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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
News and Wagner Related Events

  • For your Diary
    - Wagner on 2MBS-FM 102.5
    - Our Liane Keegan
    - Our Lisa Gasteen
    - Our Simone Young
    - And lots more - More Info ...
  • News -
    - Progress of the Bangkok (Somtow) Ring Cycle Sarah Livingstone. More info ...
    - In Memoriam - Carlo Cillario. More info ...
    - In Memorium - Bruce Hungerford - Australian - Born Concert Pianist. More infor ...
    - Other news. More info ...
    - Seattle Opera Appoints Asher Fisch as Company's Principal Guest Conductor
    - Seattle Opera Announces 2009 Ring Cast
    - Obituary: Gudrun Wagner
    - Vale Richard Bradshaw
    - Glimmerglass Opera Wagner
    - The Ring Cycle In Budapest, June 2008
    - Metropolitan Opera's new production of The Ring Cycle
    - Possibly the Schwannengesang of the Schenk Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera
    - La Opera gets $6m to Stage Ring
    - Peter Nicholson website with Wagner related articles and comment
    - English National Guides
  • Archive - Previous miscellaneous activities listings - More info ...
  • (See also: Program of events of the Wagner Society of NSW and Ravens Reporting)
  • Images of the Adelaide Ring

For your Diary

  • 2MBS-FM 102.5 will broadcast a series of 12 programmes compiled by Society Member Barbara Brady entitled "Wagner and Friends". The programmes are presented by Gwynn Roberts.For the most part the programmes are centred on one of Wagner's operas, but the final four, dedicated to The Ring of the Nibelungen, are based on four grand themes which feature in the Ring. The programmes are scheduled for broadcast on the following dates:

    • 01 July - Early Wagner
    • 15 July - Rienzi and Das Liebesverbot
    • 05 August - Der Fliegende Hollander
    • 19 August - Tannhauser
    • 02 September - Lohengrin
    • 16 September - Tristan und Isolde
    • 07 October - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
    • 21 October - Parsifal
    • 04 November - Nature in the Ring
    • 18 November - Power and Magic in the Ring
    • 02 December - Love in the Ring
    • 16 December - Birth, Death and Redemption in the Ring.
  • Liane Keegan - Mezzo Soprano Upcoming performances in Berlin are as follows Liane Keegan has established a reputation as one of Australia's finest dramatic mezzo sopranos. She is a highly sought after artist both in Europe and Australia and excels in all facets of vocal performance.
    Her operatic performances include Third Maid in the Sydney Festival's Elektra ; Erste Norn in Stuttgart Opera's Götterdämmerung ; Azucena in Il Trovatore for State Opera of South Australia; Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera for Opera Australia ; Mistress Quickly in the Minnesota Sommerfest production of Falstaff; Offred's Mother in The Handmaid's Tale and First Norn in Twilight of the Gods for English National Opera and the roles of Erda, First Norn and Waltraute ( Die Walküre ) in State Opera of South Australia 's Der Ring Des Niebelungen , recorded under the Melba Recordings label.
  • Simone Young Performance Venue UTZON ROOM, Sydney Opera House Sunday, 20 July 2008, at 5:00PM
    On 20 July Simone Young will be performing Englebert Humperdinck’s four-hands piano arrangement of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. With narration in German and English, twelve short movements are brought to life by passages of text from the opera. See http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/priority/simoneyoung.aspx
  • A Feast Of Wagner Around Australia In 2008 – Featuring Australian Wagnerian Soprano Lisa Gasteen - More info ...
  • International Richard Wagner Conference 2008 Geneva - 1-5 May 2008 More info ... or E-mail us for a copy of the brochure
  • The Ring Cycle In Budapest – June 2008 More info ...

News

Seattle Opera Appoints Asher Fisch as Company's Principal Guest Conductor
In an 16 October 2007 media release, Speight Jenkins general director of the Seattle Opera announced that ‘Israeli conductor Asher Fisch has been named as the company's principal guest conductor and will assume both a significant role in conducting future performances at Seattle Opera as well as serving as a musical advisor to the general director.

