Word: wieland
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...incident could not have happened last week at Bayreuth, where Richard Wagner's grandson Wieland staged a Lohengrin so abstract that the swan was merely a sketchily suggested stationary prop, while the hero made his exit on a descending elevator platform. Since 1951. Wieland Wagner, 41, alternating with his younger brother Wolfgang, 38, has been staging the most effective Wagner productions to be seen anywhere. (He has now redraped all the standard Wagner operas with the exception of The Flying Dutchman, which he will stage in 1960.) Last week's de-swanned Lohengrin was among the best...
...Since Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner began redraping Grandfather Richard's operas in modern scenic dress seven years ago, première audiences at the Bayreuth Festival have usually focused more on the props than the performance. But last week at the festival's curtain raiser-a new Wolfgang Wagner production of Tristan und Isolde-all ears were sharply tuned to the sounds coming out of the concealed orchestra pit. There Conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch, at 34 perhaps the most gifted German conductor to emerge since Herbert von Karajan and the youngest ever to conduct at Bayreuth, was making...
...clear the air, Wieland Wagner called in newsmen and offered his explanation. "This is the first time," he said, "that Die Meistersinger has not been done as a cliche. This opera is a wish dream of my grandfather, a revolutionary who failed.* It's actually a monologue-a discourse between himself as Hans Sachs and as Walther von Stolzing-the Wagner of maturity and youth. Musically, it's between Bach and Handel, and between Debussy and modern jazz. The real meaning of Meistersinger is Sachs' lament: 'Fools, fools, all of them fools.' The young growing...
...production's cast of veterans (Hans Hotter as Sachs, Wolfgang Wind-gassen as Stolzing) put on a plodding, vocally uninspired performance. But few members of the audience had ears for the music-it was the sets and the staging that intrigued them. Some critics conceded that Wieland had given the work spiritual unity, but they argued that the staging style was not consistent...
...Wieland's mother Winifred complained: The daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner, who herself directed at Bayreuth in Hitler's time and is now barred from the festival as an ex-Nazi, said of her son: "He's such a gifted boy and knows so much about opera. It's a pity he couldn't produce some other operas and leave his grandfather's alone...