Listen Now: Tannhäuser:: Johan Botha, Ain Anger, Anja Kampe, Vienna State, Franz Welser-Möst

This really is the last one, things to do, etc.

Once again, found in the archives of Latvian Radio 3. Pointing it out because it is a little bit special. To listen you can either go to the main page here, then the archive here, then the radio three archive here  then 05/02/11 here, scroll down to 21:00 and click either the realplayer or windows media player streaming links. Or alternatively just click either of the links below and listen. It kicks in at around 10 minutes or so. And you need either realplayer or windows media player installed (or any of the programs that can cope with their respective streaming media streams (VLC should cope if I  remember). Listen while you can.

Windows Media Player Stream: Click Here

RealPlayer Stream: Click Here

Credits

Tannhäuser: Johan Botha, tenor
Herrmann, Landgrave of Thuringia: Ain Anger, bass
Wolfram von Eschenbach: Christian Gerhaher, baritone
Walther von der Vogelweide: Gergely Németi, tenor
Biterolf: Alexandru Moisiuc, bass
Heinrich der Schreiber: Peter Jelosits, tenor
Reinmar von Zweter: Marcus Pelz, bass
Elisabeth: Anja Kampe, soprano
Venus: Michaela Schuster, soprano
A Young Shepherd: Alois Mühlbacher, boy soprano
Vienna State Opera Chorus
Thomas Lang, chorus master
Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Review here

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Listen Now: Die Meistersinger - Sebastian Weigle. Gran Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona, 2009

Well, at least you don't have to look at it.

Again, found over at Latvian Classical Radio in their archives. This is the last one - streaming audio. Same as the Werther, go to the archive Here and it's 7 November 2009 - or click here. Alternatively, click either of the links below and it will open up the relevant music player. Detailed explanation if you get lost  in the Werther post  here

Windows Media Player Stream: Click Here

RealPlayer Stream:  Click Here
Details:

Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg : Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus Gran Teatre del Liceu.  Conductor: Sebastian Weigle. Gran Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona. 17.3.2009 (JMI)Production from Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden.
Director: Claus Guth.
Sets and Costumes: Christian Schmidt.
Lighting: Jan Seeger

Cast:Hans Sachs: Albert Dohmen.
Walther von Stolzing: Robert Dean Smith.
Eva: Veronique Gens.
Beckmesser: Bo Skovhus.
Pogner: Reinhard Hagen.
David: Norbert Ernst.
Magdalene: Stella Grigorian.
Fritz Kothner: Robert Bork.
Night Watchman: Magnus Baldvinsson.
Kunz Vogelgesang: Yves Saelens.
Konrad Nachtigall: Kurt Gyssen.
Balthasar Zorn: Roger Padullés.
Ulrich Eisslinger: Ángel Rodríguez.
Agustin Moser: José Ferrero.
Hermann Ortel: Joseph Ribot.
Hans Schwarz: Tobias Schabel.
Hans Foltz: Dario Russo.


Review Here

This is what it looks like but really, I wouldn't look:

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Listen Now: Werther - Jonas Kaufmann, Sophie Koch, etc. Vienna State Opera.

I found this on Latvia Radio 3 (I was actually over there trying to discover if they were broadcasting LNO's Götterdämmerung this year.) As Werther is sung by Kaufmann. and as I am more than aware one or two of you are keen to hear him, I thought you might be interested.

My Latvian is not very good but I believe this is Vienna State Opera. production from January this year. The details can be found on Latvian Radio's home page here. The performance can be found on the Archive Page here. It was broadcast yesterday (18/06/2011) at 21:00 so you will then need to go here, scroll down and click either the Real Audio or Windows Media link (basically the time of broadcast under the relevant icon depending on which player you have installed). I have it running at the moment (although not a great fan of Werther) to test it and it seems fine (in windows media player). If you have any difficulty with this I include the direct links to playlist below. Clicking one of these will launch either Realplayer or Windows Media Player (depending on which one you click and have installed. Linux user I am sure can sort this out themselves) Starts at 10 minutes. 

Windows Media Player Stream: Click Here

RealPlayer Stream: Click Here

Latvian Radio tends to keep it's archive active for years but I cannot guarantee this so listen while you can.

Review Here at Opera Is Magic

Cast:
Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Frederic Chaslin, conductor

CAST: Jonas Kaufmann (Werther); Sophie Koch (Charlotte); Ileana Tonca (Sophie); Adrian Eröd (Albert); Janusz Monarcha (Le Bailli); Benedikt Kobel (Schmidt); Clemens Unterreiner (Johann).

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Watch Now: WAGNER: TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (Konwitschny/Mehta)

And last but not least it is that production. If you cannot cope simple look away and listen

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Watch Now: BRITTEN: CURLEW RIVER (AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL)

Curlew River is derived from the ritualism and simplicity of the Noh drama, Sumidagawa. This highly-acclaimed production was staged by the Japanese actor and director Yoshi Oïda.

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Watch Now: COSI FAN TUTTE (ZURICH OPERA) Eng subs only.

