Word: wagnerism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...write. They ruin voices by demanding odd and un-vocal sounds. Though this attitude is widespread, there is evidence that it is less a matter of fact than fashion. Birgit Nilsson, though she sings no contemporary opera at all, points out that composers are usually ahead of performers. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, she observes, was abandoned as un-performable, "yet nowadays no dramatic soprano can be considered accomplished if she is incapable of singing an Isolde." Beverly Sills, who sang many modern roles before going on to fame in Italian bel canto operas, endorses Nilsson...
...romantic composer, which provides a beneficial point of departures but constantly lead to distortions. The traditional image of this period, which corresponded almost exactly wit his lifetime (1860-1911), is of a lavishly talented collection of artists, aesthetically stranded in the shadows of their majestic predecessors-especially Beethoven and Wagner-struggling miserably with their grandiose inheritance but succeeding only in repeating the great men's first thoughts, and eventually making a cult of lamentation out of their own shortcomings. Thomas Mann described this period of apparent artistic desperation and extravagance as the miserable satyr play of a smaller time. This...
This summer, in an attempt to recapture Wieland's spirit of adventure, Wolfgang relaxed the family's autocratic grip on Wagner's monument by allowing Director August Everding and Designer Josef Svoboda to stage The Flying Dutchman. Everding, 40, is the di rector of Munich's Kammerspiele, one of Europe's most highly regarded repertory theaters. Czechoslovak Svoboda, 49, is famed both for his mastery of lighting techniques (he was one of the leading figures of Prague's celebrated Laterna Magika) and for startling stage designs (TIME, July...
Svoboda's setting, with Everding's di rection, went far toward explaining the psychological mystery of Wagner's drama of redemption through love. Everding demanded a "moment of existential fright" at the first appearance of the Dutchman's ship. The vessel loomed darkly out of the water like a giant mollusk, brightened only by the Dutchman's pale face leaning over the bow. It dwarfed everything on the stage and threatened to sail straight out into the audience. Svoboda and Everding even had the audacity to stage the finale the way Wagner wrote it (most...
Perhaps the biggest surprise was Silvio Varviso, the Swiss conductor, who has had only modest success during his Metropolitan Opera performances. Jolted into inspiration by Everding's forceful approach, he evoked from Wagner's score its powerful suggestions of the Ring to come...