Wagner's Valhalla

[Elgarian]

He's no Emily Brontë!

He's no Enid Blyton either.

[Beorn]

He's no Enid Blyton either.

I had to look her up.   

[Karl Henning]

I think there should be more opera characters named Enid.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

And he's no Victor Hugo. I get it, you think he wrote the most turgid writings of all time. Let me defend my decision with a quote from one of my favorite moments in Wagner's repertoire:

Hüte dich,
herrischer Gott!
Frevelte ich,
so frevelt' ich frei an mir:
doch an allem, was war,
ist und wird,
frevelst, Ewiger, du,
entreissest du frech mir den Ring!

This quote from Alberich is one of my main reasons why I  consider him one of the most tragic villains/heros of all time. Alberich reasons (and pretty damn convincingly if you ask me) that he was justified in his "robbery" of rheingold. I consider it wasn't actually even a theft. Alberich was told the price for acquiring the gold and making it into the ring was renouncing love. So when he has paid the price this hypocrite god robs him who himself didn't have a courage to do a deed that was required for making the ring and even lectures him that the gold belongs to rhinemaidens which is even more shameful when we know that Wotan has no intention of returning the ring to them. So, when Alberich only sinned against himself by renouncing love and obtaining the gold, Wotan, maker of all the rules that are carved into his spear's shaft, sins against everything that was, is and will be.

Great psychological analysis or the most nonsensical gibberish ever written? You may think the latter and I respect it. I rest my case. No hard feelings?

[Elgarian]

I had to look her up.   

When I first read this, I thought you'd written: 'I had to lock her up'. So that's why she disappeared, I thought. Then I realised I'd had a brain-flip, and was thinking of Agatha Christie. Which brings us nicely back to Wagner the master of prose:

He's no Agatha Christie.

[Elgarian]

I think there should be more opera characters named Enid.

I'd be happy to vote for that manifesto.

[Karl Henning]

Now, an Agatha-Christie-level libretto set to Wagner-level music: what a thrill that would be!

[Elgarian]

Now, an Agatha-Christie-level libretto set to Wagner-level music: what a thrill that would be!

The grand climax: Brunnhilde gathers all the dramatis personae together in Hagen's library, and declares it was the butler who dunnit.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

And do not think I don't have some complaints about Wagner's prose. He is not perfect. I hate much of Brünnhilde's characterization in Götterdämmerung and the entire Siegmund's character should rot in hell (yet ironically I've seen many who think him as the most humane and likeable character in Ring). But neither was Victor Hugo perfect. Les miserables, one of my favorite books of all time, has passages that sound overly bombastic or moments when I think: what the hell does this has to do with a plot? And even though usually Hugo weaves the threads together, the transition is not always flawless.

[Beorn]

But neither was Victor Hugo perfect. Les miserables, one of my favorite books of all time, has passages that sound overly bombastic or moments when I think: what the hell does this has to do with a plot? And even though usually Hugo weaves the threads together, the transition is not always flawless.

I like Hugo but never made it to the end of that book.

[Cato]

I just heard the Goetterdaemmerung section of this:

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I was reminded of a similar recording by George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra on Columbia in the late 1960's or early 70's.

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More than one person at the time commented that it more than made the case for a complete performance of Der Ring by Szell and Cleveland.

Unfortunately, that never happened.

[jlaurson]

I had to look her up.   

Were you never a child? :-)

I had the hots for several (=all!) of her female characters.

Just finished writing and translating some 30.000 words about Wagner! Hojotoho! Heiaha, I'm done... but what gratifying work it was! Result (annual Almanach) to be published as the Bayreuth Festival starts.

[Lisztianwagner]

Happy 200th anniversary Richard! Greatest genius of all time, both in musical and literary sense, if you ask me!

Completely agree!

[kishnevi]

I think I've  posted this quote from Leonard Bernstein before:

"I hate Wagner on bended knee".

And Alberich's defense of Alberich reminds me of what Bruce Montgomery (real name of the musician who wrote the Gervase Fen mysteries as Edmund Crispin) wrote in Swan Song, which centers on a British production of Meistersinger very soon after the end of WWII: that it was hard to understand why the Nazis venerated Wagner, given that the Ring is based on the premise that not even the gods could break an agreement without bringing the world down around their ears.

Though it is true that of all the characters in the Ring, it's Loge, Siegmund, Gunther and Gutrune that I feel most sympathetic to.

[jlaurson]

Flying Dutchman Sketches & Doodles



http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/06/flying-dutchman-sketches-doodles.html





Minkowski's Sons of Meyerbeer: Wagner & Dietsch

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/06/minkowskis-sons-of-meyerbeer-wagner.html

[knight66]

That famous nose has been chipped off from a famous bust of the composer Wagner in venice. He died in Venice and on the 200th anniversary of his birth, his statue has been vandalised.

Mike

[Karl Henning]

Possibly still my favorite work by Richard Wagner:

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[Karl Henning]

That famous nose has been chipped off from a famous bust of the composer Wagner in venice. He died in Venice and on the 200th anniversary of his birth, his statue has been vandalised.

Mike

Pity.

[Florestan]

Happy 200th anniversary Richard! Greatest genius of all time, both in musical and literary sense, if you ask me!

And yes, I am one of those that thinks Wagner's librettos are among the greatest prose of 19th century. Deal with it.

Don't know if you are German but Arthur Schopenhauer would have laughed his a$$ out loud reading your post. 

http://www.wagnersite.nl/Schopenhauer/Arthur.htm

[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 17 )
Die Meistersinger • Richard Wagner

Innocence Regained



http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/08/notes-from-2013-salzburg-festival-17.html