Fisch, who is currently music director of Tel Aviv's Israeli Opera, most recently conducted Seattle Opera's August performances of Der Fliegende Hollander and was subsequently awarded the company's artist of the year award for the 2006-07 season. He made his Seattle Opera debut in 2003 leading performances of Parsifal , and since then has returned to pace the company's productions of Lohengrin and Rosenkavalier . In August 2008 he is slated to conduct Seattle Opera's second International Wagner Competition.'

 Interestingly, in the company's media release's list of Fisch's conducting achievements there is no mention of the 2004 Adelaide Ring Cycle – just an oversight? Nonetheless, I'm sure all Wagnerians in Australia will wish him well with his appointment and hope that it will not preclude him from returning to conduct any future revival of the Adelaide Ring. [Editor]

Seattle Opera Announces 2009 Ring Cast
Debuts Include: Janice Baird as Brunnhilde, Stig Fogh Andersen as Siegfried, Stuart Skelton as Siegmund
Returning Cast Members Include: Greer Grimsley as Wotan, Margaret Jane Wray as Sieglinde, Richard Paul Fink as Alberich, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka/First Norn/Waltraute ( Gotterdammerung ). Robert Spano Conducts
Opera Cycle I Cycle II Cycle III
Das Rheingold (7:00 p.m.) (Sun) August 9 (Mon) August 17 (Tues) August 25
Die Walkure (6:00 p.m.) (Mon) August 10 (Tues) August 18 (Wed) August 26
Siegfried (6:00 p.m.) (Wed) August 12 (Thurs) August 20 (Fri) August 28
Gotterdammerung (6:00 p.m.) (Fri) August 14 (Sat) August 22 (Sun) August 30

Obituary – Gudrun Wagner

Wife of the Bayreuther Festspiele Director Dies: "'Deeply moved and in silent mourning, I must announce that my dear wife and closest collaborator Gudrun Wagner has died totally unexpectedly [but apparently after a recent operation – Ed.]', said Wolfgang Wagner, 88” as reported by AFP. Associated Press reports: "As the most important assistant and supporter of her husband, she shaped the luster and the worldwide significance of the Wagner festival in Bayreuth ," said Guenther Beckstein, state governor of Bavaria . "Her death is a deep loss to Bavaria , Bayreuth and the global festival community." This unexpected death must seriously compromise Katharina Wagner's chances of winning the succession war as she would undoubtedly have been counting on her mother's experience in guiding her own approach to managing one of the most prestigious and regularly controversial arts festivals in the world.

Vale Richard Bradshaw

The Wednesday, 29 August 2007 Guardian online new service carried an obituary for Mr Bradshaw, the chief conductor and music director of the Toronto Opera Company, who died at the age of 63. A number of Society members attended the Toronto Opera Company's inaugural indigenous production of The Ring Cycle last year and were rewarded with splendid orchestral playing under Bradshaw and wonderful acoustics in the purpose-built Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts (although many had reservations about the wildly varying interpretations of each opera by a separate director).  The Guardian noted that Bradshaw's “his policy of engaging innovative directors - among them Atom Egoyan, Robert Lepage, Michael Levine and Fran çois Girard - from the worlds of theatre and film…was one of a number of initiatives designed to attract a younger, more broadly-based audience.”  According to the Guardian, “ Bradshaw's…funeral was itself something of a state occasion: [involving] nearly 2,000 people, including arts celebrities, politicians and other dignitaries…”.

Glimmerglass Opera Wagner: Das Liebesverbot - Cooperstown, N.Y . 2008 Festival
On its website, Glimmerglass Opera has “announced that it will present the first complete, fully-staged production in North America of Richard Wagner's opera Das Liebesverbot (Forbidden Love)as part of its 2008 Festival Season. Performances will take place in July and August at the Alice Busch Opera Theater next to Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, upstate New York . This early work by Wagner has been fully staged on a number of occasions in Germany and Ireland , but never before in North America . In 1983, it was performed in concert at the Waterloo Festival in Stanhope, New Jersey , as part of the Wagner centenary celebrations.

