2013 Wagner Bicentenary Competition for Composers
Composers who are permanent residents of Australia or New Zealand are invited to create an instrumental chamber work to celebrate the 2013 bicentenary of the birth of Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The Society is offering a prize of $10,000 plus a public performance (with orchestra if appropriate) and a recording of the selected work.
The competition is for a chamber work of approximately 10 minutes duration for either a single instrument or a combination of instruments, quoting or otherwise making use of one or more themes from the stage works of Richard Wagner. A panel of highly qualified judges will select the winning composition, which will be announced in December 2012.
The deadline for submissions is 30 June 2012.
See Announcement (PDF)
Detailed terms of the competition and an application form are available at www.wagnersociety.com

Wolfgang Wagner

The Bayreuth Festival has announced the loss of Wolfgang Wagner. ' On Sunday 21 March 2010, Wolfgang Wagner died at the age of 90 years at Bayreuth.'
Those of us who have been to Bayreuth will have memories of the grandson of Richard Wagner - from graciously receiving a birthday gift from Betty Maloney, to sights of him scurrying to his car at the back of the Festspielhaus, to berating the audience for booing his production of Mastersinger. (Webmaster)

http://www1.bayreuther-festspiele.de/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/arts/music/22wagner.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/22/wolfgang-wagner-obituary

Germany to Renovate Wagner’s Bayreuth Villa
The ever vigilant Colin Baskerville has also drawn your Editor’s attention to the following good news.
Dave Itzkoff reports for the New York Times that ‘the German government has devised a stimulus plan for the final resting place of Richard Wagner, The Associated Press reported. On Thursday, the government there said that it had pledged about $700,000 to renovate the composer’s Wahnfried villa, where he and his wife, Cosima, are buried and his archives are stored. The money to renovate the house in Bayreuth, which has been turned into a museum, will come from an economic stimulus package for improving infrastructure. Sven Friedrich, the director of the Richard Wagner Museum, told The A.P. that the renovation would include new exhibitions on the composer’s life and the role of the Wagner family during the Nazi era.’  The report was at the website:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/wahnfried/?scp=1&sq=renovate%20Wahnfried%20&st=cse.       Editor

The Truth About Bayreuth's Links With Hitler
A number of media outlets reported Katharina Wagner asserting that ‘Adolf Hitler’s links to the Bayreuth Festival are to be fully investigated.’ She made her announcement at a press conference to launch Bayreuth’s 2009. According to one report ‘Bayreuth has struggled to shake off its Nazi associations: Hitler’s friendship with the Wagner family is well documented. He attended the festival every summer and it seems certain that Bayreuth’s ethos in the early 20th century played a part in shaping his personal political ideology. He had a close relationship with Katharina’s British-born grandmother Winifred (excellently recounted in Brigitte Hamann’s book, Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth), and the Nazi regime generously supported the Festival at a time when many other areas of Germany’s cultural life were being squeezed.’
‘However some commentators feel that there is little left to unearth about the Hitler’s links to the Wagner family and that Katharina's comments are another indication of her media-savvy approach to running the Festival. Ms Wagner’s gesture certainly has more than a ring of a publicity stunt about it, at a time when Bayreuth is actively seeking sponsors and is opening out its audience base for the first time. Meanwhile, Katharina’s has insisted that ‘every nook and cranny’ of the festival’s archives will have to be investigated so that Bayreuth can come to terms with a dark chapter in its history. ‘There's a shadow hanging over Bayreuth,’ she said, ‘and I feel a responsibility to try to get some clarity’.’

Wieland Wagner’s Only Surviving Recorded Tristan Und Isolde
Nilsson, Topper, Windgassen, Andersson, Hotter, Nienstedt, Paskuda, Feiersinger; Boulez, conductor.; Osaka Festival. In German, no subtitles. (April 10, 1967). 206m. B&W. (2 cassettes). The Bel Canto website asserts that ‘Although no stage director is credited in connection with this Tristan, the director in fact is none other than Wieland Wagner, who had died October 17, 1966. A replication of his second Bayreuth Tristan, this is his only production of any opera to have survived on film or video.’
Mike V. Ashman, reviewing in International Record Review points out the bad points of this recording – poor packaging, poor black and white picture, variable sound quality – then gives the good news: ‘…this is, to date, the only surviving record of a complete production by Wieland Wagner and it is, quite simply, a great, great artistic experience, unmissable even if the quality were twice as bad.’
Paul Thomason, reviewing in Opera News, considers that ‘Watching this Tristan is an overwhelming experience. Sets are stark and monumental, props are almost nonexistent, characters often seem like individual megaliths from Stonehenge. Tristan and Isolde are archetypes, not two teenagers in love. But when it works, the visuals are haunting. (Brangane sings her warning to the lovers while silhouetted, half in and half out of the light; Tristan sings the beginning of Act III lying flat on his back on the floor, his arms outstretched as if crucified.). ‘Birgit Nilsson is in astonishing voice. Even by her own Olympian standards, her high Bs and Cs are dispatched with almost scornful ease.
The recording, NTSC VHS Only, #462: $US17.95 can be ordered from the Bel Canto website: http://www.belcantosociety.org/store/product_info.php?products_id=388.

