Wagner Notes

Harlow Robinson
September 2022

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[...]

Over the last several decades, interpretations of the Ring have become so various that it is difficult to find any scholarly analysis or staged production that has not been touched […]

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 […]

Susan Brodie
March 2022

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 […]