No: 210 July 2013 news Number 210 July 2013 CONTENTS 4 The importance of the Bursary Dame 6 Chairman’s Reply Richard Miles 7 The Wagner Society Singing Competition Andrea Buchanan 8 Chairman demands President’s resignation Dame Gwyneth Jones 10 The role of the Committee, The President and Wagner News Richard Miles 11 Avoiding the “Nuclear Option” Ken Sunshine 12 From the Committee Andrea Buchanan 13 New Committee Member Peter Leppard 14 Pleased to meet you Richard Carter 15 Kongress Andrea Buchanan 16 Leipzig: Anvils and steerhorns in the organ loft John Crowther 18 The Daily Telegraph and feature Rachel Nicholls 19 BBC Radio 3 In Tune interview with Rachell Nicholls Sean Rafferty 19 A Tribute to CBE 20 Wagner at Meinigen Paul Dawson-Bowling 22 at the Met Richard Phillips 23 Chelsea Gerald Mallon 24 Ring Jorge Rodrigues 25 Cottbus Götterdämmerung Jorge Rodrigues 26 Ghent Parsifal Richard Phillips 27 Naples Holländer Bill Bliss 28 Keith Warner Lecture Richard Everall 29 Producing Wagner News: Now we are four Ken Sunshine 30 Wagner Bicentenary Celebrations Katie Barnes 33 Wagner Bicentenary Concert Meirion Bowen 34 Leipzig Die Feen Gerald Mallon 35 Leipzig Gerald Mallon 36 Cardiff Bill Bliss 37 Cardiff Lohengrin Hilary Reid Evans 38 University of Leeds Wagner Conference Roger Lee 40 Gods and Heroes weekend: Sir John Tomlinson Masterclasses Katie Barnes 44 Gods and Heroes weekend: An Operatic Bestiary Katie Barnes 46 Gods and Heroes weekend: Sir John Tomlinson Concert Katie Barnes 50 Gods and Heroes weekend: Interview with Sir John Tomlinson Katie Barnes 52 Gods and Heroes weekend: Paul Dawson-Bowling’s book launch Katie Barnes 53 Opera North’s reviewed by a Holocaust survivor Trude Silman 54 Book review: The Wagner Experience and its Meaning to us Roger Lee 56 Book review: Forbidden Music Kevin Stephens 57 The Wagner Society Website Charlie Furness Smith 58 Diary of a Longborough Vassal Nick Fowler 60 Meeting while walking the dog Martin Graham 60 Parsifal and the Zoroastrians of India Freddie Desai 61 The demise of the Northern Wagner Orchestra Sue Watts 62 A Tribute to Robert Presley Ian Wilson-Pope

Cover photo by Richard Carter shows Keith Warner receiving the Wagner Society’s Sir Memorial Award from Society Chairman Richard Miles. Printed by Rap Spiderweb – www.rapspiderweb.com 0161 947 3700 EDITOR’S NOTE

The cover of this issue of Wagner News shows opera director Keith Warner receiving the Wagner Society’s Sir Reginald Goodall Memorial Award from Society Chairman, Richard Miles. The presentation took place following Keith Warner’s delivery of the Dame Lecture on 24 th April at Queen’s College, when his subject was “Wagner in Practice.”

Keith Warner directed House’s first Ring of the 21 st Century, which was built up between 2004 and 2007 and presented as complete cycles in 2007 and 2012. He was just 13 years of age when he saw Reginald Goodall’s Mastersingers at Sadler’s Wells. He saw his first complete Ring at Covent Garden when he was 15 and he attended almost all of the Goodall performances of the Ring at the Coliseum in the early 1970s.

As a Drama undergraduate at Bristol University, Warner was surprised that nobody was lecturing on Wagner: “the greatest 19 th Century practitioner of theatre prior to Ibsen who was driven by a vision of the theatre that went further than anybody who has lived before or since.” During his time at Bristol he won a directing place on Friedelind Wagner’s opera masterclasses which took him to Bayreuth for the 1976 Patrice Chéreau Centenary Ring which he describes as “a work of genius”.

For Warner, the most radical part of Wagner’s thought was the idea that theatre had to be central to society. “His belief that theatre could have value to renew a whole society was truly revolutionary. Unlike any other composer, and even unlike most playwrights, he wanted an enormous debate about the nature of living.” As a young man he found the sheer dramatic power of Wagner to be quite extraordinary. “It seemed to me to be theatre about issues which opera doesn’t usually deal with or only touches on in a sentimental, overly emotional way.”

Upon receiving the Wagner Society Goodall Award, Keith Warner said that he felt extremely honoured, not least in view of distinguished previous recipients of the Award. He said that he had always held the Society in high regard and saluted its members for their devotion to Wagner

–3– THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BAYREUTH BURSARY AWARD Dame Gwyneth Jones I was recently informed by the President of The International Richard-Wagner Verband (Frau Prof. Eva Märtson) and the Director of The Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung (Herr Dr. Stefan Specht) that the Wagner Society had written to tell them that it will not take part in the Stipendienstiftung for 2014 and beyond. They naturally thought that, as President of the Wagner Society, I knew about this, and that I was in agreement with it. In fact I was surprised to discover this decision in April 2013 when it appeared in Wagner News. I have been President of the Wagner Society for 23 years and my career includes 146 performances at The over a 16-year period. I have to say that I oppose this decision very strongly and therefore I have notified the Committee that I wish that this subject be discussed at the AGM so that the members of the Society may have an opportunity to make their own decision as to whether they wish that the Bayreuth Bursary be continued or not. Richard Wagner himself founded the Bayreuth Bursary (which I believe should be open to all musicians: singers, instrumentalists, conductors, pianists etc) with the wish that Wagner Societies worldwide would support the Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung in order to find new talent for the Bayreuth Festival. It has existed for 135 Years, with over 20,000 young musicians having enjoyed the opportunity of visiting Bayreuth through the financial support of the International Wagner Societies. Among the 63 soloists performing on the stage of the Festspielhaus this year, 19 are former Bayreuth Bursary winners. That is more than 30%! I am sure that the incredible experience of attending performances and hearing the unique Bayreuth sound inspired them and made them determined to come back and stand on that stage themselves. This Prize has only been available to British musicians since 1983 so this wonderful opportunity was denied to previous generations. It should not however be denied to the present and future generations. They also deserve to have a chance to represent their country on the Green Hill and, like Helena Dix recently, to perform there in front of an international audience which includes people like Eva and , opera house managements, agents etc, which is like auditioning for all of these people in one concert. What a fabulous opportunity! One simply cannot compare the honour, prestige and inspiration which the Bayreuth Bursary winners receive along with having some paid-for coaching in Wagner roles. In any case, we are already providing coaching and masterclasses (for example from The Mastersingers and The Goodall Academy) and therefore, to use the money from the Bayreuth Bursary for more coaching is rather like putting all one’s eggs into one basket. If there should be a Singing Competition with money as a prize, then surely the winner should be allowed to decide where and with whom he or she wishes to study. I do not agree that the age limit of 35 is too low, as is stated in the Wagner News 209 item: A new singing competition for the Wagner Society . If you look at the high standard of The Kathleen Ferrier Competition, here the age limit is 29 and I tend to agree with this. By the time I was 29 I had sung a large number of leading roles and in fact my international career had already begun. I had sung not only at The Royal Opera, but also in , , Berlin, and Bayreuth etc. We should not be looking for finished dramatic voices for Brünnhilde, Isolde, Siegfried, Tristan, etc.; but for younger lyric voices who will hopefully eventually develop and be able to sing these heavier roles in the future. –4– In order to have a long and healthy career, a singer should ideally have first had about ten years’ experience singing the more lyric, shorter Wagner roles such as , Valkyries, Norns, Eva, Elisabeth, Elsa, Gutrune, Sieglinde, Senta, and also the Italian repertoire and Mozart, etc., before attempting to sing the long, heavy, dramatic repertoire of Wagner and Strauss. The problem is that many, many more opera houses are now performing the Ring and other big dramatic and there are simply not enough performers who are able to sing the big dramatic roles. The result is that singers who are too young and inexperienced with lyric voices that have not been given time to develop and mature are being talked into singing them and their careers are nipped in the bud. Young artists also need to have studied languages, which is possible nowadays with free online courses and other inexpensive classes available. There is simply no excuse for not studying a language other than laziness. I get very angry when students use a “translation”, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the text they are singing, instead of using a dictionary to translate every word in order to know what they are singing about. One has to work very hard and make sacrifices if you intend to try to have a professional career! By all means, if an outstanding singer who is already above the age limit of the Bayreuth Bursary, desperately needs financial help, we should try to find a way of helping; but not at the expense of denying outstanding new talent the uplifting experience of partaking in the Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung in Bayreuth. The Bayreuth Bursary Award is a unique feature which is available only through the Wagner Society and our Bayreuth Bursary Winners can indeed be very proud to be included in the long list of winners, to name just a few: Peter Schneider, , Hildegard Behrens, Catarina Ligendza, Waltraud Meier, Violeta Urmana, Anja Kampe, Franz Crass, , Hans Sotin, Jonas Kaufmann, and Bryn Terfel. It is our duty to take care and nurture our young singers. We already have a great problem with regard to the dramatic voices and if this continues it will become impossible to cast these great works. In the notification of the Annual General Meeting to be held on 31 st July 2013 which appears in Wagner News 209, it was announced that the Committee proposes to make amendments to the Constitution but we are not told what these amendments would be. This reminds me that I have noticed that Clause 24 in the Constitution has been changed as follows: From: Clause 24. Election to the Officership and Committee of the Society shall be by vote of those present at the Annual General Meeting. Nominations for the position of any of the Officers and Members of the Committee must be received by the Secretary in writing not less than twenty one days prior to the date of the Annual General Meeting. To: Clause 24: Election to the Officership and Committee of the Society shall be by vote of those present at the Annual General Meeting. Nominations for the position of any of the Officers may be proposed only by the Committee . Nominations for other members of the Committee must be received by the Secretary in writing not less than twenty one days prior to the date of the Annual General Meeting. Surely this is not correct, as it takes away the rights of the Members to choose their Officers. I therefore will also ask for this to be discussed at the AGM, as this is not in the interests of the Members. I will also ask for full detailed accounts to be available upon request, in addition to the present Brief Summary of Accounts, in order to provide more transparency and to avoid re-occurrence of past events. –5– CHAIRMAN’S RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Richard Miles As our President notes, the Committee decided at a meeting on 17 th April to change the format of The Bayreuth Bursary from 2013 onwards. This was proposed for consideration on the basis of: 1) The high cost of sending winners to Bayreuth, and 2) The fact that a number of past winners have told us that they did not gain as much as they might have expected from going to Bayreuth, given that no masterclasses, coaching or networking events were provided. The aim of this change is not to save money, but to use the same resources more productively. This was discussed by the Committee and it was agreed by a majority that the substantial costs of travel and accommodation might be better spent on coaching, language tuition, etc. It was therefore agreed that the annual bursary competition will become the Wagner Society Bursary for young Wagner voices, with a maximum age limit of 40 and with an additional prize for the most promising young singer under 35. The prize money will be put towards coaching in Wagner roles along with specialised German lessons for singers. Malcolm Rivers of the Mastersingers has kindly once again agreed to assist and will continue his role of putting together the judging panel, auditions and advising in general. The David Josefowitz Hall at the Royal Academy of Music has been booked for Sunday 1st December 2013. We have already had a great deal of interest from some very high quality young singers and we have an excellent panel of judges in place. The Committee carefully considered the potential down-side, but voted overwhelmingly for the proposal on a trial basis. We are confident that this is the right move, given our remit both to develop young singers and to spend our members’ money wisely, and we believe the Wagner Society Bursary will be a prestigious and successful annual event. However, the Committee is not so arrogant as to believe it has all the answers, and we will keep the situation under review with the option of returning to the previous arrangements if it does not prove successful. This will be considered by the Committee in an open-minded way after this year’s competition. We have also discussed this in person with the Director of the Bayreuth Stipendienstiftung. We note our President’s objections, but would point out that the Committee is formally elected by members and given responsibility for making decisions about commitments and expenditure in the best interests of the Society and its members. We cannot just continue doing things because we have always done them, but have to react to changing circumstances. While we want to have friendly relations with The International Association of the Wagner Societies and other international bodies and are always interested in their views, our primary responsibility is not to them, but to our members. We also note that most of the US Wagner Societies do not participate in the Bayreuth Bursary either. The proposed changes to the Constitution are mainly to remove anomalies and allow us to use electronic banking. Clause 24 was changed some time ago, before most of the current Committee was involved, but it seems reasonable that the members elect the Committee and that the Committee then proposes Officers (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer) from among those elected. We therefore recommend against changing this.

