. Richard’s
nomination was proposed by Andrea Buchanan and seconded by Malcolm Rivers. The
members of the Committee present at the meeting voted unanimously to accept this
proposal. Richard then took over as Acting Chair from Andrea Buchanan.
The Secretary reported on past and future events. The Vaget and Sherman events had
both been a financial success and were highly enjoyable. The Committee discussed
forthcoming events, planning for which was going well. It is hoped that the Dame Eva
Turner lecture would be revived in January or February 2013 and discussion took place
around the choice of a suitable speaker.
The Secretary reported further on member feedback, progress with the 2012 Bayreuth
Bursary, the Bayreuth tickets situation and the Library. There were no unforeseen or
controversial issues to report with any of these items. The Bayreuth tickets situation had not
changed, and would be discussed extensively at the forthcoming Congress, as there was
deep dissatisfaction with the treatment of Wagner Societies by the Bayreuth management.
The Treasurer presented the unsigned final accounts for 2011 which would be mailed
to members in a short form in mid May, well in advance of the AGM in June. The Society’s
financial position remained healthy, and slightly better than had been anticipated.
The Membership Secretary reported a notable decline in membership renewals in the
year to date, continuing a declining trend over the last few years. It was agreed that this issue
and the aging profile of our membership would need to be addressed.
Malcolm Rivers reported on Mastersingers activities that related to the Wagner
Society. Plans were well underway for the exciting programme of events to be held in 2013,
highlights being participation in the birthday concert on May 22nd at the Festival Hall,
(when the Society also hopes to host a celebration lunch) and involvement with the
Longborough Ring Cycles. Further details would be communicated to members over the
next few months.
The Committee discussed the need to find volunteer photographers and would
canvass all members to let us know whether they could assist in this regard. We also seek a
new Committee member to undertake publicity and a communication inviting members to
apply would be mailed out with the accounts in May.
Planning for the forthcoming AGM was discussed and it was noted that the President
would not be able to attend, due to the change in date and her current work commitments.
All members of the Committee would stand for re-election.
The Acting Chair presented his mission statement to the Committee and this was
discussed. It would be mailed out to all members with the accounts prior to the AGM.
Financial support for various Wagner related activities was discussed and with this the
meeting drew to a close.
–4–

THE WAGNER SOCIETY WEBSITE
Ken Sunshine
When Wotan wanted to know something he consulted Erda. When I want to find out
something I consult the internet. If it’s to do with Wagner I go to the Society website:
www.wagnersociety.org which, after a busy two months, has stabilised into its new
structure and now contains a substantial and growing amount of information on things
Wagnerian. We are continuing to add new data and new links, but for this to be
worthwhile the information has to be useful, relevant, easily accessible, and actually
accessed and read. We have made information available which I believe conforms to the
first two criteria. I hope it is easily accessible even to those of you who would claim to be
computer illiterate but I would appreciate feedback where you feel things are too
complicated.
To access the site use a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox and enter
www.wagnersociety.com to load the ‘home’ page.
Then what? Via the menu bar down the left hand side or via the ‘links’ in the table, you
can go directly to any of the major headings. Just click on any word which, when your
mouse pointer turns to a hand, indicates a link. Most pages display the sidebar menu
which can take you ‘home’ or to any of the major headings.
What information is available? The best way for you to answer that question is to
explore the site, clicking your way around. Note that some headings in the sidebar display
sub-links when pointed at. Did you know we have a Forum? Past editions of Wagner
News? Access to an extensive Audio and Video library?
What do you want on your site? Tell me what’s missing, what you like / don’t like.
Let me know about any problems you have.
–5– – 5–

REPORT ON THE ANNUAL CONGRESS OF THE
RICHARD WAGNER VERBAND INTERNATIONAL
Prague, May 17th to 20th 2012
Andrea Buchanan
President of the RWVI Professor Eva Märtson opened the
Annual General Meeting by welcoming the Chairs and
Secretaries of various Wagner Societies. Those Chairs who had
been newly appointed since the last AGM were then given the
opportunity to introduce themselves. Reporting the Activities of
the President and the Executive Committee during the past year,
Professor Märtson emphasised the importance of newlyfounded
University Wagner Societies (notably Oxford,
Cambridge and Erlangen-Nürnberg). An account of various
activities in this area was given by Ute Bergfeld, member with
responsibility for the Universities Programme, who stressed
that engaging with student Societies was a good way forward.
Marcus-Johannes Heinz, the outgoing Secretary and
Professor Eva Märtson
Webmaster of the Verband, also noted the work that he had been
undertaking in the field of social media in order to promote the
Verband to a younger audience.
There followed a brief presentation of the statistics relating to membership
numbers of the various Societies. Total membership of the Verband is currently just under
24,000. If any members would like to see these statistics, I would be happy to e-mail this
information to them.
Professor Schneider continued by giving an update on progress with the
International Competition for Wagner voices in Karlsruhe. He noted that the competition
committee had recently chosen 36 singers from 110 entries to progress to the next round,
to be held in Bayreuth in August. Members will be pleased to hear that our Bayreuth
Bursary winner, Helena Dix, is among those chosen.
The next agenda item related to the Bayreuth ticket situation. Herr Peter Emmerich,
of the Bayreuth management committee, who was originally to have been present at the
meeting, had declined to attend at the last minute as he stated that he had nothing new to
report. It seemed that the outlook was currently not particularly favourable and that the
protests that the Bayreuth management had received from various Wagner Societies were
not well received. A meeting had been held in April between members of the Praesidium
of the Verband and the Festival management, during which the latter complained that the
tone of the various communications from individual societies had not been helpful. The
Festival management had explained that they had no choice in making the decision to
discontinue ticket allocations to Wagner Societies, as they were under pressure from both
central and regional government (both of whom subsidise the Festival) to make the ticket
system more democratic. There remained however a lack of clarity as to how this worked
in practice and who had the decision-making power. Approaches were now being made on
a political level and the Verband would continue to lobby on behalf of its members.
Professor Märtson had written a letter to the German Minister of Culture, which all the
delegates were asked to sign. This initiative was supported by all those present.
–6– – 6–

The meeting moved on to consider the accounts, presented by the Treasurer, Herr
Horst Eggers. These documents had been circulated in advance. The general position was
healthy, with a reasonable surplus for 2011. A number of Societies had not paid their
membership dues, although it was expected that most of these would eventually pay. He
noted that 5,000 euros had been donated by the Verband towards renovation works to the
Wahnfried Museum in Bayreuth and that the Verband had also contributed to the staging
of a major exhibition devoted to Martha Mödl. The auditors had approved the 2011 annual
report in February 2012. The Treasurer was optimistic that 2012 would also prove to be a
financially sound one for the Verband. A budget had been requested for future years by
the Chair of the Danish Wagner Society and Herr Eggers noted that he supported this
suggestion and would look into the matter. Anthony Linehan (Chair, Wagner Society of
Ireland) asked that the accounts be presented in English and French in future years and it
was agreed that this would be arranged. The accounts were accepted by the members, with
one abstention.
Dr Specht then spoke about the Bursary arrangements for 2012, which were
progressing well. The Festival had guaranteed 1000 tickets for the Bursary winners and
their mentors and the Verband was grateful for this concession. He explained that the
process of allocating these tickets had been complicated, and therefore had taken longer
than foreseen, for which he apologised. 250 scholarships had been given this year to
young artists: 49 to German candidates, 23 to East European and 26 to other European
countries.
The resignation of Marcus-Johannes Heinz, the Secretary was
then announced and a new candidate, Philippe Olivier
(Strasbourg) was nominated. Dr. Olivier duly introduced
himself. He is French, although a fluent German speaker and
will no doubt contribute to the already close relationship
between the French and German members of the Verband. He
also mentioned that he would engage in political lobbying
within the EU as and when appropriate and was keen to develop
the profile of the Verband in this area. As he was the only
candidate he was duly voted in to the role of Secretary.
The meeting then moved on to presentations of future
Congresses, beginning with Leipzig in 2013. Thomas Krakow,
Dr Philippe Olivier
the President of the Leipzig WS spoke at some length about the
extensive and culturally rich programme for next year. Graz
would follow in 2014 and Hans Weyringer seduced us with the
potential charms of the place, and the added interest of a young directors Wagner staging
competition to be held during the Congress. Dessau would follow in 2015, with the
prospect of a full “Bauhaus” Ring Cycle.
There followed a motion proposing that the different Verbände submit reports on
Wagner performances in their areas to the RWVI. This was defeated on the basis that it
would constitute too onerous a task. The delegate from Milan proposed that Workshops be
held at Congress to discuss topics such as the reaction to recent Wagner productions in
Bayreuth. The delegates were not however in favour of official discussions of productions
as this was not felt to be the business of the Verband. The Parisian delegation reported that
they had asked for the City to rename a major street as rue Richard Wagner. This request
had not yet been successful. With this the meeting ended.
–7– – 7–

“RICHARD IST LEIPZIGER”
International Richard Wagner Congress 2013
Andrea Buchanan
Members of Wagner Societies are most welcome and are indeed encouraged to attend the
annual Congresses. There is, I think, a perception among our members that these events
are only for the Committee and that the event consists mainly of business meetings of the
International Richard Wagner Verband. This is absolutely not the case as the Congress is
also very much a cultural event with many operas and concerts on offer, as well as plenty
of tours and visits to places of musical and historical interest in the area in which the
Congress is held.
Provided you can arrange your own travel, booking is a very simple process and
the prices are extremely competitive. Many of the Wagner Societies from countries such
as Germany and France attend the annual Congresses in large groups and the members
always seem to enjoy the event very much.
I particularly wanted to bring next year’s Congress to your attention as it promises
to be a very exciting and culturally rich event. It is being held in Leipzig, the city of
Wagner’s birth and the city itself, the States of Saxony and Thuringia and the Richard
Wagner Verband International are all supporting and endorsing the event, extending a
warm welcome to Wagner lovers from around the world.
The programme begins on May 17th with a performance of The Ring Without
Words, by Lorin Maazel performed by the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by
Ulf Schirmer, which will be followed by extracts from Parsifal. On the afternoon of 18th
May the Thomaner Choir of Leipzig will perform a motet with works by Wagner, Weinlig
and Biller in the Thomaskirche, while in the evening there will be a performance of Das
Rheingold at the Leipzig Opera.
Die Meistersinger follows on the 19th May with the alternative choice of an organ
recital at the Gewandhaus, while Parsifal can be seen on the 20th. The Leipzig Wagner
Society will host a gala evening on the 21st and musical events will conclude with a
performance of Götterdämmerung on the 22nd. In between this feast of operas there are
tours every day within Leipzig and to places of interest in the region as well as lectures,
exhibitions, academic conferences and symposia.
I would like to encourage our members to consider attending. While I am aware
that there will be many demands on both the time and the purses of Wagner lovers in
2013, the Leipzig Congress offers a superb range of events at reasonable prices. The
booking arrangements are completely flexible, such that participants can choose which
events they wish to attend and pay according to what they book. There is a range of
discounted prices on offer for hotels, from 3 stars (€112.50 for a double) to 5 stars (€293
for a deluxe double), and tickets for the operas range from €28 to €86. Participants are
also free to book their own accommodation.
I have a brochure for this event containing full details and I would be happy to
email this, along with booking forms, to members on request. Alternatively, see the event
website on http://www.wagner-verband-leipzig.de/ I should of course mention that The
Wagner Society will be holding its own birthday celebrations on 22nd May 2013 at the
Festival Hall (see back page for announcement) and that it will be entirely possible to
attend Leipzig and to return in time for this special day in London.
–8– – 8–

SPECIAL OFFER FOR WAGNER SOCIETY MEMBERS
Roger Lee
Travel for the Arts have launched their 2013 special brochure of tours to celebrate the
Wagner bicentenary, and have announced a price reduction of 5% for members of the
Wagner Society. Established in 1988 to arrange excursions for the Friends of Covent
Garden, Travel for the Arts now organise over 100 tours per year. Their Wagner brochure
lists 16 different tours in 2013 to many of the important Wagnerian destinations.
Full Ring cycle tours are available to Frankfurt (6th-14th February), Halle (2nd-
10th March), Hamburg (26th May-3rd June), Riga (3rd-10th June) and Milan (17th-23rd
June). As with all such packages, local guided tours are included. There is a novel way to
attend the new Opéra de Paris Ring as a series of day trips between February and June.
Wagner’s Birthday on 22nd May is celebrated with a ceremony at Leipzig Oper
and a performance of Parsifal with options to extend the tour to include Die Feen, Rienzi,
Der fliegende Holländer, and a specially devised ballet: Ertrinken…Versinken! to music
by Wagner. An alternative programme: “Wagner’s Birthday in Dresden and Weimar” is
available from 18th to 23rd May.
A new production of Der fliegende Holländer with Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe
in Zürich on 11th January is paired with Tannhäuser on 13th with a walking tour of the
old town in between. “Wagner in Thuringia” from 16th to 21st May offers Siegfried Idyll,
Tristan und Isolde and Tannhäuser in Meiningen and Eisenach.
“Wagner in Munich” from 27th to 30th June adds visits to Neuschwanstein and
Hohenschwangau castles to Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser at the Bayerisches
Staatsoper. “Wagner in Dresden” from 4th to 8th July adds a new production of Der
fliegende Holländer at Semperoper to concerts at the Albertinum and the Frauenkirche.
“Wagner in Bayreuth” from 7th to 10th July consists of Rienzi, Das Liebesverbot
and Die Feen at Oberfrankenhalle along with daytime walking trips. A concert Ring in
Lucerne from 29th August to either 1st or 5th September includes a cruise on the lake to
Villa Tribschen.
Members of the Wagner Society will receive 5% off the price of any tour listed in the
Travel for the Arts 2013 Wagner brochure for which places are available. To claim your
discount contact Travel for the Arts by phone or email and quote “Wagner Society” with
your membership number.
–9– – 9–

NEW ENO GUIDE TO DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER
Andrew Medlicott
In association with English National Opera, Overture Publishing is reworking and
updating the Opera Guides series originally published between 1980 and 1994. This guide
to Der fliegende Holländer has been published to mark the recent new production by
ENO. In a prefatory note series editor Gary Kahn writes “The aim of the present
relaunched series is to make available again the guides already published in a redesigned
format with new illustrations, some newly commissioned articles, updated reference
sections and a literal translation of the libretto...”
Jokes about Wagnerian length are of course wholly inapplicable to Holländer,
which is short not only by Wagner's standards, but everyone’s. Nevertheless, there is a
huge amount of ground to cover. This guide does so in less than 200 paperback pages.
They include: thirty one pictures; three articles from the original guide by John Warrack,
John Deathridge and William Vaughan; two new articles by Mike Ashman and Katherine
Syer; Wagner's own comments on the overture and performance of the opera, from the
original guide, translated by Melanie Karpinski; a thematic guide; the libretto and Lionel
Salter's translation of it; a discography; a guide to DVDs; a bibliography; and
identification of websites.
The five essays have much thought-provoking material. Perhaps the most startling
suggestion is still by John Warrack. The conventional view of the opera (as repeated in
the first sentence of the book’s blurb) is that ‘it is the first of Wagner’s operas considered
to be representative of his mature style’. But Warrack writes ‘The Dresdeners, delighted
with the grandiose Rienzi...were disconcerted by what they saw as a reversion to an older,
even a quainter, German Romanticism’. He does later write ‘A few in the city were to
sense the bold new ideas that dominated [the opera]...but in 1843 its day had not yet
come.’ Mike Ashman, on the same point in his article ‘How Wagner found the Flying
Dutchman’ writes ‘...the new work’s eventual acceptance was guaranteed by the fact that
Wagner had at last got his hands upon a genuinely popular subject.’ William Vaughan’s
and Mike Ashman's articles to some extent cover the same ground, the multitudinous
influences on Wagner, but Vaughan’s is more literary, Ashman’s more factual. Katherine
Syer’s article is a stage history.
‘The guide also contains the libretto and Lionel Salter's non-singing English
translation. I warmly welcome the decision to abandon ‘singing translations’ in these
guides. If a translation is to be sung, it must be a singing translation, with all the
alarmingly severe constraints and occasional reluctant compromises that involves. But
where the translation is simply to reveal what the original means, without having to fit the
music, the greater freedom for the translator is better for the listener/reader. The thematic
index identifies 40 musical themes, which are signalled by number throughout the libretto
and in John Deathridge’s ‘Introduction’. This is largely a musical account of the opera,
but also includes an interesting outline of the many occasions during the rest of his life,
on which Wagner returned to the opera and made changes. Deathridge’s argument is that
Wagner's motivation was to make the opera seem more like a worthy precursor of music
drama than it actually is – an aim in which, according to Deathridge, he failed.
This guide is an excellent piece of work. I can see it being extremely helpful to
newcomers, while also having much to interest old hands (pun intended).
– 10 –