Now, this is better - but why do people never criticise Mozart for being a misogynist?
A regular guest at the Zurich Opera, mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli made her début as Fiordiligi there in a new production of Così fan tutte directed by Jürgen Flimm, and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Already acclaimed as a revelatory interpreter of a fistful of Mozart roles, her earthy, exuberant characterisation and voluptuous dark Italian beauty were a perfect foil to the blonde, winsome and capricious Dorabella of Liliana Nikiteanu. (English sub-titles)

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Watch Now: R Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos (Dresden, 1999)

No subs

Cast: Susan Anthony (Ariadne / Prima donna), Iride Martinez (Zerbinetta), Jon Villars (Bacchus / Tenor), Sophie Koch (Composer), Friedrich-Wilhelm Junge (Major-Domo), Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, Colin Davis (conductor), Marco Arturo Marelli (director)

Recorded at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1999

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Not going to San Francisco's Ring Cycle? Well look what you are missing: A Ring In Pictures

It would seem that SF Opera's Ring cycle is selling out fast. Considering it only happens every 10 years or so it may be your last chance to to see the Cycle in SF for a while. So, just in case you are still undecided, here, in HD, is what used to be known in my day as a "Photo Feature" of SF's Ring Cycle. I have even added an audio documentary introduction to the Ring, Ring Cycles and the people that go to them - to boot!. Media and Wagner heavy, your computer may enter its own Gotterdammerung - you have been warned!

Click Below To Enter Valhalla - BUT WARNING, MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. (All Images: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera)

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New Production of Götterdämmerung: LNO 2011

Latvian National Opera house

This year will see Latvian National Opera, finally conclude it's Ring Cycle with Götterdämmerung. Once again Cornelius Meister will be holding the baton (having taking over from Andris Nelsons with Seigfied) of a production of Viesturs Kairišs highly "idiosyncratic" Ring - details in a moment, but first the wagnerian "trivia"

Riga (where the national opera house is based for those not keeping up) is highly significant for wagnerians for three reasons - two of which I find are well known the last less so. Indeed, so important may Riga and it's opera houses be to wagnerians that Bayreuth may have been a far different theatre if Wagner had never been there.

First, of course, Wagner was Music Director of the old Riga Stadttheater; second, it was while running away from creditors in Riga that he made the faithful sea voyage that he claimed gave him the idea for the Sailors Chorus in the Flying Dutchman (he also of course wrote act 1 and part of act 2 of Rienzi here). However, of perhaps most interest, and less known, is that the old theatre may have given him the outline for the design of Bayreuth.

According to Friedrich Glasenapp:

Richard Wagner Strasse, Riga

"The auditorium  of the old Stadttheater ...was a pretty gloomy place. A native of Riga (who later)  compared it to a "barn" (while in) conversation with Wagner  asked him how he had been able to conduct there. Wagner replied there were three things about this "barn" (that) had stayed in his mind: First was the steeply rising stalls, rather like an amphitheatre; the second was the darkness of the auditorium; and the third was the surprisingly deep orchestra pit. If ever he succeded in building a theatre to his own designs, he added, he would keep these three features in mind" C.F. Glasenapp: Das Leben Richard Wagner (1894-1911)

To anyone who has been to Bayreuth these features may seem familiar!

And now to the details

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New remastering of Keilberth's stereo Flying Dutchman 1955, Bayreuth

This is a "press release" and thus I cannot vouch for it's accuracy. However, I will say that I have the Testament release and have played that against the sample given here just a few minutes ago: The new remastered Pristine Classical certainly - to my dull old none audiophile ears (I heard my first ring cycle on Medium Wave and I still enjoy mono recordings) - sounds much "brighter" and "cleaner" than the Testament release,  but download the sample and check for yourself. And if you are naturally suspicious of downloading,  you can go to the website and listen to the sample there. It is certainly cheaper than the Testament and if you have not taken the plunge and bought this yet perhaps now is the time.  Anyway, if nothing else,  it's an excuse to revisit this performance.

New release today:

Keilberth's magnificent stereo Flying Dutchman

Brilliant, dramatic new stereo remastering of this 1955 Bayreuth classic

"Keilberth seemed on high in 1955 ... his reading moves with
electrifying concentration from scene to scene. Keilberth achieves a
greater unanimity of approach from his players and absolutely superb
singing from the chorus"  (The Gramophone, 2006)

WAGNER Der Fliegende Holl nder
Recorded 1955
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Andrew Rose


Astrid Varnay - Senta
Hermann Uhde - The Dutchman
Rudolf Lustig - Erik
Ludwig Weber - Daland
Elisabeth Sch rtel - Mary
Josef Traxel - The Steersman
Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
Wilhelm Pitz - chorus master

Joseph Keilberth - conductor


Score and libretto included in all downloads

Web page:
http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Vocal/PACO062.php

Short Notes
Surely it was Keilberth's year at Bayreuth in 1955. Not only did he
produce one of the great Ring Cycles of all time, but also this classic
stereo recording of The Flying Dutchman.


We preferred the relatively rare 1970s stereo Decca LPs to the more
recent stereo CD issue, so took them as the starting point for this
dramatic and thrilling 32-bit XR remastering of Keilberth's live
triumph. The result is essential for any Wagner fan!


Notes on the transfers:


I came to transfer this recording almost by accident - I had taken
delivery of a new stereo LP replay cartridge and, having fitted it to my
tonearm, picked up the nearest stereo record to hand, which happened to
be the first disc of the three issued by Decca in the mid-1970s which
make up this recording. Having been duly astonished by the sound quality
I was hearing from the LP, I decided to record a short section for
comparison to the existing CD issue of the same recording, and found the
Decca LPs to be far more to my liking, with much more life to them than
the rather dead and flat (by comparison) 2006 CD transfer.


