Gramophone revisit classic interviews

In celebration of Gramophone’s first issue, published 90 years ago in April 1923, Gramophone revisit a series of classic interviews from the Gramophone archive. Alan Blyth spoke to Pierre Boulez i ('Wagner used to be treated in a quite exaggerated post-Romantic way. When I conducted Parsifal at Bayreuth I didn't see why everything had to be taken at such slow tempi or with overdone dynamic contrasts – the pathos and rhetoric were just too much.' ) in November 1967, Eugene Ormandy in April 1970, Benjamin Britten in June 1970, and Leontyne Price in August 1971. In February 1979 Robin Stringer spoke to Glenn Gould.

Plus, leading critics for the magazine recall their first Gramophone review: Richard Osborne on Carlos Kleiber’s Beethoven Fifth (DG); Jeremy Nicholas on Wynton Marsalis’s All Rise conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen (Sony Classical); Rob Cowan on Brahms and Khachaturian Violin Concertos with Henryk Szeryng and the LSO under Antal Doráti (Mercury); and Edward Greenfield on Schubert’s Ninth Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch.

Watch Der fliegende Holländer FREE on 20 April

The Bavarian State Opera will present live streams online free of charge this spring. Opera and ballet lovers from all over the world will be able to enjoy a total of seven opera performances and two ballet evenings in full and live online from Munich. The first of these were the audiovisual transmissions of Jörg Widmann's new opera Babylon, Giacomo Puccini's Turandot, Tchaikovsky's/Neumeier's The Nutcracker, Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto and Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa.

This will be followed by streams of the following opera performances: 

April 20, 2013
Richard Wagner
Der fliegende Holländer

May 11, 2013
Giuseppe Verdi
Macbeth

June 1, 2013
Terence Kohler
Helden

July 26, 2013
Modest Mussorgsky
Boris Godunov

www.bayerische.staatsoper.de

Royal Opera House 2013/14 Opera Season announced

The 2013/14 Season sees seven new productions on the Main Stage including new productions of Parsifal, Les Vêpres siciliennes, and Die Frau ohne Schatten to celebrate milestone anniversaries of Wagner, Verdi and Strauss respectively. Other new Main Stage productions include Don Giovanni from Kasper Holten and Manon Lescaut from Jonathan Kent.

As well as new work, the 2013/14 Season also features a host of classic productions including Turandot, Le nozze di Figaro, Faust, and Carmen.

Live cinema relays during the Season include Turandot, Les Vêpres siciliennes, Parsifal, Don Giovanni and Manon Lescaut. We are very grateful to Bank of America Merrill Lynch for supporting the Royal Opera House Cinema Season.

Star names performing at Covent Garden over the coming Season include Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Angela Gheorghiu, Simon Keenlyside, Elina Garanca and Joseph Calleja.

The Wagner Journal - new issue

A new issue of The Wagner Journal (editor: Barry Millington) is out. You can order your copy here: http://www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk/howtobuy.html


FEATURES
Heroic Gestures and Family Values in Wagner’s Ring
Arnold Whittall

The Kiss of the Dragon-slayer
Barry Emslie

Wieland Wagner’s Intellectual Path
Ingrid Kapsamer

REVIEWS

Live Performances

Science, Sets and Symbols in Der Ring des Nibelungen David Trippett appraises the Covent Garden ‘Ring’ and an accompanying book

DVDs

Tradition in Vienna, Laboratory Experiment in Bayreuth
Graeme Feggetter assesses contrasting productions of Lohengrin

Nuremberg Life and Afterlife
Roland Matthews is concerned that David McVicar’s Glyndebourne
production of Meistersinger fails to take account of its legacy

CDs

Take Five: Tristan und Isolde
David Breckbill weighs the merits of the fifth release in Janowski’s
complete Wagner project, and muses on his past and future Ring cycles

Fading Glory
Matthew Rye is doubtful about the wisdom of a highlights disc

Books

Profession and Faith
A study of the emerging role played by Jews in the musical business
represents a welcome riposte to Wagner’s notorious essay, suggests
Jonas Karlsson

Uplifting Experiences
Alexander H. Shapiro explores the Wagnerian elements in a new study
of classical music in America’s Gilded Age

Rebel with a Cause
Life was tough for a black sheep of the Wagner family, finds
Tim Blanning

The Pocket Opera Company in Nürnberg is staging Richard Wagner Singspiel

The Pocket Opera Company in Nürnberg is staging Richard Wagners Singspiel fragment “Männerlist größer als Frauenlist oder Die glückliche Bärenfamlie” (WWV 48) for the first time in a completed version this summer.

