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Classical-Iconoclast
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Frequently updated, always lively, a music blog that's actually about music ! Orchestral, chamber, opera, song. Good for new music, modern opera, Messiaen, Chinese music, European festivals - different and provocative. Emphasis on live performance re
Recent Posts Tagged With 'wagner'
Tristan und Isolde ROH 2nd night
Being at the Royal Opera House Tristan und Isolde a second time is good because the real beauty of this production is how subtle it really is. Forget the still photos of the sets, they're misleading. Again, this is a reference to tradition - the tr...
Tristan und Isolde ROH more tradition than meets the eye
Opera is visual as well as aural. But visual skills are elusive. Everyone sees things not only from a different perspective, but from a different mindset. So there's no such thing as one point of view because there's always another angle to look fr...
Tristan und Isolde ROH - first thoughts
One of the slogans often put about is that there is some kind of "traditional" staging that must be enforced. Yet Wagner himself famously said "next year we'll do everything differently". The drama was what mattered to him, not the packaging.Look aga...
Adolphe Appia's Tristan und Isolde
This is how Adolphe Appia saw Tristan und Isolde around 1900. This is Isolde in Act 1 on her way to Cornwall as trophy wife. The irony that such a feisty, strong woman should be a trophy wife is horrible! It's part of the tragedy, too, though most ...
"Painted through the music" early Wagner stagecraft
"Turning the virtue of fidelity into the fossilization" said Wieland Wagner of Cosima's control freakery. Wagner himself didn't seem to have that same obsession. For him, the main thing was to get his operas across in the best possible way. "Next ye...
Schläfst du, Hagen, mein Sohn?
Who is Hagen? my friends and I are discussing. Is he evil by choice or by nature? are we all Hagens to some extent? Understanding Hagen helps elucidate the moral dilemmas in the Ring.Hagen is Gunther's kid brother via Grimhilde who for some reason wa...
Tristan und Isolde as human beings - Christof Loy on the new ROH production
"Opera has so much to give", says Christof Loy, whose new production of Tristan und Isolde opens at the Royal Opera House on 29th September. Loy's credentials lie in baroque and Mozart (read what the FT said of his recent Salzburg Handel Theodora HER...
Glyndebourne Tristan und Isolde download
If you can't spend hundreds to get to Glyndebourne's Tristan und Isolde, there's a download available on their site. It's not the current performance but a film of the 2004 production originally directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, starring Nina Stemme an...
Tristan und Isolde webcast from Bayreuth
What was all the fuss about? When this Tristan und Isolde first came to Bayreuth it was slammed. You'd think the heavens had fallen. Now Siemens AG and Bayreuther Festspiele are streaming a webcast straight from the Bayreuth Festival, we can all...
Jonathan Carr The Wagner Clan
Finally I’ve got round to reading Jonathan Carr’s The Wagner Clan. Carr was a top journalist with the Economist and the Financial Times. The Wagner Clan distils a lifetime of knowledge into 350 succinct pages. Carr’s direct, fluent style makes...
