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Richard Wagner’s Impact on His World and Ours, 30 May – 2 June 2013. Leeds

Written By The Wagnerian on Thursday 16 May 2013 | 9:55:00 pm



There really are a few of these we must get to. Highly recommended

In association with the Royal Musical Association, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, the Leeds University Centre for Opera Studies, and Opera North, the School of Music, University of Leeds, will host the international conference ‘Richard Wagner’s Impact on His World and Ours’ on 30 May–2 June 2013 To mark the 200th anniversary in May 2013 of Wagner’s birth.
Few aspects of late nineteenth-century and subsequent cultural developments remain untouched by Wagner’s influence. The conference seeks to place this influence in context, embracing the multitude of
artistic and non-artistic disciplines that have felt the composer’s impact. The full programme is under construction and will be announced soon.
Keynote lectures will be delivered by:
  • Barry Millington, entitled ’200 Not Out: Wagner the Ultimate All-rounder’
  • Michael Ewans, entitled ‘Two Landmarks in Wagner Production: Patrice Chéreau’s Centenary Ring (1976) and Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s Parsifal (2004)’
  • Heath Lees, entitled ‘Transformation at Tribschen: how a French literary trio became a Wagnerian musical trio’
  • Tony Palmer, the director of the feature film ‘The Wagner Family’, will screen his highly controversial film accompanied by a discussion session.
Round-table sessions will focus as follows:
  •  An international panel (convened by Dr Malcolm Miller) of guest speakers – scholars, practitioners and journalists (including German conductor Roberto Paternostro, former conductor of the Israel Chamber Orchestra) – will consider the controversial issue of performances of Wagner in Israel and by Israeli musicians, particularly the recent appearance of the Israel Chamber Orchestra at Bayreuth in August 2011.
  • A panel comprising scholars and practitioners from the University of Leeds and Opera North, considering Opera North’s current Ring project.
Program Highlights:

Thursday 30 May 2013

  • BARRY MILLINGTON: “200 Not Out: Wagner the Ultimate All-rounder” 


14:00-15:30: PARALLEL SESSION 1a
  • Katherine Syer (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA): The Art of Narration: Sieglinde’s Nightmare and the End of a Curse
  • Solomon Guhl-Miller (Rutgers University, USA): The Impact of Byron and Goethe on the Character of Wotan in the Drafts and Sketches of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre
  • Daniel Paul (Psychoanalysis, Clinical Psychology, USA): Wagner and Incest
14:00-15:30: PARALLEL SESSION 1b
  • David Trippett (University of Cambridge, UK): Wagner’s Italianism, Bellini’s Norma, and Sinnlichkeit
  • Malcolm Miller (Institute of Musical Research, Open University London, UK): Spinning the Yarn: Intertextuality in Wagner’s use and re-use of his songs in his operas
  • Cathal Mullan (NUI Maynooth, Ireland): Wagner as Song Composer: A New Perspective for the 21st century


16:00-17:00 WORKSHOP 1
  • Christopher Newell (University of Hull, UK), Wagner for the Uninitiated: A Director’s Perspective
  • With soprano Rosamund Cole and pianist Martin Pickard

Friday 31 May 2013

10:00-11:00 Keynote
  • MICHAEL EWANS: Two Landmarks in Wagner Production: Patrice Chéreau’s Centenary Ring (1976) and Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s Parsifal (2004)

11:30-13:00: PARALLEL SESSION 2a
  • Gwen D’Amico (City University of New York, USA): Opera and Politics: Die Meistersinger at the Intersection of New York City and World War II
  • Jane Angell (Royal Holloway University of London, UK): ‘Our Wagner’: the reception of Richard Wagner’s music in England during the First World War
  • Aleksandar Molnar (University of Belgrade, Serbia) ‘Went up in smoke The Holy Roman Reich/All the same for us would stay the holy German art.’ Political implications of Hans Sachs’ final monologue in Wagner’s Meistersinger in Germany from 1867 to 1945
11:30-13:00: PARALLEL SESSION 2b
  • Matthias Wurz (Music University, Vienna): Exploring 20th Century Vocal Tradition in Wagner’s Opera: Conductor Berislav Klobucar and Soprano Birgit Nilsson
  • Peter Kupfer (Meadows School of Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, USA): Wagner Productions in the GDR: A Statistical Approach
  • Lydia Mayne (Stanford University, USA): Was ist Deutsch? Wagner’s use of dialect and rhyme in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg


14:00-15:30 ROUNDTABLE: Wagner and Israel – panel members
  • Chair: Dr Malcolm Miller (Institute of Musical Research)
  • Dr Margaret Brearley (author of Hitler and Wagner: The Leader, the Master and the Jews, and formerly Archbishop of Canterbury’s Adviser on the Holocaust)
  • Noam Ben-Ze’ev (music critic, journalist, Haaretz)
  • Roberto Paternostro (conductor, former director of Israel Chamber Orchestra)
  • Prof Na’ama Sheffi (Professor of History, School of Communication, Sapir College, Sderot, Israel; author of The Ring of Myths: The Israelis, Wagner and the Nazis)

Saturday 1 June 2013

9:30-12.00: PARALLEL SESSION 4a
  • Jane Ennis (William Morris Society, UK): William Morris’s Sigurd the Volsung and Wagner’s Ring
  • Michael Allis (University of Leeds, UK): The Diva and the Beast: Susan Strong and the Wagnerism of Aleister Crowley
  • Michael Papadopoulos (University of Leeds, UK): Varg í véum: Wagnerian Werewolves and Messiahs in Tolkien
9:30-12.00: PARALLEL SESSION 4b
  • Joseph E. Morgan (Boston, Massachusetts, USA): Wagner’s Re-conception of Weber’s German Nationalism
  • Golan Gur (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany): Richard Wagner and the Discourse of National Identity in Musicology around 1900
  • Irad Atir (University of Bar-Ilan, Israel): Judaism and Germanism in Richard Wagner’s Art


14:00-15:30: PARALLEL SESSION 5a
  • Marina Raku (State Institute of Arts Studies, Moscow, Russia): Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago As An Experience Of ‘Russian Wagnerism’ In The Soviet Era
  • Anna Predolyak (Krasnodar State University of Arts and Culture, Russia): Wagner and Russian Musical Culture of XX – XXI Centuries: Problems of Influence And Perspectives for Development
  • Vladimir Marchenkov (Ohio University, USA): Gesamtkunstwerk: Life-Transforming Art
14:00-15:30: PARALLEL SESSION 5b
  • Matt Lawson ( Edge Hill University, UK): Wagner in American Cartoon
  • Anna Ponomareva (Imperial College London, UK): Inspiration or Translation: Belyi’s Novels of the Moscow Circle
  • Radosław Okulicz-Kozaryn (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan): ‘Where the King Spirit Becomes Manifest…’: Stanisław Wyspiański in search of the Polish Bayreuth

16:00-17:00 WORKSHOP 3
  • Kristina Selen (Opera Studio Oxford, UK): ‘Deeds of Music Brought to Sight’: Anna Bahr-Mildenburg as Isolde

Sunday 2 June 2013

9:30-11:00 PARALLEL SESSION 6a
  • Chantal Frankenbach (California State University, Sacramento, USA): ‘The Apotheosis of the Dance’: Gestures of National Transcendence in Wagner’s Artwork of the Future
  • Jonathan Waxman (New York University, USA): Richard Wagner’s Prose and its Impact on the Development of the Symphonic Program Note in the Twentieth Century
9:30-11:00 PARALLEL SESSION 6b
  • Dragana Jeremić Molnar (University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia): Richard Wagner’s Construction of Reality: ‘Finite Province of Meaning’, ‘Subuniverse of Meaning’ or ‘Deviant Symbolic Universe’?
  • Lauma Mellena (University of Latvia): Richard Wagner productions in 21st century Latvia
  • Plamen Kartaloff (Sophia Opera and Ballet, Bulgaria): The Universe Called Wagner, and Us. Der Ring des Nibelungen, Director’s Perspectives

11:00-11:30 Tea/Coffee

11.30-13.00 WORKSHOP 4
  • Daniel Somerville (University of Wolverhampton): Dancing Wagner: What Can Embodiment of Wagner’s Music Reveal