WAGNER’S DREAM OR WAGNER’S NIGHTMARE?
Professor Karel Werner
It is well known that Wagner was, on and off, preoccupied with the idea of writing a
Buddhist opera, Die Sieger (The Victors), after becoming acquainted with
Schopenhauer’s philosophy (Sept. 1854), which he supplemented by a study of Eugène
Burnouf’s Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme indien. He talked about writing and
composing Die Sieger even after completing Parsifal. What his sudden death deprived us
of has now been boldly accomplished by Jonathan Harvey in his opera Wagner Dream
composed in 2007 to the libretto by Jean-Claude Carrièra and premièred the same year in
Amsterdam. It was given its first showing in this country on 29th January 2012 in the
Barbican Hall, directed by Orpha Phelan, played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under
the baton of Martyn Brabbins and sung by six soloists and a small chorus. Wagner here
dreams his last opera while in a coma in the period between his heart attack and death on
13th February 1883 in the Palazzo Vendramin in Venice, while events around him are
shown through protagonists who are actors with speaking roles.
Cosima’s diaries enable us to follow the genesis of the idea of Die Sieger. In his
programme notes Christopher Cook, in conversation with composer and conductor, uses
them and regards her entry of 29th June 1869, according to which Wagner said he might
do Die Sieger as a play, as being his first mention of the theme. But the entry of 2nd April
1875 already suggests it would be an opera. On 27th February 1880 Cosima records: ‘R.
relates to us the story underlying his Sieger, wonderful and moving’ ... the opera ‘will be
gentler than Parsifal’. On 6th January 1881, a year before completing the score of Parsifal
at Palermo, Wagner again promises to compose Die Sieger if Cosima will look after him
well, and he speaks about the fact that both stories are about the redemption of a woman.
The libretto combines the story, which Wagner took for his sketch from Burnouf,
with Buddhist notions about the process of dying as an intermediary stage before the next
incarnation and with known as well as fictional events taking place around Wagner’s
unconscious body. First Wagner is approached in his intermediary state by the
transcendental Buddha Vairochana, who explains to him that he is free to make some
choices as to his immediate steps. Wagner finally decides to compose Die Sieger and the
semi-staged production of the opera unfolds.
Prakriti, a young woman, and Ananda, a prince whose cousin, Siddhartha,
renounced the world and became the Buddha, fall in love. The Buddha, who has another
plan for his cousin, appears (seen only by the audience) and turns Prakriti for a moment
into the Tantric goddess Vajrayogini. Overwhelmed, Ananda prostrates himself and
leaves. But Prakriti cannot live without him and she approaches the Buddha, surrounded
by his monks, who now include Ananda. She asks if she can live near Ananda. The
Buddha, always compassionate, explains to her that the rules make it impossible. Taunted
by an old Brahmin watching the scene, Prakriti tries to drag Ananda away. The Buddha
explains the situation by relating a jataka, the story of their former incarnation when
Prakriti as a high Brahmin’s daughter, rejected the low-born Ananda, who was wooing her
and who then lived his life alone. Now Prakriti wishes to kill herself, but Ananda
persuades the Buddha to admit women to his order, and Prakriti becomes a nun.
Who, then, are the victors? In the first place the Buddha, who bears also the title
Victor (Jina, as do other renouncers who have reached liberation from further
incarnations) and Ananda, of whom tradition says that he was liberated soon after the
– 12 –

Buddha’s death, and presumably also Prakriti, whose passion was calmed by monastic
discipline. (Her name means ‘nature’ and in the original story she may have been a
symbolical figure representing the natural sensual and emotional attachments tying one
to this world of suffering and repeated deaths and births.)
Simultaneously with the opera, enacted in Wagner’s mind and watched by
Vairochana and the audience, the actual and presumed events of the fateful morning are
taking place. So we have here a glimpse into three dimensions: the transcendental one
between incarnations, the realm of artistic creation in the artist’s mind and the ordinary
world of ‘real’ events. These begin with Cosima’s display of jealousy over the arrival in
Venice of Carrie Pringle, a flower maiden from the première of Parsifal, who had caught
Wagner’s eye. Apparently upset, Wagner withdraws to his study, contemplating his failure
to realise the opera Die Sieger with its message of liberation. After his heart attack when
he becomes unconscious (and starts creating the opera in his mind) Betty the maid enters
and, horrified, summons Cosima, who tries to nurse him. Dr Keppler is called and takes
some measures to revive him. Even Carrie Pringle arrives, but it is not clear whether she
is there in person or as a part of Wagner’s visions. The libretto purports that Wagner,
having composed his opera in his mind but unsure whether it was the right thing to be
preoccupied with, briefly regains consciousness and asks Cosima’s forgiveness (a
presumption of the libretto). Having physically died, Wagner is led in the other dimension
by Vairochana to his future destiny.
The libretto takes some further liberties, for example with the monastic history of
Buddhism. The Buddha actually allowed ordination of women when Ananda persuaded
him to grant it to his, the Buddha’s, aunt and foster mother, who raised him after his mother
died within a week of his birth. As to the events around Wagner’s death, they have never
been sufficiently clarified. Any written account by Dr Keppler (an independent witness)
which may have existed was presumably suppressed. What would seem clear is that
Cosima had intercepted Carrie Pringle’s letter, from which she learned of her arrival in
Venice and possibly some other worrying circumstances and, seized by jealousy, she
created a scene in which she (unusually for her) even raised her voice, causing Wagner to
take refuge in his study. This is testified to by his (or von Bülow’s?) daughter Isolde, but
she does not appear in the dying scene in the opera, although it is most unlikely that, being
in the house, she would not rush to the side of her father. The appearance of Pringle is, by
Jonathan Harvey’s admission, another liberty taken by him and the librettist. Cosima had
noticed Pringle before in a rehearsal and remarks on 5th August 1881 in her diary that she
sang Agathe’s aria very tolerably. So she could easily have caught Wagner’s eye. Whether
Cosima sensed some danger at this stage cannot be known. It is also unknown whether
there was a liaison between Wagner and Pringle. Harvey regards it as quite likely.
Cosima discontinued her diary from the fateful day, but there is an important
testimony to her state of mind after her jealous outburst and Wagner’s abrupt withdrawal
into his study. Their son Siegfried was also in the house and was practising on the piano in
the salon at the time, unaware of what had been happening between his parents. His mother
came in, sat down at the grand piano and started playing Schubert’s Lob der Tränen (Praise
of Tears) with a ‘completely transported’ expression. Siegfried says that he had never heard
her play before as she had been dedicating all her time to her husband’s needs. When the
maid came in with the news of Wagner’s collapse, Cosima rushed with an expression of
passionate anguish to the door, almost splitting it (Siegried Wagner, Erinnerungen, 1923,
p. 35ff.). It is most likely that Siegfried was also present in the dying moments of his father
– 13 –

at his bedside. Judging from the previous gestation of Wagner’s masterpieces we can
assume that what Wagner needed was another muse to compose his last intended opera.
But what the long-suffering Minna had endured, more or less with resignation, was
unbearable to Cosima and it prompted her outburst with tragic consequences.
I saw Harvey’s Inquest of Love in 1993 and I felt that there were some elements of
spirituality in his music which remotely reminded me by its mood of Scriabin and I quite
enjoyed it despite David Pountney’s inept production. This time I was less affected by the
music which apparently owes a lot to electronic treatment, while the vocal parts seemed
to me not much more than intoned speech. The libretto, which was well presented by
surtitles, seemed to me rather pedestrian. One misses Wagner’s superb poetry which
sometimes comes through even in translations on surtitles. Nevertheless, the opera was
an interesting experience and I would advise every Wagnerite not to miss it if another
opportunity presents itself. The audience showed in sufficient measure its appreciation,
enhanced no doubt by the presence of the composer.
WAGNERJOBS
At www.wagnersociety.org you will find the Wagner News Forward Planning list of the
events we intend to cover in the next half dozen issues of the magazine. You will see
which reports still require volunteers to provide the words or the pictures. For example
we need a reviewer for the Opus Arte DVD of Lohengrin from the 2011 Bayreuth Festival.
We also need someone who can use music-writing software to provide the graphic
examples in pieces such as the “Essential Wagner” item on pages 46 and 47 of this issue.
Whether it is to join the team reporting the Presteigne weekend for the January
2013 issue of the magazine, to photograph the “Great Wagner Choruses” event for the
January 2014 Wagner News or to try your hand at any of the other dozen or so jobs which
are on offer, we would be delighted to hear from you. The Forward Planning list is
updated on the Wagner Society website as our future programme of events unfolds.
WAGNER AT THE PROMS
August is a relatively Wagner-rich month at the Proms with five concert performances.
Siegfried Idyll will be played by an 18 musician ensemble as it was at Tribschen on
Christmas morning in 1870 instead of the full orchestra versions which we usually hear.
3rd August Prom 27 Siegfried Idyll BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Donald Runnicles 18 mins
5th August Prom 31 Meistersinger Overture Nat. Youth Orchestra of Scotland
Donald Runnicles 12 mins
7th August Prom 33 Tristan und Isolde BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Prelude to Act I Juanjo Mena 9 mins
26th August Prom 57 Parsifal Prelude to Act III Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
and Good Friday Music Danielle Gatti 20 mins
30th August Prom 63 Lohengrin Prelude to Act I Berlin Phil /Simon Rattle 7 mins
– 14 –

CONCERT PERFORMANCE OF PARSIFAL AT CARDIFF
Bill Bliss
Is it possible to enjoy a concert performance of Parsifal when those singing the two main
roles: Gurnemanz and Parsifal are clearly not up to the mark? Yes it is when the Mariinsky
Opera is conducted by Valery Gergiev. As has often been mentioned in this journal,
concert performances have much to recommend them. The music shines through, there
are no distractions from the stage and once again you are reminded that in Wagner the
main voice is the orchestra and in the Millennium Centre on 31st March it certainly was.
Gergiev may have been in cruise control but the mellifluous tone he produced from his
orchestra was sublime, never more so than in the final few minutes of Act III. But did we
applaud too soon ?
There were two brilliant solo performances. Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas had a
large voice from a large frame and his contrition and suffering were manifest. I have never
heard such a powerful and malevolent Klingsor as that sung by Nikolay Putilin. (These
two were the only representatives from Gergiev's recent and well-received CD recording).
Larisa Gogolevskaya in the role of Kundry was a little strident at the top of her range, but
certainly believable. The same could not be said of Yuri Vorobiev as Gurnemanz who
never uttered an ugly sound but sweetness of tone is not the main requirement for this
role. More heft and solemnity were needed and, at risk of being ageist, wasn't he far too
young for the part? August Amonov as Parsifal (too old) was similarly low in volume and
commitment whilst body language was almost totally absent. In Act II there was no need
for him and Kundry to be separated by the conductor's podium as the likelihood of
anything approaching a look, let alone a kiss, was non-existent.
There are all sorts of graduations between concert performances and semi-staged
ones. No one expects costumes and total interaction, but an acknowledgement that the
person you are singing about is on the platform with you does add to the drama. (Didn't
Wagner write music drama – not opera?) Vivid memories of Domingo and Tomlinson
singing and “acting” Parsifal and Gurnemanz at the Royal Festival Hall in 1998 are
fixtures in my memory bank.
From a personal point of view the final test of a great Wagner performance is the
‘next day effect’. Did I feel a little spaced-out and semi-detached from real life? In the
case of Gergiev’s Parsifal,undoubtedly: Yes!
WAGNER SOCIETY OF NEW YORK LECTURES AT BAYREUTH
The Wagner Society of New York’s 2013 programme of lectures will run from 10:30am
to noon on the dates of the following performances at the Arvena Kongress Hotel:
August 24th Der fliegende Holländer (new production)
August 25th Lohengrin
August 26th Tristan und Isolde
August 27th Tannhäuser
August 28th Parsifal
Tickets are 12 euros per lecture, payable at the door. No advance reservation
is necessary. The lecturer is John J.H. Muller, who presented the 2010 and
2011 Bayreuth lectures. He has been a member of The Juilliard School
music history faculty for 30 years and is a past department chairman.
– 15 –

PARSIFAL Á LA RUSSE
OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING KUNDRY
Mariinsky Opera in concert, Barbican Hall, 3 April 2012
Katie Barnes
The Mariinsky Opera's Ring at the Royal Opera House in 2009 was often excellent,
frequently intriguing, but patchy. My expectations for this concert performance were
consequently not pitched too high. But this was music-making of quite a different order
to that uneven experience. Where his Ring was choppy, Gergiev's Parsifal was composed
of long, stately, gracious arches of music.
The brightness of the solo trumpet stood out against the depth of the other brass
instruments, its edginess giving the soft, lapping sounds of the Prelude a suitable sense of
unease, and the massed brasses for the Dresden Amen sounded majestic. The wonderful,
sonorous strings were gentle, soft and caressing, but capable of creating huge, supple
waves of sound. Gergiev and his forces created a realm of sound which enclosed the
audience from the outside world, just as the Grail knights are enclosed from the world in
Monsalvat.
I was moved to wonder what Wagner would have made of a concert performance
(with the orchestra spread out over the platform) of the opera he wrote for Bayreuth,
where the orchestra is concealed from the audience. The principals used their scores and
were, unhelpfully, relegated to two banks of seats at either side of the platform, facing in
towards the conductor. This meant that they had to sing while hemmed in by the orchestra
and each other, and those in the inside seats were blocked off from sections of the
audience. The offstage horns sounded from behind the platform and Titurel and the
excellent Tiffin Boys' Choir were ensconced in the side of the Balcony. It was a pity that
the recorded bells sounded so artificial, and it was deeply unsatisfactory for Amfortas and
Parsifal to leave the platform with unbecoming haste after they had finished singing in
Act I, leaving Gurnemanz with no-one to address at the end. But even this paled beside
Kundry's failure to put in an appearance at all in Act III, leaving an anonymous chorister
to sing her two words. Why on earth did Gergiev allow it?
All but one of the leads were already known Wagnerian quantities in the UK, having
been in the 2009 Ring. The exception was Yury Vorobiev, a baby-faced bass who looked
absurdly young to play the venerable, wise Gurnemanz. When he first came onto the
platform, I decided that he had no right to be performing the part at his age, but when he
sang, I changed my mind within seconds. This is a beautifully formed, rounded voice for
which this massive role appeared to hold few terrors. He portrayed a sweet, gentle, lyrical,
serene Gurnemanz, a long way removed from John Tomlinson's fierce old warrior. This is
still a work in progress – he had to battle with the orchestra during the Act I narrative of the
building of Monsalvat and the blessing in Act III. He still lacks a little staying power, and
time will bring the voice more incisiveness. But he triumphed despite having to face
obstacles encountered by few Gurnemanzes, unfairly placed furthest upstage, hemmed in
by double basses and masked by his colleagues. I was also hugely impressed by his dramatic
intelligence. He was the least experienced of the principals, yet it was he who could
instantly create atmosphere with a look or gesture. He interacted well with his colleagues
(and when Parsifal abandoned him too early in Act I, his disdainful glace at the empty chair
beside him said volumes). In Act III, when he had to sing the long first section standing
– 16 –

alone on the platform, he commanded it, conjuring up the absent Kundry and Parsifal with
a glance or movement until the tenor belatedly appeared. This boy should go far, unless he
sings heavy roles too early and too often. His is a voice to treasure.
Larissa Gogolevskaya, who did not cover herself with glory as the
Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde in 2009, proved to be far more adept as Kundry. This is
unequivocally a soprano voice –“und lächte” was hair-liftingly powerful, yet the lower
register is as deep and full as many Erdas I have heard. She could end a phrase with a
snarl of rage (though she eschewed the customary screeches of manic laughter), yet knew
the value of quietness too – the whispered “Tod” was gripping, and the single word “küss”
seemed to embody all the seduction and depravity of Klingsor's realm. Given the concert
format, she could do little to differentiate the character of Kundry in the different acts,
but she, again, knew how a little interaction with her colleagues could go a long way –
the venomous glances she exchanged with Klingsor said much, and although she did not
essay the crucial kiss, the long, steady gaze which she exchanged with Parsifal conveyed
volumes. So, too, did her glance around the peaceful woodland in Act I, a smile beginning
to touch her lips until the harassing Esquires disturbed her peace.
Nikolay Putilin, whose Alberich was one of the glories of the 2009 Ring, gave a
wonderful, sharply-etched little sketch as Klingsor. He has no need to snarl or grimace to
convey evil: the dark, cutting edge of his baritone does it all for him. He too was fully
engaged from the very beginning – his cool, proprietorial glance about him as the prelude
to Act II began established the character at once, and the way he entwined his pudgy
fingers was chilling, while the orchestra boiled like a thunderstorm with evil, its
sinuousness seeming almost to draw pentacles as he cast his spell to awaken Kundry. The
sadness in his face, and his little, futile gesture at “hüt’ ich mir selbst den Gral” showed
movingly how empty his victory would be, even if he achieved it. Like Alberich in
Siegfried, Klingsor knows that he has already lost.
Evgeny Nikitin's angry, leonine Amfortas was worlds away from the usual pallid
invalid. Tall, strong, noble, powerfully built, this Amfortas' rage and despair was a life
force that could have generated a power station and was utterly riveting. He blew the
audience away. I have never heard him sing so superbly, his noble baritone wonderfully
incisive. This was the angriest Amfortas I have ever seen. While he sat awaiting his cue,
he blazed with energy and impatience. Unleashed, he raged against the light. Glorious.
In this proud company Avgust Amonov’s Parsifal was underwhelming. He sang
competently but the voice sounded colourless, and dramatically he was not the equal of
his colleagues. He spent most of his time hunched over his score, and if he did look up to
acknowledge the presence of another singer, it was with a lofty, disdainful “What are you
doing sharing my platform?” glance which was hardly appropriate to the character.
There was excellent work in all the lesser roles, especially Andrey Popov's edgy
Fourth Esquire and a luscious sextet of Flowermaidens, all of whom sounded sensational
and looked gorgeous in brightly coloured frocks which made them resemble a flowerbed.
59 members of the Mariinsky chorus, as many as the platform could hold, created a
glorious sound, especially in the wonders of the Grail scene, where the contrast between
the deep, clotted bass voices and the ethereal sopranos was astonishing. The cavernous
contralto voices added extra allure to the Flowermaidens' music.
The emotional impact of this Parsifal was immense, worlds away from that patchy
Ring. With this performance, Gergiev and his Mariinsky forces have confirmed
themselves for me as major players on the international Wagner scene.
– 17 –