Hans Von Bulow: A Life And Times by Alan Walker
Colin Baskerville has drawn your Editor’s attention to this publication that might be of interest to members.
Alan Walker is Professor Emeritus of Music at McMaster University and author of several books, including a three volume biography of Franz Liszt. He is a former staff member of the Music Division of the BBC. ‘Hans von Bulow is a key figure in 19th century music whose career path was as broad as it was successful. Music history's first virtuoso orchestral conductor, Bulow created the model for the profession-both in musical brilliance and in domineering personality-which still holds forth today. He was an eminent and renowned concert pianist, a respected (and often feared) teacher and music critic, an influential editor of works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Beethoven, and a composer in a variety of musical genres. As a student and son-in-law of Franz Liszt, and estranged friend of Richard Wagner (for whom his wife Cosima famously left him), Bulow is intricately connected with the canonical greats of the period. Yet despite his critical and lasting importance for orchestral music, Bulow's life and significant achievements have yet to be heralded in biographical form.
‘In Hans von Bulow: A Life and Times, Alan Walker, the acclaimed author of numerous award-winning books on the era's iconic composers, provides the first full-length English biography of this remarkable musical figure. Walker traces Bulow's life in illuminating and engaging detail, from the first piano lessons of his boyhood days, to his first American tour, to his last days as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. Unearthing Bulow's extensive and previously unavailable correspondence and writings, Walker conveys amusing and informative anecdotes about this unique musical legend- from his sardonic and clever personality to his meticulous devotion to his work-and reveals enlightening insights on the still-contested sensibilities of musical-compositional style and ‘idea’ at play in the vibrant musical world of which Bulow was a part.’ $US39.95 from the Oxford University Press website:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/MusicHistoryWestern/NineteenthCentury/?view=usa&ci=9780195368680#Description.    Editor

Royal Opera House to release recordings of Wagner operas from Bayreuth Festival on DVD
Entertainment Daily has reported a deal between the Bayreuth Festival and the production arm of Britain’s Royal Opera House ‘to produce and sell DVD recordings of composer Richard Wagner’s operas recorded at the annual festival’. Katharina Wagner announced that the first recording would be Christoph Marthaler’s production of Tristan and Isolde conducted by Peter Schneider at the 2009 festival – probably from the video broadcast to the outdoors audience in Bayreuth. The recording is reported to be scheduled for release in November 2009. Opus Arte is also reported to be ready to release an audio recording of the complete Ring Cycle, conducted by Christian Thielemann in 2008, with Die Walkure released in 2010.  [Why not a video recording as well!! Editor]

Seattle Opera Announces 2010 Tristan und Isolde Production
This production will have Asher Fisch as the conductor, Peter Kazaras will undertake the stage direction, sets and costumes will be by Robert Israel, with the lighting by Duane Schuler.  Annalena Persson will make her Seattle opera debut as Isolde with her Tristan being Clifton Forbis, Margaret Jane Wray will be Brangane, , Stephen Milling will be King Marke, and Greer Grimsley will sing Kurwenal.

