Search Results for: wagner
Bryn Terfel’s physical fitness
In a 2011 interview, Bryn Terfel noted that a strong constitution is essential for the role of Wotan in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, which he was currently performing at the Metropolitan Opera. “If you’re not one hundred percent, … Continue reading
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Filed under Opera, Performers
A new Otakar Zich edition
The opera Vina (Guilt) by the Czech composer Otakar Zich (above, 1879–1934) was one of the most highly anticipated—and hotly debated—musical premieres at Prague’s National Theatre in 1922. Composed between 1911 and 1915, Vina’s three-act score reflects many trends of … Continue reading
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Filed under New editions, Romantic era
Brahms and the “cremation cantata”
Mathilde Wesendonck (above) is known to music historians for her romantic entanglement with and artistic influence on Wagner in the 1850s. What is less commonly known is that once her relationship with Wagner had cooled she became an admirer and … Continue reading
Filed under Curiosities, Literature, Romantic era
The Ring recast
Gil Kane’s and Roy Thomas’s graphic novel Richard Wagner’s “The ring of the Nibelung” (New York: DC Comics, 1997) transforms Wagner’s dramma in musica into dramma in pittura. Kane’s artwork visually follows Wagner’s musical fabric while retaining the means of … Continue reading
Filed under Opera, Visual art
Werner Schroeter and Kulturscheisse
Werner Schroeter’s films abound with the artifice, staginess, recontextualizations, and quotations typical of both camp and kitsch. His achievement in Der Bomberpilot (1970) involves overturning mainstream interpretations of kitsch as a rejected externality by bringing what he called Kulturscheisse into productive play with contemporary … Continue reading
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Filed under Humor
Analyze this!
Analysis of compositions has long been one of the mainstays of Western musicology. What, in turn, are the mainstays of analysis? We recently checked RILM’s database to see which works have inspired the largest numbers of analytical studies. The hands-down … Continue reading
The Hindenburg piano
The first piano ever to be carried on a passenger aircraft was created by the Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik for the ill-fated Hindenburg airship. The lightweight aluminum alloy grand piano weighed only 162 kg (356 lbs). The frame, rim, fallboard, and … Continue reading
Filed under Curiosities, Instruments
