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 by the countless philosophies, ideologies, and beliefs that characterize the artistic life of our time. This is, of course, greatly to the credit of Wagner’s tetralogy, as we tend to attribute the infinite capacity to absorb[...]
Wagner Notes
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 […]