–6–– 6– Regarding the request for ‘detailed accounts’: we have never (as far as any of us knows) produced more detailed accounts than those distributed at the AGM. The accounts reviewed at Committee meetings are merely monthly versions of the same data. We have been happy with them until now, but of course our incoming Treasurer, when appointed, may have ideas for improvement. Incidentally, as the Wagner Society is a Charity, its accounts are published for all to see on the Charity Commission website. We also note that our accounts are fully in line with those published by the RWVI. Members will of course have the option to vote on the Committee and on the Constitution at the AGM on 31 st July. We have a strong and rejuvenated Committee, full of ideas and enthusiasm, and all of us working hard and giving up our time to do what we believe is right for members: modernise the Society and make it lively and relevant – all of course in the interests of fostering appreciation of Richard Wagner’s works, which seem even more relevant to present generations than they have been in the past. The Committee hopes that members will make a special effort to attend the AGM on 31 st July and take the opportunity to show their support for the Committee and their interest in the affairs of the Society.

THE WAGNER SOCIETY BURSARY COMPETITION December 1 st 2013, Andrea Buchanan Plans are going very well for the forthcoming Bursary Competition, and we are delighted at the unprecedented number of talented young singers that have applied for the auditions, that will take place on October 13 th . For the first time, the audition panel (Malcolm Rivers, David Edwards and Ludmilla Andrew) will select the singers for the auditions based on their submission of a recording of a Wagner work and their CVs. We will do our best to accommodate as many singers as possible on the day and judging by the enthusiasm that the singers are already showing for the event, there should be some exciting new talent to hear. We are very fortunate that pianists Kelvin Lim and Philip Voldman have kindly agreed to accompany the auditionees. Between six and eight finalists will be chosen from those who audition, and they will each be expected to sing at least ten minutes of Wagner, accompanied by Kelvin. We are also very pleased to announce that Sir John Tomlinson has agreed to lead the panel of judges, and he will be joined by Elaine Padmore, formerly Head of Opera at ROH and Keith Warner, Director of the ROH Ring and countless other wonderful Wagner productions. We are honoured to have this distinguished panel of judges and we look forward very much to their contribution. PLEASE SAVE THE DATE IN YOUR DIARIES

–7–– 7– CHAIRMAN DEMANDS PRESIDENT’S RESIGNATION Dame Gwyneth Jones To my utter amazement I have received two emails from our Chairman Richard Miles asking for my resignation as President. I am totally appalled at this outrageous suggestion, which is a result of my opposing the decision of the Committee to not partake in The Bayreuth Bursary from 2014 and beyond. I have asked for it to be put on the Agenda of the AGM on 31 st July in order that the Members be given the opportunity to make their decision by vote. Richard Miles writes that that this can be discussed at the AGM, “however, this will be a discussion only: the AGM is not the right forum to reverse a decision which has already been validly taken by the Committee” . He continues: “As I have said before, we very much value having you as our President, but it must be clear that the Committee, not the President, has executive responsibility for managing the Society. I am also concerned at the implications in your letter that you have been discussing the Wagner Society's affairs with external parties such as Prof. Märtson. If you do not have confidence in the Committee or feel that you can’t work with us, it would be quite understandable, and perfectly honourable, if you wanted to stand down as our President after 23 years. If you do so, this will of course be amicable, with due appreciation on our part for your wise leadership and counsel. The alternative would be for me to resign (I cannot speak for other Committee members, but I am well aware that others agree with me) – which of course I will do, if it is what members indicate they would prefer. It is clear to me that the President and the Committee fundamentally disagree on how the Society should be run. We therefore intend to write to all members seeking a vote of confidence in the Committee and making it clear that, if successful, we intend to seek your resignation. We would of course circulate this correspondence with our letter to members. After 23 years of distinguished service as our President, I believe we owe you the option – if you want it – of a dignified way out from this situation, and your resignation would be a much more fitting finale to your term as President than a public spat with the Committee, whatever the outcome. We try to run the Society in the best interests of members, which is why we are intending to ask for a vote of confidence, and for members to decide whether the Society should be run by an elected Committee or an unelected President. I'm sorry it has come to this, but many members of the Committee feel very strongly that they are not prepared to work with a President who does not accept that her role is non-executive, who persists in trying to interfere in decisions which are the Committee's responsibility, and who clearly has limited confidence in us. I can see that this will remain an issue between you and the Committee, making it impossible for us to work together, and this is why I sincerely believe the time has come for you to stand down – for the good of the Society and in fact, for your own good as well. For a respected public figure such as yourself, rightly revered for your distinguished career, this kind of spat is undignified and most unlikely to enhance your reputation. On the other hand, for those of us without any particular prominence, the stakes are lower: all we have to lose is the many hours we devote to the interests of the Wagner Society. I therefore implore you to step down gracefully and spare our members a great deal of unpleasantness.” To these accusations I wish to state the following: It was actually Frau Prof. Eva Maertson, President of the RWIV, who rang me, because she was so upset and angry to hear of the Committee’s decision to stop partaking in the Bayreuth Bursary Award from 2014 and beyond and simply couldn’t believe that I and the Members had not been consulted. Does the Committee think that I should have been terribly rude and slammed the telephone down on her? In any case there is nothing in the Constitution which says that I am not allowed to speak with her, as long as I do not speak on the behalf of the Wagner Society. –8– Last Summer I had a very positive, constructive meeting with Richard Miles and some other Members of the Committee, when I promised them that I would help them in every possible way that I could, including making contact with the Music Colleges in order to find young musicians and singers as possible new Members for the Society. However, I then heard nothing from them for over seven months. Ever since I insisted on seeing full detailed accounts to prepare myself for taking the Chair for the first time at the AGM on 20 th May 2010, which resulted in the exposure of the embezzlement, I have been totally boycotted. After a wonderfully happy and successful weekend in Aldeburgh, when among other things, I did an interview with Humphrey Burton (I have never seen so many happy faces!!) there were an abundance of requests from Members that there should be a second interview with Humphrey. Naturally, I said that I would be delighted to do one. However, I was not invited to come to Aldeburgh again! My recent interview with Humphrey at the Royal Opera was arranged by Wagner 200, Mark Eynon and Barry Millington. Then it was decided that the Bayreuth Bursary Day should in future be called “The President’s Day” and that I would always be invited to adjudicate. Result: after one time, The President’s Day was not continued and I have never been invited again. In fact, I discovered that my name as President had been taken away from Wagner News and the Wagner Society Website without any previous consultation with me. I have been excluded from all events except the Christmas Party, where I was kindly invited by Jeremy Rowe. With regard to my request that full detailed accounts should be made available upon request, Richard Miles says: “you seem to be under the impression that the Committee has access to ‘full detailed accounts’ which are not made available to you or the members. I repeat, this is not the case.” After the embezzlement I find this very worrying, as the Committee act as Trustees! In the minutes of the 55 th Annual General Meeting, 26 th May, 2009: “Raymond Browne started by explaining that in order to save unnecessary use of paper (!!) the Committee agreed that a summary of the accounts for 2008 should be prepared for the AGM, but that copies of the full accounts were available.” As for “an elected Committee or a non-elected President” : four members of the present Committee, who have voted against the Bayreuth Bursary, have not yet been elected by the Members; but I was most certainly elected by the Members 23 years ago. As we have such a large Committee, I must say that I find it rather strange that they are, apparently, unable to organise the Bayreuth Bursary Competition themselves and have to employ another Society, The Mastersingers, to adjudicate the auditions, nominate the finalists, decide on the most suitable coaching and assist in developing a programme for the winners. Surely it is not so difficult to arrange the hiring of a hall, to ask the Music Colleges to recommend their best students and with our Vice President Sir John Tomlinson, Sir Donald McIntyre, Dame and myself available, they would not have to look very far for the ideal jury members. Also the Winners should be allowed to choose themselves with whom they wish to study. During our conversation after the Wagner 200 Concert at The Royal Festival Hall Richard Miles said to me that the Members had no rights to vote on the issue of The Bayreuth Bursary. I disagreed with him and he said “What would you do if I tell you that, if you insist on opposing our decision I and the entire Committee would resign?” I replied that I thought that this would be most unfortunate, however, I believe so strongly that their decision is wrong and will fight it. I have time available and would therefore immediately elect a new Committee together with the Members. To summarize. I have never tried to make Executive decisions. I only asked that the Members be allowed vote on the issue of The Bayreuth Bursary, which has been an important tradition for 30 years. As President I want to be part of a Society in which Members are entitled to vote on important issues and where I am not asked to resign because I wish to defend this right. I, hope that you share this vision and therefore I ask you all to come to the AGM on 31 st July to support me in this vitally important matter. –9– THE ROLE OF THE COMMITTEE, THE PRESIDENT AND WAGNER NEWS Richard Miles To ensure that Wagner News is interesting, lively and varied, and not just a mouthpiece for the Committee, we have followed a policy of editorial independence. Editor Roger Lee has a free rein over the content of the magazine. With two lengthy statements from the President in this month’s issue (both in opposition to the Committee) this policy could be said to be working well or even, from the Committee’s perspective, rather too well. I believe editorial independence remains a valuable principle for us to follow and that the magazine under Roger's editorship is an asset of which the Wagner Society can be proud. I am sure that most members share my hope that future editions of Wagner News will contain rather less about Wagner Society politics and more about Wagner and his works. I have already replied to the President’s complaints about the Bayreuth Bursary. On this subject I would only add that the Committee has to react to the circumstances of 2013 and not those of half a century ago. I make no apology for the fact that we constantly try to react to circumstances and look for ways to use the Society’s resources more productively. In future this may or may not include the Bayreuth Bursary; we will keep the situation under review and we welcome members’ thoughts on it. I firmly believe that the Committee ought to be empowered to make executive decisions on behalf of the Society without interference. That is what members elect us for. Of course we will always take into account members’ views as expressed at the AGM and indeed at any other time. The email addresses and telephone numbers of the Officers of the Society are publicly available and we welcome comments, opinions, questions (and even compliments) at any time. Regarding other points raised by the President: we are a volunteer Committee and we are people with busy lives and careers and our own professional reputations. We can't be expected to work tirelessly for members when we are being sniped at and having our competence and probity questioned. It is for members to decide what sort of Wagner Society they want: one based in the current era and looking forward, or one constantly harking back to the last century. I hope that those who have not done so will make their choice at the Special General Meeting on 11 th July. My assurances about the “full detailed accounts” which the President alleges are not made available to her are quoted in her statement, and do not need repeating. I am well aware that the President has strong feelings about this, especially following the problems which the Society had a few years ago with a previous Treasurer, but it should be recognised that we are an almost entirely new Committee since that time, and that it is (at best) hurtful to be associated with past misdemeanours which have nothing to do with how the Committee operates today. Steps had already been taken to strengthen financial controls and since I became Chairman we have tightened them further. As Treasurer, Mike Morgan has done an admirable job of providing stability, and it will be for his replacement to suggest further improvements in the quality of financial information presented to all parties. On the issue of constitutional changes, I acknowledge that the Constitution is defective in many ways and needs completely rewriting. I do not think that now is the moment to reverse the change in Clause 24 that was made some years ago, in isolation from other changes. Once again, I am extremely sorry that we seem to be unable to move on from conflict, and that sterile arguments are diverting the Committee's energy away from a much-needed modernisation of the Society. It remains our ambition to get back on track as soon as possible.

– 10 – THE SOCIETY AND ITS PRESIDENT: AVOIDING THE “NUCLEAR OPTION” An open letter to the Wagner Society Committee Ken Sunshine I was dismayed this morning to receive notice of the Special General Meeting and even more so to see that in the event of a vote of confidence in the Committee being passed there would follow automatically a call for the President to resign. I had anticipated attending the AGM and having the opportunity to speak to a motion proposing that the “nuclear option” (as described by one Committee member) be avoided until a revised Constitution was in place. The gist of my proposal would have been to point out to members at the AGM that the Constitution as it stands is deficient in a number of areas, which I detailed in a letter to Richard Miles, 31/05/13. One of the bases of a good Society is a sound constitution; a constitution that clearly defines roles, responsibilities and procedures for as many foreseeable situations as possible. Decisions made without that foundation must be taken very carefully. In the present situation I would contend that a decision to ask the President to resign is based on very shaky ground and if there were a body equivalent to an Industrial Tribunal to which the President could appeal I have no doubt they would find in her favour. I think each Committee member has seriously to decide whether taking this action without a constitutional basis is right. A more practical consideration is that a call for the President’s resignation will not lead to Dame Gwyneth stepping down but simply to a step up in the conflict which the Chair says he wishes to avoid; a conflict which could go public. Surely we must avoid this? The President’s role is not defined. Before calling on her to resign there ought to be a Constitution defining the role and responsibilities and procedures for electing and dismissing. If the President transgressed then the steps would be clear and a decision would have been made properly and constitutionally, uninfluenced by personal histories which I fear have intruded in the present argument. An additional concern is that, although the Constitution doesn’t spell out voting rules for SGM proposals, it does for AGMs viz: by members present at the meeting. Why isn’t this the rule for SGMs? Allowing postal votes means that members will be voting without the full story and without input such as mine and that which other members might wish to contribute. I would urge you to reconsider, rescind the SGM proposal and replace it with one which will lead to a new Constitution to be accepted in, say, October. Then set about moving forward on a sound basis.

