Re: thought for the week of August 29, 1999

On Wed, Sep 01, 1999, Jurgen Kesper <juergenkesper[_at_]01019freenet.de> wrote:
>
> I guess Wagner is still *the* most popular non-Italian opera composer
> today. In his days, his music was never considered to be conservative.
> Now, he is one of the most controversial composers, since he was Kaiser
> William's and Hitler's choice. Anyway, there are scores of books on
> how he should be understood and what's so Germanic about him. I never
> sat through one of the Ring productions, but it is comming up next year
> at the Berlin Staatsoper and I am looking forward to it allthough I
> don't like Wagner that much.
>
> Yet, it is essential that contemporary artist can interprete a piece
> of art. Even an existing copyright should not be an obstacle to
> creative interpretation of works. Copyright should enable artists
> and others to make a buck, yet, they should not be able to control
> the creative reaction on their work during the copyright period (see
> Nabokov's Lolita v. Loo's Diary; this suit is somehow ridiculous).
>
> Bayreuth is still in the hands of the Wagner family and now they're
> are fighting since it is not clear who will be director after
> grandson Wieland Wagner, who's in his late seventies now and
> "authentic" Wagnerianer. The successor will be another member of
> the Wagner family. I think it will be one of Wieland's nieces,
> Cosima (they all have awefull first names). She's more progressive
> than her uncle. Bayreuth is one of Germany's big whig events during
> the summer. It's impossible to get tickets so people would kill in
> order get them.
>
> Luckily, the Wagner family and Bayreuth don't have a monopoly on Wagner.
> Hey, I don't know why people think opera should still be performed in
> the same way like the one in the last century. Why should the Walkure
> be a blond, six feet tall, stout lady?

I agree with Herr Kesper ... if art is illusion, opera is certainly the grandest illusion of them all, one that combines all the aspects of performance: music, movement, visual artistic design, narrative .... into a single whole. It has always puzzled me why most opera productions sacrifice -- even completely destroy -- the visual part of the illusion for the sake of a great voice. For some years now we have had the ability to combine -- either live or on film or tape -- a great voice with the physical image of an actor who actually LOOKS the part. Opera, above all, should take advantage of that. It would be refreshing to see sprightly, athletic, truly warrior-like Walkuere for a change ... and last season's magnificent TRISTAN at Seattle Opera would have been even greater if the star-crossed young lovers had in fact looked like young lovers rather than beached whales. They still sounded terrific, of course ...

Regarding the names of the Wagner progeny, yes, they are awful names .... arrogant, extravagant, pompous ... very Wagnerian, actually ... Cosima is almost certainly named for grandmother Cosima, who was the daughter of Franz Liszt, the wife of conductor Hans von Buelow, and the adulterous lover and later wife of Wagner.

Bob

Robert C. Cumbow
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Received on Thu Sep 02 1999 - 15:43:00 GMT