The Wagnerian

The Dresden Aftermath: In Wagner's Words

2026-10-23T22:31:45.962+01:00

Part two of the Wagner/Liszt letters. A lot longer than the first. These include three such letters - the first oldly enough not to Liszt. It follows the aftermath of the Dresden Uprising and Wagner's escape. Sadly the file size exceeds that of our host and so we are forced to use YouTube. If the adverts become too annoying, we apologize. We assure you we have not monetized. Later, we will make all of these available as audio files - if there is interest. Transcript below.

Wagner and Liszt. Flight, eighteen forty nine.

In the spring of eighteen forty nine, Richard Wagner was Royal Kapellmeister to the King of Saxony, and one of the most prominent musicians in Dresden. He was also, increasingly, a revolutionary. He had written inflammatory articles, and fallen in with radicals such as the editor August Roeckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.

In May, when the King dissolved parliament and rejected a new constitution, Dresden rose. For several days there was fighting in the streets. Wagner was in the thick of it, writing, organising, and keeping watch from a church tower. The old baroque opera house beside the Zwinger went up in flames. Then Saxon and Prussian troops arrived, and the rising was crushed.

Wagner got out of the city as it fell. By the thirteenth of May he was in Weimar, with Franz Liszt, where he watched Liszt rehearse his Tannhauser. Years later he would write that on the very day his danger became certain, he heard his own music conducted by Liszt, and recognised in him a second self.

On the sixteenth of May, the Dresden police issued a warrant for his arrest. Liszt had no doubt that his friend must leave Germany at once. Wagner hid for a few days on a farm outside Weimar, then made his way to Jena, where Liszt saw him for the last time. There, two professors took charge of him. One was Oskar Wolff, a professor of literature. The other, a Professor Widmann, gave Wagner his own passport. It had been issued in Tuebingen, and it was out of date.

So Wagner crossed Germany by mail coach, as Professor Widmann. At the gates of Lindau, on the shore of Lake Constance, the passengers were asked for their papers. Wagner, by his own account, had his head full of the Swabian dialect of the man he was pretending to be. The passport was taken away, and returned the next morning. On the twenty eighth of May he crossed the lake by steamer to Rorschach, and stood on Swiss soil.

The first letter was written the next day, from Zurich. It is not to Liszt, but to Professor Wolff in Jena, and much of it is about Liszt.

The first letter. To Professor Wolff.

Zurich, May, eighteen forty nine.

Dearest friend,

It was impossible for me to write to you from Rorschach, where I arrived only yesterday, and to return your passport. Half an hour after the arrival of the steamer the express coach started for Zurich; and I felt bound to take advantage of it, as I had made up my mind to cut this journey as short as possible by avoiding unnecessary delay. Unfortunately I got on but slowly. From Coburg I could not start for Lichtenfels till early on Saturday, but fortunately I got through everywhere without notice, at Lindau only, where I arrived at midnight, they asked for my passport at the gate. The next morning I received it back without difficulty, but unfortunately it had on it a visa for Switzerland, adorned with which I am compelled to return it to Doctor Widmann. I hope that his political experience will understand this addition to his passport.

Luckily then I am in Switzerland. To your counsel and your active aid, dear friends, I owe my safety. The four days' journey in a frightful heat had, however, brought my blood to such a state of excitement, that I found it impossible to go on without risking a stroke of apoplexy. Moreover, I hope to employ my stay at Zurich in obtaining a passport for France. One of my early friends has been residing here for a long time; today I expect him back from a pleasure trip, and I hope he will do what is necessary to save me the long detour by Geneva.

To my wife I write at length, and my request to you to communicate this news to my friends is therefore for the present limited to our Liszt. Greet my preserver and sovereign liege many thousand times, and assure him of my firm resolution to do all that is in my power to please him. The journey has freshened and roused my artistic courage, and I have quite made up my mind as to what I have to accomplish in Paris. I do not think much of fate, but I feel that my late adventures have thrown me into a path where I must do the most important and significant things which my nature can produce. Even four weeks ago I had no idea of that which now I recognise to be my highest task; my deep-rooted friendship for Liszt supplies me with strength from within and without to perform that task; it is to be our common work. More of this soon!

Liszt will shortly receive a parcel of scores, and so on, from my wife; let him open it. The score of Lohengrin I want him to try at some leisure; it is my last and ripest work. As yet I have not shown it to any artist, and therefore have not been able to learn from any one what impression it produces. How curious I am to hear Liszt about it! As soon as he has finished looking through it, I want him to forward it at once to Paris, along with the other scores and books of words. Perhaps some acquaintance going to Paris will take them. The copy of the score of the Flying Dutchman is meant for the Weimar theatre; this and the book of words let Liszt therefore take from the parcel and keep back.

That wonderful man must also look after my poor wife. I am particularly anxious to get her out of Saxony, and especially out of that damned Dresden. Therefore I have hit upon the idea of finding for her and her family a modest but cheerful refuge somewhere in the Weimar territory, perhaps on one of the grand-ducal estates, where, with the remainder of what is saved of our goods and chattels, she might prepare a new home for herself, and perhaps for me also, in the future. May my friend succeed in this!

Thanks, cordial thanks, to you for the great kindness you have shown to me! My memorials of it are so numerous that I cannot put my hand in my pocket without being reminded of the thoughtfulness and sympathy of friend Wolff. May my future be your reward!

Cordial greetings to Doctor Widmann, as whose double I have acted for four days; I return him to himself in his integrity, which I hope will not a little conduce to his perfect well-being. Best thanks to him!

And thanks, thanks also, to your dear wife and mother! The blessings of one saved are with them. Farewell, dear friend!

You will soon hear more from your

Richard Wagner.

Wagner did not stay long in Zurich. With a proper Swiss passport, he went on to Paris, as Liszt had urged him to, to try his fortune at the Opera. Liszt's secretary, Belloni, was there to guide him. But Paris crushed him. Within a week he was writing to Liszt that he felt like a calf bleating for its stall, that his money was running out, and that he had heard nothing from his wife, Minna, who had stayed behind in Dresden.

Then he made a request. He asked Liszt to approach the Grand Duchess of Weimar, and perhaps the Duke of Coburg and the Princess of Prussia, for a small yearly salary of three hundred thalers, in return for his operas, so that he could live quietly and work.

The next day a letter came at last from Minna. It was full of the things being said about him in Dresden. And Wagner sat down, in a village outside Paris, and wrote to Liszt again. He had remembered, rather late, that he was asking royalty to support a man who had just tried to overthrow it.

The second letter. To Liszt.

Rueil, June nineteenth, eighteen forty nine.

Dear friend,

Excuse me for applying to you again so soon. At last I received a letter from my wife, and many pangs of conscience were again roused by it. More than all, it lies heavy on my heart today that I have asked you to intercede with several royal personages for a salary for me. I had forgotten, to say nothing of my immediate past, that my sufficiently public participation in the Dresden rising has placed me towards those royal personages in a position which must make them think of me as one opposed to them on principle, and this perhaps will make it appear strange that now, when the collapse of that rising has reduced me to poverty, I turn for help to them of all others. My position is all the more painful because I can take no steps to free myself from the suspicion of such sentiments without incurring the worse suspicion of meanness and cowardice. You personally I may assure that the feeling manifested by my undisguised sympathy with the Dresden rising was very far from the ridiculously fanatical notion that every prince is an object of active hatred. If I concurred in this strange fanaticism, I should naturally have had scruples in approaching the Grand Duchess at Weimar with perfect openness. Before you, I trust, I need not defend myself; you know the bitter source of my discontent, which sprang from the condition of my beloved art, which I nourished with passion, and which finally I transferred to every other field, the connection of which with the ground of my deep dissatisfaction I had to acknowledge. From this feeling came the violent longing which finds its expression in the words, There must be a change; thus it cannot remain. That now, taught by the experience of my participation in that rising, I could never again mix myself up with a political catastrophe, I need not say; every reasonable person must know it. What rejoices me, and what I may safely affirm, is that in all my aims I have once more become entirely an artist. But this I cannot possibly tell the princes at the moment when I am about to claim their assistance. What would they think of me! A general and public declaration also would bring me nothing but disgrace. It would have to appear as an apology, and an apology in the only correct sense time and my life alone can tender, not a public declaration, which in the present threatening circumstances and in my helplessness must needs appear cowardly and low.

I am sure you will agree with my view of the matter, and I surmise that already you have found yourself in a very awkward position towards the Grand Duchess on my account. My wife, who still thinks it necessary to live on amongst the dregs of Dresden vulgarity, tells me a thousand unpleasant things which in the eyes of miserable creatures make me appear much more compromised by the revolution than I really am. This feeling towards me is probably spread far and wide, and therefore may have affected the Weimar court. I can well imagine that you think it at present inadvisable to raise your voice for me at a court which, with a natural prejudice, at first sight recognises in me only the political revolutionary, and forgets the artistic revolutionary whom at bottom it has learnt to love.

How far you will think it good to comply with my application of yesterday in such circumstances you will best decide for yourself. Is it possible that our princes nowadays should be magnanimous enough to exercise a beautiful, old privilege, unmoved by the currents of the time and without weighing conditions? Think this over; perhaps you have more confidence than I.

My wife suffers, and is embittered; for her I hope everything from time. I asked you yesterday to inquire of her as to the pecuniary aid she may need; I ask you today not to do so. Not now. If you will do me a kindness, send me a little money, so that I can get away, anywhere, perhaps after all to Zurich, to my old friend Mueller. I should like to be at rest, so as to write the scenario for Paris; I don't feel up to much just now. What should I do in London? I am good for nothing, except perhaps writing operas, and that I cannot do in London.

Best greetings to any one who will accept them from me; there will not be many. Farewell, dear, much-troubled friend. Could I but make you returns!

Your most faithful

Richard Wagner.

Liszt replied that of the two letters, he agreed rather more with the second. It would not be very diplomatic, he wrote, to knock at battered doors. Later, once Wagner had made his name, protectors would be easy to find. For now he should stay focused on Paris, and leave aside political commonplaces, socialist talk, and personal hatreds. And he sent three hundred francs, through Belloni, for the journey to Zurich.

So Wagner went back to Switzerland, to his old friend Alexander Mueller. But Dresden would not leave him alone. Rumours were reaching him about what he had done during the rising. And one charge in particular cut him to the bone: that he had been ungrateful to the King of Saxony, the man who had made him Royal Kapellmeister six years before.

The third letter. To Liszt.

Zurich, July ninth, eighteen forty nine.

Dear friend,

Thanks to your intercession, I have been able to fly to the friendly place from which I write to you today. I should trouble you unnecessarily were I to tell you all that latterly has passed through my heart; perhaps you will guess it. Belloni has taken care of me with the greatest kindness and consideration; there are, however, things in which no friend in the world can be of assistance. One thing more by way of explanation: during my journey through Switzerland and on my arrival in Paris, I met with some Saxon refugees in a position which induced me to assist them in your name. I shall not be tempted again.