PARSIFAL, EASTER 2012: A TOTAL IMMERSION
Paul Dawson-Bowling
Angela Denoke Falk Struckmann Denoke, Simon O’Neill, Kwangchul Youn
Photography of the Vienna State Opera production by Michael Poehn
Thanks to the generosity of my wonderful wife doing her best to provide me with a
soothing balm after a family tragedy, Easter 2012 brought us several different experiences
of Parsifal, the first consisting of the Mariinsky Opera’s concert in Cardiff on 31st March.
This became my preferred version among four of Valery Gergiev in this work, the others
being his Albert Hall performance from 1999, a Metropolitan Opera broadcast from
2004, and his recent CDs recorded at St Petersburg.
The St Petersburg CDs have won generous acclaim which I do not think they
deserve because the performance is studio-bound and the recording variable, with string
sound that often loses its initial opulence and thins out. The praise lavished on this version
seems largely due to the “band wagon” effect. Gergiev has become immensely
fashionable and whatever he does is endorsed by one critic after another, each echoing the
last and keeping the band wagon rolling. The advantage of the Cardiff performance was
that he was unusually involved and involving. His performance also, unsurprisingly, had
something very Russian about it, something outside the mainstream traditions of Parsifal
with a distinctive hue, but without the alien pronunciations and brackish vocalism which
are sometimes the downside of that Russian hue.
Three of the voices were magnificent, and the Amfortas of Evgeny Nikitin was
exceptional in every way: rich and resonant, a musician of no mean acumen, and even in
concert the most tormented and intense among all our three live encounters with
Amfortas over Easter. Another singing actor of greatness was Nikolay Putilin, the
Mariinsky Klingsor, a mighty bass of immense menace who froze into total stillness
during the central 50 minutes of Act II before his brief appearance at the end. He then
appeared to trip over an unfamiliar music stand and fell heavily, but continued both
singing and menace even as he tried to save himself. A real trouper.
On the concert platform without any make-up or costume to disguise his
appearance, the Gurnemanz of Juri Vorobiev looked weirdly young, but his sympathetic
portrayal wanted nothing in character, and for “Dein Name denn?” and for “den nun des
Grales Anblick nicht mehr labte” he produced pianissimos of a delicacy uncommon since
Hans Hotter sang the role. Standing next to him Avgust Amonov as Parsifal seemed very
mature, and although he and the Kundry (Larisa Gorgolevskaya) were sterling artists they
– 18 –

were not as spectacular as the three just singled out. Our own superlative ‘Ex Cathedra’
from Birmingham joined the Russian forces to provide high sopranos of exceptional purity
in the Grail Scenes and the only unsatisfactory vocal contribution came from Gergiev
himself. He emoted often and much. It was sometimes as if he were sharing the podium
with a constipated ox, snorting and bellowing at all the wrong moments. On the other hand,
the sound which he drew from the orchestra had a strange, earthy fire and a tremendous
technical finish which contributed to a performance of spirituality and real distinction.
Our next Parsifal came six days later on Good Friday at Leipzig, and it was very
poorly attended, with only about 30% of the seats occupied, in spite of seat prices – I tell
no lie – one fifth of what Covent Garden charges. Apart from lower costs the big
advantage of Leipzig is that it boasts a division of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the pit,
and this orchestra shares with the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Vienna Philharmonic, and
the Mariinsky Orchestra the distinction of being one of the truly great, world-class
orchestras whose main job is in the opera house.
Some of the Gewandhaus woodwind solos were staggeringly beautiful, and the
sound as a whole had the body and depth which are the birthright of the great German
orchestras. Ulf Schirmer, the conductor, is now not only musical director at the Leipzig
Opera but has taken over from Henri Meyer as Intendant, and he demonstrated his
credentials laudably, bringing out more of the score’s luminous radiance than Gergiev. He
was supported not only by the phenomenal orchestra but by Roland Aeschlimann’s
staging, admirably uncluttered and easy on the eye if rather blank, like an attractive
pictorial representation of cyberspace.
The Grail is not a chalice but a lapis exillis, a sort of philosopher’s stone fallen out
of heaven, as it was in some earlier grail legends. This stone was a hologram
representation, and it made a mesmerising effect as it rotated in mid-air onstage, and
glided forwards out of nowhere towards the audience. There was no bread or wine, and
one of the production’s more interesting but controversial features remains the closing
tableau where everything else faded to leave Amfortas alone centre stage, beckoning
Kundry over and enfolding her in his arms. This was not so much a passionate embrace
as a loving reconciliation, agape not eros, all animosity and contempt laid to rest. Stephan
Vinke (soon to be Siegfried at Covent Garden) was Parsifal as he was seven years ago,
and his heroic, ringing tones had now taken on a strident edge which allowed him less
inwardness than formerly.
As Kundry Lioba Braun had replaced the marvellous Petra Lang, she whose
picture deservedly adorned the cover of the last Wagner News, and sadly Lioba Braun was
much inferior. Not only was her pallid, unsteady production no substitute for Petra Lang’s
pure, golden tones, but she had neither Petra Lang’s magnetism nor the feral virulence
with which Petra Lang’s Kundry rounded on the young knights attacking her in Act I.
Petra Lang’s wild woman struck as much fear as hostility from these young hopefuls.
The Gurnemanz of James Moellenhoff was a gentle and scholarly man, gently and
musically sung, and he constantly referred to some enormous ancient book of lore and
prophecy, a central feature of the production, to guide him through events. The whole
performance was so good that I would energetically recommend members of the Wagner
Society to watch the internet for any more Wagner at Leipzig, and go at every opportunity.
Leipzig after all was where Wagner was born, and it roused mixed emotions that the public
at Leipzig are so little committed to the city’s greatest native son (Bach was not a native of
Leipzig but of Eisenach) that visitors can enjoy an incredible artistic bargain without even
booking in advance. They can just pay at the box office and walk in.
– 19 –

The contrast with the Vienna State Opera could not have been more extreme.
There the seat prices overtopped those of Covent Garden, and to get in it at all it had been
necessary to book almost a year in advance. It goes without saying that the house was sold
out, and the Stehparterre, the standing room directly under the President’s Box and the
best place in the house, was packed like a tin of sardines. Of course, Vienna has the
Vienna Philharmonic, in my view quite simply the best in the world, no longer challenged
by the Berlin Philharmonic because it has lost its incomparable Germanness and become
a mechanistic collection of glacial multinationals. It was five years ago that I last heard
the Vienna Philharmonic live, and my initial anxiety – had it changed? – happily went for
nothing. It still possesses the same liquid radiance and lustre as I first knew long ago in
1960, the same balance of ardour, power and sweetness, and such instinctive musical
unanimity that the orchestra even seem to breathe together. Christian Thielemann,
obviously a darling of the Viennese public, directed a flowing performance that was yet
generous dynamically and expansive emotionally, except for the Act I transformation
which was unexpectedly reserved. It was quite different from a broadcast from Bayreuth
which I have on CD and which is more extended and magisterial.
The production by Christine Mielietz was as confusing as ever. I still cannot make
head or tail of the derelict ablution block where the first part of Act I is located and where
Gurnemanz still spends his narrations wandering among his squad of trainee fencers
correcting their moves. Nor do I understand what is meant to be happening in the second
scene of Act I when the front of the stage goes up to disclose a basement full of troubled,
despairing figures. The most accessible part of the staging was the Klingsor scene in Act
II where Angela Denoke as Kundry was subjected to horrifying medical abuse, apparently
injected with hallucinogenic substances and chemical coshes by two grim and starchy
nurses, even as Klingsor sat repulsively on a red leather sofa to oversee the operation.
Kwangchul Youn
Michael Poehn / Wiener Staatsoper
The most arresting member of the cast was
Kwangchul Youn as Gurnemanz, and I was
nonplussed and delighted at how beautiful, rich
and steady his voice had become, nothing like
those grating rinds of tone that have marked his
singing lately. Falk Struckmann as Amfortas also
seemed in richer and steadier voice than on his
DVD of this role, of which more later. On this
occasion Simon O’Neill as Parsifal sounded
rather tight and hard throated, but his
performance seemed convincing insofar as it was
possible to judge it in this strange production.
Angela Denoke, already mentioned as Kundry,
brought a slim fine tone to the role and an
inalienable musicality, so that even her screech of
“lachte” was really sung and not just a screech.
Although the Mariinsky performances may not come again, the Leipzig and
Vienna Parsifals are in the repertoire, and I particularly urge anyone who can afford the
journey to Leipzig to go to Parsifal there next time round, because it is so easy and so
cheap to get in.
– 20 –

It is easier still to buy the DVD of the Bayreuth Parsifal from 1998, produced by
Wolfgang Wagner, and conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli on the grandest, most expansive
scale. The sound and the performance of the music taken as a sound recording seem in
every way superior to the two recent CD sets, one already mentioned, by Gergiev, and the
other from Jaap van Zweden in Holland. This Dutch version has Klaus Florian Vogt as a
silvery, sensitive Parsifal, and Robert Holl as a veteran Gurnemanz, but it is vitiated by
strange balances with brass which are too distant for the climaxes. The limpid honey-flow
of the Parsifal textures does not include many climaxes but the few that there are are
fundamental to the architecture and really need to rock the foundations. Although the
dynamic range on Sinopoli’s DVD is not as expansive as is ideal, it is wide enough to
disclose the depth and quality of the performance. Sinopoli’s total belief in every last
second of the score and his inner animation in every phrase lays to rest to any hint of
torpor, such as marred his stodgy studio Tannhäuser on DGG or Levine’s equally stodgy
CDs from an earlier year of this same production.
This was the production where the stage was dominated by four great blocks of
metallic rock, vertical and multifaceted, and it also provided a moving Grail Scene and a
real Grail. Although Falk Struckmann was actually harder and more wobbly of tone on
this DVD than at Vienna, he almost dominates the work in virtue of an Amfortas that is
haunting in intensity, a mirror image of Christ but a failed image, but then he is equalled
by Hans Sotin’s momentous Gurnemanz, more powerful and masterful even than on the
Universal Classics DVD of Wolfgang Wagner’s earlier production. He also sings with real
inwardness at the crucial places, and his inner humility adds to the spirituality of the
whole experience. Linda Watson is a very personable Kundry, and her involvement with
the role makes it easier to overlook her unsettling vibrato, and the fact that she sings
slightly flat in the great scene between Kundry and Parsifal. Vocally Poul Elming as
Parsifal is no John Vickers or Jess Thomas, and he looks mature in close-up shots of his
face, but he sings very well in Act III, and is always pure-toned and musical. What is
more important is that as a total portrayal, Elming strikes me as the best Parsifal on DVD
and one of the best I have seen anywhere. He manages to convey the sense that his
willowy frame contains plenty of athletic and heroic potential, and he identifies totally
with the role. Indeed it possesses him. To give an idea of his quality, there is his Act II
transformation from rage and revulsion at Kundry because she tries to deflect him from
his mission after the big kiss from helping Amfortas into something quite different as
soon as she starts to tell him her story. He looks utterly haunted by her account of her
sufferings ever since her mocking of Christ on the way to his crucifixion, and Elming’s
superb acting makes it plain that he is now as desperate to help her as he is to help
Amfortas. He also makes it plain how he is prevented by her vituperative unwillingness
to accept this help his way, the right way. Like the diabetic who insists on masses of cream
and sugar instead of a sensible diet and insulin regime, she wants to do it her way, and
this is utterly counter-productive.
The whole experience of this DVD demonstrates how the sum is even greater than
the mostly excellent parts. Even watching it at home it was the most moving and uplifting
of all our Parsifal experiences over Easter, and even people who cannot afford to go to the
opera at Leipzig as I recommend (let alone Vienna) can probably rise to this wonderful
DVD from the C major record label. This Wolfgang Wagner production does not come at
the work from a tangent, but really is a “deed of music made visible.” And is there any
greater music in existence, or any greater artistic experience altogether, than Parsifal?
– 21 –

WAGNER AT THE MET
A multimedia presentation given by Dan Sherman on 26th April 2012
Andrea Buchanan
Those of us who braved the truly awful weather to hear Dan
Sherman’s talk at Portland Place School were amply rewarded
for our efforts. Dan gave us a fascinating, lively, amusing and
extremely well-researched gallop through the Metropolitan
Opera’s long involvement with the works of Richard Wagner.
We were shown a wonderful variety of slides, photographs, film
clips and sound recordings.
We learned that the Met have staged 3,600 Wagner
performances to date, making up 13% of their total of opera
events. Lohengrin is the most performed Wagner work (619 times), followed by Die
Walküre and Tannhäuser. Der Ring has been staged in all 130 times.
Dan gave a history of these performances from the 1880s to the present. He played
us a very rare 1903 recording of Johanna Gadski singing Dich Teure Halle and described
the glory days of Wagner productions in the 1910s and 1920s featuring conductors such
as Mahler and Toscanini, followed by a fascinating delve into what he described as “the
Met’s Brünnhilde problem” ie the lack of a suitable house Wagnerian heroine. This
appeared to have lasted for many years in the 1930s until Kirsten Flagstad and Marjorie
Lawrence came along and resolved the issue.
A clip from the 1955 Hollywood film Interrupted Melody about Marjorie Lawrence
(played by Eleanor Parker) and featuring an early film appearance by our very own Roger
Moore showed a highly amusing scene, supposedly at the Met, where Lawrence insisted
on riding a real horse on stage into the “flames” at the end of Götterdämmerung, in divaesque
defiance of the apoplectically enraged Germanic director.
The “Brünnhilde” period of the early 1940s featured the highly engaging Helen
Traubel and the appearance of the extremely young and outstandingly talented Astrid
Varnay. These singers, along with Met stalwart heldentenor Lauritz Melchior and
outstanding conductors such as Leinsdorf and Beecham, made this a golden era for
Wagner performances. Not so alas the 1950s, with the appointment of Rudolf Bing as
General Manager of the Met. Bing did not like Wagner and managed to fall out with many
key Wagnerian singers, notably Traubel, Melchior and even Hotter. As a result, for
example, Der Ring was only staged five times in that decade.
The 1960s saw the appearance of Birgit Nilsson and with that, matters improved
somewhat. When Levine arrived in 1970 aged 27 to begin his long reign in the pit
performances of Wagner returned in force to the Met’s repertoire and he conducted 414
Wagner operas in his time there.
Following her notable debut as Sieglinde in 1972 our President Dame Gwyneth
Jones went on to complete an illustrious career which included no fewer than 94
appearances at the Met. The event ended with recent history and Dan made no secret of
his lack of enthusiasm for the new Lepage Ring.
Dan Sherman is a highly engaging speaker who communicated his enthusiasm for
the subject matter effectively to a receptive audience. We had a great time and we can’t
wait to welcome him back again next year.
– 22 –

OXFORD WAGNER SOCIETY CONCERT
Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, 28th April 2012
Roger Lee
From the moment that we heard those characteristic “turns” heralding the overture to
Rienzi the measure of conductor Christian Stier’s achievement in bringing together an
orchestra which comprised equal numbers of experienced players and of students became
wonderfully apparent. The tutoring which had taken place among the musicians in the
preparations for this concert brought about a magnificent outcome of secure and
articulate playing which provided a solid platform from which Stuart Pendred made his
public debut in the role of Hagen.
This achievement of Christian Stier’s owed much to the fact that he had clearly
taken special care of the younger members of the orchestra during rehearsals. “We are
trying to get young people involved as much as possible. I tend to give them instructions
during the breaks rather than in front of the whole orchestra. The principal players (mostly
professionals or outstanding amateurs) are encouraged to work and engage with the
students in order to form homogeneous sections.” Having had to find Wagner tubas, a bass
trumpet and a contrabass trombone for this event, he added: “I am very grateful for all the
support I received from Wagnerians from both the amateur and the professional scenes.”
Viola player Basil Vincent enjoyed the fact that the orchestra was made up of this
cross-section of musicians. “I really enjoyed this aspect of the project as I was able to play
alongside much more experienced players than myself. The choice of Siegfried’s Funeral
March, Hagen’s Watch and The Vassals’ Chorus allowed a stimulating way in to some of
the most expressive sections of Götterdämmerung. I know that it was received very well!”
Playing bass trumpet fulfilled an ambition for 15 year old Nicola Adcock which
started when she played tuba for the Rehearsal Orchestra's play-through of parts of
Götterdämmerung with David Syrus a few months previously. “I sat behind the bass
trumpet and I desperately wanted a go on one. Word spread of my new obsession and so
when this concert came up, I was asked to play the bass trumpet. The way Wagner
incorporates this unusual tone into the orchestra is yet another of his unique achievements
and it is as enjoyable to play as it is to listen to.”
Christian Stier took a similarly open approach to putting together his Vassals’
Chorus, encouraging awestruck amateurs like me to join the ranks and benefit from the
experience of singing alongside the likes of John Cunningham and Nick Fowler from this
summer’s Götterdämmerung production at Longborough and Ian Wilson-Pope, Fulham
Opera’s highly-acclaimed Wotan.
Stuart Pendred’s earlier career as an actor was abundantly apparent as he
mesmerised the audience with his performance of Hagen's Watch. He then set about
summoning the Vassals over the full-powered (marked, indeed: sehr kräftig) orchestral
writing, working wonderfully with Christian Stier to create what Michael Tanner once
called “a scene of barbaric splendour.” Taking charge of the (authentically!) unruly chorus
with all of the authority which this role demands, he made those entries (which are so
difficult to time when you are not facing the conductor) with great precision, hitting every
note squarely in the middle from start to finish of the sequence.
This performance provided confirmation (if it were needed) of the visionary
decision by the powers that be at Longborough to cast Stuart Pendred as Hagen in their
production of Götterdämmerung later this year, when he will appear with Malcolm Rivers
as Alberich.
– 23 –

