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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
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On the website is a series of "RatundTat" questions or tasks that each pair of contestants had to complete in each of the cities, including questions about Wagner. For example:
Fotografieren Sie folgende Straßenschilder innerhalb Hernes! Richard-Wagner-Straße. [Photograph the following streetsigns in inner Hernes. Richard-Wagner Street]
Letzte Ausfahrt Bayreuth! Muttertag naht! Kaufen Sie 1 Rose für Gudrun Wagner. [Last exit to Bayreuth! Mother's Day draws near! Buy one rose for Gudrun Wagner]
Das Parisfal-Paket: Bringen Sie beim gleichenAutospezialisten die günstigen Preise für folgende Produkte in Erfahrung! The Parsifal parcel - the initial letters are the clue!}Politur. Achsmanschetten, Radblenden, Sportschalidämpfer, Imprägnierspray, Fahrzeugfedern, Auspuffblenden, Lenkungsdämpfer
Dschungel Dortmund: Welche Bewohner des Dortmunder Zoos tragen den Namen einer Figur aus einer Wagner-oper. {Jungle Dortmund: Which inhabitant of the Dortmund Zoo bears the name of a figure from a Wagner opera?]
Our Karlsruhe correspondent (member Marc Greyling, now living and working in Germany) has provided us with some translations of the Wagner-Rallye website information
http://www.wagner-rallye.de/2004051710.php as well as some related information about Herr Schlingensief. Fortunately, too, the owners of the website have given us permission to reproduce some of the photographs from the Rally that have a particularly Wagnerian flavour.
Marc found this quote from the organiser, Schlingensief, on the
NDR (broadcasting service) culture website http://www.ndrkultur.de/ndrkultur_pages_std/0,2513,OID352070_REF162,00.html
"Hier bewegen sich eben Einzelteile in einem großen Ganzen, der
Betrachter ist Teil dieses Ganzen. Das hat mich eigentlich in meinen
Aktionen auch immer schon interessiert, dass ich ja auch versuche,
den Wagner aus dem
elitären Holzschuppen rauszuholen und dann mal eben auf die Straße
zu bringen."
Marc's loose translation: In this spectacle it's precisely all
about individual components comprising a greater whole. The observer
is a participant in the whole thing. In my work it has always fascinated
me to attempt to deliver Wagner out of the elitist upper-drawer and
set him upon the streets.
Schlingensief is, apparently, keen to emphasise opportunities for cultural inter-change, or, as he says: " only where different experiences meet can harmonies result and possibilities of change emerge". This is particularly necessary in cities such as Duisberg with problems of social isolation and unemployment.
This may or may not prove illuminating for those of our members who will be seeing the premiere of Schlingensief's Parsifal this month.
Marc also provided a quick translation (between work commitments) of another "spell-binding" page on the Wagner-Rallye website
http://www.wagner-rallye.de/goetterdaemmerung.php about an attempt to film Götterdämmerung in Vienna at the end of World War II. Marc writes
"…it is the story of a "performance" and filming
in Vienna, in the last hours of the war, of fragments of Göötterdämmerung,
principally Act III, Scene 1, "Siegfried und die Rheintöchter"
up to end of Scene 3, and part of Act I. It seems to have been a last
act of propaganda and morale-boosting on the part of the Third Reich.
Thanks to Americans bombs, the opera house burnt out and, for safety,
the musicians and singers were divided up and located in different
bunkers across the city for the recording and connected to each other
by army field telephones and rudimentary loudspeakers. By chance they
got hold of the last 3000m of 35mm COLOUR Agfa film stock in the city
and with 5 cameras recorded the performance. The filming includes
the sounds of the soviet bombing and artillery fire "accompanying"
the music. Scene 2 and 3 of Act III were recorded 9 times.
"The story goes on to describe how the film could not be successfully
smuggled out and came into the hands of the Soviets, was lost in one
of their archives and only came to light in 1991. It was re-discovered
and developed in Hungary and brought to Venice with the intention
of presenting it in the Venice Duomo on the 10th anniversary of Luigi
Nono's death. It was worked on by a team in Paris and the fragments
restored to what Gerard Schlesinger, Cahiers du Cinéma, calls
a "gruesome beauty". He gives a point by point description
of the film annotated with his remarks including such rhetorical questions
as: Should they not have performed Rheingold instead of Götterdämmerung?
That would have been a more hopeful musical beginning and better propaganda
than a drama of demise."
Judging by the website reports and the extensive photographic coverage, also on the website, the event would have been quite spectacular to witness and to participate in. Below are some photos from the opening and closing events, featuring the Maestro in a very unfamiliar guise, but one I'm sure his ego would have found flattering!
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In case you're wondering, the winners of the rally were Clemens Becker and Lutz Thiele with a total of 196 points.
The Wagner-Rallye website also has a number of reviews of the event from other newspapers, magazines and websites, including Spiegel Online, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Salzburger Nachrichten and Das Opernnetz that you may wish to read, if your German is better than mine!
If I understand properly, the second Wagner Rallye, will take place in 2005 in New York, so keep any eye out for what will, undoubtedly, be another unique Wagner celebration.
(Ed)
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This Page was last updated on: 20-Oct-2004
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