La Scala 2010-13 Barenboim Ring – A Report from The Ravens
The Cycle is to be directed by Guy Cassiers and conducted by Daniel Barenboim have now been officially confirmed by the La Scala management. La Scala Intendant Lissner promises the Ring will be ‘contemporary and very political’
Although this Ring is a co-production with the Berlin State Opera, there seem to be no dates yet available for it. Confirmed cast as of now: René Pape (Wotan), Nina Stemme (Brunnhilde), Waltraud Meier (Sieglinde), the rising New Zealand tenor Simon O´Neill (Siegmund), Ian Storey (Siegfried). Waltraud Meier will not sing Brunnhilde, as apparently previously announced by her agent. The dates: Das Rheingold opens on 13 May 2010, Die Walkure will open the 2010-11 Scala season, Siegfried will open the 2012-13 Scala season, and Götterdammerung in spring 2013.
The complete cycle is scheduled be performed in June 2013. A full report in Italian is available from the website:
http://archivio.lastampa.it/LaStampaArchivio/main/History/tmpl_viewObj.jsp?objid=9152876.

Christoph Schlingensief – Fighting Lung Cancer
Peter Michalzi reported in the Frankfurter Rundschau on 23 March 2009 thatChristoph Schlingensief was diagnosed with lung cancer at the beginning of last year and in response has ‘made his illness the subject of a number of stage productions. At the Ruhrtriennial in Duisburg he created a grand-scale fluxus burial mass for the ‘future deceased’. Then in Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater in November, he staged a small sketch, ‘The Situation Now’, in which he reported that the diagnosis for his remaining lobe looked ‘shit’. And now, after a successful second bout of therapy, he is continuing the hospital drama in Vienna's Burgtheater.’
Michalzi notes ‘’Mea Culpa’ is Schlingensief's huge, heart-rending production at the Vienna Burgtheater; he calls it a ‘readymade opera’ - certainly an apt description for this stage juggernaut with its cargo of quotations, images, musical genres, thoughts and emotions. But above all else, it's a new kind of psychodrama. A performance that whirls round Schlingensief, his soul, and his cancer like a maelstrom - a maelstrom created by a black hole that no one knows, not even the Master towards whom Schlingensief is pulling us. It is dark and distant here, but also true and vast; it is Death.’
Wagnerians would remember that Schlingensief produced Parsifal at Bayreuth in 2003 ‘which he truly thought could save both himself and the world. In this failure, he finds the root of his illness. As soon as someone shouts ‘the wound, the wound’ and Amfortas positions himself on top of Kundry with clear intent - and this happens early on – all our suspicions are confirmed: Schlingensief is now laughing about himself as freely as he does about the holy Wagner.’
You can read the whole report at Sign and Sight’s website: http://www.signandsight.com:80/features/1852.html.
In the Tagesspiegel of 27 August 2008 there is a note on ‘Wagnerian greats’ bidding farewell to Wolfgang Wagner, who has now retired after half a century as head of the Bayreuth Festival. ‘Director Christoph Schlingensief remembers the ‘graveyard of artworks’ in his ‘Parsifal’ production: ‘The key work here was the first Readymade, Duchamp's urinal, to which my own work is greatly indebted. This urinal soon became a bone of contention during rehearsal, without ever being so much as mentioned. During the day we would rehearse in the graveyard of artworks, at night, when everyone was asleep, Wolfgang would sneak onto the stage and personally remove the offending object, which he believed had nothing to do with Wagner or 'Parzifal'. This would happen on a nightly basis and after every dress rehearsal. And Wolfgang won in the end through sheer doggedness, and so the graveyard was spared Duchamp's urinal. And everyone was happy. But the concept of the Readymade can never be removed from the opera. You can also read about the great Wagnerians, not only Schlingensief, but also conductors, Christian Thielemann and Daniel Barenboim, Directors, Jurgen Flimm and Nike Wagner, film-maker Hans-Jurgen Syberberg and relict Elisabeth Furtwangler bidding farewell to Herr Wagner at the Tagesspiegel website: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/Bayreuth;art772,2601486.

The Cambridge Companion to Wagner – Notice from Colin Baskerville
Edited by Thomas S. Grey, Cambridge University Press, 2008, AUD $49.95, on sale Abbey’s, Gleebooks, Kinokuniya
Sixteen key scholars, ranging from Dieter Borchmeyer to Barry Millington, contribute in depth essays with essential footnotes and bibliography. The Chronology is separated into four parts:

• Biographical and Historical Contexts;
• Opera, Music, Drama;
• Ideas and Ideology in the Gesamtkunstwerk and
• After Wagner: Influence and Interpretation.

The last section includes a compelling account by Mike Ashman of ‘Wagner on stage: aesthetic, dramaturgical, and social considerations’. This brings us up to date with a history of significant productions. Furthermore, the footnotes detail DVD releases with technical commentary. There are a number of major productions from places such as Leipzig of great interest and basically unknown to Australians. Deborah Riedel (Freia) adorns the front cover. 