A ROLLERCOASTER RIDE
The Flying Dutchman, English National Opera, London Coliseum, 2nd May 2012
Katie Barnes
Photography: Robert Workman for English National Opera
In an interview before the first night, conductor Edward Gardner promised his audiences
“a rollercoaster ride.” He and producer Jonathan Kent kept that promise. This thrilling
performance could not have been a greater contrast to the Royal Opera's somnolent
reading last year. Gardner's orchestra and chorus, as disciplined and galvanised as any
earthly or supernatural ship's crew, played and sang like beings possessed by a force
greater than themselves. The music thundered like a tropical storm and swirled about the
theatre like spray from a turbulent ocean. I felt drenched by it. There was an unforgettable
sensation of being immersed, soaked, in the opera.
The central conceit of Kent's powerful production is that the Dutchman is Senta's
fantasy. Of course, this has been done before, notably by Harry Kupfer and Claus Guth
at Bayreuth, but rarely have I seen it presented so persuasively. As in Guth's production,
Senta's relationship with Daland is at the root of her troubles. But where Guth made them
disturbingly close, here, during the Prelude, we are shown a silent prologue in which
Senta is still a little girl in pink pyjamas who longs for her father's affection, while he
clearly has no idea how to relate to her. When she tries to wrap herself in his oilskins and
put on his sea-boots to show her desire to accompany him on his next voyage, he
reprovingly takes the garments from her and instead gives her two gifts which she
cherishes – a model of a ship with crimson sails and a large picture book with the
Dutchman's portrait on the cover – before slipping away. He hesitates before leaving,
knowing that he should say something to her, but gives up and goes. Senta is enraptured
by her new presents, and plays with the boat before settling down to read the book. As
– 24 –

she reads, her fantasy overwhelms the reality of her dull attic room, and video projections
of a storm-tossed ship at sea engulf the stage.
The set opens out to what appears to be the bowels of a modern ocean-going tanker,
and the sailors mill about, securing the ship from the storm. Senta sits on her bed at the
centre of the stage and watches them, fascinated, while they are oblivious to her presence.
When Daland addresses his crew from an upper balcony, she stands on the bed, straight
and tall, overwhelmingly proud at being a member of his ship’s company at last. Left alone,
the exhausted Steersman sings and falls asleep on the floor. Senta gently lays her gailycoloured
duvet over him and carefully covers her bed with a sheet. As the Dutchman’s
theme thunders forth, the back wall of the set opens and the prow of the crimson-sailed
ship, now life-sized, crashes through. It is one of the most stunning visual effects I have
seen in all my years of opera-going. But just as one expects the Dutchman to emerge from
his ship, Senta peels the bed-sheet back to reveal him lying asleep on her bed, newly
conjured into this world of her dreams by the intensity of her imagination – not the
haggard, shaggy sea-wanderer we normally see, but an elegant, handsome, Byronic, even
Onegin-like figure in Victorian civilian clothes with flowing dark hair, a young girl’s
romantic dream. He rises, moves to the edge of the bed, and sits there, lamenting his fate,
while she watches him. She is so close that she could reach out and touch him, yet she is
as far from him as though they were in different worlds. She is the enraptured witness of
his encounter with her father – her ideal real and fantasy men together – and the
Dutchman’s plea for her hand in marriage, before she contentedly goes to sleep beneath
the duvet (which has been replaced on the bed) as the Dutchman boards his ship and
Daland’s crew assemble at the front of the stage, obscuring the bed from our view.
When they disperse the setting of Senta’s attic room has returned, and the hand
which reaches out from beneath the duvet is that of a woman. Senta has grown up, but
she is still in the grip of her fantasies: her beloved book, its cover now tatty and worn, is
still her constant companion, and when she reluctantly gets up, dresses, and prepares to
go to work, she takes it with her, passionately kissing the Dutchman’s image on the cover.
But the next scene shows the harsh reality of her
adult life. Her colleagues are not spinners but
workers in a shoddy factory which churns out model
ships in bottles, with crimson sails: her obsession
follows her even here. The hum of the spinning
wheels is replaced by the whine of conveyer belts.
Senta’s job is to stamp a price label on each bottle,
but she is too engrossed in her book even to carry
out this simple task. Her fellow workers mock her,
and her singing of the Ballad (which they have
obviously heard many times before) is for them an
excuse to knock off for a few minutes to gossip, eat
sandwiches, read magazines, do anything but listen
to her, except to make fun of her when they sing the
chorus. Erik, a lumpen security guard, is the very
antithesis of the Dutchman – perhaps his
relationship with her is the result of a futile effort on
her part to relate to the world around her.
– 25 –

With Daland’s return and the arrival of the Dutchman, the action again moves from
reality to Senta’s fantasy. Yet even now, united with her dream hero, she cannot relate to
him: their great duet is more like two solos. At the end, Daland takes the Dutchman away,
and Senta remains in a pool of light on an otherwise darkened stage. During the interlude,
a man dressed like the Dutchman approaches her and places a veil upon her head, a
bouquet in her hand and a ring upon her finger – then suddenly the lights go up, and Senta
finds herself in the middle of a raucous, pirate-themed fancy dress party, once again the
butt of everyone’s mockery.
She stumbles among them like a
sleepwalker, terrified, unable to
defend herself, as the mood
becomes increasingly dark and
ugly until the men, led by the
Steersman, are at the point of
gang-raping her when they are
stopped by the voices of the
Dutchman’s crew (if only ENO
had been able to hire singers for
the offstage chorus – the
recorded sound was perfectly
terrible). Senta is ecstatic that
her lover has saved her, only to
come down to earth with a jolt as Erik challenges her decision to marry the Dutchman.
Breathtakingly, fantasy and reality collide as the Dutchman intervenes: Senta can see and
hear him, but the bewildered Erik cannot (I was reminded of Hamlet – “That you do bend
your eye on vacancy and with the incorporeal air do hold discourse”), and he desperately
holds her back as she tries to approach someone, or something, that he cannot see.
As the others return, the Dutchman is standing well downstage, hemmed by
chorus members and nowhere near any exit which could take him back to his ship. Senta
rushes to embrace him, and he disappears by trapdoor, so quickly that one questions
whether he was ever there at all – another astonishing theatrical effect. The wretched girl
finds herself embracing nothing. Her beloved fantasy world has gone forever, and she is
left only with a reality too horrible for her to endure. There is only one escape. At the
moment that the orchestra is telling us of redemption, there is nothing left to redeem,
because the Dutchman never existed, and Senta kills herself with a broken beer bottle left
over from the ghastly party. Everyone flees in horror, except for Daland, who is left
mourning over her. It is the crowning irony that he can only some show emotion for the
daughter who so needed his love, after she is dead.
Kent’s production focuses upon Senta, both as child and woman. Aoife Checkland
and Evie Grattan shared the role of Senta the child: my programme did not indicate which
performed on the night I saw it, but whichever it was, she showed a command of the stage
far beyond her years. Orla Boylan, the adult Senta, threw herself unflinchingly into
everything the production demanded of her and played the ecstatic, deluded creature with
a wild conviction which swept the audience along with her all the way. It was worrying
that the passionate intensity of her portrayal occasionally made her creamily beautiful
soprano sound strained, which was appropriate for the character, but could be vocally
damaging in the long term.
– 26 –

I missed James Creswell’s previous appearances in England (as Timur with ENO
and a highly praised Fasolt with Opera North). His Dutchman was a winner. The
production gave him little chance to develop the character, but within the limits it set
down for him, he communicated the Dutchman’s torment with great power and passion
and made a fantasy figure seem disturbingly real. His singing was wondrously beautiful
and his diction well nigh impeccable.
When Julian Gavin had to withdraw due to illness, ENO scored a coup in engaging
Stuart Skelton, who enjoyed an enormous success in their Parsifal last year, to sing Erik.
His golden, unforced voice made this awkwardly written and potentially unrewarding role
into a thing of astonishing beauty, and I have never heard the Cavatina sung with such
ease and grace. Dramatically, the production did him few favours: he conveyed Erik’s
understandable terror and confusion well, but was obliged to play the character such as a
dim-witted lummox that it was hard to imagine this prosaic man dreaming of Senta’s
departure with the Dutchman, much less confiding his dreams to her, and the urgency and
intensity of his narrative seemed out of place. And while his costume was deeply
unflattering, to put it bluntly he needs a diet sheet if he is to retain any credibility onstage.
Clive Bayley’s voice sounds worn nowadays, but he acted Daland well, especially
in his depiction of the man’s inability to bond with his daughter. Robert Murray sang the
Steersman with plaintive charm and managed to reconcile his lyrical singing with the
thuggishness which the production demanded of the character. Susanna Tudor-Thomas’
forewoman Mary was excellent.
Having had two huge triumphs in successive years with this Dutchman and
Parsifal, it is disappointing that ENO are not scheduling any Wagner next season. It is to
be hoped that they are planning more for the future. This is a company on a Wagnerian roll.
– 27 –

FORTHCOMING EVENTS
3rd October 2012
Barry Millington will give an illustrated talk on his new book
The Sorcerer of Bayreuth: Richard Wagner, his Work and his World
“In The Sorcerer of Bayreuth Barry Millington, a leading authority on Wagner,
presents an engaging, accessibly written overview of the life and works one of the
world's most influential and controversial composers. This richly illustrated book
considers a wide range of themes, including Wagner’s original sources of inspiration,
his compositional process; his relationship with his wife, Cosima, and with his
mistress, Mathilde Wesendonck, his perplexing ideology, the anti-Semitism that is
undeniably present in the operas, their proto-cinematic nature and the turbulent legacy
both of the Bayreuth Festival and of Wagnerism itself.
Drawing on the very latest biographical and musicological scholarship,
Millington reassesses received notions about both Wagner’s life and his music,
demolishing tired clichés and ill-informed opinion in favour of proper critical
understanding. The Sorcerer of Bayreuth offers readers a fascinating reappraisal of this
most provocative of composers and the incomparable music he made.” (From Thames
and Hudson publicity material)
7pm for 7:30pm at Portland Place School Sixth Form Centre, 5th Floor, 143
Great Portland Street, London, W1W 6QN. Tickets £12 (£6 students). To order tickets,
please send a cheque in favour of The Wagner Society with a stamped addressed
envelope to Mike Morgan, 9 West Court, Downley, High Wycombe, Bucks HP13 5TG.
Tickets will also be available on the door.
17th October 2012
An Evening with Simon O’Neill and Lionel Friend
A joint event with the Music Club of London. Accompanied by Lionel Friend, Simon
O’Neill will present a sample of his vast repertoire and will also be interviewed by the
Chairman of the Music Club, Michael Bousfield.
Winner of the Wagner Society’s Bayreuth Bursary award in 2003, Simon
O’Neill has rapidly established himself as one of the finest tenors on the international
stage. He is a principal artist with the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, La Scala and both the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals (Lohengrin 2011,
Parsifal 2012). He has sung with conductors such as James Levine, Ricardo Muti,
Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Antonio Pappano. This
autumn he sings Siegmund in the Covent Garden Ring,a role in which the press have
described him as: “an exemplary Siegmund, terrific of voice,” “the Wagnerian tenor of
his generation” and “a turbo-charged tenor”.
6.30 for 7.00pm at 49 Queen's Gate Terrace London SW7 (Underground:
Gloucester Road).Tickets: £20 (members); £25 (guests) to include wine and nibbles
available from Mrs Frances Simpson, 3 Hunt Close, Morden Road, London SE3 0AH.
Please make cheques out to The Music Club of London and include a stamped
addressed envelope.
– 28 –

21st October 2012
The Wagner Society, The Mastersingers and the Rehearsal Orchestra present
DIEWALKÜREACT III WITH JAMES RUTHERFORDAND RACHEL NICHOLLS
Conducted by David Syrus.
The cast (subject to confirmation) will be Wotan: James Rutherford; Brünnhilde:
Rachel Nicholls; Sieglinde: Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, Valkyries: Cara McHardy, Maria
Krywaniuk, Megan Llewellyn Dorke, Miriam Sharrad, Jacqueline Varsey, Emma
Carrington, Rhonda Browne and Niamh Kelly.
Run-through: 2pm to 5pm, full rehearsal at 6pm at Guildhall School of Music
and Drama, Silk Street, Barbican, EC2Y 8DT
Tickets £18 (£10 students). Please send a cheque in favour of the Wagner
Society with a stamped addressed envelope to Mike Morgan, 9 West Court, Downley,
High Wycombe, Bucks, HP13 5TG. Tickets also available on the door.
17th and 24th November 2012
MASTERCLASSES WITH SUSAN BULLOCK
The acclaimed Wagnerian soprano (Brünnhilde in The Royal Opera House Ring Cycle
2012) will coach Helena Dix, winner of the 2012 Wagner Society Bayreuth Bursary on
17th and three other young singers on 24th November.
As the venue is small, no more than 2 tickets will be available per member on a firstcome,
first-served basis. Tickets: £15 (£10 students). 2:30 to 4:45pm on both days at
Peregrine’s Pianos, 37A Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8TU. Please send a cheque in
favour of the Wagner Society with a stamped addressed envelope to Mike Morgan, 9
West Court, Downley, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP13 5TG.
1st December 2012
FINAL OF THE WAGNER SOCIETY BAYREUTH BURSARY COMPETITION
At The London Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE.
Timing and ticket prices to be confirmed.
22nd May 2013
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth, The Society will be hosting a
birthday lunch for members in the vicinity of the Festival Hall, where there will be an
evening concert of Act III of Die Walküre and other works with the Philharmonia
Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis featuring Susan Bullock and James
Rutherford, with Mastersingers artistes. Staged by David Edwards.
PLEASE CHECK THE WEBSITE FOR UPDATES
WWW.WAGNERSOCIETY.ORG
– 29 –

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN AT NEW YORK METROPOLITAN OPERA
5th -12th May 2012
Richard Miles
This is a stunning production. The singing was uniformly superb, the only doubt for me
being whether Deborah Voigt really has the vocal heft of a true Brünnhilde. Katarina
Dalayman (who stood in for her in Siegfried) sang with less beauty but more drama and
audibility, particularly in the lower notes. Bryn Terfel was excellent – perhaps a little
reined in in Rheingold but powerful and angry in Walküre and Siegfried. He may not quite
have the dramatic stage presence of some of his predecessors, but he is an excellent
Wotan overall. Stuart Skelton (who had sung Erik in The Flying Dutchman at ENO two
days before) was a more than adequate stand-in for Jonas Kaufmann. Stephanie Blythe
(Fricka) was imperious and magnificent. Hans-Peter König was superb as Fafner,
Hunding and, in particular, Hagen.
Providing a very effective set, the much talked-about ’Machine’ is a 45 ton panel
occupying the full width and height of the stage, divided into 24 vertical sections, flat on
the front & shallowly pitched at the back, like the roof of a Swiss chalet. The whole thing
can be raised and lowered, and rotated (collectively or section by section) to the
horizontal, or through the full 360 degrees. With very effective lighting and projected
images, this can deliver a wall (with or without a doorway), a roof; a floor; a forest; a
mountain; the Rhine (which Gunther stains red washing his hands after Siegfried's
murder), the gorge descending into Nibelheim, any other settings required. The scenes
change naturally with the music, sometimes providing the odd creak in competition. It is
hard to imagine a more effective and economical way of delivering Wagner’s stage
directions. Only occasionally was this overdone, as when Siegmund’s narrative was
enacted by shadow figures projected on to the scenery above him. Combined with
excellent acting this staging clearly illuminated the protagonists' dilemmas and states of
mind. As a result the subtleties of motivation and plot were unusually easy to follow.
The only negative for me was that certain key points lacked drama, such as the
fight between Siegmund and Hunding (which admittedly has too much going on in too
little time to be easy to stage effectively), and the killing of Fafner – a friendly monster
from a children's TV programme rather than the terrifying supernatural beast suggested
by the music. The fire around the sleeping Brünnhilde was rather less effective than real
flames and the final fall of the Gods at the end was (visually at least) an anticlimax.
More disturbing were some horrible school-orchestra-style missed notes in the
brass section, which ruined musical highlights such as the illumination of Nothung in
Walküre, and the climax of Siegfried and Brünnhilde's duet at the beginning of
Götterdämmerung. Just how integral the music (and indeed a few notes played on one
instrument) is to Wagner's drama is clearly revealed when something goes as wrong as
this. Really inexcusable, especially as it was not an isolated lapse.
It was surprising that the Met was unable to secure the services of a single
conductor for all four operas (Fabio Luisi for Rheingold and Walküre; Derrick Inouye for
Siegfried; John Keenan for Götterdämmerung). Although there was nothing wrong with
their conducting, this gave a disjointed feel to the whole Cycle. Despite the niggles, this
is a great and triumphant Ring which everyone who gets the chance to do so should see.
You can read the full version of this review at www.wagnersociety.org
– 30 –

