The Hollywood Bowl--site of so many glittering performances under the balmy Southern California skies--is celebrating its 100th anniversary this summer. Wagner was invited to the birthday party, which seems only fitting considering the outsize role his music has played in the history of the movies from the silent era to the present. (See Alex Ross’ recent article in The New Yorker, “How Wagner Shaped[...]
This is a Wagner newsletter, and I am writing about Strauss, but there is an important Wagner connection to Ariadne, perhaps less a connection than a push-back. Hofmannsthal and Strauss […]
Gallons of ink have been spilled in praise of the ravishing instrument that soprano Lise Davidsen brought to the opera world when she burst on the scene in 2015. It […]
Wagner’s only mature comic opera returned to the Met this season, in a six-performance revival of the Schenk/Schneider-Siemssen gorgeous storybook production, which premiered here in 1993. Pre-pandemic rumors held that […]
A gloomy town center surrounded by orderly but claustrophobic buildings. Violence seething under the surface of respectability. A boy whose mother committed suicide after being abused by a town’s businessman […]