As a result I ended up transferring the entire opera from my near-mint
pressings and set about the minimal work required to remove occasional
clicks, before applying 32-bit XR remastering technology to the
transfer. This served to further enhance the already fabulous sound of
the LPs. Meanwhile a US correspondent and Wagner aficionado contacted me
to point out that the original mono LP issue of the recording had
included fanfares and theatre bells which were omitted from later
releases but added wonderfully to the atmosphere of a Bayreuth Festival
production. As a result these were provided by him, and have now been
added to the recording as it was originally released (this first track
now presented in Ambient Stereo), prior to the start of the full stereo
recording.


Andrew Rose


Review from 2006 CD reissue review

"Keilberth's 1955 Ring has received rave reviews - can his Dutchman be
as good? This enthralling performance has always been a highly
recommended version. Its stereo incarnation was available only briefly
on LP: when it was issued on CD by Teldec it appeared only in mono...

As with the Ring, Keilberth seemed on high in 1955; once again his
reading moves with electrifying concentration from scene to scene.
Keilberth had rehearsed Wolfgang Wagner's new production but
Knappertsbuch conducted the first three performances (you can hear how
different, more pawky his approach is from Keilberth's in various
reissues, none in stereo, taken from a Bavarian Radio broadcast).
Keilberth achieves a greater unanimity of approach from his players and
absolutely superb singing from the chorus (trained by the remarkable
Wilhelm Pitz). The orchestra, perhaps because they knew they were being
recorded, play their hearts out to create a fusion of notes and rhythm
that is really thrilling from start to finish.

The singers are no less inspired. Uhde gives a supreme interpretation of
the tortured, yearning Dutchman, on a par with that of Hans Hotter and
more evenly sung. His firm, compact, grainy tone is used with his
customary artistry to convey the character's longing for salvation,
total elation in the love duet, and desperation when he thinks Senta has
betrayed him. Phrase after phrase etches itself in the mind in this
unmissable portrayal. Incredibly Vamay, who was also Br nnhilde in 1955,
brings to Senta a tireless dedication and vision to match Uhde's hero.
She fines her large voice down to the more intimate needs of Senta, and
only once or twice do the most taxing passages, as her final outburst,
slightly strain her resources.

Ludwig Weber's earthy, experienced Daland is another rewarding
interpretation. Lustig, who took over Erik from Wmdgassen, makes rather
a throaty sound in the manner of earlier German Reldentenors, but he has
all the notes and conveys the character's understandable frustrations.
The Mary is admirable. All seem under the spell of the work and the
conductor in a reading that now has the stereo sound it so richly deserves."

Printed in Gramophone, October 2006 (slightly cut - read full review at 

www.gramophone.net)

MP3 Sample Act 3 - Opening section: http://tinyurl.com/PACO062

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Listen Now: Anne Evans & Richard Farnes discuss Opera North production of Wagner's Das Rheingold - BBC Radio 3 Ondemand

Dame Anne Evans and conductor Richard Farnes talk to Sean Rafferty about the new Opera North production of Wagner's Das Rheingold, which tours concert halls across the north of England from this weekend.

Click here to listen: Intune

And from Opera North's Blog:

With Opera North’s Das Rheingold due to open at Leeds Town Hall on Saturday 18 June, here are some images from the production.

Jennifer Johnstone as Wellgunde, Jeni Bern as Woglinde, Sarah Castle as Flosshilde and Nicholas Folwell as Alberich. Photo credit: Clive Barda

Michael Druiett as Wotan. Photo credit: Clive Barda

Michael Druiett as Wotan, Nicholas Folwell as Alberich and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as Loge. Photo credit: Clive Barda

Gregory Frank as Fafner, Giselle Allen as Freia and James Creswell as Fasolt. Photo credit: Clive Barda

Conductor Richard Farnes. Photo credit: Clive Barda

Das Rheingold opens at Leeds Town Hall on Saturday 18 June. Further performances take place at Leeds Town Hall (1 July, 8 September), Birmingham Symphony Hall (24 June), The Sage,Gateshead (26 June) and The Lowry, Salford Quays (10 September). More details and booking information here.

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The Cross in the Mountains: German Choral Music in the Age of The Ring

Opera North Chorus:

Music from the very heart of the forest where the German Romantic imagination was forged. Between 1815 and 1870 German writers, thinkers, painters and musicians took inspiration from mediaeval symbolism, nature and their own philosophy to create a movement that dominated the century. The Chorus of Opera North performs the mysterious and sublime choruses from the creators of German Romantic music including Weber, Marschner, Lortzing and Nicolai. This is a journey that ends with Wagner and The Ring, but along the way takes in some pinnacles of terror, beauty and even humour.

The Horn section of Opera North provide the sound world which evokes the stag in the forest and the Cross on the mountain top.

When?

Sat 25 June 2011, 7.45pm

Where?

Howard Assembly Rooms

Leeds

How Much?

12.50

What should I expect?

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Falling In Love With Tristan: Ulrike Hessler and Dresden's Semperoper

Source: http://www.dw-world.de

Dresden's Semperoper has witnessed historical opera premieres over the past century and a half, and has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Now, its first female director is writing history again

Ulrike Hessler took on an opera house with historical baggage when she became its first female director at the beginning of the current season. Still, she's moving forward with fresh approach and is committed to establishing an international reputation for the traditional performance hall.