FULHAM OPERA DIE WALKÜRE
25th May 2012
Robert Mansell
How extraordinarily ambitious, if not downright audacious, to attempt to produce a Ring
cycle at one’s local church! But that is what Benjamin Woodward is doing at St. John’s
Church on North End Road in Fulham. So far I have attended Rheingold last year and
now Die Walküre this year, both of which were extremely fine. I see that Siegfried is
planned for next February and I will certainly be there.
I am not a fan of updating Wagner to modern times and dress. It never seems to
work well, so that part of the production, albeit quite imaginative, was not really my thing,
but musically the performance was outstanding. Under Musical Director Ben Woodward
the singers were almost all exceptionally fine; even if, admittedly, it is much easier to
sound wonderful in a ringing acoustic such as that in this somewhat dilapidated church,
rather than it would be in a large opera house. His piano accompaniment was exciting and
at times almost more thrilling than a full orchestra, for example his pounding triplets at
Wälse! Wälse! Hardly ever did I find that I missed listening to a bigger sound. In fact
perhaps on the contrary it made the singers much easier to understand. I have never
attempted to play Wagner on the piano, but it certainly must be extremely tiring to play
straight through Die Walküre several times in daily succession, especially the Ride of the
Valkyries and the Magic Fire Music – talk about a lot of notes!
Taking the singers in order of their appearance: Siegmund was well sung by Jon
Morrell. His Wälse! Wälse! was particularly thrilling even if the actual vowel sound was
rather strange, but after that I did feel that his voice was becoming slightly tired and the
ends of long phrases were perhaps not quite strong enough. Sieglinde, sung by Laura
Hudson (who I believe was a past member of the Mastersingers programme), was
beautifully sung and especially well acted. Oliver Hunt’s Hunding was powerfully fierce
and vocally threatening. Brünnhilde was splendidly sung by Zöe South, especially her
final scene leading up to a lovely Auf dein Gebot on her knees; but, without wishing to
make personal comments on her physical shape, she would certainly not be tall enough
for a major opera house (and her costume I thought was somewhat unflattering). Wotan
was commandingly and beautifully sung by Ian Wilson-Pope (there could not have been
a dry eye in the house at his wonderful Leb’ wohl outburst) and Elizabeth Russo’s Fricka
was theatrically and musically excellent.
The Valkyries riding in on their bicycles was amusing and visually effective
(especially with their colourfully varied attire) and their vocal octet was just fine – but I
didn’t understand why they came back soon after Wotan had despatched them “never to
return to this rock” all dressed in white, rather like vestal virgins! Otherwise the direction
by Fiona Williams was good.
Four hours is a very long time on the particularly hard seating at this church (but
then so it is at Bayreuth!) however, I would most happily do it all over again – and at only
£20 a ticket one can certainly afford to return. I was disappointed that the audience wasn’t
larger; I think the production deserved a full house every night, but a couple sitting near
me had come all the way from Oxford and enjoyed every minute.
In 2013 Fulham Opera present Siegfried on 11th, 13th, 15th and 17th February
and two full Ring cycles from 20th to 25th May and from 27th May to 1st June.
www.fulhamopera.com
– 31 –

WAGNER SOCIETY BAYREUTH BURSARY 2013 AUDITIONS
Royal Academy of Music, 10th June 2012
Andrea Buchanan
Photography by John W Rogers: jw.rogers@virgin.net
The Bayreuth Bursary audition day is always a good-humoured event, as we do our best
to put nervous young artists at their ease. With twenty candidates to accompany and
adjudicate it is also a very full day for judges and pianists alike. Richard Black and Kelvin
Lim did a sterling job, each accompanying his allocated singer in the audition room
whilst the other worked with his singer in the rehearsal room. They worked in a non-stop
sequence (apart from a few coffee and meal breaks) which filled a long day, during which
the singers clearly appreciated the help which they received from both of these very
accomplished musicians.
Kelvin Lim working with Bayreuth Bursary candidate Susan Parkes (soprano)
Judges Ludmilla Andrews, David Edwards and Malcolm Rivers
(photo: left) awarded places in the December 1st final to Rhonda
Browne (mezzo), Anando Mukherjee (tenor), Ben Woodward
(pianist) and Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz (soprano). They also
awarded a place in the final to Oliver Hunt (bass) who had come
along to be evaluated for some financial assistance from the
Wagner Society, and had previously indicated that he did not yet
feel ready to audition for the Bayreuth Bursary. In the event, the
judges were sufficiently impressed to offer him a place in the
Bursary finals in addition to some coaching to help him find an
appropriate piece. He is also reported as singing an excellent
Hunding in Fulham Opera’s Walküre and will sing Fasolt in their forthcoming production
of Rheingold. In the event Oliver accepted the offer and so he will participate in the finals.
Two finalists from last year: Simon Lobelson (bass) and Justine Viani (mezzo) re-applied
but were not required to audition as the judges were already aware of their capabilities.
– 32 –

Richard Black accompanying Helen Gregory (mezzo-soprano)
Jon Valendar (tenor) Frances Prelan (soprano)
The final competition will be held on the afternoon of Sunday December 1st at the
London Welsh Centre. Further details will appear in the October issue of Wagner News.
This year the format will differ from previous competitions in that finalists will sing their
solo pieces and then perform in staged scenes devised and directed by David Edwards and
Malcolm Rivers, accompanied on the piano by finalist Ben Woodward. This once again
promises to be a great day.
– 33 –

WELSH NATIONAL OPERA TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Millennium Centre, 19th May 2012
Bill Bliss
I went to Cardiff thinking I was going to see a somewhat routine revival of the Kokkos
production that I had first seen at its opening nearly twenty years earlier with the
acclaimed performances of Anne Evans and Jeffrey Lawton.
My expectations were not raised by the productions I have seen since; for example
the Müller staging in Bayreuth: great singing, particularly from Waltraud Meier but
ruined by the concrete set and the total absence of interaction between the two lovers.
They never touched and barely acknowledged each other. Then there was the Wernicke
production at Covent Garden where the stage was divided into red and blue boxes, the
singing and acting forgettable but the whole in part redeemed by Haitink’s conducting.
Glyndebourne was an improvement but the superb Nina Stemme was inadequately
partnered by Robert Gambill and the Lehnoff production. There was also a near
compelling concert performance at the RFH in 1993 made memorable by Ian Bostridge
as the young sailor.
So the Kokkos revival did not greatly entice me, though the Millennium Centre at
Cardiff Bay is always worth the round trip for me of 200 miles (the best opera venue in
the UK?). I had never heard of Anne Petersen (sorry), but what a looker and can she sing
and act .We had a stand in for Tristan, as Jay Hunter Morris had been snapped up by the
Met for their Ring. Ben Heppner seemed to be conserving his voice early on but he was
a fine match for Isolde in Act II where we had a proper, lingering kiss at the climax.
Maybe this fortified him for Act III where he was triumphant (not quite the right word for
a man in his death throes but I hope you know what I mean) and utterly believable. Philip
Joll may be a bit fluffy as Kurwenal but I like his presence and view him as an old friend
from his days as Wotan in the 1980s. Susan Bickley seems to have made the role of
Brangäne her own and was a fine foil for Isolde but did they have to dress almost
identically? My only other quibble about the stage scene was the synchronous fall to the
ground of Tristan and Isolde after drinking the love potion: almost bathetic, adding
nothing to the drama and of course being totally unscripted.
It is rare to go to this opera and hear a Tristan and an Isolde both out of the top
drawer but it was my privilege so to do at Cardiff. The liebestod was simple,
overwhelming and unforgettable; as great as Linda Esther Gray in 1981 and I never
thought I would say that.
– 34 –

RETRANSLATING OPER UND DRAMA
Katherine Wren
As a professional musician with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and a German to
English translator I naturally have a strong interest in musical translation. When looking
for a subject for my dissertation for the MA in Translation Studies at Portsmouth
University, my thoughts rapidly turned to Wagner. Whilst browsing through a colleague’s
Open University book, I came across a chapter of Wagner’s writings in a translation
specially commissioned on the grounds that they were unavailable to the English reader
in a modern translation. Subsequent research ascertained that, apart from a translation by
Edwin Evans in 1913 which has recently been reissued by Nabu Press, there has been no
translation of Wagner’s Oper und Drama since that by William Ashton Ellis in 1893.
I therefore decided to base my dissertation around a new translation of part of
Oper und Drama and to explore how a modern translation can potentially increase
accessibility and readability of a text. A key part of this process is a questionnaire seeking
readers’ reactions to the various translations and I would like to invite you to help me in
this project.
Written in 1852, Oper und Drama plays a key role in understanding Der Ring as
it is here that Wagner lays out his theories for what he terms “die einheitliche
künstlerische Form” (unified artistic form). I have chosen to translate Chapter 6 in Part
3. Here Wagner explains how music and drama combine to give unity of expression,
conveying the emotion of the poetic intent as well as its content. He also outlines the role
of the orchestra in supporting and clarifying the action on stage through its use of motives
that both recall and foreshadow the dramatic action.
Many people feel a strong affection for the translation by William Ashton Ellis and
indeed there are many strong reasons for using this translation. Dating from 1893, it is
relatively close in time to Wagner and thus, as John Deathridge has said, “captures a part of
the historical ‘aura’ of the texts.” It is important to remember that both Wagner’s original
and Ashton Ellis’ translation have a certain literary status. The significance of Wagner’s
language in 19th-century philosophy should therefore be respected and possibly even
foregrounded in translation. Equally, Ashton Ellis’ translation has been the standard text for
so long that his translations of key terms have themselves become almost standard.
With this is mind, one might justifiably ask: why bother retranslating Oper und
Drama at all? The fact remains however that relatively few people tackle Wagner’s text
due to the complexity of the language and the differences in cultural background since
the text was written. A modernising translation could help bridge this gap and encourage
more people to access and engage with Wagner’s prose.
My aim is thus to produce a fluent and accessible translation for music students
and others with a keen interest in Wagner. I will then evaluate this translation in terms
of increased accessibility and readability for a modern readership. If you would like
to help me in this project, you can fill in a copy of the questionnaire by visiting the
Wagner Society website at www.wagnersociety.org or by contacting me at
katherine.wren@talktalk.net
You can also follow progress on my blog at http://katherinewrentranslator.wordpress.com/
where there is a further copy of my questionnaire. Any participants will, if requested,
receive a copy of the finished translation and dissertation at the end of the project.
– 35 –

DVD REVIEW: THE LÜBECK RING
Chris Argent
In 2009 while watching the Fura dels Baus Ring in Valencia we engaged in conversation
with a German Wagner devotee who told us that we should on no account miss the
Lübeck Ring, so the opportunity to review the DVD of that Cycle in the comfort of our
own home was a gift indeed, and convinced us that being provincial is no bar to staging
and, particularly, playing Wagner’s mighty Ring cycle.
Whether tackling a major opus like Der Ring or a lightweight offering such as
Gianni Schicchi, the director has to decide at the outset (assuming he or she knows the
story line) whether to take liberties with the settings specified in order to make a
particular statement or, because there is just a lack of vision, whether to ignore them
completely, or to make a brave attempt to realize on stage what the composer and librettist
had envisaged. We all know examples of each of these ploys with respect to Der Ring.
Taking the musical achievements first, it has to be said
that the Lübeck orchestra is magnificent, the brass section
playing particularly impressively, the sound enhanced one
suspects by the Bayreuth-style cowl with which the pit is
shielded from the auditorium. Conductor Roman Brogli-
Sacher seemed totally at home with Wagner’s score,
enabling the overall architecture to emerge while giving
appropriate attention to the structural details. The
orchestra might be provincial in name, but its output could
be mistaken for one of the more glamorous orchestras of
the world. This then provided an admirable framework for
those singers who would shine, among whom I would
include Rebecca Teem as Brünnhilde who completed her
journey through the cycle with passion, power, nuance
and a tireless lyricism, though she did labour under the
burden of a less than prepossessing appearance – especially in comparison with her
glamorous Walküre sisters: she was undoubtedly the star of the show.
It was unfortunate that the role of Siegfried was shared. In Siegfried Jürgen Müller
sang and acted with great conviction and lasted the course to the end without turning a
hair of which he had a plenitude demonstrating that Mime was too mean to take him to
the barbers or even trim his golden locks himself. In Götterdämmerung Richard Decker
seemed underpowered or overawed or both, and looked more like a stockbroker than an
uncouth young lad fresh out of the forest. Stefan Heidemann gave a bravura performance
as Wotan though he produces some sour notes in the scene with Brünnhilde in Die
Walküre. Overall he offers a completely convincing characterization of this flawed mixedup
god. One is left wondering at the Verdian nature of the father-daughter relationship as
Wotan’s final kiss is more like that of a lover, the two collapsing as if after coitus.
Loge is the weak link lyrically in Das Rheingold, the voice rather sour, wobbling
alarmingly and too often off the note which is especially unfortunate given the lovely
music Wagner gave him to sing when he reports back on the world’s attitude towards love
and the eternal female (always reminding me of the delightful duet for Papageno and
Pamina). Veronika Waldner is competent and even affecting as Wotan’s sorely oppressed
wife and as Waltraute she was passionate in her appeal to Brünnhilde, singing with such
great conviction and lyricism that it almost makes it surprising that Brünnhilde can
– 36 –

dismiss her stories of Wotan’s despair so lightly. Alberich throughout is presented vocally
and dramatically as a creature of determination with a crystal-clear agenda: the exchange
with his son during Hagen’s watch was spine-chilling even if the curse after Alberich is
robbed of his golden ring was less than fearsome. That curse has to be spat out with
venom and it seemed tame in Lübeck.
Andrew Sitheran (a Bayreuth Bursary finalist) and Marion Ammann (a poised and
effulgent Elsa in Wels in 2010) make an ecstatic pair of Wälsung twins, personable and
enthusiastic, and Sitheran’s rendering of Winterstürme is exciting, lyrical and delivered
with panache. Gutrune, wearing a white shift streaked with blood, is produced as a cross
between Ophelia and Lady Macbeth. She sings with commitment even if called upon to
be over-friendly with her two male siblings. Without giving verdicts, one by one, on all
the other singers, it is sufficient to say that there are no eccentricities or failures of
delivery that deserve comment. Most of the singers profit from the bathroom-type
acoustic presented by the Lübeck compartmentalization of the scenes, while the
Valkyries en masse are singularly impressive.
The surtitles are perhaps among the strangest aspects of this DVD presentation.
The entire cycle is bedevilled by bizarre words such as ‘guerdon’ [reward], ‘bootheth’ and
quaint expressions such as “with passionate heart on thy bosom so soft let me press thee”,
“go wanton with eels then, if so loathsome am I”, “then nought would it boot me”
(Alberich), and a Rhinemaiden, in referring to the Gold, “He kisses her eyelids so as to
unenclose them” as though the author of the surtitles was endeavouring to render Wagner’s
use of Old High German into 16th century English. But, of course, it is easy to turn off
the surtltles and enjoy the performance provided one is conversant with Wagner’s German
or knows the route map of the story so well that surtitles are redundant. Even so there are
milestones within the course of the journey where the director deliberately goes against
the sense of the libretto’s text and the mood; for example, the glorious maid (Freia)
“standeth” according to Fasolt and yet is lying on her back and when Fasolt sings “and her
look gleams on me yet.” This is only accomplished by Freia popping her head above the
parapet of the heaped-up golden artefacts. Fasolt displays a litany of jumbled expressions:
“There it stands what we buildeth wend ye in”. Wotan’s rejoinder “what can boot the
hoard” is a little odd. While the negotiations with the giants are in progress, Freia appears
with her suitcase already packed. Fafner exclaims “…but much it boots from ‘mongst the
gods now to wrest her” with Wotan’s aside to Donner reading “naught booteth thee.”
Fafner comments intriguingly “believe me, more than Freia boots the glittering gold”.
There are some thoughtful production touches throughout this Ring (and some
idiotic settings, of which more anon). During the prelude to Das Rheingold three female
figures draped in gold lamécloaks bearing a red rope process majestically across the rear
stage: the Norns, who metamorphose into the Rhinemaidens. The Norns/Rhinemaidens
(who seem interchangeable in this production) reappear in Götterdämmerung in an
insalubrious cocktail bar which is the setting for that entire opera though the stage picture
is so dark it is not always easy to identify the characters. A black bear (an interloper from
the second evening and, possibly, the quarry that eluded the ‘hero’) appears in the bar
before Siegfried who eventually launches into the account of his life story. The birdcage
last seen in Siegfried is pointedly placed in the middle of the bar by Hagen to remind
Siegfried (and perhaps the audience) of the role of the Woodbird.
In the Vorabend, after Wotan wrenches the Ring from Alberich’s hand, Mime appears
smirking conspicuously and obviously delighted to see the Tarnhelm join the ransom and he
gladly lends a hand in pinioning his brother. When Wotan considers Erda’s warning, the
– 37 –