Seattle Opera Ring - http://www.seattleopera.org/tickets/ring/

Peter Nicholson website with Wagner related articles and comment
Members may remember our Member, Peter Nicholson, delivering an inspiring talk to the Society a number of years ago on the subject of Wagner's genius, Orpheus Ascending.  Peter has now become a regular contributor to a stimulating and wide-ranging blog called 3 Quarks Daily at http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily. His latest contribution is on the Ern Malley hoax.  Peter tells me that he has received considerable positive feedback to his articles. You can find a list at Peter's own website http://peternicholson.byteserve.com.au/links.html.

Calder Publications / Riverrun Press have reissued English National Opera Guides. 
There are 48 guides in the series (10 Wagner titles). Over the last decade more than 20 of the guides had gone out-of-print. Due to the financial constraints of independent publishing, we were unable to undertake tradtitional reprints. Nevertheless, in the last few months they have reissued the unavailable guides print-on-demand. See full list

Los Angeles - Richard Wagner Ten-Week Festival 15 April-30 June 2010
Los Angeles Opera and more than 50 Southern California arts and educational institutions will stage a 10-week festival in spring 2010 to support the company's production of The Ring cycle. The Ring Festival LA will include performances, symposiums, concerts, special exhibitions and film screenings.  The LA Opera’s General Director, Plácido Domingo, the LA Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, acknowledged the philanthropist, Eli Broad, whose $6 million foundation gift is underwriting the Ring.  In addition, according the Company’s website, ‘film festivals throughout the city will acknowledge the movie industry’s debt to Richard Wagner not only regarding the use of myth and archetypes in story-telling about universal emotions, but also in the use of musical motives in movie soundtracks. Los Angeles will celebrate Wagner as no other city in the world can.’ The Ring cycle will be conducted by James Conlon and designed and directed by Achim Freyer.  The Company’s website also contains some photos and videos to give you a taste of the production.

The cast will include: Wotan-Vitalij Kowaljow, Loge-Arnold Bezuyen, Alberich-Gordon Hawkins, Mime-Graham Clark, Fricka-Michelle Deyoung, Erda-Jill Grove, Siegmund-Plácido Domingo, Sieglinde-Martina Serafin, Brunnhilde-Linda Watson, Siegfried-John Treleaven, Gunther-Alan Held, and Hagen-Eric Halfvarson.

The Opera Company’s website already has much information about the festival, including the following attractions – many others will be added over the following months:

American Jewish University - Seminar on ‘Richard Wagner and the Jews: The Use of Wagner by the Nazis,’ moderated by Dr. Michael Berenbaum and featuring a dialogue with Gottfried Wagner, great-grandchild of Richard Wagner and son of Wolfgang Wagner.
Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum - ‘The Challenges of Singing Wagner,’ a conversation on the joys and difficulties of singing the composer's works and the unique technical equipment singers require.
Goethe-Institut Los Angeles - A screening of the documentary Wagner und die Frauen (in German with English subtitles) directed by Andreas Morell.
OPERA America - OPERA America will hold its annual Opera Conference in Los Angeles in 2010. The conference will include a variety of opera specific events, performances, speakers, workshops with a special emphasis on Wagner.
Southern California Wagner Society - ‘Digital Wagner,’ an online-offline chat room / reception for people to mix, mingle, and share their love of all things Wagner and stories of how they became besotted with the composer. Dr. Sherwin Sloan, Chairman of the Southern California Wagner Society will preside over the festivities.
University of California Los Angeles - ‘Wagner in LA: The Opera of the 21st Century.’
USC Thornton School of Music - A presentation of Das Liebesverbot.

Keep abreast of the developments at the Company’s website: http://laoperaring.com/festival/events.php, or better still, subscribe to their email newsletter.  However, be aware that the Company is charging a compulsory donation of approximately the price of the ticket as well, although the donation decreases with the cheaper tickets.  Tickets range from US$2,200 (US$1,100 tax deductible portion – if you happen to pay tax in the USA) to US$100 (handrail obstructed – US$20 tax deductible portion). More ticket information is on the company’s website at www.losangelesopera.com/ticketing/subscription/ringcycle/welcome.aspx.  If you can’t make it to LA, it appears that the full cycle will be performed in San Francisco in the summer of 2011.  [