Named after architect Gottfried Semper, the opera house - which hosts the Saxon State Opera, the Saxon State Orchestra and the Semperoper Ballet - was originally built in 1841 beside the Elbe River.

Musical greats like Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner worked there as conductors - and three of Wagner's operas were premiered there.

Though a fire destroyed the building with its early Renaissance, Baroque and classical Greek features, it was reconstructed in neo-Renaissance-style in 1878. Over time, world premieres of eight Richard Strauss operas, Busoni's "Doctor Faust," Paul Hindemith's "Cardillac" and Kurt Weill's "The Protagonist" were staged there.

The Nazis' rise to power forced Hindemith and Weill to flee Dresden, and resident conductor Fritz Busch was also banned. Nazi careerist Karl Böhm took over in 1934. Then, during Allied air raids in February, 1945, the Semperoper was destroyed once again. It wasn't until 40 years later that the third Semperoper could reopen, this time, in communist East Germany.

Confronting the past

One of Ulrike Hessler's first projects, together with incoming principal conductor Christian Thielemann, is one that addresses the house's dark past. The musically accompanied exhibition, "Verstummte Stimmen" ("Silent Voices"), uncovers the personal stories of Jews persecuted by the Nazis.

"It's the documentation of what happened to all people who had to leave theaters - opera houses included - after 1933," said the 56-year-old director.

Although some of Dresden's cultural life survived the devastating Allied air raids in 1945, the following years of communist rule hindered artistic exchange and development. Nonetheless, through the Semperoper's work with great artists such as director Harry Kupfer, choreographer Ruth Berghaus and composer Udo Zimmermann in the 1970s, "its ensemble of singers, the orchestra and ballet has kept its soul as one big family," said ballet director Aaron S. Watkin.

"This opera house has always been known as a monument. And what's going on inside it is on the move," he said. "The ballet in particular - we have spent years here in becoming more famous and more known in the city of Dresden and beyond."

Watkin's vision is a full repertoire of dance that audiences of any age can enjoy. His approach corresponds with the new goals the entire company is aiming for, general director Ulrike Hessler said.

Winning back the audience

One of the biggest challenges the house faces, though, is an ever-aging audience.

"We're about to lose the younger generation because the parents of the kids already are a generation who has nothing really to do with opera and musical theater," she pointed out. "We have to work hard at gaining the youngest generation and their parents back."

A younger ensemble is part of this regeneration process, said the Saxon State Orchestra's 22-year-old principal cellist, Isang Enders.

"That's the really great bonus of this orchestra that the old members are still in good shape and are able to communicate the sound," Enders said.

Ulrike Hessler's process of transforming opera in Dresden is built around three ideals. She wants to expand the repertoire from German and Italian opera to include more Baroque and American works. As the director, she has commissioned contemporary composers to write new operas, most recently the world-premiere of Hans Werner Henze's "Gisela!" And she feels Semperoper's new productions should allow multi-layered interpretation, reflective of and interesting to both the young and old.

"If opera is good, that's the place to go if you want to experience strong emotions," Hessler said.

The Semperoper was rebuilt in the mid-1980s


Falling in love with Tristan

The Semperoper has returned to working as a repertoire theater that changes its program every night. The house has 30 operas and 15 different ballets in its repertoire and features up to 10 new productions each season.

"That gives us the opportunity to develop an opera and also to develop artists," she said. "We have young singers from five continents."

To attract the youth to new venues, a younger ensemble performs works especially created for them on a former rehearsal stage or at the funky Transparent Factory, a Volkswagen production plant in Dresden.

"Twenty performances were sold out a month in advance," Hessler said. "We see that there is a need for special repertoire for a younger audience." Once the younger generation has become hooked on opera, "they should want to see 'Tristan and Isolde,'" she added.

Cellist Enders, at any rate, already knows the beauty of that music. "There is no better experience in music than the beginning of 'Tristan'! When you start this opera of five hours with just an open A-string - it's just the most incredible music ever written."

Author: Peter Zimmermann, Dresden / als

Editor: Kate Bowen

Full article here

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Watch Now: Interview with Leontyne Price (2010) Plus, Renee Fleming on Leontyne Price

Off topic but

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Gergiev's Parsifal: Gary Lehman, Rene Pape, Violeta Urmana and Gergiev speak Plus, Reviews

I love this Parsifal and the more I go back to it the more I enjoy it. I find it difficult to imagine, but if you haven't already,  go listen to a little of it now  (you can listen at Mariinsky Labels website here). I don't normally promote music sites but if you don't mind MP3,  Emusic is selling the whole recording for 15 pound and Itunes are selling it for 17.99.