Norns appear bearing the red rope while a young (ca. 6-year old) Brünnhilde, complete with
winged helmet, makes an earlier than usual appearance in the cycle. Siegmund (as he will
become) treats Sieglinde much as men tend to treat women (as servants) handing her his coat
before collapsing. Remarkably, the Wälsung twins are in each other’s arms soon after she
treats him to a sup of water from a handy trough. The twins easily recognize their
kinsmanship as the left arm of each is tattooed with a sword symbol. When Hunding enters,
he gives his rifle to Sieglinde, kisses her roughly, shakes the stranger’s hand affably and tells
him to make himself at home. Siegmund does just that with a vengeance – never before have
I seen Sieglinde and Siegmund embrace openly and frequently in front of Hunding. No
wonder Hunding remarks on the evil glint in the eyes of his unwelcome guest.
It is with Act II of Die Walküre that the Director starts to make his distinctive mark.
Brünnhilde joins Wotan in his sparse bedsit after being shown descending a fire escape
via a video projection meshed with shots of the maid. An exuberant exchange of
testosterone-fuelled greetings precedes the arrival of Fricka who has been shopping. Her
confrontation with Wotan is electrifying while the long scene between Brünnhilde and her
father that can often drag was aptly handled, Wotan’s narration being accompanied by a
video projection of the events that occurred in Das Rheingold together with mugshots of
the heroes taken to Valhalla. By eschewing the surtitles, it is possible to retain a morsel
of sympathy for Wotan whose voice and demeanour amply illustrate the god’s dreadful
dilemma into which Fricka’s logic and his own machinations have led him. Wotan’s “Well
I know must yield me” though syntactically odd can readily be understood. When during
the ineffable Todesverkündigung Siegmund discovers that Sieglinde won’t be allowed to
accompany him to Valhalla, he arm wrestles Brünnhilde to the floor while praising her
for her fairness – a strange conjunction. The selected context for the Valkyries’ Ride is
that of modern warfare with a video of American F111 and other fighters parading
triumphantly through the skies against a staged background reminiscent of the Berlin
Time Tunnel, the Valkyries scoffing champagne while marshalling white coffins for the
fallen heroes (the shot-down fighter pilots). Wotan, in full fig as Commander of the
Norseland Air Force looking like a petty dictator, palpably enjoys humiliating Brünnhilde
and physically assaults her, ripping off her flying uniform to denote the loss of her
godhead. The fearsome fire to deter the approach of all but a hero is no more than a squirt
of dry ice suffused with coloured light from the wings.
The settings for the whole of the Second Day are a complete turn-off, being a series
of rooms that the stage revolve brings into view as and when. The first sees Siegfried
communing with some stuffed birds while Mime examines recipe books scattered on a
laboratory bench. The Wanderer steals surreptitiously into Mime’s abode dressed in black
motorbike leathers with matching crash helmet and de rigueur dark glasses. Unnoticed by
Mime, he conveniently learns of the dwarf’s problems with Siegfried and the broken
sword. Before the Q and A session starts, Mime displays a collection of kitchen knives
with which to chop off the head of his interlocutor. Occasionally, one wonders why the
librettist (ie Wagner) allows his villains to vocalize their fears and wishes. Wotan thus
learns that Mime needs to discover how to reconstitute Siegfried’s sword while Alberich
lets on that he can happily surrender everything except the Ring.
The forging scene in the first room appears to work in accordance with
incantations from Siegfried sitting comfortably atop the laboratory bench while Mime
busies himself cooking a multi-component pizza. A minor departure from the usual
forging sequence sees both Siegfried and Mime holding the hammer that taps out the
rhythm on the re-forged sword – the pupil teaching the master blacksmith? In a second
– 38 –

oom housing a water cooler, a recumbent clothed skeleton and a birdcage, Alberich in a
wheel chair upturns a chess board after he loses his disputation with the Wanderer, the
proceedings being surreptitiously watched by a nymphette-style Woodbird. In yet another
room Fafner is presented as a seriously obese golden Buddha with gigantic pendulous
breasts and even larger abdomen. Anything less forbidding, much less capable of
instilling fear in the ‘hero’, seems difficult to imagine. After the exhausting business of
despatching Fafner has been concluded, ‘Forest Murmurs’ is played out in a bare room
accompanied by a video back-projection of a few trees with a Bavarian horn player on
stage for the toe-curling scene with the squeaky reed.
In Act III there is more funny business involving the Woodbird/Nurse who watches
the Wanderer awaken Erda in an old style bath chair (none too tenderly) and hand over
her hearing aid. Frustrated by Erda’s evasion the Wanderer tips her on to the ground and
apparently strangles her as he commends her to endless sleep. Still within the same
sequence of rooms, Siegfried arrives with the Nurse and the scene ends as the Wanderer
is seen to break his own spear when threatened by his grandson. For the last scene
Siegfried climbs back into the same room as in Act I where Brünnhilde is lying on a
catafalque (which becomes her marriage bed) with her crash helmet hanging on the wall.
The whole scene is best seen with eyes wide shut. For the climax, Brünnhilde invests
Siegfried with a military-style jacket covered with medals and a peaked cap of which he
divests himself as they get down to business on the bed.
The Norns scene is ingenious as they inspect an immense bound volume on a plinth
overlooked by pillars bearing busts of Richard Wagner, presumably to see if the libretto or
production book will reveal what happens next. The setting for the Gibichung Hall is
redolent of the Berlin of Cabaret and Christopher Isherwood: the Gibichung nobility watch
a transvestite-style Gunther while Hagen is given a massage by Gutrune with whom he
seems remarkably friendly. Alberich, betraying a bloody damaged face, confronts Hagen
who manages to remain almost (if not completely) immobile during the exchange with his
father. The immobility of Hagen during his watch is so vital to pumping up the dramatic
tension. It was achieved in Warsaw in 1989 and New York in 2012. That Alberich calls his
son his hero demonstrates that ‘hero’ doesn’t always mean what we think it should mean,
thus explaining how Siegfried falls rather short of the normal definition.
The assembly of the Gibichung warriors summoned by Hagen to welcome
Gunther and his prize presents an odd sight for they are all garbed in evening dress with
ne’er a weapon to be seen. The idea of this effete crowd defending Gunther or
slaughtering rams and steers was just laughable. Brünnhilde is displayed in a lion’s cage
and looks very much the worse for her ordeal, with a bloodied face, and blackened eyes,
both Gunther and Gutrune being allowed to assault her. During the Vengeance trio
Brünnhilde is seen to snuggle up to Hagen and then to Gunther – preposterous inventions.
The final scene is a complete shambles: a video projection shows a fire supposedly lit by
Brünnhilde with a cigarette lighter, Wotan sitting forlornly in Valhalla, and a tableau of
Gutrune watching Siegfried and Brünnhilde with their bevy of children while the
Rhinemaidens eye the Ring as it descends into the Rhine.
The aura emerging from this production is of the corrupting influence of power,
but one senses that such a focus is merely a byproduct rather than a conceptual
consideration by the responsible artistic team. Even so, the production is not
platitudinous. It does have the merit that it forces one to search for additional layers of
meaning beyond those inherent within Wagner’s score, albeit fruitlessly in this case. As
so often, the music says it all.
– 39 –

SUGGESTED BOOKING METHODS FOR BAYREUTH
Adrian Parker
On reading Colin Humphreys’ letter in the April Wagner News I was moved to ruminate
on possible booking methods where demand so exceeds supply.
1) By ballot: clearly fair in that all applicants have an equal chance of success but it is
possible that an applicant will always be unlucky and never get a ticket.
2) By multi-year queue: again, provided that the system is publicised, fair and it does
guarantee that applicants will eventually get a ticket if they persevere. Yes it does mean
that people cannot miss a year (would a true Wagnerian ever not want to go to Bayreuth?!)
but as for any queue you cannot just join and leave as the fancy takes you.
3) Selling on line: clearly biased in favour of those who can get on line at the time booking
opens, have the time to remain there while they progress through the waiting room and
where their system does not lose the connection within that time. Note noon German time
is 3 am in Los Angeles and 10 pm in New Zealand, and that even with the potentially much
smaller audience of the Friends of Covent Garden, time in the waiting room can be
measured in hours at the start of booking. It also has the drawback that while some people
may get tickets every year some may never get a ticket – though this could be ameliorated
by a multi-year limitation on the number of tickets an individual could purchase.
4) Open Market solutions: the purest form is selling all tickets by auction. This clearly
produces the maximum revenue for the theatre and virtually eliminates touting but is
probably impossible for a state-subsidised theatre (cries of subsidising the rich!).
A common variant is a structured Friends scheme in which the more you donate the
higher priority you have in booking tickets. However, as happens in eg Glyndebourne, it
may be necessary to close such schemes to new entrants to ensure ticket guarantees can
be met – a major disadvantage for new fans who have to join a multi-year queue. All such
systems are obviously biased in favour of the rich and may mean that true fans may never
get tickets. (I would be interested to know whether the pure form has ever been used or
whether it remains a theoretical economic construct.)
I think the best method is that actually adopted by Bayreuth – that of the multi-year queue
– as it is the only one which ensures that all fans will eventually get a ticket if they
persevere. Other methods do not achieve this aim in a market where demand exceeds
supply by such an extreme amount.
FULHAM OPERA RINGS 2013
Fulham Opera will perform two Ring cycles in 2013, each over six evenings as follows:
20 + 27 May Das Rheingold
21 + 28 May Die Walküre: Acts I and II
22 + 29 May Die Walküre: Act III + Siegfried: Act I
23 + 30 May Siegfried: Acts II and III
24 + 31 May Götterdämmerung: Prologue and Act I
25 May + 1 June Götterdämmerung: Acts II and III
– 40 –

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN IN BAYREUTH AND BEYOND
A talk by Professor Hans Vaget at 143 Great Portland Street on 20th March 2012
Richard Everall
Professor Vaget outlined the development of the Bayreuth Festival with its various
changes of staging and direction initially in the cultural context of an emergent German
nationalism. Twenty years after Wagner had written in 1850 of his vision of building a
theatre to present three performances of an opera to a non-paying audience after which it
would be demolished, he became mindful of posterity and sealed a poem into the
foundation stone of the Festspielhaus expressing the aspiration that it would last several
hundred years. What had caused this change from ardent revolutionary to artistic
missionary was, in a single word, nationalism. All around him poets, composers,
philosophers and philologists were developing a sense of being Deutsche Volk. His
Festspielhaus would become a temple to this newly sacralised art.
Eva Wagner’s husband Houston Stewart Chamberlain transformed Bayreuth’s
passive nationalism and anti-Semitism into an aggressive crusading force. His identifying
Adolf Hitler with Parsifal as someone who had been sent to redeem Germany is well
known. Hitler could scarcely have been more delighted with the ultimate public relations
coup gained by romping with Germany’s leading family.
With the Festspielhaus surviving the Second World War it was clear that
responsibility and ownership needed to be settled. The Mayor of Bayreuth wrote to the son
of Cosima Wagner’s eldest daughter Isolde, Franz Wilhelm Beidler, to request plans for a
completely de-Nazified Festival. Beidler responded with a plan for a Richard Wagner
Foundation to take charge. Many years earlier Cosima Wagner had declared that Isolde’s
father was Hans von Bülow and so Isolde was not a Wagner and any claim she may have
over the family assets must fail. This was accepted in court and the Festival was then
handed to Wagner’s grandsons, Wieland and Wolfgang. The process of de-Nazification
began in 1951 with a series of radical productions and, Professor Vaget believed, the death
of Wieland in 1966 represented the final break with the Nazi past. He went on to say that
Neu-Bayreuth, described as an Entsorgungsanlage, a kind of nuclear decontamination
facility, by Nike Wagner, Wieland’s second daughter, really started from this time.
A development in the German education system which had been emerging since
the time of Goethe was a new awareness of the ancient Greek classics. Johann Gottfried
von Herder had argued that the sustaining force of the organisation of people into a social
and political grouping was language. Reflecting the history and psychology of a
distinctive social heritage, language defines and identifies a Volk, a nationality. Language,
continued Herder, identifies one community’s difference from the rest. Volk is a natural
division of the human race endowed with its unique language which has to be preserved
as its most distinctive and sacred possession.
By the 1840s the 13th century Nibelunglied had gained status as the national epic.
Behind this lay a collective awareness that there was a special genius in German literature,
music and poetry not inferior to the Greek classics, to Shakespeare or to French opera. This
was the root of Germanistik which was a powerful influence on the younger Wagner. The
idea of Volk – the identification of Germanness with the German language – implied a
unification of those lands in which German was spoken. For Wagner, Volkgeist may have
ultimately remained a metaphysical notion as he abandoned his revolutionary aspirations
in later life. In the 20th century the pursuit of Volkgeist held other consequences.
– 41 –

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE AT AACHEN AND BIRMINGHAM
7th June and 16th June 2012
Paul Dawson-Bowling
Claudia Iten, the Swiss Isolde at Aachen, was simply the best Isolde I have seen and heard
onstage since the young Susan Bullock took the role at English National Opera so
memorably almost ten years ago. The bright gleam of Iten’s highest registers was even
reminiscent of early Birgit Nilsson, but she was also capable of a softness and
vulnerability which lay outside Nilsson’s palette. There was always cream and sweetness
somewhere in Iten’s tone, even at such points of high drama as the end of Act I or the final
bars of the Act II duet. What is more, she always lived the role completely. Her T-shirt,
shaggy cardigan and jeans in Act I made her about the worst dressed person in the theatre,
and these clothes were not exactly convincing as the style of a princess. As we know well,
modern princesses are the height of style and sophistication, but notwithstanding her
downmarket plebeian garb, Claudia Iten was herself absolutely stylish and convincing in
her rage, her frosty hauteur, her tearful sadness, and her total domination of Tristan after
he has finally submitted to her summons. She was the bright star of the evening but she
was prima inter some excellent pares, part of a fine cast whose every member I would
gladly have swapped for their equivalents at Bayreuth two years ago or on the DVD of
those Bayreuth performances.
I would also have swapped some of them for their equivalents in the Welsh
National Opera performance at Birmingham, but the shining exception was Susan
Bickley, the beautiful Birmingham Brangäne whom I would have preferred as Isolde to
Danish Ann Peterson. Admittedly, this lady was having difficulties with pollen counts,
and had to give way to a stand-in for Act III, but I have an uneasy feeling that her oidlyoidly-oidly
vibrato is part of her regular style, as this is nowadays what seems to be
reckoned as proper for Wagner. It is sad that the lustrous purity personified by the cast on
Kempe’s Berlin Die Meistersinger should have given way to a singer style epitomised by
Eva Maria Westbroek who emits about the most rancid, acidulated sound I have heard on
an operatic stage, and yet is engaged again and again at Covent Garden. She will soon
have to be endured there as Sieglinde.
It was characteristic of the two performances that the unknown Aachen Tristan of
Ivar Gilhuus was more refined and convincing than the famous Ben Heppner. Heppner
now seems to have trouble controlling the magnificent but unwieldy instrument which is
his voice, and he also looks portly and post-mature. Ivar Gilhuus also looked mature,
surprisingly like Sviatoslav Richter in the 1960s and 70s, and it was evident that he was
the oldest person on the Aachen stage. Hence it was that while the Marke there was
superb, a mighty bass, the Korean Woong-jo Choi, some better work with make up might
have saved him from looking about one third the age of his purported nephew. Really!
Not only his huge shock of jet black hair but his entire youthful demeanour and even the
way he moved made nonsense of the idea that this was Tristan’s uncle or Cornwall’s weary
old King; Matthew Best at Birmingham was more stately and convincing. It was a further
pleasure at Birmingham to see Philip Joll as Kurwenal and his was now a very grizzled,
senior statesman version of the role, the strongest possible contrast to Tristan’s lean and
athletic young henchman at Aachen, Hrolfur Saemundson. Saemundson was a scrupulous
musician who was plainly not responsible for the weird antics required of him in Act III,
cavorting across the back of the stage and throwing up handfuls water into the air even as
– 42 –

Tristan poured out his full romantic agony. But at least Saemundson did not have to strip
off and join the succession of two naked men, one young and one old, who processed
slowly and ill at ease across the stage in this same scene. Why they did it remains obscure.
Sanja Radisic maintained the high standards of the Aachen cast with her slim, finely
honed, schoolmistressy Brangäne, and by floating her warning with real magic.
Happily the wayward production at Aachen had some good moments, as happened
after Tristan and Isolde drink the potion and suddenly recognise that they are not only
unexpectedly alive, but delirious with happiness, laughing hysterically at their situation
until its enormity strikes home. And Aachen producer Ludger Engels was at least singer
friendly, positioning his cast well forward in the little wood-walled room which did
service as a ship’s cabin and faced the audience at a diagonal throughout Act I.
Consequently the singers always carried over Wagner’s tumultuous orchestra. Act II at
Aachen was located in a rather anonymous bedroom, although Tristan and Isolde
preferred to lie side by side on a bargain-basement carpet, hastily rolled out by Tristan for
the purpose. Act III at Aachen simply had some chairs set out in a vague nowhere. By
contrast, Yannis Kokkos’ simple but atmospheric WNO version presented the scene as
well as ever, with some rope-ladders and a single spar for Act I, a suggestion of some
distant trees for Act II, and a great barren slab for Act III. If my memory of the past is
correct, Kokkos called this time for a much greater degree of physical contact between
Tristan and Isolde than before, conveying their affection as well as their passion. One of
the things about people in love is their desperate desire for each other’s company, and this
came across persuasively at Birmingham, more so than at Aachen.
Perhaps it was inevitable that Act II at Aachen should be disfigured by the usual
cut, and I looked forward to Birmingham because I have previously heard a WNOpera
Tristan und Isolde conducted by Richard Armstrong, Charles Mackerras, Carlo Rizzi, and
Mark Wigglesworth, and on these previous occasions WNO outclassed Covent Garden
and Glyndebourne (but not ENO) for one simple reason: that WNO presented the work
complete to the last bar. It was therefore a nasty surprise to find a strange cut in Act II,
not the traditional one, at Birmingham, and some further slashings to Act III. Moreover,
the present WNO conductor, Lothar Koenigs, found it necessary not only to whip up the
prelude of Act I, but the Act II duet, and even more inexplicably, every statement of the
death theme towards the end of Act I. His seemed too an unremittingly loud performance,
but Tristan und Isolde should ravish as well as overwhelm, as for instance, when Isolde
sings of Frau Minne in Act II, “Schon goss Sie ihres Schweigen durch Hain und Haus”.
Perhaps no one has quite matched the sheer loveliness of Margaret Price and Carlos
Kleiber in passages like this, but if Lothar Koenigs had kept the accompanying horn
pulsations down, and paid more attention generally to Wagner’s pp markings, the work’s
magic would have stood a better chance, as indeed Marcus Bosch gave it at Aachen.
Bosch did include the traditional cut in Act II, which was a pity as he was finest in
this act. He had been strangely insubstantial with the weighty strings which herald Tristan’s
Act I appearance before Isolde, but in Act II he displayed an ideal sense of tempo, a
flawless sense of its musical development, and an unerring feel for its psychological
drama, as well as its sheer, ineffable beauty. He drew from his modest forces (four double
basses) a sonority whose amplitude was in the best German tradition, even when very soft,
and the reduced strings meant that much fine wind detail emerged, but without loss of
overall density. He also managed well certain small details of orchestration such as that
strange, uncanny sigh on muted horns which comes just after Brangäne’s “Ein Einz’ger
war’s”. This was as haunting as on Furtwängler’s HMV recording.
– 43 –