I hope to find some rest and collectedness for the completion of my intended Paris work in the intimate intercourse with a dear friend who is also a friend of yours, Alexander Mueller. About Rienzi and the plans which you have commended to us regarding that opera, Belloni will give you details in so far as the purely practical part of the matter is concerned. He thinks it impossible, especially at first, to place it at the Grand Opera. I, as an artist and man, have not the heart for the reconstruction of that, to my taste, superannuated work, which, in consequence of its immoderate dimensions, I have had to remodel more than once. I have no longer the heart for it, and desire from all my soul soon to do something new instead. Besides, the erection of an operatic theatre in Paris is imminent where only foreign works are to be produced; that would be the place for Rienzi, especially if some one else would occupy himself with it. I want you to decide about this as soon as you have heard our reasons. I have settled everything with Gustave Vaez as regards the external part of our common enterprise. The work, which I shall now take in hand at once, will, I hope, soon open to him and to you my inner view of the matter. Heaven grant that in this also we may understand each other, or at least come to an understanding. Only from the one deep conviction which is the essence of my mental being can I draw inspiration and courage for my art, for only through this conviction can I love it; if this conviction were to separate me from my friends, I should bid farewell to art, and probably turn clodhopper.

By all accounts I am in fine repute with you! The other day, I hear, I was accused, together with another person, of having set fire to the old Dresden opera house. All right. My dear wife lives in the midst of this slough of civic excellence and magnanimity. One thing grieves me deeply; it wounds me to the very bone: I mean the reproach frequently made to me that I have been ungrateful to the King of Saxony. I am wholly made of sentiment, and could never understand, in the face of such a reproach, why I felt no pangs of conscience at this supposed ingratitude. I have at last asked myself whether the King of Saxony has committed a punishable wrong by conferring upon me undeserved favours, in which case I should certainly have owed him gratitude for his infringement of justice. Fortunately my consciousness acquits him of any such guilt. The payment of fifteen hundred thalers for my conducting, at his intendant's command, a certain number of bad operas every year, was indeed excessive; but this was to me no reason for gratitude, but rather for dissatisfaction with my appointment. That he paid me nothing for the best I could do does not oblige me to gratitude; that when he had an opportunity of helping me thoroughly he could not or dared not help me, but calmly discussed my dismissal with his intendant, quieted me as to the dependence of my position on any act of grace. Finally, I am conscious that, even if there had been cause for any particular gratitude towards the King of Saxony, I have not knowingly done anything ungrateful towards him; proof of this I should be able to furnish. Pardon, dear friend, this unpleasant deviation; unfortunately I am not yet again in that stage of creating which shuts out anything but the present and the future from my cognisance. My spirit still writhes too violently under the impression of a past which, alas, continues wholly to occupy my present. I am still bent on justification, and that I wish to address to no one but you.

As soon as I have anything ready I shall send it to you. For the present I must urgently ask you to forward me here at once the scores and other literary tools which my wife has sent to you. I want to get into some kind of swing again so that the bell may ring. Be good enough to give the parcel to a carrier to be forwarded here by express conveyance, care of Alexander Mueller, Zurich.

Mueller greets you most cordially. He will write to you soon to inform you of the success of Herr Eck, the instrument maker, whose company is doing very well.

Dear Liszt, do not cease to be my friend; have patience with me, and take me as I am. A thousand compliments to the Princess, and thank her in my name for the kind memory she has preserved of me; she may find it difficult to remain my friend.

Be healthy and happy, and let me soon hear some of your works, even as I promise you on my part. Farewell, and take my cordial thanks for your constancy and friendship.

Your

Richard Wagner.

By the autumn, with money Liszt had helped to raise, Minna joined him in Zurich, bringing what she could save of their household, including his grand piano. Zurich would be his home for the best part of nine years. There he wrote Art and Revolution and The Artwork of the Future, and began the work that would become The Ring.

The Paris opera never happened. Instead, the following spring, Wagner sent Liszt a short and urgent request: perform my Lohengrin. Liszt did, at Weimar, on the twenty eighth of August, eighteen fifty. Its composer was not there to hear it. He would not be allowed back into Saxony until eighteen sixty two.

Listen Now: “The Black Flag”: Wagner’s First Mention of Tristan and Isolde.

2026-10-23T01:48:54.778+01:00

This is the first of what we hope will be a series, eventually producing a full audiobook of the Wagner/Liszt letters. If it's of interest, or not, please let us know. We have uploaded using both local server tools and on Youtube. The video below should be without adverts - we cannot say the same of youtube. However, if you have any difficulty viewing the first, the youtube version should be available. Transcript below.

In December eighteen fifty four, Richard Wagner was living in exile in Zurich. He had fled Germany five years earlier, after taking part in the Dresden uprising of eighteen forty nine, which is why he calls this the tenth year of his Hegira, borrowing the word for the Prophet’s flight from Mecca.

That autumn, the poet Georg Herwegh had introduced him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Long ignored by the German universities, Schopenhauer had recently been championed in an English journal, the Westminster Review, by the critic John Oxenford. Wagner’s encounter with his thought would shape everything that followed.

The letter is written to Franz Liszt, his closest friend and greatest supporter, then music director at Weimar. Liszt had just published an essay on The Flying Dutchman, and was working on his own Faust Symphony. The Princess mentioned is Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, Liszt’s companion, and "M" is most likely her daughter, Marie. Raff is the composer Joachim Raff, Liszt’s assistant, and no uncritical admirer of Wagner.

Wagner was deep in composing The Ring. But here, for the first time, he names the work that would interrupt it: Tristan and Isolde. He imagined the Ring performed by eighteen fifty eight. In the event, Tristan would not reach the stage until eighteen sixty five, and the complete Ring not until eighteen seventy six.

And now, to the letter it self:

ZURICH, December sixteenth, eighteen fifty four.

DEAR FRANZ,

I begin to find out more and more that you are in reality a great philosopher, while I appear to myself a hare-brained fellow. Apart from slowly progressing with my music, I have of late occupied myself exclusively with a man who has come like a gift from heaven, although only a literary one, into my solitude. This is Arthur Schopenhauer, the greatest philosopher since Kant, whose thoughts, as he himself expresses it, he has thought out to the end. The German professors ignored him very prudently for forty years; but recently, to the disgrace of Germany, he has been discovered by an English critic. All the Hegels, etc., are charlatans by the side of him. His chief idea, the final negation of the desire of life, is terribly serious, but it shows the only salvation possible. To me of course that thought was not new, and it can indeed be conceived by no one in whom it did not pre-exist, but this philosopher was the first to place it clearly before me. If I think of the storm of my heart, the terrible tenacity with which, against my desire, it used to cling to the hope of life, and if even now I feel this hurricane within me, I have at least found a quietus which in wakeful nights helps me to sleep. This is the genuine, ardent longing for death, for absolute unconsciousness, total non-existence; freedom from all dreams is our only final salvation.

In this I have discovered a curious coincidence with your thoughts; and although you express them differently, being religious, I know that you mean exactly the same thing. How profound you are! In your article about the "Dutchman" you have struck me with the force of lightning. While I read Schopenhauer I was with you, only you did not know it. In this manner I ripen more and more. I only play with art to pass the time. In what manner I try to amuse myself you will see from the enclosed sheet.

For the sake of that most beautiful of my life-dreams, "Young Siegfried," I shall have to finish the "Nibelungen" pieces after all; the "Valkyrie" has taken so much out of me that I must indulge in this pleasure; I have got as far as the second half of the last act. The whole will not be finished till eighteen fifty six; and in eighteen fifty eight, the tenth year of my Hegira, the performance may take place, if at all. As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head "Tristan and Isolde," the simplest but most full-blooded musical conception; with the "black flag" which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die.

When you have had enough of "Rhinegold," send it to Chorusmaster Fischer at Dresden, instructing him in my name to give it to the copyist Wölfel, so that he may finish the copy which he has begun. Your cheering words about the "Rhinegold" were splendid, and it has really turned out well. I hope there will be enough counterpoint in it to please Raff. My anxiety as to this troubles me very much.

Is "M" ill? How can I do anything to help her? She should come in the summer to Seelisberg, on the lake of Lucerne. It is the dearest discovery I have made in Switzerland; up there all is so joyful, so beautiful, that I long to return, to die there.

There we must meet next summer; I mean to write "Young Siegfried" there, and you must assist me. Perhaps I shall assist you too. How full my heart is when I think of it! Many thanks to the Princess; at her desire, I send the enclosed autograph. Nothing about business! What do we care about such miserable things? When shall I see your symphonic poems, your "Faust"?

Farewell, my Franz.

Email And The Married Wagnerian Or What Domain?

2026-10-21T21:54:51.834+01:00

Email. Such a bother. Although, one suspects Wagner would have been a prolific user. Anyway, we've been having a little bother with ours. Have been locked out of our accounts for what seems like ages. Very annoying. We shan't name the provider. At least we won't unless they don't get their act together. We have, however, been doing some fancy DKIM stuff (whatever that might be) and changed providers. Being locked out as we are - bloody useless providers "security" app - we still can't get into our older emails. If you have posted to us and we have not replied that will be the reason why. We can, however, assure you that we will have no such difficulty in the future. Send and we shall reply. Well, unless you're an overly generous "prince
" trying to get your funds out of the country - but thank you for the offer and hope your troubles are quickly concluded.

Oh! On the subject of the internet, we finally bought www.thewagnerian.com. We retain www.the-wagnerian.com but if you are one of those people that mistypes without the "-" you will now land here and not whatever horrifying part of the internet you might have done.

Janice Dixon, soprano, 1956–2026

2026-10-10T22:02:50.073+01:00

A great artist. Will be greatly missed

Janice Dixon, the New York-born soprano, has died at 70, according to OperaWire. She spent twenty years as a soloist at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the German city that became her home for more than three decades.

Dixon made her career largely in Germany, working across a wide repertory. Her Wagner roles included Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, Elsa in Lohengrin, Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Eva in Die Meistersinger. She also sang the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Tosca and Desdemona in Otello.

Beyond Mannheim, she appeared at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Staatsoper Hannover, Saarländisches Staatstheater and Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, as well as the Israeli Opera and Opera Grand Rapids.

These are the theatres in which much of operatic life goes on: the regular seasons, the returning audiences, the singers who build a career through the repertory rather than a handful of international engagements. Dixon spent much of her working life in that world.

There was another side to her musical life, too. In Feudenheim, she gave a recital of Motown and soul classics with pianist Michael Sorg. A Brooklyn-born soprano known for Wagner, Strauss and Verdi, turning to music from a rather different tradition: it is an appealing reminder that a singer's interests need not stop at the edge of the operatic stage.

Take A Deep Dive Into Tony Palmer's "Wagner. Plus Watch Complete

2026-10-10T02:37:19.900+01:00

It seemed too easy, too lazy, to simply post a few words and then the video. This film is perhaps too important in the history of the Wagner—or what Alex Ross might call Wagnerism - to do that. So below we try and take a deeper dive, to provide links to excellent resources, books to investigate. We hope you find something of interest.