Valery Gergiev, conductor

Marina Mishuk, Principal Vocal Coach

Andrei Petrenko, Principal Chorus Master

Dmitri Ralko, Children’s Chorus Direction

Opera soloists, Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre

Violeta Urmana Kundry, soprano

Gary Lehman Parsifal, tenor

René Pape Gurnemanz, bass-baritone

Nikolai Putilin Klingsor, bass

Evgeny Nikitin Amfortas, bass-baritone

Alexei Tanovitski Titurel, bass

Yuri Alexeev and Yuri Vorobiev Two Knights of the Grail

Lia Shevtsova, Olga Legkova, Alexander Timchenko and Andrei Popov Four Squires

Olga Trifonova, Irina Mataeva, Liudmilla Dudinova, Elena Ushkova, Zhanna Dombrovskaya and Anna Kiknadze Six Flowermaidens

Alla Martynenko Voice from Above

Recorded in June 2009 at the Mariinsky Concert Hall, St Petersburg

Released in September 2010 on the Mariinsky Label

Reviews:

"What really distinguishes this...is Gergiev. His reading is vivid and luminous, generally expansive but with fluidly shifting tempos, unashamedly guilty of theatrical excitement. Yet he evokes a rapt quality which does convey an authentic spirituality - passionate 'Russian soul', perhaps, rather than sombre Germanic brooding, but if so, so much the better". (BBC Music Magazine)

“... it’s for René Pape’s majestic Gurnemanz that Wagnerites will want this set. Violeta Urmana’s Kundry is unexpectedly voluptuous, while Gary Lehman makes a conscientious Parsifal...sceptics should be won over by the way his wonderful orchestra and chorus bring Wagner’s problematic swansong to life.” The FT

His approach is vigorously dramatic and red-blooded, treating this massive score as an urgent call to arms rather than a dreamy meditation. The Mariinsky Orchestra plays with glowing commitment throughout...Lehman is an agreeably youthful Parsifal, bright in voice and clear in diction...Evgeny Nikitin and Nikolai Putilin bring a distinctively Russian intonation to Amfortas and Klingsor.” The Telegraph

“...on grounds of the general excellence of its singers and the cumulative authority of the interpretation, this is a performance to be reckoned with...it has an imaginative force, overall, which pushes any hints of contrivance to the musical and dramatic margins.” Gramophone

And as a bonus here is a wide ranging interview Gergiev gave RT, May 2010

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Wagner, Tristan, Buddhism and San Francisco Opera's Ring Cycle

As part of SF Opera's complete Ring Cycle, a series of lectures is taking place called Buddhism and Wagner's Ring Cycle which is being chaired by Paul Schofield: wagnerian, former Buddhist monk and author of Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner's Ring (For more details of the lecture series. starting Thursday, June 16, 2011, go here: Buddhism and Wagner's Ring Cycle. 

All of this reminded me of a blog on Buddhism and Wagner I read sometime ago, part of which I reproduce below and the rest of which can be found by following the link. For anyone interested further might I recommend the excellent website Monsalvat which may be "the" resource on Parsifal on the net and contains an excellent - and detailed - section on the conection between Buddhism, Wagner and Schopenhauer (here). 

One thing before proceeding - and an unfamiliar reader should be-aware of -  Buddhism does not consist, like any major religion,   of one single unified "doctrine" (despite what certain commentators would have you believe). There are as many "schools" of Buddhism are there are of Christianity. 

Oh, and a final thing: The Ring was written - as you know - over a very long period of time and (unlike Tristan or Parsifal perhaps) it contains probably as much (or as less) Buddhist/Schopenhauerian thought as it does "philosophical" anarchism and the ideas of Feuerbach - amongst much more in my opinion.

So with that in mind, first a few words from Wagner and also Monsalvat:

"This act of denying the will is the true action of the saint: that it is ultimately accomplished only in a total end to individual consciousness..." Letter from Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, 7 June 1855

"... for which the latter atones by transforming himself into the world and by taking upon himself the immense sufferings of the world; he is redeemed in those saints who, by totally denying the will to live, pass over into nirvana, i.e. the land of non-being, as a result of their consuming sympathy for all that suffers. The Buddha was just such a saint" Letter from Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, 7 June 1855

"...we can now see that Schopenhauer misunderstood many aspects of Buddhism. In particular, his initial identification of the Buddhist state of existence called nirvana with non-being was quite wrong and misled Schopenhauer's followers, including Richard Wagner. Nirvana is intrinsically undefinable and inexpressible, but is still a dharma and as such a "something"; so it cannot be regarded as non-being or nothingness. Schopenhauer's philosophy regarded the will (to live) as fundamental, and advocated the denial of the will-to-live as the path of deliverance. Wagner accepted these ideas and sought to express them in his dramas Tristan und Isolde, Die Sieger and Parsifal" Monsalvat
Wagner and Buddha, Tristan and Isolde
P. M. Doolan

Just over one hundred and fifty years ago Richard Wagner finishedTristan and Isolde, a work that many consider to be the greatest opera ever composed. Less well known, is the fact that Tristan and Isolde can also be considered the first great artwork of western Buddhism.

From 1849 until 1858 Wagner spent almost ten of his most creative years in Zürich, Switzerland, as a German political refugee. It was there in 1854 that he encountered Buddhism, via the work of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was the first mainstream European philosopher to take Hindu and Buddhist ideas seriously. His The World as Will and Idea had initially appeared nearly four decades earlier, in 1818, but had been all but ignored. According to Schopenhauer’s Buddhist inspired ideas, behind the world of phenomena is one vast, timeless will. All else, the world of perception and plurality, of space and time, objects and actions, is an illusion, the result of a process of individuation. Schopenhauer even used the Buddhist term, “Maya” to describe this illusion. What is real is will, not phenomenal representations or Maya. Most people live their lives within the veiled illusion of what is temporal and never discover reality. A blind attachment to temporal phenomena keeps the subject locked within the veil of illusion. To break free from this is possible, according to Schopenhauer, by means of detaching oneself from desire through the act of renunciation.