The premiere will be on 27 June in a large circus tent in the Stadtpark in Nürnberg. Further performances will take place on 29 June, 4 July and 5 July.

The production will be directed by Peter P. Pachl and conducted by Franz Killer, who also completes the score.

www.pocket-opera.de

Wagner 200 - London-based festival to celebrate the bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth

Wagner 200 is a wide-ranging, London-based festival to celebrate the bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth.

It opens on 22 May on Wagner’s 200th birthday and features events from May to December 2013 in association with leading cultural organizations including Royal Opera House, Southbank Centre, Barbican Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Kings Place, British Library, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Radio 3, The Wagner Society, Opus Arte, London Song Festival and London Jewish Cultural Centre.

Wagner 200 has a particular focus on British artists, offering a spectrum of talent from the most distinguished to the rising stars of today.

Highlights include:

• Wagner 200th Birthday Concert (22 May) with the Philharmonia Orchestra/ Andrew Davis, and soloists Susan Bullock, James Rutherford and Giselle Allen. Preceded by an afternoon of pop-up Wagner activities on the Festival Hall terrace, balcony and foyers
• Wagner/Liszt recitals (26–28 June) by Janice Watson/Joseph Middleton and Llŷr Williams, and a dramatised re-creation of the events surrounding the first performance of the Siegfried Idyll, starring Harriet Walter and Henry Goodman with the Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon
• Reading of the complete Ring text in English featuring John Tomlinson as Narrator/Master of Ceremonies and a company of young actors from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (9 June)
• Three symposia on Wagner in Performance (29–30 June) featuring an international roster of Wagner experts followed by screenings of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
• Two events devoted to Wagner and the Jews at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (6 October and 10 December)
• Masterclasses by Gwyneth Jones and John Tomlinson (28 May and 25 November)
• Lectures by Keith Warner (24 April), Tim Blanning (11 July), Mike Ashman (12 September) and John Deathridge (10 October)
• Concerts by the LSO (28 November) and BBC Symphony Orchestra (20 December)
• Wagner the Writer study day (8 June)

The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia to be published in August 2013

The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia (edited by: Nicholas Vazsonyi, University of South Carolina) is to be published in August 2013.

Richard Wagner is one of the most controversial figures in Western cultural history. He revolutionized not only opera but the very concept of art, and his works and ideas have had an immeasurable impact on both the cultural and political landscapes of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From 'absolute music' to 'Zurich' and from 'Theodor Adorno' to 'Hermann Zumpe', the vividly-written entries of The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia have been written by recognized authorities and cover a comprehensive range of topics.

More than eighty scholars from around the world, representing disciplines from history and philosophy to film studies and medicine, provide fascinating insights into Wagner's life, career and influence. Multiple appendices include listings of Wagner's works, historic productions, recordings and addresses where he lived, to round out a volume that will be an essential and reliable resource for enthusiasts and academics alike.