Wagner (1983): an introduction to the complete film

The film opens with an obituary, credited to the Dresden Zeitung for 14 February 1883. In the film's telling, it announces 'a heavy and altogether unexpected bereavement' to 'musicians of every race, country, and degree': the greatest of contemporary composers, Richard Wagner, 'the second husband of Cosima Liszt', dead in Venice. A man, it says, who occupied 'a loftier station than king or Kaiser, pope or president'; no monarch was ever more enthusiastically served; the most orthodox Catholic never believed in his pontiff more implicitly than the faithful believed in their new prophet. Note the billing. The husband is identified as his wife's second husband, and the wife as her father's daughter - either the most backhanded tribute a German newspaper ever printed or the first joke of Charles Wood's screenplay, and the film declines to resolve the question. It is a fitting overture. For the next seven hours and forty-six minutes, the film negotiates, at roughly this level of irony, what the man did to deserve that station, how he paid for it, and who paid for it with him.

The occasion was the centenary. Wagner died in Venice on 13 February 1883, and Palmer's film was made in 1982/3 to mark the hundred years, an independent British production financed by a London insurance company, co-produced with Hungarofilm and Magyar Televízió, and shot - per the Irish Examiner, ahead of a screening at the Cork Film Festival - over seven months in 200 locations across Europe, many of them the actual rooms where the events happened: Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, the Munich Residenz, and on location in Hungary, Switzerland, Siena, Venice, Vienna and Dublin. The Wagner Society of NSW, whose program notes are the fullest public account of the production, records a crew drawn from nineteen countries and the whole thing completed in under a year, with the active and continuous support of Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson, who let the cameras in. Vittorio Storaro, by then the cinematographer of Apocalypse Now and Reds, shot it with Nic Knowland. The music was specially recorded for the film under Georg Solti, more or less as a favour, and has never sounded better in a film about its own composer.

Palmer's own credentials are the ones you would expect of a man attempting this. The New York Times, watching the production in April 1982, counted 42 documentaries and seven shorter films in the previous eight years, from a director 'used to working fast'; he was already a two-time Prix Italia winner (a third came later), the man who had put Zappa on film in 200 Motels, chronicled a century of popular music in All You Need Is Love, and made portraits of Britten and Stravinsky, with Shostakovich's Testimony still ahead of him. David Chater in The Times put the line his reviews page lives on: 'No-one makes better films about musicians than Tony Palmer.' And the subject chose itself, in his own words: 'If you make films about composers, as I do, Wagner's life in the 19th century hangs over absolutely everything. You can't ignore him. At some point, I had to make a film about him.' What fascinated him, he says, is the scene history refuses to repeat: a man once wanted dead or alive for 500 Thalers, as he tells it, standing at the door of his own theatre in 1876 while the crowned heads of Europe came up the hill and shook him by the hand. 'That never happened to Shakespeare. It never happened to Mozart.'

Then there is the question of the title role, answered by casting the one actor who was already playing it in life. Palmer's casting rationale, delivered to Burton's face: 'Firstly, you're both called Richard; that's a good start. More importantly, you both had more women than it is sensible to have. You drank far too much. You're totally unreliable. You invent history. You have fantastic gift-of-the-gab, but in different ways you're both blessed with genius. What more reason do you want?' Burton laughed and wandered off. Palmer concedes the mistake of a 57-year-old playing the young Dresden scenes, but holds that from middle age on the performance is sensational, and that Burton - tired of being dismissed as an old drunk who had thrown his career away - saw the part as the chance to prove greatness on film at a colossal scale. He was dead by August 1984; only O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four lay ahead. Olivier, during the scenes they shared, muttered to Palmer that no other stage or screen actor could have done what he was doing in the part. Palmer himself, quoted in Melvyn Bragg's Burton biography: 'Even now - although there were criticisms - I can't think of anybody who could have brought it off better than he did.'

The screenplay is by Charles Wood, and if you know him only from The Knack (Cannes's Grand Prix, 1965) or The Charge of the Light Brigade, the pairing makes sense: a writer drawn to institutions that destroy the people inside them, working here at the scale of a whole century. He wrote Palmer's Puccini the following year and completed John Osborne's abandoned Purcell script for England, My England in 1995, and he died in February 2020. His method is documents, and the Wagner Society of NSW calls the result 'a miracle of historical compression and accuracy', which is an achievement given that Wagner himself, in their phrase, was an appalling fantasist and the truth often hard to ascertain. The film's evidence is Cosima's diaries, written on screen by Vanessa Redgrave: the marriage entry for 25 August 1870 - 'how shall I put it? This day at 8 o'clock we were married' - and the Sedan telegram dispatched as 'What a christening present for Fidi.'

Burton's Wagner is also the funniest thing in the film. Wood's running gag is that Wagner converts grievance into material: told to a circle of cronies, the story of his audience with King Friedrich August II of Saxony ends with the march he played for the royal ulcerated tooth - 'and it wasn't wasted though. Later used it all in Tannhäuser.' A row with his publisher, over Tannhäuser copies pulled from the shop window and replaced by Meyerbeer, gives him the line 'Meyerbeer is a master. He sells copy on copy', delivered with the sarcasm of a man whose infamous essay on the subject was still ahead of him. Elsewhere he computes the injury arithmetically: Meyerbeer's royalties of 750,000 marks for one opera against his own 900 for the entire rights to Lohengrin. In Paris, the Jockey Club scene stages the 1861 fiasco with comic precision - 'the ballet is always placed in the second act in order that the gentlemen of the town might see it' - and Wagner's reply, 'if these gentlemen only wish to see a second act, I shall make that the best act', is the character in one line: the man who answers a commercial objection with a threat of uncompromised genius. And when the three ministers of Ludwig II's court conclude that 'he earns more than the three of us put together', the line lands with a charge its author must have counted on, because the ministers are played by Gielgud, Olivier and Richardson.

The casting carries argument throughout. Gwyneth Jones, whose Brünnhilde defined the Boulez-Chéreau centenary Ring, plays Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, wife of the first Tristan, with the tenor Peter Hofmann - Bayreuth's Parsifal of the late seventies - as her husband, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and Wagner tenor Jess Thomas as Albert Niemann: the actual Wagner theatre cast as the historical Wagner theatre. William Walton plays the King of Saxony opposite his own wife as the Queen, which is what happens when Palmer has just spent two films with you. Ekkehard Schall, Brecht's son-in-law, is Liszt. László Gálffi's King Ludwig II identifies, correctly, with the swan knight - 'come to me every day, every day forever... for I am he, Lohengrin' - and the Hungarian cast supplies Bakunin, on hand in Dresden for the May Uprising.

What distinguishes the film from every other composer biopic is that it does not flinch from the ugliest material, or treat it as a footnote. The antisemitism is staged as integral: the Dresden speeches, incitement delivered through the Sermon on the Mount until the crowd chants 'cut it off'; the late monologue - 'I finished with Bismarck when he actually gave German Jews equal citizenship with the rest of us', Levi 'should have been baptized', 'three Jews working on Parsifal'; even the letter to Nietzsche's physician, advising vegetables and cold-water plunges for headaches the composer had diagnosed as rooted lower down. And against all that, Wood gives Nietzsche (a wonderful Ronald Pickup, by the Examiner's account) the film's thesis, a warning that reaches past 1883 to the century to come: 'You know what this age, brought about by war and the yearnings of power, is in the market for? Music, war, death, ecstasy, torment, bangs and crashes, floods and conflagrations... Such a soup will feed criminals as well as genius. You're dangerous. You're a dangerous man, Wagner. You talk of gods, but you know there is no God but Wagner, yet you have the power to convince fools they might become gods." Most biopics end where their subject ends. This one is aimed at what came after. And for which Wagner is still blamed, but then, the mind often seeks a single target, whether one man or a group - to cover for a mass psychosis or a well-trodden path of manipulated prejudice.

The ending, then, does not comfort. Ludwig walks into the lake, 'arms up, drowning, seeking redemption', three years on. The narrator observes that 'Cosima held the dead body of Wagner for 25 hours, so I am told, but herself lived on for another 47 years' - the arithmetic exact, she died in 1930 - 'while the theatre, the temple on the hill outside Bayreuth like that other hill outside that other city so long ago. A temporary structure still temporary, still there.' A fair account of a theatre built for one festival that never stopped. The film's last word is 'forever'.

The versions are their own small saga, and worth knowing before you press play. Palmer's original cut ran 7 hours 46 minutes; television wanted something shorter, and a five-hour edit appeared in which whole characters quietly evaporated; the film was then broadcast in ten episodes between 3 October and 11 December 1983, clocking almost nine hours, with the structural oddity that only the first episode carries opening credits and only the tenth closing credits. America got a truncated version just over four hours, padded with narration to fill the narrative holes, on PBS in 1986; the New York Times called it 'pretentious kitsch' and a 'colossal disaster', which tells you what happens to this film when the film is no longer in it. In 2011 the full original was restored across three DVDs in widescreen, Limelight interviewing Palmer for the occasion, and what is posted on the Tony Palmer Collection channel - and found below - is that full-length original - the version with the characters in it. A.C.H. Smith novelised Wood's screenplay; the translations appeared in Germany and Italy, where the film was serialised on television, but the book went unpublished in English for thirty years, until 2012. Smith recalls Wood's advice on the way in: 'Take outrageous liberties. I did.' Below you can find an excerpt.

As for reception, the European press was rapturous. Opera News placed it alongside Gandhi, Reds and Gance's Napoléon and called it one of the most beautifully photographed motion pictures in history. Die Welt found 'an absolute bulls-eye' bound for 'a triumphant procession around the world'; Der Spiegel, a monumental film; the Sunday Times, 'a British Film of glory'; the Guardian's Edward Greenfield declared Burton 'the very embodiment of Wagner'. The Los Angeles Times, per Palmer's own biography, called it one of the most beautiful films ever made. The New York Times took the opposite view of a different cut. Both reactions are on record, and it says something about the film that neither seems entirely mad.

The Ring asks four evenings of its devotees. At seven hours and forty-six minutes, Palmer and Wood's film is the cheaper habit, and it has more jokes, which Wagner would have taken badly. The Cork festival once ran the whole thing in a single morning with two intervals; you can spread it over evenings instead, which is roughly the tempo the tetralogy taught us anyway. Nobody has made that film again, for the obvious reason that nobody else could get Burton, Solti, Storaro and the Wagner family into the same room.