It is no exaggeration to say that Wagner reacted to this as if he had experienced an epiphany. His philosophical encounter with Schopenhauer and then Buddhism, changed the course of his career and, consequently, western music. Many years later Wagner himself remembered his introduction to Schopenhauer’s thought as being “decisive for the rest of my life”.
Wagner quickly threw himself into the study of the few primary works and secondary commentaries on Buddhism that were then available, reading not just in German but in French too. Within a year he wrote that the deepest truths in history were those “purest revelations of most noble humanity in the old Orient”. He followed Schopenhauer’s example and kept a statue of Buddha in his living room. In 1856 he read Eugene Burnouf’s Introduction a l’histoire du bouddhisme and, in his memoirs, he remembered that “I even distilled from it the material for a dramatic poem which has remained with me ever since.” This was, in fact, nothing less than a plan to write an opera about the Buddha, which he called The Victors. He made a prose sketch of the three acts and it was clearly a work close to his heart, a project he would never quite give up on, but which would remain incomplete at the time of his death. According to some recent commentators, however, he integrated most of the ideas that he had planned for The Victors into his final masterpiece, Parsifal. In 1883, while visiting Venice, he returned to his beloved project, The Victors, but died while writing at his desk. His final words referred to the Buddha: “There is something pleasing about the legend which tells how even the Victorious and Perfect One (the Buddha) was persuaded into admitting women followers.”

There is no doubt that Wagner believed western civilization was suffering from the disease of materialism and its virtues had been warped through the pursuit of power. He firmly believed that Eastern ideas, and in particular Buddhist thought, could save the west. On a personal level he found consolation in Buddhism as he wrote: “Only the deeply wise postulation of the transmigration of souls could show me the consoling point at which all creatures will finally reach the same level of redemption”. This belief in transmigration, an “appealing Buddhist doctrine” according to Wagner, came to influence his music. He perfected the use of leitmotivs, sequences of notes and chords that would be repeated throughout a work. This is evident in his 16-hour opera The Ring of Nibelung, but became an essential part of his last, most metaphysical work, Parsifal. By the time he came to compose this last work, he explained the use of the leitmotiv: “For the spirit of the Buddha, the previous lives of every being he meets are just as accessible as the immediate present…. I immediately recognized that this double existence could only be made clear to the feelings through the constant presence of audible musical reminiscences”. As his wife, Cosimo Wagner, reported him as saying: “Only music is capable of rendering this, the mystery of reincarnation”.
By the summer of 1857 Wagner had reached the conclusion that to achieve nirvana would involve a turning away from the world of phenomena, with its senseless trivialities, and a renunciation of desire, especially sexual desire, would bring about salvation. Desire, including sexual desire, was something of which Wagner had plenty of experience. Although married, he had long been a serial adulterer. His newest love, Mathilde Wesendonck, was young, intelligent, beautiful and married to Wagner’s multi-millionaire benefactor. It is the happy confluence of Schopenhauer’s and Buddhist ideas, together with his increasingly erotically charged relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck, and the opportunity that this gave to practice renunciation, that led Wagner to Tristan and Isolde. In the summer of 1857 Wagner commenced work on this, the greatest of operas.

 

Mathilde Wesendonck by K. F. Sohn

Although the story is a medieval, Germanic tale, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde is infused with Buddhist ideas. The music alone is a lesson in Buddhist thought as it produces an aching desire in the listener, a yearning to satisfy this desire that is never fulfilled, but continually postponed until at last, with the final sound, discord is resolved and only silence remains. The opening chord, perhaps the most analyzed chord in music history, is known simply as “the Tristan chord”. It produces two dissonances, evoking in the listener an inevitable aching desire for resolution, but this does not quite arrive. Instead, one dissonance is resolved with the following chord, but not the other, and so one is left with the desire, the painful yearning for resolution, and a partial satisfaction that only leads to a growing, desire. And on it goes, an agonizing journey with partial fulfillment but never ending desire producing the suffering that is, according to Buddhists, a part of the fabric of the phenomenal world, until, at last, resolution is achieved, but only with the very final chord. The music itself is Buddhist philosophy, not in words, but in musical chords.

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New: Seattle Opera Announces 2013 Ring and 2014 Meistersinger in Honor of Speight Jenkins

Back-to-Back Seattle Wagner Summers Celebrate 

Company’s 50th Anniversary, Wagner Bicentennial 

Seattle—Today, Seattle Opera officially announces its summer 2013 production of Wagner’s four-opera epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen, as well as the composer’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which will open the 2014/15 season the following summer. Seattle Opera’s so-called“Green” production of the Ring, first seen in 2001, returns in August 2013. In August 2014, the company presents Meistersinger for the first time in more than 20 years. These back-to-back Wagner summers celebrate several important milestones: the 2013 bicentenary of Wagner’s birth, the 50th Anniversary of Seattle Opera, and the conclusion of Speight Jenkins’ 30 years as general director of Seattle Opera.



“It was a great day for Seattle when Speight Jenkins came here to lead the opera company in 1983,” says William Weyerhaeuser, President of the Seattle Opera Board of Trustees. “Speight’s ear for the world’s best voices, his instinct for what makes exciting theater, integrity, diplomacy, his broad base of knowledge, and his tireless, contagious passion for the art form have made Seattle Opera one of the great opera companies and given this city and its visitors decades of compelling opera. Seattle Opera is proud to honor Speight, and mark the company’s 50th Anniversary, with two signature productions—the Ring Cycle, the work that’s the heart of the company, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wagner’s optimistic hymn in praise of art and the cultural tradition."

