Watch Now: Alex Ross And The Wagner Legacy

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Originally posted Sept 2015 Recently, looking for a video of the great Donald Lambert's Pilgrims Chorus (See the video at the bottom of the page) Alex Ross' 2012 New Yorker Festival presentation on The Wagner Legacy came up in...

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Free Kindle Ebook: Ferdinand Praeger's "Wagner As I knew Him"

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Originally published - July 2013 The famous (or infamous -, depending on how you look at it) Ferdinand Praeger  book "Wagner As I knew Him"   A book that Bayreuth - following Wagner's death - tried to ban (and caused...

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We Need Your Help To Choose The Best Ring Cycle On DVD

We need your help again. This year we would like to run a readers vote of what you consider to be the best entire Ring Cycle on video - DVD or Blu-ray. However, before you vote,  the problem  for us is selecting which productions to include...

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Listen Now: Bayreuth Parsifal 2016 - On-Demand

As usual, there are a number of sources to listen to this year's Bayreuth Parsifal after its broadcast. In our opinion clicking on the link below, which will launch Bartok Radio's on demand player should give the none German speaker the easiest way...

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Eric Laufenberg Explains The Meaning Of His Parsifal

In a recent interview with DW,  Eric Laufenberg had this to say about his interpretation of Parsifal: This piece basically focuses on the religion of Christianity. On one hand, the grail knights in "Parsifal" inhabit a realm of charity, empathy...

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Bayreuth: Parsifal 2016 - Some Thoughts

Yesterday, at the end of act one of Eric Laufenberg's new prodcution of Parsifal. I applauded louder than perhaps I have done for a long time at a Bayreuth production. What I had been presented with was a production of high, dramatic, musical standards,...

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Wagner Quote Of The Week: Nietzsche

"Through Wagner modernity speaks most intimately, concealing neither its good nor its evil—having forgotten all sense of shame. And conversely: one has almost completed an account of the value of what is modern once one has gained clarity about...

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You Can Still Buy Tickets To This Year's Bayreuth Ring

There was a time, not that very long ago, when you might have to wait for up to ten years for tickets to Bayrueth. This was especially so for Bayreuth Ring cycles. But how times have changed for it seems that as of right now - on the festival's online...

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Where To Hear This Years Bayreuth Festival

A little late again (Ed: Yes. Seems you have to do things yourself around here to get anything done) but please find below a list of links, dates and times where you can listen to this years performances from the Bayreuth Festival. We are trying...

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Watch The Premiere Of The Bayreuth Parsifal - Free

As more attentive readers will be aware, Bayreuth will be broadcasting the entire Ring cycle free this year on Sky Arts. However, you may not be aware that they are also broadcasting Uwe Eric Laufenberg (2014's replacement for Johnathon Meese) new...

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Deconstruction and the Modern Bayreuth Festival

The Wagner Journal has, kindly made available for free, an extended essay by Edward A. & Paula M. Bortnichak on the current production of the Frank Castorf Ring. In advance of the entire cycle being broadcast on Sky Arts in July as documented here The...

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New Issue Of The Wagner Journal

The July 2016 issue (vol.10, no.2), now available, contains the following feature articles: • 'The "Missing Link" in the Evolution of Wagner's Siegfried by Edward A. and Paula M. Bortnichak • 'Wagner's Siegfried Act III Scene 1: A Study in "Renunciation...

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To The People Of France And To The Rest Of Us

30 years ago or so, I would not have felt compelled to write as much of this as I am about to. The reason was simple: what has happened in Nice is an horrendous, cowardly act. Many, far too many (as if one person was not enough) have died, many more...

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Watch Now: Die Walkure. Dutch National Opera. Haenchen

Again, brought to us by The Opera Platform Richard Wagner: DIE WALKÜRE (The Valkyrie)Opera in three actsPerformed by the Dutch National OperaThe Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra is under the baton of Hartmut HaenchenCast:Christopher Ventris -...

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Watch Now: Parsifal. Adam Fischer At Wiener Staatsoper

Made available now, and for the net six months, by The Opera Platform Details: Richard Wagner: PARSIFAL"A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage" (“Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel”) in three actsPerformed at the Wiener StaatsoperThe Vienna Philharmonic...

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Katharina Wagner's Tristan Now On DVD

Katharina Wagner's 2015 production of Tristan und Isolde is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from DG. Details below...

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Scandals in Bayreuth: A brief history of cancelations at the Wagner Festival

  It was a last-minute upset, but not unusual for the Bayreuth Festival. Conductor Andris Nelsons called off his opening night performance and will be replaced by Hartmut Haenchen. Here's a history of Bayreuth drop-outs. The 73-year-old German...

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Listen To Opera North's Ring Cycle - On Demand

Complete cycle has now been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and will be available for the next 27 days. To listen, click the relevant link below: Das Rheingold   Die Walküre   Siegfried Götterdämmerung &nbs...

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Watch Glyndebourne’s Meistersinger - Free

You will have to visit the Telegraph to do so, but it will be available live from 5.30pm (UK time) Tuesday 12 July and then on demand for 7 days there after. For details click here - and to watch on the dates indicated abov...

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Black Mountain - A Reinterpretation Of Parsifal

Nicholas Mockridge, from the artists collective known as "Like a Wild Beast’s Fur,” directed Black Mountain - a short, experimental film based on Parsifal - condensed onto ten minutes. Said Mockbridge of the film and its "Techo" soundtrack, "“Basically,...

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R Scruton: What Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle teaches us about love and politics

Rodger Scruton: Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, which he began in 1848 and on which he worked over the next two decades, is a comprehensive re-working of Old Norse myths, as recounted in the Icelandic Eddas. In Wagner's story,...

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As its Mahler's birthday

Mahler, the 9th, Abbado and Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Happy birthday. "All Mahler symphonies look back nostalgically to the innocent past and having failed to find it, look forward (fearfully or hopefully) to some sense of resolution.” In the...

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