LOHENGRIN RESIDENTIAL CONFERENCE Lee Wood Hall, Buxton: 15 th to 17 th October Led by Terry Barfoot and John Leeman, this conference will consider the development of Wagner’s career with a particular focus on Lohengrin . The relationships between music, characterisation and drama will be considered with the aid of audio-visual presentations. £275 per person for twin/double rooms, or £299 singles inclusive of meals and wine. www.artsinresidence.co.uk or 02392 383356 – 11 – FROM THE COMMITTEE Notes from the Committee Meeting held on 17 April 2013 Andrea Buchanan Apologies for absence were received from Roger Lee and Charlie Furness Smith. The Committee welcomed new member Peter Leppard. In reviewing the various reports submitted by Committee members, it was decided that, going forward, a budget for each individual event would be submitted by the person responsible in order to give greater transparency and control over spending. A budget for the coming year would also be produced by the Treasurer from January 2014 onwards and would be reviewed and updated at each Committee meeting. With regard to the membership report, which showed a consistently steady decline in membership, it was decided that those members that had not yet renewed would be contacted, either to find out their reasons for not having done so, or to remind those who had simply forgotten. This has since happened, and a significant number of members have now renewed as a result. The free ballot had proved to be a reasonably successful experiment and it was decided to continue with this next year. The quality of the free tickets that had been won, along with the relatively high chance of winning something would no doubt encourage more members to participate in future. A few changes to the Constitution of 2008 were proposed to be tabled at the AGM, largely to some of the archaic and obsolete wording. The Committee discussed these at some length and Ed Hewitt would finalise the proposed amendments, applying his legal expertise. The proposed changes would be sent to members in the AGM pack, due to be mailed out in early to mid June. Discussion regarding the AGM continued with the decision that those Committee members standing for re-election would seek nominations from the membership rather than from each other, which had become the usual practice over the past few years. The meeting moved on to discuss the events programme for the rest of 2013. Gary Kahn confirmed that the Wagner Society/Wagner 200 lectures had been finalised. Arrangements were in place for both the Eva Turner Lecture in April and the launch of Paul Dawson-Bowling’s book in May. As Charlie Furness Smith could not attend, Ed Hewitt updated the meeting on progress with the new website, which was now almost built. The Committee discussed responsibilities for populating the site with data and forthcoming training sessions for Committee members. AB updated the Committee on some of the issues that had been raised for the Agenda at the annual Richard Wagner Verband International Kongress in Leipzig that she would attend in May. Two requests had been received for financial support, of which one, the Rehearsal Orchestra, was granted a slightly larger sum than previously, as the RO event was both of an extremely high quality and was always popular with members. Finally, Gary Kahn informed the meeting that Ralph Wells was now recovering slowly at home and a suitable retirement gift from the Society was discussed. The next meeting would be held on 11 th June in . A REMINDER THAT THE 59 TH AGM OF THE WAGNER SOCIETY WILL BE HELD ON WEDNESDAY JULY 31 ST AT 7pm AT PORTLAND PLACE SCHOOL

– 12 – THE WAGNER SOCIETY COMMITTEE GAINS A PRACTISING MUSICIAN

Peter Leppard A with more than 20 years experience with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Peter Leppard has become the newest member of the Wagner Society Committee on which he is currently serving as Events Manager. Peter received his first musical education at the age of 7 with piano lessons in which he proved to be only moderately interested. He was much more enthused when the opportunity came up at the age 12 to start organ lessons. Coupled with singing in his local church choir as a teenage bass, this perhaps inevitably led to his working for a couple of years as a church organist. His interests gradually turned away from playing and towards singing. He was in the Halle Choir in Manchester for about two years before joining the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus. “At the CBSO I have been lucky enough to experience the final six years of Rattle's reign. Special among my memories is that of performing Szymanowski's opera Krol Roger at the Festival and also now to be singing complete Wagner operas under .” In the Sakari Oramo era in Birmingham, there was a Radio 3 broadcast of in which Peter can be heard singing a small (four bar!) solo – “my only claim to musical fame!” His love of Wagner started at the age of 14 when his father took him to Reginald Goodall's 1968 Mastersingers at – “I was immediately hooked” – though nowadays he much prefers Wagner sung in German, albeit he is not necessarily a traditionalist when it comes to staging; he has much enjoyed several of Bayreuth’s controversial productions. Peter’s career was in railway management, both before and since privatisation, recently retiring from Deutsche Bahn in London. Before that, a few years in Cardiff enabled him to attend WNO regularly, where he remembers Bryn Terfel in “perhaps the most tremendous interpretation of Hans Sachs one is ever likely to see”. Peter is currently studying for a music MA with the Open University which he describes as “infinitely more enjoyable than I remember undergraduate Physics having been” He is delighted to have joined the Wagner Society Committee and he wants to see the Society build from strength to strength.

– 13 – Pleased to meet you RICHARD CARTER Following Peter West’s retirement from the job last year Richard Carter has taken over as Principal Photographer for Wagner News I have long been interested in photography (I used to freelance for Peace News and other radical magazines), so it’s great to be able to combine two interests in one and make a contribution to the interesting work in which the Wagner Society is involved. My first musical love was jazz and I came to ‘classical’ music comparatively late and I had never heard more than odd bits of Wagner. But in the early 1970s there was a new Ring at the Coliseum, but I thought I could do worse than to dip my toes in the Rhine. I managed to get a ticket for Rhinegold and I was hooked. I don’t think Reginald Goodall was conducting by then, but Alberto Remedios and were in the cast and the whole experience was a revelation. Photo: Brendan Davies At Covent Garden I experienced Götz Friedrich’s terrific Ring with the wonderful Gwyneth Jones (in her leather catsuit!) and of course, John Tomlinson. It was to Siegfried in this cycle that I took my daughter Emma. She was very interested in music and at 15 was at an age I thought might be right for Wagner. So, very nervously on my part, (suppose she hated it?) we set off for Covent Garden. As the lights went up at the end of Act I, I said, “What did you think?” She replied: “Daddy, you’ve changed my life!” From then on we went together whenever possible to hear the Master’s work. Before the ROH closed in 1997 there was a Prom staging of the Ring at the Albert Hall. The (semi) staging of the cycle was brilliant, the singers acting as if on stage but with the clever use of minimal props, turning the whole event into a triumph: the best, without question, that I have ever seen. Since then we’ve experienced many delights, for example the WNO Tristan (with Anne Evans as a wonderful Isolde) for which we arrived to queue for day tickets at about 5am. We went to the Richard Jones Ring in 2004/05 and in October 2007, by which time Emma was heavily pregnant with her first born, Bella, who ought to be a Wagner fan on that basis alone. (In fact Isolde was on the name list until Emma’s husband put his foot down!) Bella is now 5 and is already showing an interest in the stories of the operas. She recently planned the picnics for the intervals when she is old enough to go, insisting on raspberry jelly for the second interval in each case. After years of trying for tickets we managed last year to get to Tristan and Parsifal at Bayreuth. Although the Tristan production was very hard to comprehend (a polite way of saying it was frightful), the Parsifal was truly amazing and even my wife (no Wagner enthusiast) thought it was terrific. But (as so many others have experienced) it’s absolutely magical when the theatre goes dark and the music appears as if from nowhere. I’m certainly not a traditionalist on productions. I do welcome innovation, for example Chéreau’s Bayreuth Ring , casting the gods as Victorian capitalists was a wholly convincing re-imagining and the current Bayreuth Parsifal is both tremendously rich and powerful in its use of recent German history, but at least it should be comprehensible. It was interesting that the Fulham Opera Siegfried (which I photographed in February) used minimal props and yet achieved performances of which other companies could only dream.

– 14 – RICHARD WAGNER VERBAND INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL KONGRESS: LEIPZIG 2013 Andrea Buchanan I attended the Annual General Meeting of the RWVI as the official representative of the Wagner Society. The AGM always forms the core of annual Kongress activities and each participating Verband is able to send a maximum of two delegates to the meeting, both of whom must be officers. The International Verbands were less well represented than last year, although it was great to see that the Wagner Societies of Scotland and Ireland were present, along with our own Society, one from and a few from the USA. The meeting was held in the Neues Rathaus and the facilities were excellent. The simultaneous translations were of a very high standard and the organisation was smooth and efficient As the meeting lasted for just over five hours, this was much appreciated. There is a great deal of annual routine business covered at the AGM including, inter alia, greetings to new Presidents and Verbands (Cuba being a noteworthy newly accredited Society), the annual reports of the Praesidium, the Treasurer, the auditors and the Stipendienstiftung. Marcus-Johannes Heinz, the former Secretary, gave an excellent presentation on the management of Wagner Society websites, highlighting in particular the need for acknowledging sources for quoted material, keeping sites up-to-date, ensuring that links worked and were current and avoiding errors and inconsistencies. There were three motions initially presented to the delegates by member Societies of which two were subsequently combined. The first of these came from Shirley Breese, President, Wagner Society of Melbourne, (combined with one from Nathalie Wagner, President of the New York Wagner Society). This motion sought to allow for transferral of votes at the AGM by permitting delegates who were eligible to vote but unable to attend the meeting to exercise their vote via a proxy vote. This would involve a change in the RWVI Constitution as proxy votes are not currently allowed. The motion was seconded by Jane Mathews, President of the Wagner Society of . There followed a lively discussion on the matter, which was broadly supported by many members of the Praesidium, including Professor Maertson, and the vote proved overwhelmingly in favour. Further discussions would take place in the autumn to progress this matter and the outcomes would be reported back to members. The other motion came from Andreas Berger, Chair of the Wagner Society of . This proposed that future alternate Kongresses be held in Bayreuth or some other fixed location in order to facilitate scholarly workshops and discussion groups among delegates and to place less emphasis on the touristic aspects of Kongress. This would also give Verbands more time to prepare when they were due to host a regular Kongress. It was acknowledged that hosting a Kongress entailed a substantial amount of preparation and was very demanding. The motion was carried and this would also be considered further by the Praesidium for future years. 2017 would present the first opportunity for this to be implemented. Finally, the Kongress received presentations from the organisers of the future Kongresses in Graz (2014), Dessau (2015) and Strasbourg (2016). The programmes envisaged for these Kongresses are all enticing and the cities themselves have much to offer the visitor. If any members would like further details, please contact me on [email protected]. Please read John Crowther’s article on the following two pages about his time in Leipzig to see how Kongress feels for a member! And please consider coming along next year. – 15 – ANVILS AND STEERHORNS IN THE ORGAN LOFT How Leipzig celebrated Wagner’s 200 th birthday John Crowther