Contributors

Roger Allen, Celia Applegate, Nicholas Attfield, Matthew BaileyShea, Evan Baker, David E. Barclay, John W. Barker, Mark Berry, Peter Bloom, Dieter Borchmeyer, David Breckbill, Werner Breig, Matt Bribitzer-Stull, Stephen Brockmann, Jeremy Coleman, David Cormack, Adrian Daub, John Deathridge, James Deaville, David B. Dennis, Johanna Dombois, Márton Dornbach, Stephen C. Downes, Ulrich Drüner, Glenn Ehrstine, Barbara Eichner, Barry Emslie, Jason Geary, William Gibbons, Sander L. Gilman, Hermann Grampp, Thomas S. Grey, Kaaren Grimstad, Erling E. Guldbrandsen, Joseph Horowitz, David Huckvale, Marion Kant, Kevin Karnes, Ulrike Kienzle, William Kinderman, Helmut Kirchmeyer, Lutz Koepnick, Juliet Koss, Gundula Kreuzer, Alexis Luko, Roberta Montemorra Marvin, Lydia Mayne, Stephen McClatchie, Patrick McCreless, William Melton, Margaret Eleanor Menninger, Stephen Meyer, Margaret Miner, Ryan Minor, Yvonne Nilges, James Parsons, Sanna Pederson, Pamela M. Potter, Eva Rieger, Michael Saffle, Hannu Salmi, Daniel Sheridan, Eric Schneeman, Na'ama Sheffi, Matthew Wilson Smith, Sebastian Stauss, Anthony J. Steinhoff, Emma Sutton, Katherine Syer, Christian Thorau, Corinna Treitel, David Trippett, Ulrich Troehler, Laura Tunbridge, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Steven G. Vande Moortele, Nicholas Vazsonyi, Ray M. Wakefield, Chris Walton, Hilan Warshaw, Holly Watkins, Derek Watson, William Weber, Arnold Whittall, Simon Williams, Charles Youmans, Julian Young

Siegfried (La Scala, 2012)

Conductor Daniel Barenboim
Stage director Guy Cassiers
Siegfried Lance Ryan
Mime Peter Bronder
Der Wanderer Terje Stensvold
Alberich Johannes Martin Kränzle
Fafner Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Erda Anna Larsson
Brünnhilde Nina Stemme
Stimme des Waldvogels Rinnat Moriah

Wagner's Ring - an alternative version by Stefan Kaminski

Kaminski ON AIR is a Live-Theater-Performance-Format, that appears wild, audiophile, funny and tragic at the same time. A mixture between One Man-Theater + Band-Chemistry + Radioplay-Performance.

Stefan Kaminski uses well-known sujets or stories in order to deform and mix them up with other influences of storytelling (other shows: ” KONG!” or “It Came from above”). Digging deep into Wagners RING was the first step into a World-Drama – it’s a great playground for Stefan Kaminski – he metamorphs into all the figures, creating atmospheres and soundtracks with his musicians, that play very special instruments (Glass-Harp, E-Cello) or play good old instruments in a different way in order to reinvent Wagners musical landscapes. You'll will find musical motives of the original, you will even remember the lines out of the libretto – but all in all it’s the good old story, told with passion, but in a modern, young and alternative way.

Kaminski ON AIR will be on tour with Rheingold, Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung  in 2012/2013: Prague, Vienna, Berlin German Theater, Luxembourg, lots of other German cities. The complete Ring will be released on DVD and CD in the early 2013.



For complete programme and dates, please see www.kaminski-on-air.de

Peter Hofmann: Geschichten aus einem bewegten Sängerleben

Peter Hofmann: Geschichten aus einem bewegten Sängerleben consists of 25 stories from Peter Hofmann's life.

The book is written by his brother Fritz, who was Peter Hofmann's manager for more than 20 years.

In the stories we hear about Hofmann's encounters with great personalities like Herbert von Karajan, co-founder of Sony Akio Morita, Leonard Bernstein, Wolfgang Wagner and many more. Hofmann's experiences at the Bayreuth Festival played an important role in Peter Hofmann's life, and this is reflected in the book.

184 pages with more than 50 photos. The price is 18,95 Euros.

You can buy it from the publisher Buch & Kunstverlag Oberpfalz or from Amazon.de

Syberberg's Parsifal re-released on DVD

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Parsifal film has now been re-released on DVD. It can also be downloaded or streamed from Filmgalerie451's web site.

The DVD costs 24,90 €    
Download     4,90 €    
Stream     2,90 €

The DVD is not available on Amazon.com (yet?)

Richard Wagner - The Sorcerer of Bayreuth

Barry Millington, a leading expert on Wagner, tackles the issues and controversies surrounding Wagner's life in a new book, "Richard Wagner - The Sorcerer of Bayreuth". Millington is drawing on recent scholarship and presents them in a new light.

It is a mark of how Wagner has entered the popular imagination that his reputation as an incorrigible egoist, a philanderer, an unscrupulous wife-stealer and an anti-Semite has come to define him. Yet this one-dimensional cartoon image of the man masks a more honest and complex portrait.

The US title is "The Sorcerer of Bayreuth: Richard Wagner, his Work and his World"