Wagner's Valhalla

Started by Greta, April 07, 2007, 08:09:57 PM

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marvinbrown

Quote from: uffeviking on February 20, 2008, 07:22:36 AM
On my LVD cover it's Johanna Meier and as I remember it's not the Domingo partner Waltraut! I had a Waltraut Meier documentary on DVD and don't recall her mentioning a singing sister.  ;)

  Ok Lis and PW now I am confused  ??? how many Wagnerian soprano singers are there with the surname MEIER?? 


  marvin

PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 20, 2008, 08:58:17 AM
  Ok Lis and PW now I am confused  ??? how many Wagnerian soprano singers are there with the surname MEIER?? 


  marvin
Not sure, the only one I know is Johana Meier. Waltraud is really a mezzo who tries to sing the dramatic Wagnerian soprano roles like Isolde and Sieglinde. I guess she is doing the same thing as Helga Dernesh did.

It is even more confusing for you since Waltraud Meier DID and DOES STILL sing Isolde. But physically the two of them look nothing alike.

uffeviking

Do PW and I know two different Meiers? The one doing Isolde with Kollo spells her first name Johanna, two of those 'enses', and PM insists on spelling it with one 'en'. I think it doesn't really matter, but at least those two - three? - ladies are keeping 'Wagner's Valhalla thread on the front page.

Hey, wait a minute, just spotted another misspelling in the title of this thread:

Wagner spelled it Walhall, no vee at the beginning and no additional a at the end!  $:)


J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: uffeviking on February 20, 2008, 12:16:08 PM
Hey, wait a minute, just spotted another misspelling in the title of this thread:

Wagner spelled it Walhall, no vee at the beginning and no additional a at the end!  $:)

Well, Valhalla is just the English version of the German Walhall, just as Valkyrie is of Walküre. So - no mistake, I think...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

PerfectWagnerite

#444
Quote from: uffeviking on February 20, 2008, 12:16:08 PM
Do PW and I know two different Meiers? The one doing Isolde with Kollo spells her first name Johanna, two of those 'enses', and PM insists on spelling it with one 'en'.


oh yeah. I had an old classmate who spelled it "Johana" so automatically I thought it was only one "n". But you are alsolutely right.

Regarding Valhalla, I think it's Walhal in German and Valhalla in English like Jezetha said :)

And regarding Waltraute, I think in a few places in the libretto Wagner did spell it Waltraut without the 'e' but it was more for singing purposes, like sometimes in the libretto Bruennhilde appears as Bruennhild without the final 'e'.

Do you personally know Miss Johanna Meier?

uffeviking

Regretably, never met the lady, yet watching the documentary about her life and career, hearing her thoughts on different subject, brings her close to better understanding her. She does seem to be a very down-to-earth woman without any star behaviour.

PerfectWagnerite

#446
Quote from: uffeviking on February 20, 2008, 12:30:28 PM
Regretably, never met the lady, yet watching the documentary about her life and career, hearing her thoughts on different subject, brings her close to better understanding her. She does seem to be a very down-to-earth woman without any star behaviour.
I tried googling her and not finding anything >:(

But if anyone wants to sample her artistry a short clip is here

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 12:22:45 PM
And regarding Waltraute, I think in a few places in the libretto Wagner did spell it Waltraut without the 'e' but it was more for singing purposes, like sometimes in the libretto Bruennhilde appears as Bruennhild without the final 'e'.

Wagner likes to shorten names to get rid of unaccented final syllables (Sieglind, Brünnhild, Waltraut). It's a simple poetic measure.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Haffner

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 20, 2008, 07:09:33 AM
  PW for what its worth I have this recording of Meier as Isolde and I find her performance enjoyable.  Is she a Flagstad? No.  but I kind of like her in the role of Isolde:

 

  marvin

 


Thanks, Marvin, for the reccomendation. I've been really curious as to this dvd. I have the Furtwangler and Kleiber audio, and love them both, especially the former.

Haffner

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on February 20, 2008, 08:06:53 AM
Yeah! "Geh...GEHHHHHH !!!!!".