Further reading

Limelight, July 2011 - "Palmer talks Wagner"
Melvyn Bragg, Rich! The Life of Richard Burton, p. 464
John C. Tibbetts, All My Loving? The Films of Tony Palmer
A.C.H. Smith, Wagner - the novelisation, English edition 2012

Around the web

Palmer's own site - the filmography of a man who has filmed more musicians than anyone alive, and the reviews page where the press clippings live
The DVD shop - the 2011 restoration, and the six-disc box set that adds Domingo's Parsifal, The Wagner Family and the 1913 silent biopic, with its original Giuseppe Becce score
A.C.H. Smith's page - buy the novelisation from the author himself, a tenner plus post, and read his account of Wood's editorial advice
The Wagner Society of NSW program notes - still the fullest public account of the production, and the source for Solti conducting "more or less as a favour"
The Irish Examiner - Palmer on the casting, the Olivier anecdote, and why Burton took it
The New York Times, 1986 - the PBS hatchet job, "pretentious kitsch", kept here for balance and because even its rage describes the film accurately: there is nothing else like it on American television

Excerpt from Wagner The Novel: A. C. Smith
Wagner was listening with pleasure to the Dante Symphony, but on the farther side of the piano Minna was unable to concentrate on the music. She was preoccupied with Karl Ritter, who had sat next to her throughout the recital glaring with unrelenting hatred at the pianist. He had made no secret of his grievances. 'My dear Frau Wagner,' he murmured to her, 'I will demand and receive an apology from that man.'
'Karl,' Minna whispered, 'you must not act so. Liszt is the mildest, the gentlest of men. He would not dream of insulting you. You must have been mistaken.'
Karl was not to be deflected. 'I was not mistaken. He called me a baboon. I have communicated the dreadful humiliation to my mother. Baboon face...' Karl snarled quietly.
The Dante Symphony was nearing its end. Anxious to prevent a scene, Minna tried another tack. 'Karl, surely - a moment of ill humour, it isn't as important as all that, surely not?'
'It is,' Karl answered, suddenly having to shout above the applause. 'It is, it is!'
Wagner had risen from his chair, clapping warmly, and was coming across to speak to Minna.
'It is,' Karl insisted, 'Frau Wagner, I am about to marry. I cannot be treated in such a way.'
'Marry?' Wagner asked in surprise, having overheard Karl's shout. 'Are you absolutely convinced that that would be wise, Ritter?'
Karl gasped, 'Ohhh!', and stormed away to the far side of the ballroom, his jaw quivering.
Mathilde had addressed the gathering, with the announcement that by telegraph from Weimar a poem had been received. It had been written in honour of Liszt's birthday, and would be read to them now by one of Zürich's own foremost poets, Georg Herwegh. While the latter's natural baritone modulated unsurely into a poetry-reading tenor, Minna was whispering urgently to her husband. 'Karl is really most upset, Richard.'
'Is he?' Wagner was not listening to Minna, nor to the poem. He was looking at Mathilde Wesendonck, who had just spoken so charmingly to them all.
'It's most unfortunate, most,' Minna was whispering. 'You see, when he was a boy - he explained this to me - he was teased mercilessly about his appearance, and the most wounding taunt of all used to be "baboon face."'
'Did it?' Wagner was still not listening.
'So you can see why Liszt has...'
Minna was cut short by another burst of applause, for the end of the poem. Wagner led the clapping, beaming as he did so at Mathilde, and at Otto beside her, whom he caught stifling a yawn. A buxom, golden-haired soprano, Frau Heim, was standing beside Liszt at the piano, with a manuscript in her hand. The fond look on her face was for Wagner, who was to join her in a recital performance of a passage he had recently sketched for the Valkyrie. As he turned to join Frau Heim, Wagner muttered to Minna, 'The young fool isn't going to mount an exhibition of his foolishness, is he?'
Minna shrugged, with dismay. How was she to know? Also, she would have liked to say under different circumstances, she had noticed the fluttering eyelashes that Frau Heim directed at her husband, but whether their welcome was more than musical, how was she to know?
To turn his music for him, Liszt had Hans von Bülow at his side. Wagner had the greatest confidence in Bülow; not only was he a protégé of Liszt, and affianced to Liszt's daughter Cosima, but the fine young fellow had made himself a virtual outcast from the musical world of Berlin through his passionate championing of Wagner's music. Again and again, in articles entitled, 'Art and Revolution' or 'The Art-Work of the Future', he had assailed with unhoneyed words the aunties, the dotard critics, whose delusion it was that Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn had ever written a note worth hearing. He had arrived in Zürich with the news that the battle was raging ever hotter. Wagner had a warm pat on the shoulder for Bülow as Liszt led them into the Valkyrie.
While he sings, knowing it so well, Wagner has time to keep an eye on the audience. He notes Wesendonck stifling another yawn, thereby attracting a cross glance from his wife Mathilde, and rallying his attention to look up at the performers, where he meets Wagner's basilisk eye, and confusedly lowers his gaze again. Near the Wesendoncks are an older couple, also patrons of the arts, but who seem to have no difficulty in listening to the art they patronize: Doctor Wille, whose views on politics are as pugnacious as his scarred face testifies his private life has been, and Frau Wille, irredeemably plain, but an intelligent and cultivated hostess of the salon. She is a particular friend of the striking figure leaning on the end of the piano and smoking a cheroot, the Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, thin and thirtyish, Liszt's mistress but not to be his wife unless the Vatican grants the Prince a dissolution. People have remarked that the Prince, having been married to Princess Carolyne, is no stranger to dissolution already, but people will always make remarks of that sort at the sight of a blue stocking. With an encouraging glance at Frau Heim, in her aureole of golden hair, Wagner sounds the Motive of Renunciation, Zum letzten Mal letz' as mich heut mit des Lebewohles letzteng Kuss, and notes Mathilde's rapt expression, and also Karl Ritter edging toward the piano, where Liszt has the look on his face of a man who would by now be playing with his eyes closed in ecstasy had he performed this music just once before in his life.
The moment they finished there was a burst of applause and bravos. Karl had seen his chance, but the most admirable Bülow had seen Karl even more quickly, had intercepted his lurching grievance, and was firmly leading Karl away. Wagner, under congratulations from Doctor and Frau Wille, had beady eyes. He was watching the idiot Ritter, who appeared to be safe for the moment in Bülow's hands, and he was watching Mathilde, whose opinion would be relishable. She, slowly followed by Wesendonck, had engaged Liszt and the Princess Carolyne in an earnest conversation, from which she hoped to draw cultural sustenance more substantial and worldly than the common fare in Zürich.
'Heine?' She picked a name, hoping that Liszt, with his urbanity, would make her a meal of it.
But Liszt, who had had a tiring day, looked along his fine nose at Mathilde, and merely repeated, 'Heine?'
Mathilde had to explain herself. 'Has the poet Heine, the great German poet Heinrich Heine...'
'Madam,' Liszt began politely, 'I am aware...'
'Heine?' Princess Carolyne exclaimed.
'Heine,' Mathilde persevered, knowing that she would not forgive herself if she let this opportunity slip for want of a predicate, 'has Heine been of any influence in Herr Wagner's...'
'Wagner?' Princess Carolyne shrieked at the stupidity of this woman. 'It is the birthday of Liszt!' She snorted and sucked at her cheroot. 'Heine... Wagner...'
Wishing to extricate the poor creature, of a type he had suffered after thousands of recitals, Liszt made use of consummate mendacity. 'I have the highest regard for the poet...'
Princess Carolyne puffed smoke. 'We think very little of the poet Heine.' Why should she bother to explain to this pretentious housewife that the poet Heine in his guise of musical critic had practised upon Liszt a version of simony, showing him the manuscript of a spiteful review and, upon receiving no bribe, increasing its spite for publication?
Over her lovely shoulder, Mathilde cast an agonised look at her husband. He wisely refused to be drawn into the circle of hell she had made for herself. He stroked his beard, and pretended to be interested in the piano.
Wagner had decided that he must urgently settle Ritter's hash. Crossing the crowded room, accepting homage piecemeal, he reached the epicene booby. 'Karl, you must not make a scene. Look, I will undertake to speak to Liszt and make your feelings known to him. I'm sure he will wish to express his regret for them, in his own way, by letter perhaps, mmm?'
Karl was primed. 'I shall demand an apology now. If he refuses, you will not get another pfennig from my mother.'
Wagner put his hand on Karl's shoulder, and looked at him painedly. 'Wait,' he said. He crossed the floor again, to where Mathilde was still struggling to make a conversation with Liszt and the Princess. The great pianist's nostrils were quivering. 'Why do you keep on about Heine?' he complained. 'I don't want to talk about Heine.'
'But surely,' Mathilde plunged on, 'his name will be inscribed in the temple of immortality?'
'I suppose it will be,' Liszt snickered, 'in mud.'
Bowing to Liszt and the inevitable, Mathilde left, followed by Wesendonck. Wagner watched her go, then drew Liszt aside to whisper in his ear. Princess Carolyne also inclined her head to hear what Wagner had to say. She was not in favour of secrets.
Karl, slowly approaching, watched the scene with satisfaction. Minna, too, sighed with relief when she saw Liszt nod, and Wagner look up and beckon Karl.
As Karl drew near, Princess Carolyne shook her head in puzzlement. 'Are we not making too much of it?'’ she asked Liszt quite loudly. 'After all, the boy does look very like a baboon, does he not?'
Karl turned away, with a twitching face, and hastened to leave the ballroom. At the door, a footman handed him a commemorative medallion with a portrait of Liszt on it.

All Aboard the Rheingold: A Christmas Train to Meistersinger Country

2026-10-09T23:37:08.768+01:00

Less of a tenuous link than it might at first appear, our young web designer - Claude - adds a little more Wagner to this Rhingold.

If you are anywhere near the north of Germany on 5 December, and fancy reaching a Christmas market the way some of us remember doing it - in a heated first-class compartment, with a dining car and a locomotive that was once the future - then the railway enthusiasts of Rendsburg and Nordwestmecklenburg have something for you.

Their special train leaves Kiel at around 7am and runs via Neumünster, Elmshorn, Hamburg, Lüneburg, Uelzen and Hannover down to Nuremberg’s Christkindlesmarkt, in former InterCity coaches and, the real attraction, restored Rheingold carriages in full 1960s style. Pulling it is a Class 120, the first series-built three-phase electric locomotive in the world and, we are told, an ancestor of the ICE. The organisers note that the only thing missing from the authentic sixties experience is the fog of chain-smoking businessmen, which we suspect few will miss.

Why mention it here, beyond the name? Look at where it stops. Passengers can get off at Würzburg, where in 1833 a twenty-year-old Wagner took his first professional job, as chorus master at the theatre, and wrote most of his first finished opera, Die Feen. Stay on and you arrive in Nuremberg, home of Hans Sachs and the setting of Die Meistersinger, Wagner’s only comedy - though as anyone who has sat through the final scene will tell you, perhaps go easy on the mulled wine before the lecture on holy German art.

So: a train called Rheingold, running from where Wagner’s career began to the setting of his only comic opera, at Christmas. We doubt the organisers planned it. We are delighted anyway.

Tickets start at €55, with around five hours in Nuremberg or seven in Würzburg, and the proceeds go towards restoring more historic vehicles. Details and booking are at the Eisenbahnfreunde Nordwestmecklenburg.

All the gold, none of the curse.

The London Opera Company returns to Tristan, October 18th

2026-10-09T22:15:08.655+01:00

A company that started in pandemic lockdown - formed in summer 2020 to give work back to musicians who had lost everything - is now confident enough to tackle the full orchestral version of Tristan und Isolde - for the second time. That is a considerable leap of faith, and the fact that they are making it suggests they know what they are doing.