It would have been good if Bosch had also resembled Furtwängler in holding out
the tempo of the Act I prelude. As I have observed before, it loses tension and intensity
when conductors quicken it up, as Lothar Koenigs especially did. Wagner has not
indicated a single alteration in its basic pulse in spite of his markings for several
transitory modifications. Marcus Bosch was electrifying at the end of the first act at a
fiery but not a runaway tempo, and this conclusion gained enormously from having the
on-stage brass right at the front, playing right out to the audience. When it came to the
Liebestod (it is easier to stick to this title even while knowing it to be wrong), Bosch was
masterly, and Claudia Iten crowned her achievement with singing that was as superb
technically as it was ecstatic, so that the final impression created by Tristan und Isolde,
in this tiny theatre with its 730 seats was overwhelming. This was what really counted,
that this long-standing ensemble moulded and integrated by Marcus Bosch over the years
created an evening of involving intensity.
Aachen has been the cradle and the springboard for two of the last century’s
greatest German conductors, Herbert von Karajan and Wilhelm Furtwängler, (Karajan
actually Austrian) and like them, Bosch has developed his artistry through training up a
whole series of opera performances in many different styles over the years. On the
showing of this performance, it is not impossibly optimistic to imagine that Marcus
Bosch might turn out in the same league as these two giants of the past. He leaves now
to take up the equivalent position at the Nuremberg Opera after his final celebratory
Tristan und Isolde on 7th July. Aachen’s loss will be Nuremberg’s gain and he will be a
hard act for his American successor at Aachen to follow.
DAS GEHEIMNIS DER LIEBE: THE MYSTERY OF LOVE
Chris Argent
This programme which was presented on 12th April 2012 in the gracious home of the
English National Opera Chairman and his wife, Sir Vernon and Lady Ellis, started life in
the mind of David Edwards on behalf of the Mastersingers with a view to providing a
platform for the young British singers being groomed by Artistic Director Malcolm
Rivers. The event was sponsored by the Music Club of London, the Richard Strauss
Society, David and Frances Waters, Eric Adler and Ludmilla Andrew
Extracts were performed from four of Strauss’ operas: Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella,
Die Frau ohne Schatten and Elektra. Elaine McKrill (winner of the Mastersingers’Wagner
Singers Competition in 2003) is now a well-established dramatic soprano whose roles
include Isolde and Brünnhilde, but whose main outings into the Strauss repertoire are as
Marianne at Covent Garden and Elektra in Holland. She gave an impassioned account of
Elektra’s great monologue Allein! Weh, ganz allein! where she rues her spiritual isolation.
Elaine’s voice seemed fuller, smoother and more nuanced than I remember it and she has
surely profited from the support of the Mastersingers and Anthony Legge who coached all
the singers for this event. Had the programme been posited around the enigma of love to
be found in Wagner’s oeuvre, the contextual significance of extracts from Der Höllander
(Senta’s infatuation with the Dutchman), Tristan und Isolde (love of the Romeo and Juliet
variety), Tannhaüser (the eponymous hero’s oscillation between Elisabeth and Venus), Der
Ring (Brünnhilde’s worship of Siegfried), Lohengrin (Elsa’s idolization of the Grail
knight), etc, could well have been entirely obvious, so that might be a practical focus for
another outing of the singers in the Mastersingers stable.
– 44 –

MUNICH OPERA FESTIVAL WAGNERIN PROJECT
Dame Gwyneth Jones as Cosima Wagner in Wagnerin: Ein Haus der Kunstmusik
Roger Lee
Premiered at Bayerische Oper on 24th June as “an evening without gods or heroes” but
featuring instead the characters of Cosima, Winifred, Gudrun and Katharina Wagner as
well as many blue-clad maidens, a male choir and the Festival Orchestra’s “left-over”
trumpets, the Wagnerin production was devised as part of the Bavarian State Opera’s Ring
Themes programme for the 2012 Munich Opera Festival. The first event of this series
dealing with Der Ring was Wagnerin – Ein Haus der Kunstmusik with Dame Gwyneth
Jones in the role of Cosima Wagner in Sven Holm’s production.
Holm presents the fates of female characters in Der Ring in contrast to the female
succession strategies in the Wagner dynasty. In a surreal manner he gathers Cosima,
Winifred, Gudrun and Katharina Wagner in a future Wahnfried which is threatened with
destruction. He told Wagner News: “Wagner’s work also reflects current events and the
family’s own history, and so this production is an attempt to shed light on the roles and
actions of women in the Wagner dynasty.”
The myth is updated to the present and the parallels of power, fate and mutual
dependence are brought to light in this project. According to Nikolaus Bachler, Manager
of the Bavarian State Opera: “It is precisely in Bayreuth’s present circumstances that this
theme has a particular charm” Producer Sven Holm thus explained his approach: “It has
always been the strong women who reigned in Bayreuth and who to some extent battled
with each other to inherit the Bayreuth Festival.” The Wagnerin project deals with the
absurdity that Wagner basically anticipated the conflicts of his own descendants in Der
Ring, but did so only in the male world of the struggle for gold.
Götterdämmerung, which ended on 30th June with Andreas Kriegenburg’s new
production plays a central role with its apocalyptic scenario as Sven Holm explains: “we
are acting out as fiction an impending demise of the Bayreuth Festival in the near future.
The orchestra and the heroes have departed and only the trumpets remain. In the house at
Wahnfried four Wagner women are sitting and trying to save the Wagnerian idea. The
entire house is one surreal scene where Katharina Wagner pulls the female role-players
out of their graves and tries to make the myth interesting once again with the focus on the
stories of the female figures in the Wagner family as well as the female figures in Der
Ring.”
According to Holm: “the dialectic between a Cosima and a Brünnhilde or a
Katharina and a Sieglinde is crucial with particular regard to the deeply lonely feeling of
growing up in this self-centred atmosphere of the Wagner family and not being able to
escape it.” In the role of Cosima Wagner Dame Gwyneth Jones sings fragments from Der
Ring amongst other items
The production also involves the singers Hanna Dóra Sturludottir as Katharina
Wagner and Ceri Williams as Gudrun Wagner along with the actress Renate Jett as
Winifred Wagner and members of the Bavarian State Opera ensemble. The music has
been taken from the jazz ensemble Vertigo Trombone Quartet who improvise the
Wagnerian motif system and whose frontman Nils Wogram was the 2011 winner of the
BMW Jazz Award.
– 45 –

Essential Wagner
TURNS
Roger Lee
On page 25 the writer refers to “turns” at the start of the
overture to Rienzi. The turn is a device which Wagner used
frequently. Also known as a gruppetto (Italian for
“grouplet”) it consists of a figure of four notes which a
listener might describe as a “twiddle”. Lionel Friend has sketched for us Wagnerian turns
of various types. The example shown here occurs in Tristan und Isolde.
Perhaps the most familiar such turns for many listeners are those articulated by
Isolde approaching the climax of the so-called Liebestod and layered over those played
by the orchestra, and they are also found throughout the score of Tristan und Isolde. Turns
are most abundantly written into the Prologue of Götterdämmerung when the Norns have
left the stage and we head towards sunrise. At this point they come thick and fast. (I made
it no fewer than 36 at the last count.)
A good half a dozen turns occur in the overture to Der fliegende Holländer, the
first coming after a couple of minutes on the cor anglais just after the big pause.
Tannhäuser brings an example about a minute into Act II Scene 2 where a clarinet turn
follows Elizabeth’s “So stehet auf ”. Turns accompany Amfortas’ entry in Parsifal, and
appear in the music of the King, Elsa and Ortrud towards the end of Act I of Lohengrin.
David Edwards
The turn had been in use from Baroque times and is plentifully used by Handel,
Mozart, Beethoven, Weber et al. So it was very much part of the musical language and
tradition in which Wagner steeped himself, and exists in music by other composers that
he conducted in his younger years. We hear it in his contemporaries, too – Verdi
especially (the Duke in Rigoletto, for example, uses this type of musical device
frequently).
As an ardent advocate of Italian-style bel canto Wagner would surely have enjoyed
the embellishment of the turn – that sense of expressive freedom and decoration that the
turn implies. But when he writes it himself I think that he is not only harking back to the
ornamentation of the previous century. He is also perhaps expressing something unstable
(eg the Norns) or hard to define about the tonality of his music (Isolde), and therefore
about the dramatic situation he is presenting.
In my view Wagner's use of the turn conveys both a reminiscence of beautiful
Italianate decoration and a sense of instability and uncertainty in what is to come.
Rapturous though Isolde's Liebestod clearly is, I often wonder whether the composer, and
therefore we the audience, buy into it completely. In Tristan, for me, the action is
solipsistic and therefore Isolde's ending is in many ways detached from my own personal
experience. I'm happy for her but not moved by her condition. I'm moved by the music
but left wondering what LoveDeath really means. Of course this was never the term
Wagner used for the scene – he called it a Transfiguration. That sits more easily with me,
and also with the notion of the turn as a decorative, illustrative motif of beauty,
sophistication and some degree of ineffability.
– 46 –

Lionel Friend
There were two shapes to the Baroque turn, one the upside down version of the other. In
the more usual one, the first note of the turn is a step above the principal note; it falls
below it and then rises again. The other “inverted turn” is the other way about: the turn’s
first note is a step below the principal note; it then rises before falling back to the main
note. In that period it was mainly used to decorate one single note; later it was used as an
ornament that linked two notes.
Tannhäuser Götterdämmerung
Wagner used both normal and inverted versions. I remember at one time being told
that he came to prefer the inverted one later in his career, and it is certainly fascinating that
the scores of Tannhäuser (in the clarinet melody after Elisabeth’s “So stehet auf ”, for
example) were printed with the normal turn shape, but we know from the edition that Felix
Mottl prepared for Peters that in Vienna in 1875 Wagner asked that these turns should be
begun “from below” (“Dieser Mordent (Doppelschlag) wurde in Wien von unten
aufgeführt.”) As early as Rienzi, though, the turn in the Overture (quoting Rienzi’s Act V
Prayer) is marked to be inverted (the traditional turn sign has a vertical line through it.)
The turns in Isolde’s Transfiguration (“Liebestod”) are the more common way
round. On the other hand in the Götterdämmerung Vorspiel they start from below. In
Holländer and Lohengrin Wagner was still mostly using the traditional sign for this
ornament rather than writing out the four notes in full, and perhaps there is sometimes
room for doubt as to which one he intended. (As already remarked, he seems to have
changed his mind over the years about those in Tannhäuser.)
The turns to which Roger draws attention in Parsifal and which occur in the
pastoral music accompanying Amfortas’ “Waldes Morgenpracht” are particularly
interesting to me because Wagner makes use of both kinds: from below in the cellos (bar
271, under “Waldes”, where they are written as grace notes in small print) and then
immediately from above in the oboe, violas, clarinets and bass clarinet. Wagner would
have been familiar with this figure not only from the Italian bel canto but also from the
instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. His contemporaries
Chopin, Schumann and Liszt also decorated their melodies with this ornament.
David makes interesting comments about the character and meaning of these
features of Wagner’s music. Personally, I don’t hear any kind of instability (certainly not
in Isolde!) To me they seem to express a kind of rapture, ecstasy, delight, longing, fervour.
But the essential musical thing is, I believe, that they belong to certain melodic phrases,
and do not have an existence apart from the melodies of which they are an intrinsic
feature. In Holländer the turn appears in the melody Senta sings to express her longing
for the Dutchman’s redemption (quoted by the cor anglais in the Overture). In Tristan
turns belong to the melody associated with Isolde’s transfiguration. In Götterdämmerung
they are a characteristic feature of the new melody of Brünnhilde’s loving womanhood
that we hear for the very first time in the dawn transition that leads to her scene with
Siegfried. (In this transition Siegfried's horn theme is also metamorphosed for the first
time into a new, heroic version.) For Amfortas the oboe melody (that I believe never
recurs) has to do with the peaceful relief from his agonies that he feels at this moment.
– 47 –

Cover Story
THE CANCELLED ISRAEL WAGNER SOCIETY CONCERT
Tel Aviv University, 18th June 2012
Jonathan Livny
I do not like Richard Wagner. As a matter of fact I personally think (as do most members
of the Israel Wagner Society) that he was a despicable person. Not the fact that he tried
to evade his financial benefactors nor his disrespect for the fidelity of marriage, but to his
unabated, vicious anti-Semitism. Now I know that many composers were extremely anti-
Semitic. It is said of Frederick Chopin that, upon entering a concert hall he would
announce that if there was a Jew in the hall he would not play. Karl Orff and Richard
Strauss were both tainted by their membership of the Nazi party and yet we listen to their
music in Israel in raptured admiration.
So what is it that makes Wagner so different and why is it that his music is
boycotted in Israel? What made it impossible for us in the Israel Wagner Society finally
to break the unofficial boycott of his work? Wagner left clearly written statements of his
virulent anti-Semitism in his infamous Das Judenthum in der Musik and he was, whether
we like it or not, Hitler's idol. Can one separate Wagner as a person from his music? That
is really the motivational force behind my decision to establish a Wagner Society in Israel
and to try and produce the first ever all-Wagner concert, which unfortunately was stymied
a few days after it was announced in my country.
I owe my love of Wagner's music to my father Ernst Loewenstein who was a
Holocaust survivor. He was the only member of a huge family that had lived in Germany
for generations to survive the Nazi death camps. My father escaped with picture albums,
documents and 78 rpm records of Richard Wagner's music. “He was a horrible anti-
Semite” my father would intone “but he wrote Godly music”. Thus as a child I learned
the love and admiration of the music of a genius though a despicable person.
Growing up in Israel as a second generation survivor and being the age of the
country I was born in enabled me to follow carefully the return to normalcy and eventually
to a flourishing Israel – German alliance. Wagner remains the sole remaining vestige of the
boycott of Germany and of goods made in Germany. It is easy to identify with the everdwindling
number of Holocaust survivors when it comes to Wagner. Most people are not,
alas, avid classical music lovers and even less so of Wagner's complicated
Gesamtkunstwerk. Thus when a few vociferous survivors sound the alarm bells whenever
an attempt is made to play his music it is easy to identify with their real or imaginary plight.
I formed the Israel Wagner Society when the Israel Chamber Orchestra was invited
to give a concert in Bayreuth and part of the programme was going to be a piece by
Wagner. When the usual outcry sounded the Orchestra announced that, though it was
going ahead with the performance, it was not going to rehearse the music in Israel. That
was too much. Was the music something contaminating the air? In 2010 I met the Israeli
conductor Asher Fisch in Dresden. He was a last minute replacement to conduct the Ring
when Fabio Lisi dumped the Semper Oper. In the Opera Cafe of the Semper Opera we
dreamed of doing the first ever all-Wagner concert in Israel. (It is interesting to note that
Jews are again amongst the foremost proponents of Wagner's music: James Levine,
Daniel Barenboim, Asher Fisch, Roberto Paternostro and Dan Ettinger, to name but a
few.)
– 48 –