I love Morris' "Geh...GEHHHHHH !!!!!"!

marvinbrown

Quote from: Jezetha on February 20, 2008, 12:40:08 PM
Wagner likes to shorten names to get rid of unaccented final syllables (Sieglind, Brünnhild, Waltraut). It's a simple poetic measure.


 Very good observation.  Wagner the poet I like that!

 marvin

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 20, 2008, 01:11:07 PM

 Very good observation.  Wagner the poet I like that!

 marvin

Wagner's librettos have often been derided, but even as accomplished a poet as Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who collaborated with Richard Strauss on many operas, was envious of Wagner's literary abilities as a librettist. And whatever some may think of the verse of the Ring - and the alliteration can be too much of a good thing sometimes -, Wagner achieves some marvellous feats of verbal concentration. As a writer and poet I really can appreciate that. And when Wagner read the whole poem aloud in Zürich, the great Swiss writer Gottfried Keller was very impressed - there was a 'rough poetry' there, he wrote to a friend (iirc).
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

uffeviking


PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: uffeviking on February 20, 2008, 01:51:05 PM
That's the documentary on Waltraud Meier I am talking about:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=82040&album_group=2
Oh I thought you were talking about a documentary on Johanna.

M forever

Both "Walhall" or "Walhalla" are correct, and yes, "Valhalla" is the correct English transliteration as w in German is the same sound as v in English. In fact, in old Norse it was spelled "Valhalla" while Old German uses the w at the beginning. "Halla" means "hall" (modern german "Halle"), "Wal" means "battle" or "war" (it's actually etymologically the same word as "war". See also "Walstatt", and old-fashioned word for "battlefield", or "Walkuere" ("kueren"="to choose, elect"), a woman who choses the slain heroes from the battlefield which will go to Walhalla.

PSmith08

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 07:46:04 PM
Both "Walhall" or "Walhalla" are correct, and yes, "Valhalla" is the correct English transliteration as w in German is the same sound as v in English. In fact, in old Norse it was spelled "Valhalla" while Old German uses the w at the beginning. "Halla" means "hall" (modern german "Halle"), "Wal" means "battle" or "war" (it's actually etymologically the same word as "war". See also "Walstatt", and old-fashioned word for "battlefield", or "Walkuere" ("kueren"="to choose, elect"), a woman who choses the slain heroes from the battlefield which will go to Walhalla.

Query: How is Saal related to Halle? Are they synonyms, or are there shades of gray here?

M forever

Both are more or less the same although a "Saal" is always a large *inner* room while a Halle is basically a large building which typically contains a large room which can be a "Saal" or a "Halle", but not the other way around, a "Saal" can not contain a "Halle", but a "Halle" can contain an inner "Halle". But in many examples, the exact use of the words is interchangeable. Both are very old words which reach far back into Indo-European language history. As you can see by the fact that "Halle" and "Zelle" ("cell", both in the architectural and biological sense) are etymologically derived from the same root word but mean very different things. But the basic meaning of "an enclosed space" is shared.

PSmith08

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 08:19:58 PM
Both are more or less the same although a "Saal" is always a large *inner* room while a Halle is basically a large building which typically contains a large room which can be a "Saal" or a "Halle", but not the other way around, a "Saal" can not contain a "Halle", but a "Halle" can contain an inner "Halle". But in many examples, the exact use of the words is interchangeable. Both are very old words which reach far back into Indo-European language history. As you can see by the fact that "Halle" and "Zelle" ("cell", both in the architectural and biological sense) are etymologically derived from the same root word but mean very different things. But the basic meaning of "an enclosed space" is shared.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Very informative.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: M forever on February 20, 2008, 08:19:58 PM
Both are more or less the same although a "Saal" is always a large *inner* room while a Halle is basically a large building which typically contains a large room which can be a "Saal" or a "Halle", but not the other way around, a "Saal" can not contain a "Halle", but a "Halle" can contain an inner "Halle". But in many examples, the exact use of the words is interchangeable. Both are very old words which reach far back into Indo-European language history. As you can see by the fact that "Halle" and "Zelle" ("cell", both in the architectural and biological sense) are etymologically derived from the same root word but mean very different things. But the basic meaning of "an enclosed space" is shared.