Seattle Opera’s  production of the Ring, directed by Stephen Wadsworth and featuring sets by Thomas Lynch, costumes by Martin Pakledinaz, and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski, returns for its fourth incarnation, this time under the baton of Asher Fisch, Principal Guest Conductor of Seattle Opera. Fisch, who has conducted Parsifal, Lohengrin, Der Rosenkavalier, Der Fliegende Holländer, and Tristan und Isolde for Seattle Opera, “ranks among the finest Ring conductors of our time,” according to Opus Magazine. Making their Seattle Opera debuts in this production are Alwyn Mellor as Brünnhilde and Stefan Vinke as Siegfried. Mellor is a Brünnhilde of choice for Den Nye Opera, Oper Leipzig, Longborough Festival Opera, Paris Opera, and Opera North; Vinke has sung Siegfried in Cologne, Leipzig, Berlin, Salzburg, Venice, and Lisbon. Greer Grimsley returns to Seattle Opera for the third time as Wotan, a role for which he won Seattle Opera’s 2005 Artist of the Year award. Other returning artists include Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, Margaret Jane Wray as Sieglinde, Stuart Skelton as Siegmund, Dennis Petersen as Mime, and Richard Paul Fink as Alberich.

Seattle Opera has only produced Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg once before, in the summer of 1989. Wagner’s magnificent comedy, which celebrates community, artistic leadership, and a balance of tradition and innovation in the arts, is the perfect way to honor the life-work of Speight Jenkins, who will be stepping down from his position on September 1, 2014. Asher Fisch will conduct.


Performances of the Ring are scheduled as follows: Cycle #1, August 4, 5, 7, & 9; Cycle #2, August 12, 13, 15, & 17; and Cycle #3, August 20, 21, 23, and 25, 2013. Subscription performances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg are scheduled for August 2, 7, 10, 13, 17, 20, and 23, 2014.

A fundraising campaign to support these two productions is currently underway. Donors to the campaign will receive priority ticketing options.

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Seattle Opera Announce Ring Cycle revival for 2013

Seattle Opera announced this morning that they are to revive Stephen Wadsworth/Thomas Lynch production of Der Ring des Nibelungen for Wagners bicentennial year. Plus a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 2014


More details once I get home. But cast confirmed so far:

Alwyn Mellor, as Brünnhilde, and Stefan Vinke, as Siegfried, will make their Seattle Opera débuts. Greer Grimsley as Wotan, with Stephanie Blythe in the role of Fricka. Also, Margaret Jane Wray, Stuart Skelton, Dennis Peterson and Richard Paul Fink .

Stephen Wadsworth directs, and Asher Fisch conducts.

They will present three complete cycles: Aug. 4-9, Aug. 12-17 and Aug. 20-25, 2013.

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Off Topic: Watch Now: Playing Through the Changes (1992) - Wynton Marsalis

Off topic but a weakness of mine: a 1992 documentary on the life and  music of Wynton Marsalis  (play time: 31 Mins)

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13 June: 125th anniversary of the death of the Swan King, King Ludwig II

"Someday, when we both have not existed for a long time, our work will shine for those generations that follow as a bright example which will charm throughout the centuries. And every heart will be burning in enthusiasm for divine, eternally living art!" (Part of a letter from King Ludwig II to Richard Wagner)

An hastily thrown together tribute, but without Ludwig there would probably be no Ring or perhaps (in a sense) no Wagner.

(The Associated Press) BERG, Germany — Hundreds of Bavarians have gathered for a Mass to mark the 125th anniversary of the death of King Ludwig II, the 19th-century monarch famed for building the spectacular Neuschwanstein castle.

Ludwig, who died aged 40 on June 13, 1886, lives on in popular legend as the artistically inclined "fairytale king," a patron of composer Richard Wagner.

Ludwig was locked up in one of his castles, on Lake Starnberg outside Munich, after being declared insane. The circumstances of his death remain murky: the king took a walk with his doctor and the two were found drowned in the lake.

Monday's service was held near where Ludwig's body was found.

News agency DAPD reported that the abbot of nearby Andechs monastery, Father Johannes Eckert, said of Ludwig: "he lived in tension between the ideal and reality."

There is only one cross located at Starnberg Lake, just south-west of Munich, around which so many questions are raised.

It stands in shallow waters just offshore, awash in mild waves being pushed by north-westerly breezes coming down from the mountains. The cross marks the spot where the lifeless body of Bavarian King Ludwig II was found.

To this very day, just how Ludwig died has never been absolutely clarified. Did he really drown, as stated in the official accounts from 1886? This seems scarcely imaginable, since the shore area is so shallow, barely knee-deep where the cross is standing.

Or was he murdered by his opponents who had had him declared mentally unfit and wanted to get rid of him because his mania for building castles - the magnificent Neuschwanstein among them - had plunged the kingdom of Bavaria deeply into debt?

There may never be a final answer.

Only the location of his death is certain, and there stands the cross to mark the spot, and behind it the Votive Church, an imposing structure of stone. On June 13, the 125th anniversary of Ludwig's death, some 1,000 visitors will be taking part in a memorial church service. The altar will be set up outdoors, because the chapel is not largeenough to accommodate the expected crowds.