The London Opera Company gave their first concert in October 2020, a chamber version of Tristan at The Warehouse. Opera magazine called it "an accomplished and moving company debut" and noted that the ensemble work was "considerably more than the sum of its parts". Since then they have worked through the Ring - Die Walküre in 2023, Siegfried in 2024, Götterdämmerung last year - building toward this October 18th performance at Sinfonia Smith Square with a full orchestra. Peter Selwyn conducts, and the cast will be announced soon. This is a not-for-profit operation running on affordable tickets, which means they are doing this because they believe in it, not because the spreadsheet told them to. The musicians are a mix of professionals and talented semi-professionals from London's music colleges - the kind of setup that either works beautifully or falls apart entirely, and judging by what Opera magazine heard in 2020, and what the reviews say about their 2022 Tristan performance (a 70-piece orchestra at Smith Square that drew particular praise for Act Two) - which can be heard in the video below), they have learned how to make it work. If you have sat through enough concert performances of Wagner to know the difference between one that merely gets through it and one that actually finds the thing, you will want to hear what they do with this one. More Information can be had by clicking HERE

15 Years and Now They Change it?

2026-10-09T15:51:23.353+01:00

Where does the time go? Space maybe? Anyway, finally we updated things. A new look, over halfway through a new decade. Well, at least you can't accuse us of being "flighty."
We have beta tested a bit, but we may have missed something - the beta test was on an old version of the site. So there may be oddities over here. Anyway, if you see anything odd, or hate it, reach out on social media. We always enjoy chatting.

Ed: We are still making tweaks so things may change a little over the next few days

But the new site needs a little new Wagner and a little old:

Something New?

2026-10-05T21:50:18.408+01:00

You may have noticed the minor revamp around here. That is minor if you're viewing this on one of those old-fashioned things. You know? They were popular once. Oh yes, computers! What ever happened to those? Before everyone developed really good eyesight and decided they could view the whole of life in their phones? Anyway if you're viewing this on your phone then the changes are bigger. We hope you like. If not, let us know on social media. We will see what we can do. Oh, and keep an eye out. More changes to come.

New Ring Cycle Guide From Apple Music Classical

2026-10-05T21:39:15.584+01:00

We have sat through enough Ring cycles to know that the choice of recording is half the battle, and in this case Apple Music Classical has done the choosing for us by building their time-synchronised Listening Guide entirely around Sir Georg Solti's Decca recording - the commentary is written for that specific object, and the real-time text tracks the music exactly as it plays. Now, we are not walking around claiming Solti is the definitive cycle - he is weak on line and big on moments - all drama, when it interests him, less so when it doesn't (Ed: in our opinion, surely?) - but for a listener who wants to see how the machinery works, it is a fine place to start, a good beginner's Ring that lets you hear the leitmotifs without getting lost in the architecture. And it has a fine cast and orchestra. Whether one always needs some of Culshaw's now somewhat dated production techniques is another matter. Plus it keeps winning our Best Ring recording of all time award so it has a lot of admirers.

Apple Music Classical has released this guide to mark the 150th anniversary of the premiere, offering forty-five thousand words of written commentary that appears in real time across all fifteen hours of the four operas. It is available in six languages, which is handy if you are listening with friends who do not speak German, and the material goes beyond just the score, touching on the mythology and the cultural influence of the work, but the real utility is in the moment-by-moment text that helps you hear what is actually happening in the music.

There is a dedicated Ring destination on the app, with playlists organised by themes like Power & Greed and Fate & Foreboding, and next month they are adding an artist-curated commentary playlist featuring Lise Davidsen, Sir Antonio Pappano, Tom Holland, and Dominic Sandbrook.

Sofia Up For An "Opera Oscar", Plus The Meistersinger Puccini Cut

2026-10-04T10:46:13.848+01:00

The Sofia Opera’s Wagner Festival has been nominated for the International Opera Awards, a distinction the house seems to have earned through sheer volume and a certain stubborn commitment to the heavy stuff. The ceremony is on 21 November at the Theater an der Wien. The competition is not light - you are up against the Bregenz Festival, which floats its opera on the world’s largest stage, and the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona. But Sofia is only the second Eastern European festival to make this cut, following the Smetana festival in Ostrava back in 2024.

The festival has been building this reputation since 2013, when they staged the full *Ring* cycle. Since then, they have added *Tristan*, *Parsifal*, the *Flying Dutchman*, *Lohengrin*, and *Tannhäuser* to the list. The next piece of the puzzle is *Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg*, set for 28 May 2027. This will complete the so-called Bayreuth canon - the ten mature works.

But here is the bit that made us sit up: it is not the version we know. Director Plamen Kartaloff is staging an adaptation made for La Scala in 1889, cut by about an hour and a half to make it more manageable for Italian audiences. It has not been performed anywhere since its premiere. The commission came from Giulio Ricordi, who had just bought the rights to Wagner’s works. He sent a young, unproven composer to Bayreuth to oversee the preparation. That composer was Giacomo Puccini, aged 31. It was his first significant professional commission. If you are tracking the lineage of Italian opera, this is where the thread starts pulling tight.

Kurt Rydl, a Kammersänger and honorary member of the Vienna State Opera, will work with the soloists on the production. It is a good sign.

The rest of the 135th season is equally ambitious. It opens on 1 October with a concert performance of *Carmina Burana* conducted by Daniel Oren. On 27 November, we get a premiere of Handel’s *Agrippina*, a collaboration with the Handel Festival in Halle conducted by Constantin Trinks. In March 2027, the house returns to Donizetti’s *La fille du régiment*, a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s historic Palermo production directed by Marco Gandini. The role of Tonio - the one with the nine high Cs - goes to Venezuelan tenor Reinaldo Droz, a student of Raina Kabaivanska.

The ballet company, under Marta Petkova, kicks things off with a gala in Stara Zagora, followed by *Romeo and Juliet* on 8, 10, and 11 October. Petkova dances Juliet on the 11th. Their next premiere, *Three Faces*, lands in March 2027, featuring work by Balanchine, Jiří Kylián, and Garrett Smith. It is the first time Kylián’s work has been seen in Bulgaria, and the production marks his 80th birthday. Petkova calls him "the greatest living choreographer today." We are not going to argue with her.

More about Sofia Opera and the festival can be found by clicking here

The 2026 Opus Klassik Awards: Kaufmann Brings Wagnerian Heft to Schubert

2026-06-24T16:16:43.906+01:00

By Charles P Arden

24 June 2026

The Opus Klassik jury has once again descended from the mountain to deliver its annual verdicts on the state of the recording industry. The 2026 roster of winners, announced yesterday, offers the usual smorgasbord of the predictable and the genuinely deserving. Yet, for those of us tracking the broader currents of dramatic voice, there is one name that immediately eclipses the rest of the ledger: Jonas Kaufmann.

For obvious reasons, our critical gaze naturally gravitates towards the pre-eminent Heldentenor of his generation. While there are no Wagner recordings taking the laurels in the vocal categories this year, Kaufmann has nonetheless secured the award for Audiovisual Music Production of the Year. He does so not with a sword in hand as Siegmund, nor in the brooding contemplation of Parsifal, but alongside pianist Helmut Deutsch in Claus Guth’s startling, theatrical staging of Schubert’s Schwanengesang, titled Doppelgänger.

Recorded during its run at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, Doppelgänger places Schubert’s final, harrowing lieder within the bleak expanse of a First World War triage ward. It is a premise that risks buckling under its own conceptual weight, yet Kaufmann anchors it with the same dramatic intensity and darkened vocal colours he routinely deploys in Bayreuth. To see a tenor so intrinsically linked to the immense architecture of Wagnerian drama scale down—or perhaps, scale in—to the psychological terror of Schubert’s final songs is a testament to his sheer stagecraft. The Opus Klassik jury, rightly for once, recognised the theatrical audacity of this release.

Elsewhere in the vocal categories, the awards paint a picture of an industry leaning heavily into established excellence whilst nodding to historically informed performance. The Opera Recording of the Year goes to a formidable assembly: Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres, and Maxime Emelyanychev leading Il Pomo d’Oro in Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas. It is a lean, fiercely intelligent reading that fully deserves its accolades.

In the recital and solo fields, Anna Lucia Richter claims Female Singer of the Year for Gustav Mahler – Songs of Fate, an album that confirms her highly successful migration to the mezzo-soprano repertoire, whilst Andrè Schuen takes Male Singer of the Year for his robust, elegantly phrased Mozart.

The Solo Recording (Singing) of the Year is split between two distinct temperaments. Christian Gerhaher, whose baritone remains one of the most meticulously deployed instruments in the world of lieder, takes the prize for his Brahms Songs. Alongside him, Katharina Konradi is recognised for Franz Liszt: Un Cycle Imaginaire, a delightfully curated exploration of Liszt’s francophone sensibilities.

The podium honours are no less notable. Andris Nelsons—despite the relentless churn of boardroom drama currently surrounding him in Boston—has been named Conductor of the Year for his Felix Mendelssohn: Symphonies & Oratorios cycle with the Gewandhausorchester. Meanwhile, the Young Talent of the Year awards have been judiciously handed to bass-baritone Marcel Brunner for Remembrance and soprano Shira Patchornik for Bella Furia.

It is a solid, if safe, year for the Opus Klassik. But for those of us who track the theatrical evolution of the modern dramatic tenor, Kaufmann’s triumph with Doppelgänger serves as a stark reminder: true dramatic intelligence does not always require a pit orchestra of a hundred and twenty. Sometimes, a piano, an empty hospital bed, and a voice steeped in shadows are more than enough.

Jonas Kaufmann: Emotional scene from Schubert's "Doppelgänger" This footage illustrates Claus Guth's stark, war-torn staging at the Park Avenue Armory, demonstrating exactly how Kaufmann translates his formidable operatic stage presence into the psychological terror of Schubert's lieder.

The Longborough Twilight: A Minimalist Triumph

2026-06-24T14:38:40.061+01:00

There is something inherently Wagnerian about the Longborough Festival Theatre. Tucked away in the Cotswolds, its converted-shed dimensions offer a rare, claustrophobic intimacy that larger houses simply cannot replicate. In this latest revival of Carmen Jakobi's Tristan und Isolde — first staged in 2015 and substantially reworked in 2017, the version revived here — we find the company returning to the very essence of its mission: stripping away the grand artifice to expose the raw, pulsating nerve of the drama.

Kimie Nakano's set design — a brutalist landscape of spare geometric blocks — remains as starkly effective as ever. It is a visual language of reduction. We are not here for sprawling set pieces; we are here for the psychological disintegration of the protagonists. The prow of the ship, the monolithic wall of King Marke's castle, and that final, granitic couch upon which Tristan meets his end are not merely settings; they are heavy, elemental weights pressing down upon the characters.

Jakobi's direction remains refreshingly disciplined. In an opera so frequently bogged down by its own conceptual weight, she wisely rejects extraneous business. The focus is maintained, with almost surgical precision, on the key exchanges. It is a bold choice, and one that pays dividends, forcing the audience to confront the text and the music without the distraction of directorial ego.