Statue by the sculptor Stephan Balkenhol Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, attended school there and in 1831 enrolled as a music student at the University. To honour this city’s most famous son, the Richard Wagner Society of Leipzig hosted the International Richard Wagner Congress, whilst the City of Leipzig organised a festival called Richard ist Leipziger with operas, concerts, exhibitions, art displays, a ballet, a new statue and excursions to local places which had influenced Wagner. At the Conference: “Richard Wagner: Character, Work and Influence” 57 papers were presented in German by academics from 16 countries. Eight Wagner operas were performed: the three early operas ( Die Feen, Rienzi and ), and five later works: Der fliegende Holländer, , Die Meistersinger, Parsifal and Götterdämmerung . Leipzig Opera also staged The Ring for Children whilst University students gave a concert performance of the only remaining fragment of Wagner’s tragic lyric opera: . The concerts included The Ring without words played by the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, The Ring arranged for organ, piano works by Wagner and ; organ works by Wagner and Liszt and motets sung in the St Thomas Church by the St Thomas Boys Choir where Wagner had been a pupil in 1830. On the wet and chilly morning of May 22 nd the City of Leipzig unveiled a statue in a location close to Wagner’s birthplace in the Bruhl. This depicts a colourful young Wagner against a black silhouette of the mature man. It is mounted on an art nouveau plinth embossed on the sides with characters from Wagner’s operas. Afterwards the City Fathers served coffee and birthday cake to the townsfolk and visitors in the rain. The Festival included two exhibitions. Richard Wagner: his passions and burdens presented an overview of the important personal and creative stages in his life. It contained a variety of memorabilia including original portraits, pianos and other instruments, books, manuscripts and a magnificent, translucent swan from Lohengrin . This exhibition has now moved to Bayreuth and is well worth a visit. The young Richard Wagner, 1813-1834 is housed in the Old St Nicholas School where Wagner was a student from 1828 to 1830. It has audio examples of Wagner’s main musical influences, especially works by Beethoven and Weber. It is presented unusually in blue light in a series of underground cellars. – 16 – With such a full programme it was impossible for anybody to attend everything, especially as on one evening the Opera House and the Gewandhaus each performed a Wagner opera. Of all the things we attended four events outshone the rest. In The Ring without words arranged by Maazel and played in concert by the Gewandhaus orchestra under the overtures and orchestral interludes of all four Ring operas are played sequentially as a tone poem. Whilst the joins in Maazel’s orchestration are not as polished as in the Dressler version (recorded by the Duisburg Philharmonic), the piece in Leipzig had greater dramatic impact. In the Niebelheim scene, Ulf Schirmer split the anvils into three groups: one in each box on either side of the stage and the third high up in the organ loft. The metallic, three-dimensional sounds reverberated around the Gewandhaus so that the audience felt they were inside the underground workshops of Niebelheim. In the Götterdämmerung passage three steerhorns were placed not off-stage as in most productions, but full frontal in the organ loft and playing fortissimo over an orchestra of 100 or so musicians. The effect was extraordinary and convinced the audience that they too were on the banks of the Rhine. Another exceptional event was a staging of Götterdämmerung on Wagner’s birthday by the University of Leipzig with the Mendelssohn Orchestra under David Timm. The score and the were unchanged but all the characters in the drama were replaced by members of Richard and Cosima’s family, both past and present. The revised plot followed the vicissitudes of the family from 1873 generation by generation as seen by the family photographer. Thus in Act I the Norns became Wagner’s three step-daughters (Daniela, Blandine and Eva von Bulow), whilst in Act III the Rhinemaidens became Wagner’s great granddaughters (Katharina Wagner, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier). In between, we met Siegfried, Wolfgang, Wieland and . The role of Cosima was played by a non-singing actress who manipulated events. The costumes were taken from historic photographs of the family which were projected onto the backdrop. The props were frugal but highly evocative. For example, during the overture a very young Siegfried is playing with his toys sat on the floor on the hide of a wild boar (complete with head, snout and tusks), whilst nearby one of Cosima’s daughters is playing with a rocking horse which becomes Grane in the immolation scene. In the last moments of the opera it is not Valhalla but the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth which is consumed by flames, presumably a tilt towards the demise of the Wagner dynasty. Das Ende indeed! The third exceptional event was Parsifal , a co-production between Oper Leipzig, Grand Théâtre de Genève and Opéra de Nice. Stefan Vinke was Parsifal, Jan Hendrik Rootering Gurnemanz and Lioba Braun Kundry. Ulf Schirmer conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra with tenderness and poetry. The sets were beautiful with imaginative computer- generated images in pastel shades such that the performance became a total work of art. What would Wagner have given to have had such technology at his fingertips? Finally, those who saw it reported that the fairy-tale production of Die Feen was truly inspirational. At the end Wagner descends from the sky suspended beneath a giant butterfly. If he had been directing this opera himself, surely he would have chosen to ascend rather than to descend. It is a pity that this staging of the opera will only ever be seen in Leipzig, although concert performances will be given in Bayreuth. Our visit to Leipzig provided us with an unforgettable musical experience. We thank Thomas Krakow, President of the Richard Wagner Society of Leipzig for his superb organisation and Wagner News for persuading ordinary members to attend. Andrea Buchanan encourages members to go to the 2014 Congress in Graz and the 2015 Congress in Dessau where a new Bauhaus Ring is planned.

– 17 – On 4 th April 2013 the Telegraph ran a feature: New Faces: young artists to watch for in the future. For the Opera section Rupert Christiansen chose to interview Rachel Nicholls. Who is she? A svelte blonde with a voice of steely clarity and staying power. She spent the first decade of her career focused on Baroque music but is now moving impressively into the Wagnerian repertory. Isn’t Wagner terribly difficult to sing unless you’re one of the fat ladies? “Well, you have to be fearless, but so long as you keep your nerve, it’s not as hard as everyone thinks,” Nicholls says. “However, I do make a point of wearing sensible shoes to keep me grounded, and drinking herbal tea in my dressing room to keep my throat lubricated. I’m also hugely fortunate to be coached by one of the greats, Dame Anne Evans, who is a fount of wisdom and experience.” And what about the Baroque repertory? “I’ve had a lovely time singing it, but I never felt it came naturally to my voice. I always secretly felt that Wagner was my musical destiny and that seems to be the way it’s moving.” What next? She’s getting married to bass Andrew Slater, after which she hopes for some time at home in the Peak District, where she loves to relax by rambling over the moorland.

The Guardian’s “In praise of…” feature on 25th June 2013 ran as follows: In praise of… British Brünnhildes Say “Wagnerian Soprano” and what comes to mind? A formidably large woman? Perhaps in a horned helmet. And without doubt a German. No question that these are still the stereotypes. But they are not the reality. Today’s Wagnerian come in as many sizes as the world’s women do. They almost never wear the caricature Nordic kit. And some of the best Wagnerian sopranos these days are not German but British. Rachel Nicholls is the latest of them. As Brünnhilde in the triumphant Ring cycle at the Longborough festival last week, the athletic and tireless Ms Nicholls was the star of the show. In July Catherine Foster is Brünnhilde at Wagner’s own Bayreuth festival, no less. Wagnerian opera was once a Teutonic monopoly. But these days British singers like Ms Nicholls and Ms Foster would seem to be running rings around the competition.

– 18 – RACHEL NICHOLLS’ BBC RADIO 3 INTERVIEW On 1 st May 2013 in conversation with Sean Rafferty on the In Tune programme Rachel replied to Rafferty’s observation that it is a very long way from Bach to Wagner as follows: “It is, and it has been a very exciting journey. I am very much looking forward to, as you say ‘striding through three Ring operas as Brünnhilde’. “Part of the process is that of learning to make the big loud noise all day, and the rehearsals are where we learn to do that. I remembered highlighting my score when I first said that I wanted to do Götterdämmerung then to find that page after page was yellow! I cried and I thought: how am I going to learn it all? Then I decided to start at the beginning, and it went in in the end! It is a massive challenge: simply the amount of text which you have to learn, but you get in to the rhythm of it in the end and Wagner is very helpful with his alliteration, so if you don’t know what the word is you can usually guess. “One of the wonderful things at Longborough from my point of view is that the digging out of the pit has put the orchestra underneath the stage. Anthony Negus is absolutely fabulous at making the balance lovely anyway, but it is of course such a help that the pit is so similar to that at Bayreuth. “We had a wonderful time last year doing Götterdämmerung . I have been involved in Die Walküre (I was Helmwige in 2010) and then we didn’t have a Brünnhilde, so I said: ‘I want to do it.’ Anthony Negus took a big risk and I took a big risk and we were very happy. “The big, loud noise is always the one which has come naturally, but you can’t be a singing Wagner until you are about 35. So I had to find something else to do before then. It is very exciting, and I have to say that I couldn’t be more supported by my friends and colleagues at Longborough. Anthony Negus and Alan Privett are holding my hands every step of the way as is Dame Anne Evans to whom I am enormously grateful, and Richard Smart my singing teacher. They have been wonderful.”

A TRIBUTE TO AVA JUNE Alberto Remedios CBE It was with great and deep regret that I heard of the passing of my dear friend and colleague Ava June. We worked together on a vast number of productions both at Saddlers Wells Opera and later with English National Opera. The first time would have been in the 1950s. If my memory serves me correctly the work was Beethoven’s . We both had minor roles at the time as we were just starting out on our careers. Ava was my first Sieglinde in Die Walküre at ENO. Ava very kindly consented to be my daughter’s Godmother and both Tonina and Richard called her Auntie Ava. She was always a joy to work with and her range of roles was astounding, from Katya Kabanova to . She was an absolute professional and at rehearsals she would give so much to her fellow artists. I was just trying to remember the number of opera performances and concerts we did together, and I lost count at about 230! Perhaps the most exciting time for me was when I went to Bulgaria to sing in La Traviata with her. She had been asked to go to enter a competition and she asked if I would go with her to sing the parts. I jumped at the chance. She won the Gold Medal for her performance which, I must say, was justly deserved. Ava was such a huge part of my life for so long that even though I am 13,000 miles away in Australia, I will miss her. – 19 – WAGNER AT MEININGEN 28 th February to 4 th March 2013 Paul Dawson-Bowling Sitting in the gallery of the theatre at Meiningen, enjoying its superb sound and excellent sightlines, I gazed in a mix of disbelief and gratitude at the 15 Euro price on our tickets for . Bryan Suitters, a leading figure of our sister organisation, the Music Club of London, had again provided Simpson’s quality at burger-café prices. Here at Meiningen was another opera house which was gem, and it was the setting for a performance of Tristan und Isolde in a different league from any ones recently in the UK. It was better conducted (by Philippe Bach), better sung, better played and far better staged (by Gerd Heinz), even than the one at Glyndebourne. As for Covent Garden, that house of shame, the less said of its Tristan productions since and , the better. Act I had the prow of Tristan’s ship rotating 180 degrees for the decisive shifts of focus between the two pairs of principals, Isolde and Brangäne, Kurwenal and Tristan. Otherwise the production was of the utmost simplicity, amounting to not much more than some shallow steps laid diagonally across the stage in Act II and a tree, a low couch and a chair for Act III. Some atmospheric projections, some subtly suggestive lighting and the gripping acting supplied the magic, along with the producer’s willingness to present us with Wagner’s creation instead of some bizarre concoction of his own. The Tristan (Andreas Shäger), was terrific, at times almost too loud for the orchestra, although its opulence of sound was amazing, and the whole evening was crowned by one of the most meaningful and moving versions of the Liebestod I have encountered. After the Isolde, Ursula Füri-Bernhard had sung her final Lust – exquisitely – she turned her back on the audience to embrace and lean against the tree, and the hues of her cloak merged with it so perfectly that she seemed subsumed back into nature even as she slipped lifeless to the ground. Two days later there was another superb performance – generally – of Das Liebesverbot . One of the benefits of the opera and the straight play company occupying the same premises and being part of the same organisation is that Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure , the source of Wagner’s opera, was being played over the same period. This allowed comparisons and an understanding that are impossible with any UK theatre organisation. To be sure, Das Liebesverbot was considerably cut, but the performance demonstrated, as the famous recording from the 1970s by Sawallisch had done, that this is a remarkable opera. If people did not know it was by Wagner and did not draw contrasts with his stupendous achievements later, a performance like this would have the experts going round claiming to have discovered a lost masterpiece. The stage setting was clever, something like a tiered Roman arena that did both for Friedrich’s palatial hall and the town square, as well as providing nooks for the more intimate scenes. Space prevents the mention of as many excellent artists individually as their quality deserves, but I must single out Dae-Hee Shin whose magnificent bass and sheer musicality had already been a joy as Kurwenal, but whose portrayal of the repressed, puritanical Friedrich bore the stamp of greatness. Nothing is perfect and the generally effective staging was ruined by a bit of producer’s crackpot vandalism at the end. Ansgar Haag is the man who should go in the stocks. Wagner’s joyous conclusion, with everything coming right for everyone and everyone forgiving everyone, was suddenly stood on its head when hidden snipers

– 20 – meaninglessly and inexplicably shot half of the principal players. This left the stage strewn with corpses. Heaven knows who was meant to be doing what to whom, or why. None of the German audience who we asked were any wiser than us; and it made as much sense as if the half the cast of Figaro or Fledermaus had been shot at the end. The two operas were the visit’s nodal points, but our three days at Meiningen would have been lovely and happy on their own account, so enchanting is this unspoilt treasure of a town with its Fachwerk and mediæval eating houses, its theatre museums and music museums. There was also a trip to Würzburg on the day which had no opera, which brought a very personal benefit for me. In Wagner’s essay, Art and Religion , from the same period as Parsifal , he draws a contrast between what he plainly saw as art of fatuous religiosity (he was being rather hard), and art that was true religious revelation. He gave as an example of the former the bas relief at St Kilian’s cathedral in Wurzburg, which showed, as Wagner tells us, God the father transmitting the embryo Jesus down a blow- pipe into Mary. In fact he had misremembered the details and the location; it was not at St Kilian’s but the nearby Marienkappelle. It shows the tiny child being transmitted into a dove sitting on Mary’s shoulder, (and thence to her ear?). There is now a picture of it in my book, as there is too of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna , which Wagner knew from the Zwinger at , and which he took as his example of an art that conveyed true religious feeling and revelation. But the central point of this review is to extol the virtues of Meiningen. Even for people in retirement, its prices, both for theatre and hotels, are happily affordable, and not even the execrable weather could spoil a personal enrichment such as anyone with some basic funding and internet expertise could enjoy.