It was abundantly clear that we could not use an existing orchestra. All orchestras
in Israel are supported by public funds and thus would shun participation so as not to
endanger their funding. For the same reason we could not hold the concert in a municipal
hall. With private funds we scheduled a concert and over 100 contracts were signed by the
Wagner Society with singers and with players of the best orchestras in Israel. We then
went to the press with announcements and ads announcing the concert and all hell broke
loose: hefty protests from holocaust survivors filled the radio waves and the press.
Within 24 hours the President of Tel Aviv University cancelled our rental
agreement citing our not having informed the University authorities of the nature of the
concert. This was an outright fabrication of the facts. We had scheduled a symposium on
Wagner's music prior to the concert and had discussed the contents and venue with the
heads of the University's music department. We then signed a contract with the Tel Aviv
Hilton hotel to rent their convention hall, only to find that contracts do not count when it
comes to a Wagner event. Amid an international furore of hundreds of letters to the
editors of all Israeli newspapers as well as hundreds of talkbacks on the internet we were
forced to call off the concert for lack of venue.
What did we learn from this affair? We learned that the time had come to lift the
unofficial ban on playing Wagner's music. Hundreds of people who bought tickets for the
concert in less than a week were ample proof that there are people in Israel who vote to
listen to the music. We learned that to crush a taboo and destroy the last remaining symbol
of the boycott of Germany is much harder than just renting a hall. We are also determined
to go on, to try again and again until we succeed. And succeed we shall. I am often asked
why I don't wait for the last of the Holocaust survivors to die. I maintain that that will not
serve any purpose. We live at a time when second generation and third generation
children stick to their parents and we cannot afford to continue to boycott the works of
Richard Wagner. I hope that 2013 will bring another opportunity to play the music which
so many of us love. For the music belongs to the world regardless to who its author was.
GERMAN TUITION: FREE TRIAL
Special offer for Wagner Society Members
Having recently discovered what she describes as “the great
musical works of Richard Wagner” German language teacher Katja
Wodzinski is offering a free trial hour of tuition to members of the
Wagner Society, either as individuals or in small groups.
Graduating in French, German and Media Science from the
University of Paderborn in her native Germany, she gained
experience as an executive assistant in several European countries
as well as in the United States.
“Eventually I decided to turn my passion for languages into a career and I became
a teacher. I have now been teaching German for various language institutes in England
and Germany to classes as well as private students. Dividing my time between the Goethe
Institut London and business students from various industries, my aim is to make the
German language and culture accessible for everyone.”
Carefully planned and executed sessions include a variety of different exercises
tailored to students’ needs. Challenging grammar is broken down into comprehensible
and logical steps and vocabulary revision comes with games and multimedia aids.
Reference is also made to contemporary language and to current affairs.
Website: www.easy-german.com Email: katja@easy-german.com
– 49 –

THE LONGBOROUGH RING:AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTHONY NEGUS
Michael Bousfield
Deep in the heart of the Cotswolds preparations are well under way for the final part of
Wagner’s mighty Ring cycle featuring four performances in July. With one opera unveiled
at a time over the last few years in Alan Privett’s fascinating reading, the 2013
Bicentenary will stage three cycles starting mid June. Surely this must be a uniquely
historic event: has the full Ring ever been played in such a small opera house, and with
the vast wealth of experience and talent which Longborough has mustered? Michael
Bousfield interviewed the Ring conductor Anthony Negus last summer after the first
performance of Siegfried and again this June during rehearsals for Götterdämmerung.
Anthony reflects on the former, then looks forward both to this summer and the full
cycles next year as well as discussing many aspects of his wide-ranging career.
24th July 2011, after the first night of Siegfried
What is it like for you to be conducting Siegfried again?
It has been a revelation for me to come to Siegfried as I have not done the full piece since
1985 – and because I have just done Die Meistersinger.
During Siegfried I felt we were on the ground floor of two glittering international
careers: Alwyn Mellor and Daniel Brenna.
Yes, Daniel had prepared himself very well for the preliminary auditions – more than
anybody else who came to sing for us and we just knew that this was the man. We were
very lucky in having a number of people to hear; and saw huge potential. The
extraordinary thing is that we nearly had two Siegfrieds arriving on the same plane from
Germany! Alwyn I have known for 20 years and we have worked together on many
occasions. Her agent, James Black, encouraged the new development with Wagner and
we gave her her first big launch with the Brünnhilde. Anne Evans and I did an enormous
amount of work with her in preparation. It was wonderful to discover that this was where
her voice belonged. She has just come from the Grange singing Isolde, and thankfully the
Siegfried Brünnhilde being a shorter role could follow immediately.
Rachel Nicholls (this year’s Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde) was our Walküre
Helmwige and it was obvious then that she was going all the way. (It is always a good
idea to listen to the Rhinemaidens, Valkyries and Norns to work out who will later be
singing the bigger roles.) I was initially concerned about her doing it so soon, but Dame
Anne assured me that she could do it. She is dedicated, very intelligent and has the voice
for the part.
I like the way, as the Ring has developed, that you have blended experienced
international artists with the younger generation. Earlier we had Nicholas Folwell
(Alberich); Donald McIntyre and Philip Joll (Wotan) and, for Götterdämmerung this
summer, Malcolm Rivers as Alberich.
Yes, Nicholas has been with us from the very beginning in 1998 (I only came in 2000).
We have known each other since the 80s, the Reggie Goodall days when he sang Melot;
Klingsor (in performances I took over when Reggie was ill) and Alberich in the WNO
Ring when Anne Evans sang her first Brünnhildes (in English in the Porter translation).
This gave me my first chance to conduct parts of The Ring: I did two Rheingolds, one
– 50 –

Siegfried and one Götterdämmerung. All of this was in 1985 (when I also assisted on
Tristan in Brussels with Gwyneth Jones) in the middle of which I got married to Carmen
in her hometown on the Rhine! Carmen assisted with the CBTO Jonathan Dove Ring and
is now assistant director to Alan Privett for this Ring. We are really delighted to have the
deep experience of Malcolm Rivers for Götterdämmerung. He and Stuart Pendred will
make a real father and son pair with Stuart singing his first Hagen.
Let’s go back in time. Tell us about your early days.
I attended Stowe School for nearly four years and then four terms at the Royal College of
Music. I had been awarded a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford at 16, but Dr Sidney
Watson, who became my tutor, suggested RCM for a year before going on to Oxford. I
studied clarinet and piano, and also opera, but my main experience was meeting Elsa
Mayer-Lismann and getting involved in her Workshop with the likes of Anne Evans and
Kathy Pring. Elsa knew I had a deep musical longing and knowledge and she helped bring
all this out. I was able to go to all the Covent Garden performances at that time. I well
remember the Solti and Downes Ring cycles, my first Don Giovanni with Krips and
Gobbi; Klemperer conducting Lohengrin and Kempe, the first Wagnerian conductor I
heard live.
You then went freelance before a long career with Welsh National Opera.
Yes, after College I worked extensively in London between 1967 and 1970 assisting with
many productions. In the 1970 ENO Ring I was a voluntary assistant on the Walküre to
Reggie Goodall ( who was a huge influence on me. I later considered myself to be Reggie’s
“rhythmic conscience”!) I also visited Germany for auditions and worked in Wuppertal for
three years; then Bayreuth for two seasons on Tannhäuser and other operas. This was
followed by a period in Hamburg until 1974. I auditioned for Welsh National Opera where
I was on the music staff full time from 1976 to 2011, recently turning 65 in one mega week
when I also conducted my first Meistersinger at Glyndebourne! I had earlier worked
extensively with Vladimir Jurowski on five pieces, including the Tristan and I was
delighted to conduct the one performance which I was offered.
Rightly or wrongly, many of us see you first and foremost as a Wagner conductor.
I think I have a feel for the ebb and flow and an understanding of Wagner. There are some
dangerous corners, but feel I have learnt how to navigate around them rather like a canoe
in dangerous waters. Last night in Siegfried I did not play safe, but with an acute sense of
tempo I know what I want to go for. Usually it works! For Siegfried I only had ten days
for orchestra rehearsals with little time in between for assimilation. (I am particularly
proud of the strings this year. They have some very difficult music to play in Siegfried
and are quite marvellous. The standard achieved by the whole orchestra has been growing
each year.
Are there in this opera any scenes where you feel, “Wow – I am pleased we got
through that alright?”
Yes, there is one horrible little scene, which takes more work than any other. This is where
Alberich and Mime are squabbling in Act II. The opening is the devil: you have the bass
clarinet on the beat, the second clarinet just off the beat and the bassoon with an upbeat,
so each of them starts with a similar type of motif on a different semi-quaver. I am always
glad when we have got past those few bars and the strings take over. It is one of those
scenes where you just have to be patient. A problem with Siegfried is that if you have two
– 51 –

men shouting at each other in Act I you just switch off. Siegfried has to sing lyrically as
Mime also has to do for some of the time.
I noticed that the orchestra pit has been much enlarged.
It was first enlarged backwards for Rheingold in 2007 and to the front, at my instigation,
in 2011. I really needed more strings: we now have six cellos and three double basses. In
total we now have an orchestra of 66 (the Lessing Version). Philip Head has assembled
the orchestra and done a wonderful job.
Although you are now 65, I realize conductors never retire. Is this true of you?
Do you have any unfulfilled aspirations?
For many years I have tended to be an assistant who sometimes took over performances.
Although WNO gave me a lot of conducting, I have rarely had my own show. I do assist
still, but I am a conductor in my own right and feel I am really just beginning. Here at
Longborough it has been my thing; I have been in charge of the music since 2000. This
will be my first full Ring, having only ever conducted some of the individual operas.
I love conducting Mozart and have done much of his work; in the spring of 2012
I conducted a revival of Figaro for WNO. Some Jánaček and more of the early 20th
Century would be welcome as well as tackling some French repertoire. I assisted Boulez
on Pelléas for WNO in 1992. (It is a piece I would love to conduct, not only because of
its Parsifal links.) Massenet would be fun, especially Werther.
We musicians are so lucky in that, whatever the political discussion about Wagner,
we have access to the greatness of this man. There can be no dispute: he is one of the
outstanding dramatic musical geniuses of all time. Yes, there were horrible things about
him and his influence, but that cannot for one iota take away from the music, deeply
rooted as it is in Beethoven who was a vital link in the way in which he builds his
orchestra.
Please tell us about your technique and approach in conducting Wagner.
How influential was Reggie Goodall?
What I learned from him was the need to study in depth, which I realize even more now
than when I worked with him, and especially the quality of listening. Wagner has written
the text so wonderfully that you can sing it rhythmically. One criticism I had of the
English language performances of The Ring and Meistersinger was that they were too
free with the rhythm. In German the rhythm dictates itself rather more than when doing
it in EnglishI have always felt this sense of inner energetic spring; hence I may be a little
faster than other conductors at times but I try to follow exactly what Wagner asks for. If
Wagner wants a gradual change of tempo he may not want the audience to realize it. It is
the altered mood and feeling that one becomes aware of. Italian conductors don’t usually
understand that concept so well and tend to leap into it. Sometimes I just go through the
score to remind myself of all the tempo markings.
I check myself a lot with Furtwängler to see if I am on the right track. Similarly,
the first Wagner I ever heard was Toscanini (who has been deeply influential to me) and
the NBC Symphony with the Rhine Journey, the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and
Parsifal excerpts. His Salzburg Meistersinger is just incredible, especially the sublime
third act Prelude. He could sustain a slow tempo like nobody else. He was slower in
Wagner than anybody when he wanted to be. I tried in my Glyndebourne performance in
2011 to sustain the high string passage like this, almost hovering in infinity.
– 52 –

June 12th 2012 whilst rehearsing Götterdämmerung
How are you coping with the challenge of putting on such a huge opera in a small
venue?
I feel we are coping rather well. The new challenge this year is the chorus in Act II. It will
be small: just twelve men. They won’t just be a massed group but will be active
dramatically in the proceedings. The complexity of The Ring is vast wherever you do it.
Ours is only a slightly slimmed down version of the score. We have triple rather than
quadruple wind and fewer strings than Wagner specified. However, with four double
basses this year, ten first violins and nine seconds, we have a very good string section for
the size of our space. We feel that the balance will not be a problem due to the pit being
below stage, a la Bayreuth. Technically it is a big challenge as, unlike larger houses, we
have nothing sophisticated on stage such as revolves, so imaginative planning is what we
use to create the effect plus powerful lighting.
We have a wonderful find in Mati Turi from Estonia who has already sung the
young Siegfried in Holland; this will be his first Götterdämmerung Siegfried. Sadly, we
won’t have him next year for the full cycle. We are having a great time working with
Rachel and she is showing all the promise we have hoped and more! Anne Evans has been
coaching Rachel and she will come to rehearsals as well as spending time in Leeds
helping with their Ring.
We started rehearsals on 21st May in
London running until the end of June
when I have the first orchestra
rehearsals starting in Birmingham. We
start in Longborough on 6th July. We
have a good two months of rehearsals. It
has needed careful planning by Alan
Privett as not everyone is available all of
the time. The whole process is essential;
I need to be at most of the production
rehearsals. I am not a conductor who
swans in just in time for the orchestra
rehearsals. I like to develop the work with singers, being deeply interested in the meaning
and dramatic intention, I look for agreement with the director as seen from our differing
perspectives. Our approaches complement each other.
Is everything on track for next year’s Ring cycles?
Yes, I am in the midst of a meeting discussing this: there will be three cycles starting in
mid June. There will be a day between each opera and then three days off before the
following cycle. The casting is nearly complete.
Wagner lovers have some wonderful treats in store. We owe you and your fellow
artistes a huge “thank you” for your dedication and effort in creating what will be a
marvelous experience!
Photo of Anthony Negus by Alan Wood
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HEROISM AND VILLAINY IN OPERA, VERSE AND ART
Presteigne: from 21st to 24th September 2012
Programme
Masterclasses: Dame Anne Evans and Maestro Anthony Negus work with
Longborough’s Brünnhilde, Rachel Nicholls to prepare for the
complete Ring in 2013 as well as with other members of The
Mastersingers Company and The Goodall Academy.
Concerts: Piano recital by Tamriko Sakvarelidze and her husband Richard Black.
Grand Gala Concert with international vocal and instrumental artists
associated with The Mastersingers Company.
Presentations: Terry Barfoot presents “Heroism in Opera” and “Villainy in Opera”
with both live and recorded musical examples.
David Edwards presents “Nolan in the Theatre” an appraisal of Sir
Sidney Nolan’s designs for The Royal Opera House Covent Garden
with performances from Mastersingers Company artists.
Other events: Quality wine tasting at the Judge’s Lodging with Richard Black
Grand Victorian Buffet (with wine)
Drinks at The Rodd followed by the opening of Sir Sidney Nolan’s
exhibition on the subject of Ned Kelly.
Visit to the Edward Elgar Birthplace Museum
The Music Club of London package
Coach transport from London, all meals, three nights accommodation and tickets for all
events are included in the total price. Accommodation will be at the Grade II 16th
century Radnorshire Arms Hotel and at the Knighton Hotel, a 16th century coaching inn.
Full package from £477 per person, (or £75 for the programme of events only for those
who wish to arrange their own accommodation) available from:
Rosemary Frischer: rfrischer@onetel.com 0207 700 7999
or
Malcolm Rivers: malcolmpk@rivers44.fsnet.co.uk 0208 950 4651
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the Wagner society
President: Dame Gwyneth Jones
Vice President: Sir John Tomlinson
CONTACTS
Chair: Richard Miles chair@wagnersociety.org
Court Lodge Farm, Blechingley, Surrey RH1 4LP
Secretary and Bayreuth Andrea Buchanan secretary@wagnersociety.org
Bursary Administrator: 7 Avenue Mansions, Finchley Road, London NW3 7AU
Assistant
Programme Director:
Gary Kahn programmeassist@wagnersociety.org
Treasurer: Mike Morgan treasurer@wagnersociety.org
9 West Court, Downley, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP13 5TG
Membership Secretary: Mrs Margaret Murphy membership@wagnersociety.org
16 Doran Drive, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 6AX
Archivist and Librarian: Peter Curtis pgcurtis1@btinternet.com
22 Orchard Lane, Hutton, Diffield, YO25 9PZ
Editor of Wagner News: Roger Lee editorwagnernews@wagnersociety.org
155 Llanrwst Road, Colwyn Bay, LL28 5YS
Webmaster: Ken Sunshine webmaster@wagnersociety.org
Wagner Society Website: www.wagnersociety.org
The Wagner Society is registered charity number 266383.
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FOR YOUR DIARY
3rd October 2012
Barry Millington will give an illustrated talk on his new book The Sorcerer of
Bayreuth: Richard Wagner, his Work and his World. 7pm for 7:30 at Portland Place
School Sixth Form Centre, 5th Floor, 143 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 6QN.
17th October 2012
An Evening with Simon O’Neill accompanied by Lionel Friend. Simon O’Neill
will present a sample of his vast repertoire and will also be interviewed by the
Chairman of the Music Club, Michael Bousfield. 6.30 for 7pm at 49 Queen's Gate
Terrace London SW7
21st October 2012
The Wagner Society, The Mastersingers and the Rehearsal Orchestra present Die
Walküre Act III with James Rutherford and Rachel Nicholls, conducted by David
Syrus. Run-through 2pm to 5pm. Full rehearsal: 6pm. Guildhall School of Music and
Drama, Silk Street, Barbican, EC2Y 8DT
17th and 24th November 2012
Masterclasses with Susan Bullock.
The acclaimed Wagnerian soprano (Brünnhilde in
the 2012 Royal Opera House Ring Cycle) will coach
young singers.
2:30 to 4:45pm on both days at Peregrine’s Pianos,
37A Gray,s Inn Road, London WC1X 8TU.
1st December 2012
Finals of the Wagner Society Bayreuth Bursary Competition 2012/13. London
Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE. Timing to be
confirmed.
SAVE THESE DATES IN 2013
18th – 22nd May International Richard Wagner Verband Congress, Leipzig
22nd May: Birthday Lunch to celebrate the 200th anniversary of
Wagner’s birth
16th + 17th October: Wagner’s Great Choruses singalong.
CHECK THE WEBSITE FOR UPDATES: WWW.WAGNERSOCIETY.ORG
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