Central to this success is Peter Wedd's Tristan. Having inhabited the role in both the 2015 original and its 2017 revival, Wedd brings a lived-in intensity that feels entirely earned. He may lack the sheer vocal mass one expects in the cavernous auditoriums of the world's major opera houses, but he trades this for a forensic exploration of tonal colour. His third act is, quite frankly, a visceral tour de force — an unravelling that feels both terrifying and inevitable.

Opposite him, Catharine Woodward's Isolde is a more poised, perhaps even reserved, presence, though she remains tireless in her vocal delivery, particularly as she navigates that initial, icy thirst for revenge. She is bolstered by Catherine Carby's Brangäne, whose warm, grounded eloquence provides a necessary anchor against the stormy emotional seas of the protagonists. The tragedy is further dignified by Alastair Miles' King Marke. Miles avoids the temptation of playing Marke as a mere cipher of betrayed authority; instead, he offers a deeply human, nuanced portrayal, shaping every vowel with the sort of mournful, dignified care one rarely encounters.

Most significant, however, is the farewell of Anthony Negus as Music Director. Stepping down after more than two decades in the role — though happily not departing the company, since he takes up the newly created title of Conductor Laureate, in which capacity he will conduct next year's thirtieth-anniversary Die Meistersinger — he continues to demonstrate exactly why he is considered one of our finest living Wagnerians. Freshly appointed CBE in the King's Birthday Honours, he leads the orchestra with a firm, intelligent hand, imposing a cohesive, inevitable shape over the sprawling architecture of the score. It is a reading of clarity and deep structural understanding.

At Longborough, the noise of the world is successfully tuned out. What remains is the noise of the heart, stripped bare. It is a formidable end to a distinguished tenure as Music Director.

Performances & Booking

Tristan und Isolde

A revival of Longborough's 2017 production · 20 June – 18 July 2026

Sung in German with English surtitles

Thu 2 July3.00pm
Sun 5 July3.00pm
Thu 9 July3.00pm
Sun 12 July3.00pm
Sat 18 July · final performance3.00pm

Ticket prices

£230 · £210 · £185 · £160 · £125

£75 restricted view

Performances begin at 3.00pm; grounds open from 1.30pm, with a 90-minute dining interval between Acts II and III — picnic in the grounds or dinner at the on-site restaurant — ending around 9.00pm.

Book at Longborough →

500-seat theatre, near Moreton-in-Marsh. A Hedgehog shuttle runs from Moreton-in-Marsh station, departing 90 minutes before curtain.

A New Vorspiel: The Wagnerian Joins Substack

2025-08-06T13:58:00.003+01:00

A note to all our readers and fellow pilgrims on the Wagnerian journey: The Wagnerian is now on Substack.

You can find us here: thewagnerian.substack.com.

This is a new venture for us, and we are still finding our feet with the platform. For the time being, we will be primarily reposting articles from this site. However, over time, we may add more content to it.

The Substack platform is an excellent way for us to reach a broader audience of Wagner enthusiasts and for you to stay up-to-date with our latest articles if you prefer using the Substack app.

Please note that our Substack will always be free. We believe that access to the world of Wagner should be open to all, and we have no plans to introduce a paid subscription.

We hope you will join us there. Please subscribe for free if you use Substack. It’s an exciting new chapter for The Wagnerian, and we are glad to have you with us

Fred's Final Plea: Help Us Weave the Threads of Fate!

2025-08-06T02:40:00.004+01:00

Hello again, dear readers,

Well, it seems I’ve had a rather sobering observation to share. It's come to my attention that our presence over on Threads is feeling a tad… unspun. You see, while in the Ring Cycle, the Norns weave the magnificent thread of fate, our digital thread is currently looking a bit thin and unravelling. It’s a thread without weavers, and its silence is a tragedy of Wagnerian proportions.

We’ve set up our digital abode there, hoping to share some quick thoughts, fascinating tidbits, and maybe a few cheeky memes about the master himself, Richard Wagner. But alas, it’s a bit like Wotan’s spear: a symbol of great potential, but currently lacking its faithful wielder.

So, I’m calling on you, the esteemed and enlightened followers of all things Wagnerian. Come join us! Help us populate this new space with lively discussions and shared passion. Help us spin this thread into a rich and colourful tapestry of conversation.

Let's make that space as vibrant and essential as our love for the great man's work.

Yours in music,

Fred Oswald

Find Us On Threads Here

The Ring of the Nibelung in a New Frame: P. Craig Russell's Graphic Adaptation

2025-08-01T15:16:00.003+01:00

In the vast and ever-expanding universe of Wagnerian scholarship and reception, a curious and compelling phenomenon has emerged: the graphic novel. A recent article in the Open Library of Humanities examines P. Craig Russell's 2000-2001 adaptation of The Ring of the Nibelung, a work that courageously translates the epic grandeur of Wagner's sixteen-hour-long operatic cycle into a silent, visual medium. The authors, Michaela Weiss and Miroslav Urbanec, frame Russell’s work not merely as a retelling, but as a sophisticated artistic endeavour that bridges the seemingly disparate worlds of opera, comics, and fantasy culture.

Russell, an illustrator with a history of adapting operatic classics, tackles this formidable task with a clear vision: to create a "graphic mythic grandiosity" that can reproduce the operatic effect without sound. The adaptation, published by Dark Horse Comics and later collected into a two-volume paperback and a hardback, won two Eisner Awards in 2001 for Best Finite Series/Limited Series and Best Artist/Penciller/Inker Team.

The visual language of Russell's Ring is a fascinating tapestry of influences. He draws on the established illustrations of Wagner's characters by artists like Carl Emil Doepler and Arthur Rackham. Yet, he boldly fuses these with elements from American popular culture and fantasy, including Alan Lee's illustrations for Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The article notes, for instance, a visual affinity between Russell's Rhine maidens and Disney's Princess Ariel. Russell’s characters are given a striking realism by being modelled on actors, with the American comics artist Jill Thompson serving as the model for Brünnhilde.

A particularly sensitive aspect of the adaptation is the depiction of the Nibelung dwarves. The authors highlight the long-standing controversy surrounding characters like Alberich, whom critics like Theodor W. Adorno have interpreted as anti-Semitic caricatures. Russell, conscious of these connotations, makes a deliberate choice to visually depart from previous illustrations that perpetuated these stereotypes. His Alberich, for example, is presented not with a large nose or beard, but as a creature closer to Tolkien's Gollum, an image that reflects the corrupting power of the Ring.

The most intricate challenge, however, remains the translation of Wagner's music into a silent form. Russell masterfully addresses this through a variety of visual techniques. The article discusses how he uses linguistic and visual means, such as changes in lettering, font size, and speech balloon shapes, to convey the intensity and emotion of the vocal performances. More profoundly, Russell employs a system of "visual keys" or metaphors to represent Wagner's iconic leitmotivs. For example, the creation of the world from a single drop of water becomes a visual motif that echoes the musical opening of Das Rheingold. The brilliant colouring by Lovern Kindzierski also plays a crucial role, not only suggesting mood and tempo but also marking flashbacks and different thematic realms.

Ultimately, Russell's graphic adaptation is presented as a work that makes the sprawling epic of the Ring Cycle "attractive and accessible to wider audiences". By reinterpreting the material in a modern, visually dynamic format and stripping it of Wagner's controversial ideology, Russell’s work speaks to the enduring, timeless nature of the story's themes: the abuse of nature, the lust for power, and the devastating consequences of lovelessness. This adaptation, as the authors suggest, expands the reach of Wagner's magnum opus, inviting both seasoned opera lovers and newcomers alike to engage with this monumental work.

Read The Full Paper Here - Recommended

The Ring For Beginners 1a: Under The Surface. Beyond the Gold: Unearthing the Political, Philosophical, and Spiritual Foundations of Das Rheingold."

2025-07-31T22:00:00.003+01:00

For the novice approaching Wagner's monumental Ring cycle, Das Rheingold can appear as a magnificent and bewildering tapestry of gods, giants, and dwarves. The opera, a single-act prelude to the dramatic saga, functions as a powerful myth. Yet, to truly understand the Ring, one must recognise that it is a work steeped in the intellectual ferment of 19th-century Germany, a period defined by the profound and enduring legacy of Romanticism.

This movement, which championed emotion over Enlightenment reason and a return to nature and myth, forms the very intellectual soil from which Wagner's ideas grew. German Romanticism, a fierce reaction against the rigid rationalism of the preceding era, sought to reclaim a sense of primal wonder and spiritual unity in the face of an increasingly industrialised and materialistic world. It glorified the individual artist, the folk traditions of the past, and a deep, often mystical, connection to nature. This movement was shaped by thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who emphasized the corrupting influence of society on an inherently good humanity, and figures of German Romanticism like Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, who envisioned a new kind of art that could unify poetry, music, and drama—the very ideal of a Gesamtkunstwerk that would become Wagner's lifelong obsession. Wagner's decision to draw from ancient Norse and Germanic legends is, in itself, a quintessential Romantic gesture, a retreat into a pre-rational, heroic past to find a deeper truth for the present. The entire Ring cycle can be seen as the ultimate artistic expression of this Romantic longing—a grand synthesis of myth, music, and drama that aims to restore a lost spiritual unity. Beneath the surface of this fantastical tale lies a complex web of political, philosophical, and spiritual ideas. It is important to note that the Ring has been subject to a vast number of interpretations, and these are just some of the most prominent. This piece is for those who, having experienced the work, wish to dig into its richer, more profound meaning.

Let us dig deeper.

And if you only have 5 minutes, an even more condensed summary, as audio, can be found below.

Wagnerian The-Wagnerian · Unlocking Wagner's Das Rheingold_ Capitalism, Gods, and the Cosmic Fall

The Politics of a Prelude: A Revolutionary's Critique

Dredsen Uprising: 1848

The political core of Das Rheingold is a blistering critique of nascent capitalism and the corruption of power. It is a world born from the fiery passion of a revolutionary. Wagner, an active participant in the 1848 Dresden Uprising, saw the established order as a system built on deceit and exploitation. His vision for the Ring was a direct result of this revolutionary fervour, a mythological allegory for the social and economic anxieties of his time.

The central conflict is a stark, almost cartoonish, allegory of a class struggle. Alberich, the dwarf, is a figure of the avaricious, dehumanised industrialist. Spurned and mocked for his ugliness by the carefree Rhine maidens, his fury leads him to a profound act of self-negation: he renounces love, the very essence of a humane existence, for the promise of unlimited power. His Nibelheim is not a fantastical underworld but a subterranean factory, a vision of the coming industrial age where labour is enslaved, and the sole measure of value is gold. The magic Tarnhelm, which allows him to change shape, is a metaphor for the protean, insidious nature of capital, which can take any form—from a powerful dragon to a humble toad—to achieve its ends. The dwarf's insatiable drive for wealth and power, born of a deep-seated resentment and a denial of human connection, is a chilling portrayal of the alienation and cruelty of a purely profit-driven society.