Out on the lake, the steamship 'MS Starnberg' will stop near the cross. Passengers on board will be able to watch the church service from onboard, while enjoying a three-course meal and listening to the music of Richard Wagner.

The mystique surrounding the fairy-tale Bavarian monarch attracts visitors to Lake Starnberg from around the world - and not only for the fact that he died here. The lake was his retreat and refuge. 'He liked to be alone and enjoyed the solitude, looking for an oasis amid the quiet,' says Stefan Jetz, chairman of the local Monarchy Loyalists Association. 'Lake Starnberg was a resting place for his soul.'

Those looking for the places where the 'Kini' (king) relaxed must take a steamboat from the town of Berg, on the north-eastern shore of the lake and cross over to Possenhofen on the western side. The same way that Ludwig often did when he wanted to retreat even further, heading to the tiny island Roseninsel about a kilometre further south.

It was in Possenhofen Palace that Ludwig as a child often met with his cousin Elisabeth, often better-known as 'Sisi.' But he would meet her much more often on the Roseninsel later on when Sisi was the Empress of Austria. To get there, Ludwig rode by horse-drawn carriage. Today, one strolls through the town of Possenhofen, going past the Gebhardt fisherman's house, then the Schiffsglocke restaurant and on through Lenne Park.

The last stretch one can travel together with Norbert Pohlus. Dressed in his picture-perfect traditional Bavarian lederhosen outfit, he sits at the controls of his 'Plett'n', a small flat-bottomed boat, and ferries people back and forth between the island and mainland.

King Ludwig II lying in state in the Hofkapelle (Court Chapel)

 of the Munich Residenz (photograph).

There are than 300 rose bushes on Roseninsel ('Roses Island') and more than 100 types of roses which blossom at different times. A hedgerow of lilacs separates a circular rosebed on three sides from the rest of the park. On the fourth side there stands a villa, with its bright rooms, sweeping terraces and balconies. From these there is an open view of the park, the lakeshore and in the distance beyond, the Alps.

Those who take a guided tour of the villa and stroll around the small island will understand why King Ludwig came here so often to seek solitude, why it was here that during the German-Prussian War of 1866 he spent weeks enjoying Nature and listening to the music of Richard Wagner. And the Roseninsel was where he also had his secret rendezvous with Sisi.

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John Tomlinson, discusses Parsifal and Wagner - ENO podcast

OPERACAST: SIR JOHN TOMLINSON, PARSIFAL

Sir John Tomlinson chats with Edward Seckerson as he prepared for Parsifal at ENO

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Christian Thielemann in Conversation with Sarah Willis

Discuses: Early career, working with Karajan, Brahms and The Berlin Philharmonic. December 2009

Christian Thielemann in Conversation with Sarah Willis - Die Berliner Philharmon...>

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Wagners Last Flowermaiden: Carrie Pringle

From Stephen Gadd's blog: a marvellous piece of wagnerian research.


Carrie Pringle – some answers
Posted on June 4, 2011 by Stephen Gadd


Written in response to the excellent article by David Cormack, ‘Wir welken und sterben dahinnen’: Carrie Pringle and the Solo Flowermaidens of 1882 [Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 146, No. 1890 (Spring, 2005), pp. 16-31]

This article caught my attention because:

• Carrie Pringle was one of the original flowermaidens in Wagner’s Parsifal, and is said to have been his last lover, and
• My wife, Claire Rutter, also an opera singer of some note, had a grandfather whose middle name (from his mother) was Pringle, and
• Both Carrie Pringle and Claire’s grandfather were in the same part of Brighton, England in the late 1920′s.

Well, I’ve established that this is entirely coincidental, but along the way have made some interesting discoveries about Carrie Pringle’s family, and found some evidence that she continued to perform after settling in England. These findings answer questions raised by David Cormack, and previously by Stewart Spencer, who in 2005 lacked some of the invaluable resources which have since come online.

Cormack is correct to assume some Dutch family connection. Carrie’s great-grandfather, John Pringle, served in the Scots Brigade of the British Army’s Dutch Service. While stationed at Venlo in Holland, his wife (Mary Hope) gave birth in 1782 to Volkier Rudolph Pringle. He was the last of their 9 children, dropped at various points around Holland since 1761. (They are listed along with John’s other descendants at the bottom of this page).

Rudolph and his brother Colin, like their father, were also military men. When Hanover was overrun by Napoleon’s troops in 1803, they joined the exodus of soldiers from continental Europe to England, and took commissions in the King’s German Legion.

Rudolph resigned from the Army just a few weeks before the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, whereas Colin by this time was a Major, and is quoted in written accounts of the battle. Colin Pringle had married well in 1813 (to a lawyer’s daughter), retired to Dunkerque on an army pension, and died in 1857 leaving the bulk of his not inconsiderable estate to Rudolph and to his spinster niece Mary Home (daughter of their sister, Margaret). Alone, the cash sum inherited by Rudolph amounted to the modern equivalent of about £125,000.

Yet this was not the main source of Carrie’s family’s wealth. Rudolph had been able to take early retirement thanks to his marriage in 1809 to Caroline Townley, who brought with her a dowry equivalent now to a little under a quarter of a million pounds. More on the illustrious Townleys in a moment.

Continue reading over at http://ruttergadd.co.uk/blog/?p=36

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