“Das Liebesverbot , a comic opera inspired by William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure , with libretto by the composer, will be performed during Glimmerglass Opera's 2008 Festival Season in which all the season's repertory will be linked to Shakespeare and set on a stage resembling an Elizabethan theater.    Glimmerglass Opera will also present new productions of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto , Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi . The productions will run in repertory from July 5 to August 24, 2008, in the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown , New York . The 2008 productions are all new to the Glimmerglass Opera stage and will be presented on one set. The set, designed by the company's Associate Artistic Director, John Conklin, will depict an Elizabethan theater. You can visit their website at www.glimmerglass.org contact Glimmerglass on telephone number (607) 547-2255 or e-mail them at info@glimmerglass.org .

The Ring Cycle In Budapest – June 2008
In addition to the extensive list of Wagner performances compiled by our global roaming Raven, Camron Dyer, we can add this cycle in Budapest . Unfortunately, it will not be staged in the wonderful Opera House, but the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in the Palace of Arts .

The Cycle will be guided by the conductor Ádám Fischer with the Hungarian Radio Orchestra and the cast of singers will include Christian Franz as Siegmund and Loge, László Polgár as Hunding, Linda Watson as Brunnhilde, James Johnson and Thomas Konieczny as Wotan, Judit Németh as Fricka and Michaele Schuster as Sieglinde. Direction and set design is by Hartmut Schorghofer and dramaturgy is by Christian Martin Fuchs. Ticket prices range from Ft200 for students with ID, and from Ft1,200 to Ft9,800 for others.

According to the Palace of Arts website, the creative team “do not want to interpret but to recite the story of mythical German heroes. They invite the audience to a joint journey, providing them with the necessary musical experience, spectacle and atmosphere….It knocks on the gates of the shrine that guards the memorable Nibelung performances, experimenting with a new concept and new methods.” The dates: June 19   2008 , Das Rheingold , June 20   2008 , Die Walkure , June 21   2008 , Siegfried and  June 22   2008 , Gotterdammerung .Ticket can be booked online at www.mupa.hu . If any member attends, the Editor would be delighted to publish your thoughts and reactions to the Cycle.

Metropolitan Opera's new production of The Ring Cycle
Some of the cast members for the Metropolitan Opera's new production of The Ring Cycle (due for 2010-11) have been announced. Already known is the Dirctor, Robert Lepage, but now it has been announced that Deborah Voigt will sing Brunnhilde, Bryn Terfel will sing Wotan and Ben Heppner will sing Siegfried. The Otto Schenk Ring production will see have its Schwannengesang in 2008.

Possibly the Schwannengesang of the Schenk Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera
Mr Simon O'Neill (the Parsifal in the Wellington production of the music-drama) will be Siegmund at the Met ( after understudying Placido Domingo in the role since 2004) with Adrianne Piezconka as Sieglinde, Olga Sergeeva/Lisa Gasteen alternating as Brunnhilde and Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding) i n Die Walkure under Lorin Maazel, and they will have the same roles at the Covent Garden Ring.  The production will be conducted by Maestro Lorin Maazel. These performances will mark Maazel's return to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in nearly 45 years.

O'Neill is also cast as Siegmund with Placido Domingo in the new production by the Royal Opera Covent Garden of the Ring Cycle n October 2007. He is the first New Zealander since Sir Donald McIntyre to appear in Die Walkure at both the Met and Covent Garden . Judging by the picture of O'Neill in his Siegmund costume, he is almost as striking on stage as Siegfried Jerusalem – you can see a press release at www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0702/S00317.htm .

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

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This page last Updated 02-Jul-2008

© Wagner Society in NSW Inc 2007.