Shaw

Then there are the gods, a feckless, self-serving aristocracy. Wotan, the head of this divine house, is a monarch clinging to power through cynical bargains and legalistic loopholes, his authority symbolised by his spear, carved from the World Ash Tree, which is inscribed with his treaties and oaths. His new fortress, Valhalla, is a symbol of the state, built on the stolen labour of the giants and paid for with a currency—the Ring—that he knows is tainted by a fundamental act of evil. The giants themselves, Fasolt and Fafner, represent the proletariat, their simple, honest desire for Freia and the apples of eternal youth—a symbol of nature's bounty—ultimately corrupted by the very gold they demand as payment. Fasolt's tragic line, "So blühe denn, Freia, du minnigste Frau!" ("So bloom then, Freia, you loveliest woman!"), is a lament for a lost, natural world, a world now irrevocably poisoned by the curse of greed. This is a class struggle writ large in mythological terms, a power dynamic where a corrupt elite and an enslaved working class are both ultimately destroyed by the poison of absolute value.

This political reading, most famously articulated by the socialist critic George Bernard Shaw in his 1898 book The Perfect Wagnerite, sees the entire Ring cycle as a socialist parable. For Shaw, Alberich was the "wicked capitalist," Valhalla the "city of shareholders," and the gods a corrupt government. His analysis established a critical tradition that continues to influence how we see the work—as a political opera of extraordinary prescience, a critique of an economic system that was, in Wagner's time, only just beginning to show its full, destructive power

The Philosophical Underpinnings: From Radical Humanism to Cosmic Pessimism

Feuerbach

Philosophically, Das Rheingold is a dialogue between two of the most significant thinkers of Wagner's day: Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer. The opera's music and text reflect Wagner's journey from the radical idealism of the former to the profound pessimism of the latter.

The early drafts of the Ring, including the text for Rheingold, were heavily influenced by Feuerbach's brand of radical humanism. Feuerbach’s philosophy rejected traditional religion, arguing that the divine was merely a projection of human desire onto the world. His ideas, which were a significant influence on Karl Marx, championed a morality rooted in the "I-Thou" relationship, in unconditional love and the destruction of private property. This is the world of the Rhine maidens, a prelapsarian state of nature where love is abundant and gold is a beautiful, harmless plaything. It is a world shattered by Alberich's renunciation of love and Wotan's legalistic theft. In this Feuerbachian sense, the gods are not truly divine, but all-too-human personifications of power and desire. Their "divine" rule is a pretence, and their downfall is inevitable once the human spirit, through love, discovers its true power.

Schopenhauer

However, a profound and transformative shift occurred in Wagner’s thinking after his discovery of Schopenhauer in 1854. Schopenhauer's central idea, laid out in The World as Will and Representation, posited a blind, irrational, and purposeless force—the "Will"—as the ultimate reality behind the world of appearances. He believed that all of existence was an endless, suffering cycle driven by this Will, and that salvation could only be found in the complete negation of this striving, most notably through the contemplation of art. The music of Das Rheingold, composed later, is permeated with this Schopenhauerian worldview. The gods' entry into Valhalla at the opera's conclusion is not a moment of triumph but a moment of profound, Schopenhauerian irony. As the gods march across the rainbow bridge, Loge, the cynical god of fire, remains behind. He watches them with a knowing disdain, lamenting their foolishness and their faith in an illusory victory. The music, in a masterstroke of dramatic irony, is grand and glorious, even as we, the audience, are made to see the inherent emptiness of their triumph. The gods believe they have won, but we know, thanks to Erda’s warning and Alberich’s curse, that their downfall is already assured. Their striving is in vain; the Will they serve is ultimately self-destructive.

Esoteric and Spiritual Readings: The Fall from Primal Unity

Finally, a spiritual and esoteric reading of Das Rheingold reveals a deeper, more archetypal layer to the opera. It can be seen as a mythological exploration of the "Fall"—not from the Christian tradition, but a kind of cosmic or spiritual fall from a state of natural harmony into self-serving consciousness.

The opera's opening, with its single, sustained E-flat major chord, is a sonic representation of primordial creation. It is the beginning of everything, a moment of profound, undifferentiated unity. The Rhine maidens are not just river nymphs but archetypal nature spirits, guardians of a pure, uncorrupted world. The gold they guard is not just a material object but a symbol of the raw, spiritual energy of the cosmos, an unrefined, powerful life force. Its theft and transformation into a ring—a closed, circular symbol of endless, self-consuming power—is the "original sin" that sets the cycle in motion. This act of violence against nature and spiritual purity breaks the original harmony and unleashes a chain of events that can only end in destruction.

Erda, the earth goddess, is the most overtly spiritual character. She is not a god of the new order but an ancient, chthonic force, a primordial mother figure who speaks in prophetic riddles. Her sudden appearance from the depths of the earth to warn Wotan is a chilling moment, a voice from a deeper, more authentic spiritual reality that the gods, in their arrogance, have forgotten. She represents a kind of cosmic memory, a knowledge of the natural order that Wotan's power-driven society has ignored. Wotan, in his desperate quest for power, has lost his connection to this fundamental wisdom. It is a moment of profound spiritual warning: the new order has built its house on sand, and the old forces of the earth are waiting to reclaim what has been desecrated.

The opera, then, is a cautionary tale about the dangers of losing touch with the natural and the spiritual. The gods, in their pursuit of civilisation and power, have built their new world on a foundation of lies, theft, and forgotten wisdom. The Valhalla theme, so noble and magnificent on the surface, is undercut by the curse of the Ring and the dark warnings of the Rhinemaidens and Erda. It is a work that reminds us that without a grounding in love, nature, and truth, all the grand palaces we build are ultimately destined to fall.

To a beginner, Das Rheingold might seem a straightforward tale of gods and dwarves. But for anyone who spends time with it, it reveals itself as a dense, intellectually rich tapestry woven from the threads of 19th-century politics, philosophy, and spiritual yearning. It is the key that unlocks the entire dramatic universe of the Ring.

The Ring for Beginners: Part Two, Die Walküre—The Human Heart of the Ring

2025-07-31T18:43:00.006+01:00

Part Two: Die Walküre—The Human Heart of the Ring

You've made it through the "Preliminary Evening" and now you're ready for the first official "Day" of the Ring cycle. Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) is, in many ways, the most popular and accessible of the four operas. While Das Rheingold was a prologue about gods and the creation of a curse, Die Walküre is a deeply personal and emotional drama centred on human love, family dysfunction, and defiance.

It’s also where you’ll encounter the most famous piece of music from the entire cycle: the magnificent "Ride of the Valkyries." But that is just one moment in a three-and-a-half-hour tapestry of breathtaking music and gripping storytelling.

Picking Up the Story: The Völsung Twins

Years have passed since the events of Das Rheingold. Wotan, the chief god, now realizes the peril he is in. He is bound by his own treaties and cannot simply take the Ring back from Fafner, the giant-turned-dragon who guards it. In a desperate act, Wotan has fathered a race of mortal heroes, the Völsungs, hoping that one of them—unbound by divine law—will be able to reclaim the Ring for him.

Our story opens on a stormy night, not in the realm of the gods, but in a small, rustic hut. A wounded man, Siegmund, stumbles inside, seeking shelter. The hut belongs to a woman named Sieglinde and her brutish husband, Hunding.

Siegmund: A mortal hero, one of Wotan's twin children, separated from his sister in childhood. He is a man haunted by loss and on the run.
Sieglinde: Siegmund's twin sister. She is trapped in a loveless, miserable marriage to Hunding.
Hunding: A powerful and violent man, suspicious of the stranger who has entered his home.

As Siegmund and Sieglinde meet, an instant and undeniable connection sparks between them. Their music intertwines, revealing a profound and tragic love. They recognise in each other a sense of shared destiny and a deep longing for freedom. They don't yet know they are twins. Hunding returns, recognises Siegmund as an enemy he has been hunting, and grants him a night's hospitality, but promises a duel to the death in the morning.

After Hunding falls asleep, Sieglinde reveals a secret to Siegmund: a mysterious stranger (Wotan in disguise) once plunged a sword into the trunk of the great ash tree in their hut, declaring it could only be pulled out by the hero destined to wield it. Siegmund, realising his destiny, names the sword Nothung (meaning "Needful") and pulls it free. In this moment of shared triumph, the twins declare their love, and with the sword, Siegmund and Sieglinde escape into the night.

The Conflict of the Gods

Now we return to Valhalla and the gods. The gods' "family drama" intensifies dramatically. Wotan has chosen to champion Siegmund, his mortal son, hoping he will be the hero who regains the Ring. He even sends his favorite daughter, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, to protect him in the coming duel with Hunding.

Wotan: Still the chief god, but now a figure of immense internal conflict. He is torn between his desires, his love for his children, and his fear of losing his authority, which is personified by his wife, Fricka.
Fricka: Wotan's wife and the goddess of marriage. She represents social order, contracts, and the sanctity of vows. When she learns of Siegmund and Sieglinde's incestuous relationship and their violation of Hunding's marriage, she is outraged.

Fricka confronts Wotan in one of the most powerful scenes of the opera. Her music is a fierce, righteous condemnation of Wotan's hypocrisy. She demands that Wotan's protection be withdrawn from Siegmund and that Siegmund must die to uphold the moral laws of the gods. Wotan, initially defiant, is forced to concede. He is trapped by his own laws and promises, and Fricka's logical arguments dismantle his schemes. He painfully agrees to allow Hunding to kill Siegmund.

Brünnhilde, listening from a distance, is horrified. Her music is full of compassion and heroic spirit. When she goes to Wotan, he explains the terrible dilemma, revealing the full tragedy of his ambition and the curse of the Ring. He orders her to ensure Siegmund's defeat.

Brünnhilde's Defiance and Wotan's Punishment

In the final scene of Act II, the duel takes place. Brünnhilde appears to Siegmund, telling him he must die but promises to bring him to Valhalla as a hero. Siegmund refuses to go, declaring he would rather be with Sieglinde in the afterlife. Moved by his love and defiance, Brünnhilde, against her father's direct orders, decides to protect him and ensure his victory.

As Siegmund is about to deliver the final blow to Hunding, Wotan himself appears in a flash of lightning. He shatters Siegmund's sword, Nothung, with his spear, leaving Siegmund defenceless. Hunding kills him, and Wotan, with a gesture of cold disdain, strikes Hunding down as well.

The final act begins with the exhilarating "Ride of the Valkyries." Brünnhilde has taken Sieglinde—now pregnant with Siegmund’s child—and fled to a mountaintop, seeking refuge with her sister Valkyries. The Valkyries are warrior-maidens who carry fallen heroes to Valhalla. Their music is full of raw energy and martial power.

Wotan, enraged by Brünnhilde's disobedience, pursues her. He arrives on the mountaintop to deliver a punishment for her betrayal. This is a moment of profound emotional conflict, as Wotan's music is a mix of fury and deep, tragic love for his favourite daughter. He declares that she is no longer a Valkyrie and that she will be cast out of the realm of the gods, put into a deep sleep, and become the wife of the first man who finds her.