NICK FOWLER’S LONGBOROUGH REHEARSAL DIARY Nick Fowler performed as one of Hagen’s Vassals in Götterdämmerung. He also covered the role of Alberich and worked as a Ring Cycle Assistant Director. Week 1: 15 th to 19 th April 2013 One of our Assistant Directors managed the feat of working on three of the four operas in one day: Rheingold, Walküre and the Fafner / Siegfried fight in Siegfried . He did admit that late in the afternoon he looked at the singers in front of him and for a moment had no idea who they were or which scene in which opera they were acting. It was only a moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first of many over the weeks to come. Scheduling Ring cycle rehearsals is, as you would expect, very complicated. You have to rehearse more than one opera at a time, which means you need more than one rehearsal space. It's better if they are in the same building, or at any rate close to one another so that you can easily move performers, production team, stage managers, music staff, props and bits of set from one to the other. But proximity creates its own problems. One venue that our Director looked at had two large rooms next to each other, but minimal sound-proofing. Each rehearsal would have been clearly audible to the other. Then you have to think of the effect on the neighbours. Our neighbours are allegedly hostile to opera. Previous rehearsals have been interrupted by eggs being thrown through the windows, so we are under strict instructions to keep the windows closed while rehearsing. Wouldn't it be just our luck to get a sudden spell of hot weather! Nick Fowler’s Longborough Rehearsal Diary continues on page 35 – 21 – PARSIFAL AT THE NEW YORK Richard Phillips The last night of the run (8 th March) was slightly marred by the conducting of Daniele Gatti's assistant Asher Fisch. Missing was a heightened sense of awe, with the slow tempi dangerously close to collapse. Katarina Dalayman does not eclipse memories of Waltraud Meier, but she was still a great Kundry: womanly rather than sexy so that the quasi-maternal seduction was rather more unsettling than usual. Her acting in Act III was thoughtful and convincing, but she doesn't have that quality of mesmerising tension that Meier can conjure up. René Pape was a tremendous Gurnemanz: commanding, forgiving, human. Every note had its full pitch and tonal value. Peter Mattei acted Amfortas with more convincing passion than I have ever seen before and made the character really sympathetic, an achievement in its own right. He was able to produce beautiful legato singing, whilst still infusing it all with real pain. His Mozartian background enables him to sing the long melodies that Wagner so strove after in the manner of Bellini. To hear that bel canto singing in this context was extraordinary. Which leaves Jonas Kaufmann. What can one say? He sang gloriously of course, hardly appearing to make the sort of effort one would associate with this part. At the same time he morphed from a sullen cantankerous teenager into a fascinated bystander, into a confused witness, and by the end of Act I when he bent over the abyss as it opened in the stage it was clear that he had been bewitched and his quest was inevitable. In Act II the production was at its weakest, and neither the flower maidens scene nor the start of the attempted seduction by Kundry really caught fire. His entry onto the stage in Act III was electric: incredibly slow and halting, physically exhausted, and his face, when it was revealed, was transcendent, beautiful. His good looks are famous, but boy oh boy did he look gorgeous at that moment. His mouth is sensual and boyish, his face is wide, open and manly, his blue eyes clear and vibrant. His hair had been greyed, and brushed down (or maybe a close wig) but he really did conjure up a vision of the Christ figure, his torso visible but dirty, not sexually provocative, more vulnerable. He sang clearly and without effort, not particularly loudly but with incredible force. The anointing and the baptism were done with humility and dignity, but he was also clearly putting himself forward as King, without undue pomp, just honesty, really. He invited Kundry to cross the stream running down the set, and her redemption was wonderfully effective. He then crossed to the women's side for the Good Friday music, and in spite of the fact that no flowers actually bloomed, it seemed as if they did. (I suspect a subtle shift of lighting). The transformation was achieved in much the same way as the first Act: no attempt to "travel" in space, and Kundry it was who unveiled the grail, held it up, put it back, and then lay down and died, all fitting neatly together as though it was meant that way. Frankly by the second half of the Act I wasn't really taking in the details of the singing, it was so sublime. I had tears rolling down my cheeks several times. I have been as moved by Parsifal once before (in Berlin) and I hadn't really expected it to happen again so powerfully. A good production causes one to ask more questions, think more deeply about what it all "means". Parsifal is in my view one of the greatest of all, because it is transcendentally shattering in a good performance, mysterious yet meaningful, overwhelmingly about forgiveness and redemption. When this is released on DVD I shall be in the queue to buy it.

– 22 – CHELSEA OPERA GROUP DIE FEEN Queen Elizabeth Hall: 17 th March 2013 Gerald Mallon The opera explores such themes as the relationships between the natural and the supernatural, the forbidden question relating to origin, the special powers of a sword and shield and the idea of redemption through love: all themes to which Wagner returned time and again in his mature works. There are two types of concert performance of opera: one in which scores are banished from the platform and singers enter and exit on cue and, sometimes, are in costume and act; all that is missing is the set. The other type sees the singers with heads buried in scores, looking nervously away only for the conductor’s cue and then taking a seat in embarrassed fashion when they have been killed off, exiled etc. This Chelsea Opera Group performance fell into the latter category and exhibited a regrettable lack of rehearsal time. Of course one should make allowances for an amateur chorus and principals with other commitments. Indeed, Kirstin Sharpin (Ada) had stepped into the breach at La Monnaie and found herself commuting from in order to rehearse. It has to be said that things got off to an inauspicious start. The seemingly interminable overture was quite bereft of the German romantic influences of Mendelssohn, Weber and Beethoven. These were indeed heavy-footed fairies! The principal singers started somewhat nervously, particularly the Danish tenor David Danholt as Arindal, the first of so many of Wagner’s flawed heroes (did the master perhaps see himself as Arindal?) sounded like a Mozart/Rossini tenor having to push his voice to cope with the rich orchestration and declamatory style of the role. In fact the less said about Act I the better. It seemed as though we were in for a long evening made even longer by the predictability of orchestration and the absence of surprising key changes. Our fears were however unfounded. The performances of Acts II and III were little short of electric. The two principal sopranos: Kirstin Sharpin as Ada and Elisabeth Meister as Lora (surely a future Brünnhilde) soared over the orchestra whilst maintaining their line. Sharpin’s rendition of her huge Act II aria Weh mir, so nah die fürchterliche Stunde really set things up and confidence clearly oozed from the performances of singers, orchestra and chorus from that point on. It is interesting to note that this particular aria together with the Act I trio were the only parts of the opera which were performed during Wagner’s lifetime. The female chorus under the direction of Deborah Miles-Johnson (who remained onstage throughout, tucked discreetly behind the harp) rose to the occasion and Polish bass Piotr Lempa sank to gravelly levels. Mention should also be made of that splendid and versatile artist whose performance of Morald was easy on the ear. The orchestra under the persuasive baton of Dominic Wheeler positively fizzed throughout, although it has to be said that the male chorus remained woolly and unfocussed. However, it is churlish to be critical of the chorus without whom Chelsea Opera Group would not exist and rare gems such as Die Feen would have remained unperformed in London in recent years. As they say in the football world, it was truly a game of two halves and it will be interesting to see whether the Leipzig forces sustain their performance more consistently over three and a half hours of music.

– 23 – BERLIN STAATSOPER RING Schiller Theater: 4 th to 10 th April 2013 Jorge Rodrigues This Ring looked sensational on paper and I had been looking forward to it for many months. Alas such excitement was short-lived, mainly because Guy Cassiers’ design and direction produced a Ring full of empty mise-en-scène that became dull and uninteresting the very minute they were presented. For those who like The Ring presented very straight- forwardly, perhaps this was a good thing. Costumes were inexplicably ugly and cumbersome: a mixture of Bavarian-cum-Mennonite-cum-Goth-cum-Victorian with a lot of pointless road-kill attached to them. Poor Brünnhilde could not take a step without risking tripping over the ridiculously long trains attached to her costumes. As expected, the Staatskapelle Berlin under played beautifully but loudly and perhaps a little too much on auto-pilot mode. One had a sense that the orchestra knew what Barenboim wanted and gave it to him in abundance. Every night the orchestra and the conductor came on stage for their bows, a well-deserved recognition for the orchestra. Barenboim’s subsequent solo curtain calls were greeted with hysterical adulation, but this seemed unnecessarily self-indulgent. Iréne Theorin was a loud Brünnhilde and I could not sympathise with her predicament in any of the operas. She seemed emotionally unengaged (no doubt worried about tripping over her various trains) and her key moments: the great death announcement scene, her scene with Wotan at the end of Die Walküre , her love duet in Siegfried, her scene with Waltraute and the immolation scene all failed to raise the temperature for me. There were two Siegfrieds in Siegfried . sang from the side of the stage because, allegedly, – the scheduled Siegfried – got the opera start time wrong. Schager was excellent in Act I of Siegfried but seemed tentative and ill-rehearsed as far as the staging was concerned when he sang the Götterdämmerung Siegfried a few days later. Ryan was a much better actor than Schager, but I found his projection not as good, and even without having sung Act I, he seemed to have run out of steam quickly towards the end of Siegfried . Whether he will be the Siegfried everyone is waiting for remains very much to be seen. The Rhinemaidens were among the best I have ever heard: a masterclass in true musicianship and certainly one of the highlights of this Ring . The Valkyries, however, were definitely the worst: they were barely audible, lacked any sense of drama and busily and awkwardly climbed up and down an ugly set of boxes which passed for their rock. Waltraud Meier (Sieglinde, Second Norn, Waltraute), Peter Seifert (Sigmund), Peter Brodner (Mime) and René Pape (Wotan in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre ) all shone brightly. Ekaterina Gubanova (Fricka) disappointed in Das Rheingold but came into her own in Die Walküre . Mikhail Petrenko (Hagen) and Anna Larsson (Erda) were also disappointing. Petrenko was a particularly dull, small-voiced and non-threatening Hagen. The immolation scene lacked emotion and drama, and came as a welcome relief that this Ring was over. An American friend asked me, at the end of the second interval in Götterdämmerung , if I was feeling sad that this Ring was nearly over. The answer was a resounding “no”.

– 24 – COTTBUS GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG Staatstheater, 6 th April 2013 Jorge Rodrigues What a contrast this was with Berlin! The house is one of the most beautiful art-nouveau theatres I have seen. It is small, intimate and has excellent acoustics. The orchestra was placed on the stage and most of the action took place on the covered orchestra pit in very close proximity to the audience. Some of the action also took place in the middle of the orchestra and behind it, all to excellent dramatic effect. The production consisted of no more than a sofa, an arm-chair, various chairs, a safe/refrigerator and various props (cups, bottles, rope, etc). Costumes were fairly modern, attractive and unobtrusive. The direction by Martin Schuler proved that good ideas speak louder than empty imagery and vacuous pretentiousness. Personal characterisation was very detailed and drew very human (and, in Act I, very funny) performances. Craig Bermingham sang and acted Siegfried very energetically although there were slight problems with intonation. He entered the Gibichung Hall by abseiling down from one of the side boxes and had stamina to spare until his death scene. Sabine Passow’s Brünnhilde was lovingly and committedly performed. She presented a real woman in a real situation, and everyone in the house was spellbound by her. Gary Jankowski’s excellent Hagen was sung powerfully and menacingly. Also memorable were Marlene Lichtenberg’s Waltraute and Gesine Forberger’s Gutrune. The Cantica Istropolitana Bratislava provided a chorus to rival Berlin’s and Evan Christ conducted the Philharmonische Orchester with contagious enthusiasm and a propelling sense of momentum. I took my train back to Berlin having witnessed another sensational Wagner performance by a small opera company where my top-priced ticket cost 28 euros.

– 25 – PARSIFAL , VLAAMSE OPERA, GHENT 20 th April 2013 Richard Phillips One may not have totally and unreservedly enjoyed Tatjana Gürbaca’s production, but you would never feel indifferent about it. She staged Parsifal in an austere, minimalist set framed by a semi-circular white wall from which blood streaked down in various moments during Acts I and II. She used some cleverly economical stage solutions to great effect. Some of her dramatic choices were slightly subversive (the swan was a young boy being groomed to join the knights; the Holy Grail was first revealed as a pregnant woman (Mary?); some of the flowermaidens were very old ladies holding a baby, combing their hair or painting their nails; the blood-dripping symbolism went on for too long; Kundry attempted suicide several times, etc.) but the overall impact was mesmerising and touching. Costumes were modern and mostly pastel-coloured, removing any reference to historical periods or religious orders. The knights were clearly human and, as far as Amfortas is concerned, unforgiving in their tormenting and bullying. Eliahu Inbal’s orchestra played with expressive mood and shape, allowing the music to unfold spaciously and never dragging. There were some vocal triumphs, particularly Georg Zeppenfeld’s Gurnemanz who was sensational. His voice has a beautiful quality and his singing and characterisation were very refined throughout the opera. Zoran Todorovich delivered some elegant singing as an older-than-usual Parsifal. Susan Maclean’s Kundry sounded too underpowered, even in such a modestly-sized house, and her Act II performance was a bit of a letdown, lacking both vocal and psychological clarity. The flowermaidens, appearing in their underclothes and getting progressively dressed as the scene unfolded, were a cohesive and strongly-sung bunch. There were various choirs singing from up high in the auditorium to good effect, although the children’s choir seemed ill-rehearsed. Overall, this was a significant performance of Parsifal, and I am already looking forward to Vlaamse Opera’s Tristan und Isolde later in the year.