The same applies to the Dutch hal en zaal.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Sergeant Rock

#459
I thought some of the Wagnerites here would enjoy reading James Merrill's poem "The Ring Cycle."  It's based on his experience and associations seeing the Levine Ring at the Met.

    1

    They're doing a Ring cycle at the Met,
    Four operas in one week, for the first time
    Since 1939. I went to that one.
    Then war broke out, Flagstad flew home, tastes veered
    To tuneful deaths and dudgeons. Next to Verdi,
    whose riddles I could whistle but not solve,
    Wagner had been significance itself,
    Great golden lengths of it, stitched with motifs,
    A music in whose folds the mind, at twelve,
    Came to its senses: Twin, Sword, Forest Bird,
    Envy, Redemption through Love . . . But left unheard
    These fifty years? A fire of answered prayers
    Buurned round that little pitcher with big ears
    Who now wakes. Night. E-flat denotes the Rhine,
    Where everything began. The world's life. Mine.



    2

    Young love, moon-flooded hut, and the act ends.
    House lights. The matron on my left exclaims.
    We gasp and kiss. Our mothers were best friends.
    Now, old as mothers, here we sit. Too weird.
    That man across the aisle, with lambswool beard,
    Was once my classmate, or a year behind me.
    Alone, in black, in front of him, Maxine . . .
    It's like the Our Town cemetery scene!
    We have long evenings to absorb together
    Before the world ends: once familiar faces
    Transfigured by hi-tech rainbow and mist,
    Fireball and thunderhead. Make-believe weather
    Calling no less for prudence. At our stage
    When recognition strikes, who can afford
    The strain it places on the old switchboard?



    3

    Fricka looks pleased with her new hairdresser.
    Brünnhilde (Behrens) has abandoned hers.
    Russet-maned, eager for battle, she butts her father
    Like a playful pony. They've all grown, these powers,
    So young, so human. So exploitable.
    The very industries whose "major funding"
    Underwrote the production continue to plunder
    The planet's wealth. Erda, her cobwebs beaded
    With years of seeping waste, subsidies unheeded
    --Right Mr. President? Right, Texaco?--
    Into a glass-blue cleft. Singers retire,
    Yes, but take pupils. Not these powers, no, no.
    What corporation Wotan, trained by them,
    Returns gold to the disaffected river,
    Or preatomic sanctity to fire?



    4

    Brünnhilde confronts Siegfried. That is to say,
    Two singers have been patiently rehearsed
    So that their tones and attitudes convey
    Outrage and injured innocence. But first
    Two youngsters became singers, strove to master
    Every nuance of innocence and outrage
    Even in the bosom of their stolid
    Middleclass familes who made it possible
    To study voice, and languages, take lessons
    In how the woman loves, the hero dies . . .
    Tonight again, each note a blade reforged,
    The dire oath ready in their blood is sworn.
    Two world-class egos, painted, overweight,
    Who'll joke at supper sided by side, now hate
    So plausibly that one old stagehand cries.



    5

    I've worn my rings--all three of them
    At once for the first time--to the Ring.


    Like pearls in seawater they gleam,
    A facet sparkels through waves of sound.


    Of their three givers one is underground,
    One far off, one here listening.


    One ring is gold; one silver, set
    With two small diamonds; the third, bone
    --Conch shell, rather. Ocean cradled it


    As earth did the gems and metals. All unknown,
    Then, were the sweatshops of Nibelheim


    That worry nature into jewelry,
    Orbits of power, Love's over me,


    Or music's, as his own chromatic scales
    Beset the dragon, over Time.



    6

    Back when the old house was being leveled
    And this one built, I made a contribution.
    Accordingly, a seat that bears my name
    Year after year between its thin, squared shoulders
    (Where Hagen is about to aim his spear)
    Bides its time in instrumental gloom.
    These evenings we're safe. Our seats belong
    To Walter J. and Ortrud Fogelsong
    --Whoever they are, or were. But late one night
    (How is it possible? I'm sound asleep!)
    I stumble on "my" darkened place. The plaque
    Gives off that phosphorescent sheen of Earth's
    Address book. Stranger yet, as I sink back,
    The youth behind me, daybreak in his eyes--
    A son till now undreamed of--makes to rise.

the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"