Brünnhilde, defiant but desperate, pleads with her father. She reminds him of the pure and noble intentions that drove her to disobey him. She asks him to surround her with a ring of magic fire, so that only a true hero—one who knows no fear—can brave the flames and awaken her. Wotan, moved by her plea, agrees. With a final, sorrowful farewell (Wotan's Farewell), he kisses her on the forehead, putting her into a deep sleep.

He then summons Loge, the god of fire, who had disappeared at the end of Das Rheingold. A shimmering ring of fire encircles the rock where Brünnhilde lies sleeping. The opera ends with the music of the magic fire, promising that a hero will one day brave the flames. That hero, of course, is the subject of our next instalment.

Why Die Walküre is a Great Next Step

Intense Human Drama: It moves the story from the mythological to the personal, focusing on characters you can care about.
Iconic Music: Beyond the "Ride of the Valkyries," you'll hear the soaring love music of Siegmund and Sieglinde, the righteous fury of Fricka, and the heartbreaking farewell of Wotan.
The Introduction of Key Figures: We meet the hero Siegmund and, most importantly, Brünnhilde, who will become one of the central figures of the entire cycle. Her fate becomes a powerful motivator for the rest of the story.
The Seeds of the Future: We not only see the consequences of the Ring's curse but also the birth of the hero, Siegfried, who will be born to Sieglinde. The broken sword, Nothung, is also a key plot point for the next opera.

By understanding the human tragedy and divine conflict in Die Walküre, you are perfectly prepared for the youthful heroism and forging of destiny in the next chapter.

A Village Forges a Ring of its Own: The West Malvern Social Club Takes on Wagner

2025-07-31T15:37:00.000+01:00

ED: Sadly, we believe tickets are sold out. But it might be worth contacting them for any returns.

The colossal scale of Wagner's Ring cycle, with its sixteen-hour run time, demands the resources of the world's most august opera houses and the profound dedication of its greatest artists. Yet, in a testament to the enduring power of myth and community, a small village in Worcestershire, England, is poised to offer its own, profoundly local, and utterly ambitious take on the work. From the hallowed halls of Bayreuth to the intimate, wood-panelled confines of the West Malvern Social Club, the saga of gods, giants, and mortals finds a new, improbable home.

This audacious project, the West Malvern Ring, is the realisation of a dream by the late Rob Rankin, a figure whose presence is still deeply felt in the community. It has been brought to life by musical director Judith Sanoon and creative director Tim White, who have
taken up the mantle of a project that feels less like a grand production and more like a heroic, communal effort. They have undertaken the extraordinary task of compressing Wagner's epic into a single, two-and-a-half-hour musical play—a feat of dramatic reduction that would make even the most seasoned Wagnerian raise an eyebrow in ad
miration.

The production, which will run from Friday, August 15th, to Sunday, August 17th, promises to be a story for our times, filtering Wagner's cosmology through a decidedly local lens. The traditional epic of love, power, and the downfall of the gods will be presented not with a massive orchestra and towering sets, but with a pared-down score, live action, and video sequences filmed against the familiar backdrop of the Malvern hills. The inclusion of a plot point involving "jam-making" speaks to the inventive and playful spirit of an interpretation that seeks to ground the mythical in the deeply relatable.

With over 40 local participants bringing to life the world of Wotan, the Valkyries, and the cursed ring, this is a true celebration of community spirit. It's a production that proves the Ring is not merely an opera for the elite, but a living tapestry that can be woven from the fabric of any community willing to take up the challenge. For the serious enthusiast and the curious newcomer alike, it offers a fascinating study in interpretation—a chance to experience Wagner’s cosmic drama at a proximity that few grand opera houses can ever hope to provide.

Tickets, priced at a modest £15, can be acquired from the West Malvern Ring website. It is a small price to pay for a front-row seat to what is sure to be one of the most unique and heartfelt Wagnerian productions of the year.

More Here

The Wagner Journal: July 2025 Issue Arrives with Scholarly Depth and a Digital Leap

2025-07-31T15:12:00.001+01:00

The July 2025 issue of The Wagner Journal (Vol. 19, No. 2) has landed, offering its customary blend of rigorous scholarship and critical insight. This edition promises to be a compelling addition to any Wagnerian's summer reading.

The feature articles delve into diverse facets of Wagner's oeuvre. Diane Finiello Zervas explores a fascinating intersection in ‘The Prophet Of Love’: C.G. Jung, Richard Wagner and Parsifal. Her article "unravels the rich skein of experiences, dreams and fantasies by means of which [Jung] engaged with Wagnerian myths and symbols," drawing on recently discovered writings of Jung around World War I and new information about his 1920 English seminar. Zervas highlights how Jung's concepts of the unconscious, the union of opposites, and the enduring power of myth align with Wagner's artistic vision, particularly in Parsifal.

Christopher Wintle contributes an analysis of Splitting (Spaltung) in Wagner. Wintle's essay examines how "Each of Richard Wagner's canonic operas and music dramas is predicated on a radical split – Spaltung – with turbulent consequences and an act of reparation at the denouement." He explores this concept from both individual psychology and object relations perspectives, arguing that "Splitting is the source of Wagner's musico-dramatic contrasts, and the closing reparation invariably involves exceptional stagecraft."

For those seeking a panoramic view of the current academic landscape, Arnold Whittall provides an essential overview of Directions in Wagner Analysis since 2013. This essay is an updated transformation of two previous articles, offering "further thoughts" on analytical understanding and the evolution of critical thought since Wagner's 2013 bicentenary. Whittall discusses various analytical approaches, including Dmitri Tymoczko's concept of "fracturing" in the Lohengrin Prelude and the challenges of staging Wagner's works while maintaining fidelity to their musical and dramatic intentions.

Beyond these illuminating essays, the issue also features a comprehensive array of reviews, providing critical perspectives on recent operatic productions and significant publications. Readers will find assessments of:

Covent Garden’s Die Walküre, a production by Barrie Kosky noted for its "post-apocalyptic 'Ring'" concept, where everything is "ravaged by fire," creating contemporary relevance despite some portrayals at odds with the backstory. Richard Laing praises Christopher Maltman's Wotan and Natalya Romaniw's Sieglinde, alongside Antonio Pappano's orchestral direction.
Holländer from both Opera North and Irish National Opera. Richard Moukarzel reviews Opera North's production, which integrates a social mission by welcoming refugees and staging the opera within a "Home Office" setting, though he notes some inconsistencies in the metaphor and scenic design. David Evans reviews Irish National Opera's staging in Dublin, which, while featuring strong vocal performances from James Creswell as Daland and Jordan Shanahan as the Dutchman, leaned heavily on Senta's internal fantasies and lost some mystery in its first act.
Götterdämmerung from La Monnaie and Regents Opera. Richard Laing reports on Pierre Audi's "blank canvas" production at La Monnaie, which explored character relationships and the long-lasting damage of parental figures, highlighted by strong debuts from Bryan Register (Siegfried) and Ingela Brimberg (Brünnhilde), and an "extraordinary Hagen" by Ain Anger. Laing also reviews Regents Opera's production in London's York Hall, a boxing venue, which brought the audience close to the action and featured a "radically reduced orchestra," focusing on the relationship between performer and audience, with Catharine Woodward's Brünnhilde being particularly lauded.
Melbourne Opera’s Meistersinger. David Ames reviews this production staged in the Royal Exhibition Building, praising Suzanne Chaundy's "cheerful production" and Anthony Negus's warm orchestral tone. Warwick Fyfe's Hans Sachs and James Egglestone's Walther were noted triumphs among an all-Australian cast.
Parsifal productions staged at the Temple Church and the Berlin Staatsoper. Richard Laing reports on a concert performance of the Prelude and Act III at London's Temple Church, a historically resonant venue, praising Matthew King's arrangement for a smaller orchestra and strong performances by Natasha Jouhl (Kundry) and Simon Wilding (Gurnemanz). Hugo Shirley reviews Dmitri Tcherniakov's Parsifal revival at the Berlin Staatsoper, noting its continued dramatic power and stellar musical direction by Philippe Jordan, though questioning its disconnect between acts and the absence of a clear spiritual message.

Furthermore, the journal includes reviews of Laurens de Man’s Richard Wagner: An Organic Journey and The Thomas Jensen Legacy, broadening our understanding of both recent scholarship and historical performance. Dexter Drown reviews De Man's organ transcriptions, highlighting "satisfying prominence for the Derision motif in the final march" of the Meistersinger Prelude. He also considers the Thomas Jensen Legacy Vol. 23, praising Lauritz Melchior's "terrifically paced live performance" as Siegmund, despite his age, and the excellent orchestral playing.

A New Digital Gateway to Wagnerian Riches

In significant news for the Wagnerian community, The Wagner Journal has launched its new website, a substantial digital resource accessible at www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk. This revamped platform represents more than a mere update.

Established in 2007, The Wagner Journal quickly became, and remains, a preeminent periodical exclusively dedicated to Wagner studies. Under the editorship of Barry Millington, its enduring mission has been to combine top-quality writing with high production values, making the complex theoretical and practical questions surrounding the staging and performance of Wagner's music dramas accessible to a wider audience.

The new site now provides seamless access to the journal’s entire back-catalogue, transforming a wealth of past scholarship into a readily available digital archive. Crucially, a substantial amount of free content is also on offer, underscoring the journal’s commitment to wider dissemination of Wagnerian knowledge. This initiative is a testament to their dedication to fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of Wagner's enduring legacy.

We encourage readers to explore the latest issue of The Wagner Journal and to immerse themselves in the resources offered by their new website. It is an indispensable tool for any serious Wagner enthusiast.

The Wagnerian

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Something New?

New Ring Cycle Guide From Apple Music Classical

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The 2026 Opus Klassik Awards: Kaufmann Brings Wagnerian Heft to Schubert

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Fred's Final Plea: Help Us Weave the Threads of Fate!

The Ring of the Nibelung in a New Frame: P. Craig Russell's Graphic Adaptation

The Ring For Beginners 1a: Under The Surface. Beyond the Gold: Unearthing the Political, Philosophical, and Spiritual Foundations of Das Rheingold."

The Politics of a Prelude: A Revolutionary's Critique

The Philosophical Underpinnings: From Radical Humanism to Cosmic Pessimism

Esoteric and Spiritual Readings: The Fall from Primal Unity

The Ring for Beginners: Part Two, Die Walküre—The Human Heart of the Ring

Part Two: Die Walküre—The Human Heart of the Ring

Picking Up the Story: The Völsung Twins

The Conflict of the Gods

Brünnhilde's Defiance and Wotan's Punishment

Why Die Walküre is a Great Next Step

A Village Forges a Ring of its Own: The West Malvern Social Club Takes on Wagner

The Wagner Journal: July 2025 Issue Arrives with Scholarly Depth and a Digital Leap

A New Digital Gateway to Wagnerian Riches