– 26 – NAPLES DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER , 21 st April 2013 Bill Bliss Having relatives in Naples who extolled the beauty of their opera house (and its recent £57 million refurbishment, on time and within budget) I needed little persuading to see some Wagner there in his anniversary year. The opera house is stupendous, almost obscenely ornate, (if you know what I mean) and the gilt, marble and frescos all sparkle as if new. I recognised no names on the cast list but one name I did know was the set designer: Yannis Kokkos who memorably designed the latest WNO Tristan . Clarity, simple lines and no gratuitous stage clutter was what I remember and what we hoped for at San Carlo. And the set was brilliant. A plain, flat wooden stage, boarded like a deck, with a lower deck beneath it, covered by a moving floor; all visible (certainly from the stalls) via the backdrop which was a huge mirror that sloped forwards over the entire stage, thus giving the audience two views of the stage,: straight ahead and from above, in reflection. How much of this you saw from the gallery, six floors up, I am not sure. Not much colour, no red sails and unremarkable costumes but the production was clear-cut, unprovocative and the playing of the house orchestra under Nicola Luisotti was superb. Some of the singing and acting sadly did not come up to the same standard, particularly in Act I. Neither the Steersman nor Daland filled their roles either physically or vocally and they both sang predominantly from the back of the stage. The Dutchman (Juha Uusitalo) really looked most unhappy to be there at all. His voice lacked volume and his acting was wooden. Contact with Daland, and then with Senta was so non- committal as to be almost embarrassing. I have never before seen a Dutchman who seemed by default to be dying (sorry) to get back to sea. I have since discovered that he has sung Wotan all over Europe and that the Dutchman is his signature role and is available on DVD with Netherlands Opera.(It received glowing reviews.) Maybe I caught him on an off night but I do not think I was alone in my opinion judging by the lukewarm reception he received at curtain call. But then there was Senta. (Elisabete Matos) For a moment – and only a moment – when the curtain went up on Act II I thought she was Mary. She looked a little matronly and was not the youngest Senta I have seen. In a moment however she held the house in her hand; her singing, commitment and acting drew us inexorably to her fate, the Dutchman sailing distantly in her wake. We had a fine and authoritative Mary (Elena Zilio) and an Erik (Will Hartmann) who sang the dream narration most movingly. My sleep is disturbed after good Wagner; and I slept poorly that night.

OPERA FORGE – THE WAGNER PROJECT Set up by Musical Director Kelvin Lim and Artistic Director William Relton, Opera Forge – The Wagner Project is a new company whose mission is to create an environment for training the next generation of world-class Wagnerian singers. Their most ambitious aim is to develop a Ring production over the next two years which is intended for taking on tour with the intention of making the work available to new audiences. The Opera Forge Company provided the free programme of celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall on 22 nd May which preceded the concert and which Katie Barnes reports on pages 30 and 31.

– 27 – KEITH WARNER: WAGNER IN PRACTICE Dame Eva Turner Lecture, Queen’s College, 24 th April 2013 Richard Everall Keith Warner’s purpose was to analyse what Richard Wagner actually said about his work, why these works are relevant to society then and by extension today, and what should be the form and content of the work he had in mind. Mr Warner started by exhorting us in this, the 200 th anniversary year of Wagner’s birth, to read his prose works, in particular , The Artwork of the Future, Communications to my Friends and . He then continued to pick out certain themes from each of these works. In CTMF Wagner asserted that to secure a full understanding of his work it required that a singer be an actor, that the actor should be in the forefront and the singer be, as it were, the actor’s aid. Mr Warner then commented upon Wagner’s opinion of Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient who had so captivated him as Venus: that she was a sublime actress but only a tolerable singer. (In fact, we now know that she suffered from nodules on her vocal cords.) He continued to praise her stage artistry up until his essay On Actors and Singers which he dedicated to her memory. We were provided with an illustration of the point of dramatic singing as against beautiful sound for its own sake with an excerpt from Siegfried’s death oration from Act III of Götterdämmerung . This sounded like a man dying and addressing the woman he loves. “If sung that way, today, Max Lorenz, the Siegfried in that production ,(, 1950; Conductor Furtwangler) ,would be panned.....” Mr Warner turned to the central thesis of AWOTF: an explanation of what art is and how it fits into a metaphysical system that links into social and ethical questions confronting society. How can art as an abstract idea improve human activity? The answer is through drama. It follows, at least for Wagner, that opera as a vehicle for art can never be a cosmetic entertainment or a mere piece of theatrical spectacle. In AWOTF he propounds the need for a total form of artwork – the aggregation of music, poetry and mime into one form and in CTMF Wagner bestows a name upon this: or music drama . Wagner gave a piece of practical advice to his audience: “We must have recognition that the world has moral significance. Theatre is the organ by which to view the world”. Having described the polemical purpose of AWOTF Mr. Warner drew a distinction between the German and British theatre. Put epigrammatically, this could be: in one may see the best acting, but not the play itself. The German view of theatre is that the play is saying something about the world and, therefore, that play must mean something, whilst the English tradition is based since Shakespeare’s time upon an acting style: declamatory poetry in its finest renderings, but the purpose of the play is somehow lost sight of..... Mr Warner observed that Wagner invented the job of theatre director in its modern sense; a staging cannot simply be done as it was written in the period, so out goes detailed naturalistic acting. Historical realism is capable of distorting a play and turning it into a farce, as was Cosima’s reaction in 1875 to Kleist’s play Heimmannschaft. In comes a psychological understanding; at its crudest Mime, though physically represented as a dwarf must be understood as having the psychological state of mind of a dwarf. Only then will the sub-textual stuff that is going on carry any sense. It is the Director’s duty to interpret the text. We were quoted Wagner’s admonition to Albert Niemann: “What is not wanted is an exhibition of sensual grace. That is ghastly. What is required is an insight into the physical and mental state of Tannhäuser.” This can only be understood from the

– 28 – words and so the words must be sung as if speech. Did this approach to sung speech, asked Mr Warner, influence Berg and Schönberg? Mr Warner considered how modern productions of Wagner have fared. His view is that the principle of the need to connect fundamentally with the words has been forsaken post-Solti. A lush orchestral sound has become the norm and beautiful voices from the stage yet in Wagner’s writings and in the accounts of his stage directing there was not a single mention of the necessity to hear a beautiful voice. Mr Warner left us with a task for this year: to acquaint ourselves with the theatrical prose works. The key is to take in the whole gamut of Richard Wagner for he is “at the centre of us”. Finally, he read an extract about audience reaction to an opera production, their comparing this singer against another; this staging in all its detail against that of a now acceptable production in all its wearisome detail… The article might have been a satirical vignette of today’s Glyndebourne. Once again, the audience had been teased. That quotation came from a footnote to Opera and Drama, author: Richard Wagner.All the time the purpose of the work being experienced was being overlooked. The concentration was merely on the superficial. Plus ça change!

WAGNER NEWS PRODUCTION TEAM: NOW WE ARE FOUR Ken Sunshine My first offering to the current editor came back with some substantial “modifications” most of which, on reflection, were an improvement on my original. Those that I thought were detrimental to my literary style I challenged and was gratified to find Roger willing to enter into dialogue until we reached an agreed text. So how does your masterpiece arrive on the page? Roger reads your text and makes suggestions for changes with regard to the Wagner News “house style” and how it may be made to fit the page(s). This may lead to an exchange between you and him to agree a final version. The modified text is then sent for rigorous proofreading looking for any errors of spelling, grammar or punctuation. At this stage proper names, foreign words and libretto quotes are also checked for accuracy. (What did we do before the internet?) The addition of Emmanuelle Waters to our team as of this issue of Wagner News has brought a more comprehensive and structured approach to this process. Roger sends his edited draft of a contributor’s item as a Word document to Ken who suggests changes which, using the Track Changes facility in Word , show as colour-coded entries in the text. Ken sends this version to Emmanuelle who will make her own changes, including querying any of Ken’s. Then it’s back to Ken to accept or reject each of the changes, thus creating a ‘clean’ final document for Roger to give a final scan before adding it to his ‘finished docs’ folder. As this folder continues to fill, Roger has the daunting task of fitting each article onto a page or pages. At this point he can send all the articles and the paginating information to the printers where the ever-cooperative, ever-patient Sharron creates a draft pdf file. Ken and Emmanuelle have the long job of reading the whole magazine pdf looking for unspotted errors or corrected errors which somehow have reverted to their original incorrect state. Any further changes are notified to Sharron who will amend the pdf as required. Roger will pass the almost-finalised pdf in front of a few selected associates for any last-minute observations. The final act is when the printed Wagner News hits my doormat and within minutes a missed error jumps mockingly off the page. We’ll do better next time!

– 29 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEISTER! Wagner bicentenary celebrations: Royal Festival Hall, 22 nd May 2013 Katie Barnes Photography: Richard Carter It was little short of a scandal that neither of London's opera houses could muster a Wagnerian performance on the bicentenary of his birth, but the Royal Festival Hall more than made up for the deficiency by becoming the capital's Festspielhaus for the day, with a stunning, virtually nonstop Wagner festival lasting almost seven hours. Events started in the Clore Ballroom at 3pm with a splendid group from Kelvin Lim and William Relton's Opera Forge project, including many names already familiar to members of the Wagner Society performing a 45-minute selection of highlights from The Ring with Kelvin himself sharing pianistic duties with Philip Voldman. They performed the programme no fewer than four times in the course of the afternoon, with the sounds of Wagner mingling with the day-to-day life of the Hall, children playing or howling, catering staff bustling about, visitors chattering, coming and going, some stopping to listen and others passing on. One young mother bounced her baby on her knee to the rhythm of Siegfried's hammer while the youngster watched and listened, round-eyed.

Martin Lamb Rhonda Browne Paul Carey-Jones The extracts chosen were practically a potted history of the first three operas. Martin Lamb opened the proceedings with Alberich's Curse, beginning ominously quietly and building to an intense, riveting climax. He was sparing of gesture, which made his glance at his ringless hand just before his final peroration all the more telling. Rhonda Browne, as magisterial as ever, thrilled us all with the depth and strength of Erda's Warning, her voice seeming to come from the very depths of the earth. Paul Carey-Jones, a new name to me, sang Wotan's Abendlich strahlet der Sonne in a clear, bright , with an authority which turned the Festival Hall into his private Valhalla. On his third rendition of the day, the sun came out as he sang and streamed through the great glass wall behind him, surrounding him with light.

– 30 – Anna Gregory and Mike Bracegirde Meta Powell The Die Walküre selection consisted largely of the Act I love duet, beginning with Winterstürme . Mike Bracegirdle's lean, muscular tenor ranged gloriously between the lyricism of his aria and the power of his invocation to Nothung, while Anna Gregory traced every shade and nuance of Sieglinde's emotions as she experienced joy and love for the first time in her wretched life and gradually, almost disbelievingly recognised her brother. The tension between them crackled, and the ending, as they slowly circled each other before sinking into a passionate embrace, was terrific. Carey-Jones returned to summon up the wonderful Brünnhilde of Meta Powell, a cheeky, carefree tomboy whose Hojotohos rang out like trumpet calls. Neil Cooper and Richard Roberts forged a wonderful partnership. The former, as ever, thrilled the audience with his bronzed, clarion sound as he mimed forging Siegfried's sword, first by beating his fist on his palm and then, cheekily, by playing the spoons (surely a first for a heldentenor!). Roberts is already well nigh perfect for Mime, singing with great incisiveness and displaying scene-stealing techniques worthy of Graham Clark, elaborately expressing his boredom with Siegfried's song, mixing the fatal brew with a water bottle and a colleague's flask and confiding his evil plans to the unresponsive accompanists. To end the selection Powell explored the human side of Brünnhilde's personality with a beautiful, tender Ewig war’ich . Opera Forge is aiming at a complete production of the Ring by these fine young singers. On the evidence of this afternoon's performances, it can't happen soon enough. At 5.40, while Opera Forge were still performing in the Ballroom, 32 horn players from the London colleges massed on the Riverside Terrace to perform Vitali Bujanowski's Wagner Fantasia on themes from the Ring . The terrace was packed with spectators and the atmosphere was amazing. Inevitably, given the open air conditions and the way the performers were spread out, there was a little loss of co-ordination and the occasional

