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 wanted to redefine a Gesamtkunstwerk for the 20th century, one where the divergent art forms work all and severally, eac0h component retaining its integrity.  Hofmannsthal’s criticism of Elektra (1909) was that his text was[...]

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 […]

Stephen Wagley
December 2018

Great singing and convincing acting marked the revival of Keith Warner’s production of the Ring at the Royal Opera House in October. Warner’s conception was generally forceful and intelligent; the […]