Wagner Notes

Nicholas Vazsonyi
August 2025

Staging Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Germany, and especially at Bayreuth, has been a challenge since World War II ended. Its unbridled celebration of German art and culture has been thorny for those who could not see past the “German.” And, increasingly, even the concepts of art and culture, in the Western European sense, have faced headwinds from those who should surely be its staunchest advocates. As a[...]

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s full-length concert performances of Tristan und Isolde on June 1 and 8 marked several milestones in the contemporary opera scene: the first time Yannick Nézet-Séguin had conducted the full score […]

Katharina Wagner’s new production of Lohengrin that premiered on March 17 in Barcelona upends the story of the swan knight in shining armor from distant land to rescue an innocent […]

Ako Imamura
April 2025

An epic new series of Ring operas came to its conclusion at Brussels’ Theatre de la Monnaie on February 4 with the premiere of Götterdämmerung. All eight performances were sold […]

Bryan Gilliam
January 2025

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), under the music directorship of Fabio Luisi, performed Der Ring des Nibelungen between October 13 and 20, 2024. The closer one is able to hear […]