– 31 – ragged note, but the sound of the horns floating over the Thames turned it into the Rhine for a few precious minutes. A repeat performance in the Clore Ballroom later on was technically superior but did not have quite the same atmosphere as the riverside rendition. Scarcely had the last horn note sounded on the terrace than we were racing into the Festival Hall auditorium where students from the Royal College of Music gave a charming performance of the . Then Opera Forge and the horn players continued to entertain us in the Ballroom until, in a wonderfully Bayreuthian touch, the RCM Brass Ensemble, stationed on the balcony above the bar, played fanfares from the Meistersinger Prelude to summon us to the auditorium for the evening concert. The Philharmonia's concert was, of course, the highlight of this astonishing day. The programme had been sensitively chosen to start with the lightest item before leading us towards the darkness. Sir Andrew Davies launched the proceedings with a rousing, joyous account of the Meistersinger Prelude, as forthright and four-square as the conductor himself, before welcoming the audience with a speech reminding us (if we needed it!) of Wagner's birthday and that this concert was the opening event of the Wagner 200 festival. Then the orchestra played the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod , the instruments slowly, steadily building wave after wave of silken sound, one section questioning and another answering, until they were joined by as Isolde. Robed in blue, she might almost have been a queen of the waters, riding the ceaseless billows of orchestral rapture with her glorious, creamy soprano soaring above it all. Listening to her, I recalled her masterclass last November and all her incredibly detailed advice to her pupils. To hear her in action now was thrilling indeed. The audience was summoned back from the interval by fanfares from the for the main meat of the evening, Die Walküre Act III in an admirably economical and cogent semi-staging by David Edwards which used a strip in front of the platform, the steps at the sides and the empty seats and organ box to the rear, with two translucent, almost space-age music stands the only scenery. The house lights had remained half up for the first part of the concert, but now they dimmed to almost nothing, taking us into darkness. As the prelude swirled, the Valkyries, all glamorously gowned in black, ranged around, behind and in front of the orchestra. Shafts of light from the huge hand-held spotlights they carried splintered the darkness like the spears which we had to imagine in their hands, and their voices rang out like horn calls. They were luxuriously cast, with Katherine Broderick's thrilling Helmwige, Magdalen Ashman's authoritative Siegrune, Jennifer Johnson's mellow Waltraute and Elaine McKrill's eager Ortlinde the pick of the crop. They gazed out into the audience to watch Brünnhilde's wild ride before Brünnhilde herself rushed in from the side with Sieglinde following, head bowed, arms hanging limply by her sides, all hope gone. Bullock was to my mind in far better form than at the last year, simply superb, urgent, grand, celestial, vulnerable, her voice pouring out in a ceaseless, glorious flood. Giselle Allen, slighter of voice, marshalled her resources well to convey Sieglinde’s despair, her anger, her joy and fear for her unborn child, and the final, soaring rapture of O hehrstes Wunder . James Rutherford’s powerful Wotan entered at the back, as though calling out to Brünnhilde while still astride his flying steed, before bearing down on the terrified Valkyries. They huddled to one side of the platform, apparently concealing Brünnhilde behind them, but in a clever move, she re-entered on the other side, behind Wotan, for Hier bin ich, Vater . The Valkyries fled up the steps, their wails of despair echoing behind them, leaving Wotan and Brünnhilde alone. – 32 – Their scene together was the heart of the evening, as it should be. Between them, these two wonderful singers conveyed all the nuances of the complex relationship between father and daughter and the damage which it suffers through Brünnhilde’s defiance and Wotan’s inability to accept it. Rutherford was the only member of the cast to need a score, but this was cleverly used to show Wotan’s intransigence, refusing to look at his erring daughter while she devoted all her attention to him. His mighty voice resonated with the god’s Earth-shaking anger, yet we also felt Wotan’s pain and his sense of betrayal. Bullock, tender and pleading, likewise communicated Brünnhilde’s grief at the loss of her relationship with her father as well as her exasperation at his stubbornness, and built her voice to a wondrous crescendo on Der diese Liebe . This most intimate of scenes could easily have been dwarfed by the hugeness of the hall, but they shared it with us and drew us into it, and the moment when Rutherford turned away from his score stand to draw his Brünnhilde into a loving embrace and sing Wotan’s Farewell from memory was emotionally as well as musically overwhelming. She was placed to sleep on the organ bench behind and above the orchestra, and he ceremonially adorned her with a breastplate and splendid winged helmet with golden mask and placed a spear in her hand. In this venue it would have been too much to expect much in the way of fire effects, but the platform was bathed in intense red light which transformed the organ pipes behind her into stiff red spears of flame, protecting her until an unborn hero arrives to claim her, while the orchestra wove its own spell of fire and enchantment. So ended this amazing, unforgettable day, and so began Wagner 200. A huge variety of events will take place between now and December, ranging from full scale staged and concert performances to films, recitals, lectures, masterclasses and symposia. As Fafner says, Mich hungert! BICENTENARY CONCERT Royal Festival Hall, 22 nd May Meirion Bowen Wagner is often regarded by many people as a composer of bombastic, brass-dominated music, yet delicacy is just as important a facet of his work. This was particularly evident in a concert of his music by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. I have listened to Wagner for virtually the whole of my life but I was amazed afresh at the subtlety of his scoring, especially in the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde . For much of this only a small section of the orchestra was employed, eg at the beginning of Liebestod , where the soprano Susan Bullock had no difficulty floating her phrases gently against the accompaniment. At the start of the Overture to Die Meistersinger the outline of the main theme seemed a bit reticent, but the playing gained in confidence as it proceeded and really blazed in the concluding pages. Act III of Die Walküre was presented in a semi-staged performance, the singers moving around the orchestra, flashing lights (sometimes at the audience) to reinforce the impact of their singing. There was confident singing from all the Valkyries at the start. James Rutherford made a commanding impact as Wotan, especially singing his final farewell. I was moved most by the singing of Giselle Allen as Sieglinde, deeply affecting in her innocent plight. In my view this concert showed once again the eternal relevance of Wagner's art.

– 33 – LEIPZIG OPERA DIE FEEN 24 th May 2013 Gerald Mallon For this performance the Canadian producer Renaud Doucet and his usual designer André Barbe had a concept. Dear reader, I hear you groan already. Arindal breaks off from supper with his family in the kitchen to settle in his favourite armchair in order to enjoy a TV transmission of Die Feen . During the course of the overture the family (including his wife) depart rather noisily. Act I opens with the chorus in their fairy kingdom above this domestic scene whilst Zemina and Farzana enter the kitchen and Wagner (King of the Fairies) descends from the flies bearing the score. My assumption is that dear old Arindal, hardly cutting the figure of a prince in his jeans, open-necked check shirt and ghastly tangerine sleeveless cardigan, dropped off to sleep at this point and everything thereafter was a dream until he came to, some four hours later, seated next to his wife on his sofa in the sitting room. The less said about the production the better although it is worthy of note that our hero regained the love of his life from her underground hell (where she had been turned into stone) armed with the top part of a music stand, a cushion and a chair leg rather than a lyre, a shield and a sword as Wagner envisaged. Apart from Arindal the rest of the cast including the chorus were appropriately costumed, the fairy kingdom was well represented and the stage direction rudimentary although the disappearance of the two children was effective. Every so often however, something disconcerting and totally inexplicable occurred. As Morald, Gernot and Gunther try to persuade Arindal to return home to Tramond to become their king a handyman drops in to change the light bulb in the kitchen, an action which gave a whole new meaning to banality. Let us move swiftly on to musical values. As usual at Leipzig Opera the wonderful Gewandhausorchester (equipped with a string section to die for) was in the pit under the steady if unspectacular baton of the Opera House’s musical director, Ulf Schirmer. The experienced Dutch tenor Arnold Bezuyen, despite his sartorial inelegance, showed great stamina as Arindal even if the voice is not exactly easy on the ear. Berlin born Christiane Libor (Eva and Senta in previous Leipzig productions) improved after an uncertain start and delivered her big Act II aria splendidly. My only criticism of her performance is that her voice was not entirely under control in the upper register. Eun Yee You (clearly a local favourite) was a seriously underpowered Lora and Detlef Roth failed to characterize her lover, Morald. It is difficult to believe that he sang Amfortas in Bayreuth five years ago although, of course, that has sadly ceased to be a guarantee of excellence. The Act II buffo duet between Drolla and Gernot is frequently cut (as in Dominic Wheeler’s recent Chelsea Opera Group performance) but happily it was restored in this performance since Jennifer Porto and Milcho Borovinov were by some distance the most convincing of the comprimarios . The two fairies, Zemina and Farzana, sung by Viktorija Kaminskaite and Jean Broekhuizen, Roland Schubert as the treacherous Harald and Guy Mannheim as Gunther were all perfectly adequate. The chorus was slightly ragged at times but also enjoyed moments of glory such as Allma c̈htiger! In deinen Himmel send’ich mein brun s̈tig Fleh’n hinauf which was exquisitely delivered. All in all, one concludes that chasing rarities such as a staged version of Die Feen around provincial Germany can be a less than wholly rewarding experience.

– 34 – LEIPZIG OPERA RIENZI 25 th May 2013 Gerald Mallon The experienced French director Nicholas Joel opted for a minimalist approach which is probably the most sensible for this vast, sprawling epic which constituted Wagner’s . To remind us of the location and era a map of ancient Rome was laid out on the floor and, later, small models of prominent buildings littered the stage. Otherwise the protagonists, suitably garbed in regulation togas and armour, performed in a plain white cube. The current pre-occupation with arming singers with kalishnikovs whatever the period is rather confusing. Perhaps the Chinese have shipped to Europe a few containers of plastic imitations ……. The opera relies heavily upon the chorus and it was well served by the augmented Leipzig Opera Chorus who were much crisper than they had been in Die Feen the previous evening. Matthias Foremny conducted that Rolls Royce of orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus which produced a thrilling sound from the pit. The experienced tenor Stefan Vinke (a recent Walther von Stolzing and Tristan at Bayreuth) was a splendid Rienzi, pacing his performance so that he was able to render a stunning rendering of his big final act aria Allmächt’ger Vater, blick herab! He portrayed extremely effectively the dilemma of the hero who, having liberated the people in their struggle against the nobility, survived an assassination attempt, eventually losing the support of the people, the Church and his life (along with Irene, Adriano and everyone else left standing). Excellent support was given by the Swedish soprano Marika Schönberg who brilliantly portrayed Irene’s agony of divided loyalty between her brother Rienzi and his arch rival, her lover Adriano sung, as usual, by a mezzo, the excellent German-Greek Chariklia Mavropoulou. The supporting cast was uniformly sound and the curtain came down after only four hours (including two intervals) which constituted a cut of some one- third of the original score. Sadly, we did not get to see the Capitol on fire and the collapse of the building on top of the principals, there being nothing flammable left on stage. The cast simply collapsed en-masse and the audience departed in time to catch the final half- hour of the all-German Champions League Final.

NICK FOWLER’S LONGBOROUGH REHEARSAL DIARY Continued from page 21 First production rehearsal: Die Walküre Act I The session is hampered by the piano arriving three hours later than planned, and then taking another half hour to get up the narrow staircase. The staircase also presented a problem for the people delivering a piece of the set: the bench which Siegfried uses during the Forging Song. It had been planned that it would go into the studio on the top floor, but after they had eventually persuaded it up the two flights to the first floor, a decision was made that it could instead go into the first floor studio. A simple decision which means that every subsequent session requires switching studios. Consequently every rehearsal session starts with almost everyone asking: “Are we in here, or upstairs?” Nick Fowler’s Longborough Rehearsal Diary continues on page 58

– 35 – LOHENGRIN 26 th May 2013: Wales Millennium Centre and BBC Radio 3 Bill Bliss My heart sank when the curtain went up on a squalid looking tiled set. Was it a prison or an anatomy theatre, or even a large public toilet? And when the trench coats and rifles appeared I thought I had been here before, but at least there were no naked light bulbs. Then Wagner took over and the set, despite its run down appearance, worked brilliantly, particularly the semi-circular gallery at the back and the cell doors at each side. We had a fine, almost authoritative Elsa from Emma Bell who dominated the stage and was anything but the angelic cipher that we sometimes see. Excellent contributions from a stand-in Telramund (Claudio Otelli) and Heinrich (Matthew Best), whose sore throat did not let him down. The swan was splendid; the young, almost balletic Gottfried with a single wing standing in the bow of a clinker built dinghy that looked as if it had been round Cardiff Bay a few times; but its entrance through the double doors under the gallery was spell binding – the total quiet in the auditorium told you as much. I wish I could be more complimentary about Peter Wedd as Lohengrin who was just about serviceable and who sang beautifully in the quieter moments but there was no ring to his voice and at times his presence on stage was inconspicuous. He was not helped by a dark anonymous costume. No golden locks, just a crew cut that looked white rather than blond ; when he first appeared I wondered for a surreal moment if Elsa’s father had arrived (in real life I think Emma Bell could give him a few years) and there was no sense of other worldliness. Maybe this was what the director intended. Act 2 had a similar set but with raised windows rather than a gallery at the back. In fact the disposition of Kemenate, banqueting hall and minster were as described for the first production in Weimar in 1850. And did not Antony McDonald use it brilliantly. Ortrud, (Susan Bickley), was a powerful presence and Telramund and Elsa were deftly wrapped round her little fingers; dressed wickedly in black and red she possessed the stage and it did not seem to matter that her voice was a bit squally at high volume. Elsa, in her wedding dress, floated passed the upper windows in an enchanting moment before she descended for the bridal procession, shockingly interrupted by a maniacal Ortrud. Somehow, our self- effacing Lohengrin defied her and in a blaze of light Elsa entered the minster, stage right, as per Wagner’s instruction. I have never seen this act produced more dramatically. The Act 3 set foretold the sad outcome. A dark wooden panelled bridal chamber; no windows and just a single, lonely metal bed, centre stage; it was joined by another, rather lugubriously, during the wedding march. Eventually they were tied together and a few lillies were spread over them but the message was clear. Lohengrin came into his own ‘wir sind allein’ and the intimacy between him and Elsa was beautifully portrayed and sung but it was clear who was in charge and the question was duly asked. We were soon back on the banks of the Scheldt for Scene 3 accompanied by stunning trumpet playing from the four corners of the auditorium. Much of Lohengrin’s and Elsas final discourse was conveyed almost conversationally with them both seated at a table stage right and it worked perfectly. Peter Wedd did not really have the heft for his final stanzas but the magical swan soon appeared and King Henry and his men brought us to a great conclusion. Running on at his curtain call Lohengrin looked young for the first time!

– 36 – WELSH NATIONAL OPERA LOHENGRIN 1st June 2013: Cardiff Millennium Centre Hilary Reid Evans So much, perhaps too much, has been written about Wagner as a precursor to Freudian analysis. Who amongst us has not dallied with ‘the question’ – would you still love (or even like) me if you knew who I really am? The Knight’s reasons for his concealment of his true self are, of course, more noble. Or are they? Elsa has called to him in her distress and he has appeared to her in a dream. Love struck, the Knight abandons his noble calling for the sake of ‘just one year’ by her side. Sad then that in this otherwise beautifully realised WNO production of Wagner’s great work of gothic romanticism there is no sense of any passion between the Knight and Elsa. Peter Wedd’s otherworldly Knight seems ethereal, almost transparent and strangely uncharismatic alongside the strength and power of Emma Bell’s Elsa. Vocally the pair seemed ill matched, with the lightness – some might even say delicacy – of Wedd’s tones contrasting with the pure clarity of Bell’s. It was only in the Act III bedroom scene that their voices seemed well matched, although a hint of passion on Wedd’s part would not have gone amiss. Simon Thorpe, replacing the indisposed John Lundgren as Telramund, sang and acted beyond all expectation. His rousing acknowledgement by both audience and chorus was well deserved. The performance of Susan Bickley as his wife, Ortrud, has been damned with faint praise by certain reviewers as ‘just about measuring up’. Not so on the night we attended. Her voice and acting were subtly nuanced, one of the most credible evocations of this difficult role I have seen to date. Avoiding the Lady and pantomime witch characterisations, her evocation of a strong, ambitious, polytheistic and scheming woman was exemplary, with the Act II scene marking Telramund and Ortrud’s disgrace, her strength and his weakness, magnificently. Matthew Best (Heinrich), who had, we hear, been suffering from a throat infection, sang clearly, if not as forcefully as might otherwise have been expected. It is for the chorus however that the greatest vocal praise must be reserved, with the power, harmony and subtlety of their performance beyond compare. Anthony McDonald’s design is of a Brabant in decline and disarray, the costumes and set acknowledging not the 13 th century of the original poetic source but the mid 19 th century timing of Wagner’s composition. No gilded boat for the Knight, but a shabby rowing boat to which is tethered a beautiful one-winged swan, with the Knight portrayed as a rather Julian Assange look-alike blond. The tempo of the drama built well throughout Acts I and II; however the final scene in Act III seemed rushed, with some questions left unanswered. What is the nature of Gottfried that is being signalled? Is his seizing of the ring and wielding of the sword an act of ruthless menace? Ortrud’s collapse seems barely connected to his gesture, Lohengrin’s denouement an anti-climax, Elsa’s despair underwrought. Nevertheless the plot was intelligible, the characterisations well defined. No such reservations apply to Lothar Koenig and the WNO Orchestra’s interpretation of the score. The long shimmering motifs of the prelude produced Wagner’s intended almost hypnotic effect, the harp playing in Act III was beyond compare (one was, after all, in Wales) and the placement of the trumpeters around the auditorium a fabulous coup de théâtre as well as aurally spectacular.

– 37 – International Conference RICHARD WAGNER’S IMPACT ON HIS WORLD AND OURS School of Music, University of Leeds, 30 th May to 2 nd June 2013 Roger Lee With a programme of 20 sessions covering more than 40 topics addressed by some 45 speakers from all over the world as well as four concert performances plus a number of social events, this symposium ranked among the most important of such gatherings in the Wagner Bicentenary year. Barry Millington opened the conference with his keynote lecture: 200 not out: Wagner the ultimate all-rounder . This is among the video items (of no technical pretension) which can be viewed on the conference website: www.pvac.leeds.ac.uk/wagner2013 where a complete listing of sessions and participants is also available. With so many sessions to be fitted in to the four days they had to be run in parallel as simultaneous pairs. We thus had to choose which to attend and here space allows me only to select what I found to be a particularly fruitful theme from an abundance of good things which comprised the weekend. Professor Heath Lees delivered a wonderful key note lecture Transformation at : how a French literary trio became a Wagnerian musical trio , with a demonstration of how Wagner would have presented his works to other people on the piano, and Michael Ewans spoke about the two landmarks in Wagner production: Patrice Chéreau’s centenary Ring (1976) and Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s Parsifal (2004). Wagner and Israel brought together Dr Margaret Brearley who is an independent scholar, Na’ama Sheffi: Professor of History at Sapir College Israel and Noam Ben-Zeev who is a music journalist with the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz . 65 years since the start of the unofficial ban on the performance of Wagner in Israel we were invited in a “round table” session to consider the questions: How difficult is it to perform Wagner in Israel? How do Holocaust survivors who want to hear live Wagner feel about the ban? To what extent does classical music and opera have an impact in Israel? An overwhelming “Yes” vote on a show of hands among the audience was given to the question: Will Wagner ever be performed in Israel? The speakers were not so optimistic. Noam Ben-Zeev explained Wagner’s emblematic role in Israel where an increasingly right-wing tendency sees his work as part of western culture which Israelis should not consume. Na’ama Sheffi shed light on the changes which have taken place in Israel from a pioneering to a traditional society and from a socialist to a capitalist one. Margaret Brearley explained that although there is no official ban (and Wagner CDs are widely available) there is still a majority consensus against Wagner’s music being played at public concerts. While this disposition may not be fully rational or fully informed, it is based on a deep instinct of mistrust – an instinct that Wagner has been dangerous, indeed fateful for the Jewish people. Bayreuth would surely like a pro-Wagner consensus to be created within Israel – it would assist the process of ‘koshering Wagner’ (to use Gottfried Wagner’s term) which has been underway since the Second World War. Public performances of Wagner’s music in Israel would help to ‘redeem’ Wagner from the taint of anti-Semitism and imply his complete acceptability. But Dr Brearley strongly affirms Israel’s current anti-Wagner stance. It will not last forever but it is valid. Of all the instincts which Wagner sought to arouse, the deepest within the German Volk was, so he argued, a repugnance towards Jews. – 38 – The following day Israeli musicologist Irad Atir delivered a number of surprises which generated an outbreak of jaw-dropping among his audience, all done with the authority of one who is able to demonstrate his musical argument from the piano. His subject was Judaism and Germanism in Richard Wagner’s Art . Putting aside our prejudices about the man and artist can reveal something very different from what has become the conventional picture of Wagner, who emerges from Atir’s analysis as a rather ambivalent figure. On the one hand he was a German nationalist but on the other a scathing critic of the German nation and character. His opposition to “Jewishness” was part of his opposition to the socio-political realities of the period. He criticised such aspects of Germany as its conservative religion and Prussian militarism. For Wagner there were good Germans and bad Germans, good Jews and bad Jews. We were told that in 1878 Wagner said: “If I ever were to write again about the Jews I should say that I have nothing against them. It was just that they descended on the Germans too soon and we were not steady enough to absorb them.” In 1881 he told the Jewish impresario Angelo Neumann that he was far away from the anti-Semitic movement of the time: “I am preparing an article so that no-one will be able to say that I am part of the anti-Semitic movement”. Such an “article” was not, alas, to see the light of day. Not just in his youth could Wagner be described as a fan of Mendelssohn. Atir demonstrated from the piano how this was a lifelong regard as expressed through the acceptance of many Mendelssohnian influences to his compositional work. For Atir Wagner’s message is in many ways an enhancement of the message of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, summoning an entire human fellowship. He aspired to the complete assimilation and unification of Jews and Germans but not before both had undergone comprehensive self-examination. Being radical, sharp and often harsh, Wagner can deter and frighten some of us. He was also original in his opinions and his works, and it is the latter which may be taken as the most reliable and convincing expression of his ideology. It is Irad Atir’s hope that his research will open new perspectives in the perception of Wagner without prejudices and anachronistic historical connotations not only in Israel but everywhere. Three workshops were also presented. The first, directed by Chris Newell of the University of Hull, with the help of Martin Pickard, Head of Music at Opera North, and soprano Rosamund Cole (a PhD student at Royal Northern College of Music), explored the relationship between the director and the singer, and that of the singer with the audience. An extract from Die Walküre demonstrated how stage director, singer and music director negotiate the production of a scene. In the second workshop choreographer Kristina Selen, soprano Cornelia Beskow and pianist Nigar Dadascheva “reconstructed” a scene from Tristan und Isolde in what is known as the “Bayreuth Style” as described by the Austrian soprano Anna Bahr- Mildenburg in 1936 who co-directed with Cosima on one occasion. Choreographer Daniel Somerville (University of Wolverhampton) led a third workshop for singers, movers and audience members. With reference to the Japanese contemporary movement practice known as Butoh and using Wagner’s music as it was never intended, the workshop revealed to participants new understandings on a personal level through the embodiment of the music and its philosophical and thematic material. Conference organisers Dr Anastasia Belina-Johnson and Dr Stephen Muir were delighted with a wonderful turn out, heated debates, and would like to extend a warm thank you to all who participated in this stimulating event. – 39 – The Mastersingers Gods and Heroes Weekend All Saints Chapel, Eastbourne, 3 rd to 5 th May 2013 Photography by Richard Carter MASTERCLASSES WITH SIR JOHN TOMLINSON Katie Barnes Gods & Heroes was a joint presentation by the Music Club of London and The Mastersingers. Michael Bousfield and Elaine Fairless of the MCL approached Malcolm Rivers and David Edwards to collaborate on the Eastbourne weekend, and asked them to produce a series of events featuring Sir John Tomlinson and The MastersingersYoung Artists. The venue for this incredibly opulent weekend of events celebrating the music of Wagner, Britten and Verdi in their anniversary years is a Victorian French Gothic revival building as beautiful as a jewel box. Sir John Tomlinson's two masterclasses were focused upon three of the four great encounters which make up the Wanderer's role. He coached Michael Druiett, who was was such a notable Wotan on the Opera North Rheingold and sings the Wanderer in their Siegfried this summer, in his two Act III scenes with Siegfried (Neil Cooper) and Erda (Rhonda Browne).

Neil Cooper, Sir John Tomlinson, Rhonda Browne and Michael Druiett Sir John has already worked with Michael Druiett on both the Rheingold Wotan and the Wanderer, but he had never heard Neil Cooper sing before. On their first assay of the scene, although both singers sounded excellent, they were declaiming rather than interacting, and Druiett's voice sounded rather dark and dour. Sir John emphasised the need for both to adopt a conversational approach so that the Wanderer can show the great delight he takes in his grandson and bring out the humour of the scene as much as possible, and so that Siegfried can begin more quietly before swelling to Helden pitch as he becomes irritated. The Wanderer 's voice should convey irony, sarcasm and pleasure in the creation who will ultimately destroy him.

– 40 – I was fascinated by the look on Sir John's face as he heard Cooper's voice for the first time – an instrument which he described as “just right for the part, with great potential”, which from such a singer is praise indeed. However, I could not help noticing that Driuett took on board Sir John's advice about making the scene conversational more readily than Cooper, who continued to declaim! Sir John noted that this is a scene between a very old man and a very young one: it is important to have the contrast between the Wanderer's age and Siegfried's youth and virility. He emphasised the vital importance of the text – “the attack of the first vowel, on the first note, must be well prepared” – and urged Cooper to “make each vowel sound really singing” and well supported. He took Cooper through Mein Vöglein schwebte mir fort countless times, emphasising the energy of the speech rhythms, making him speak the line, stressing that it is an aside, compared with his next line addressed to the Wanderer. “It's all about rhythm and synchronisation.” The Wanderer is “deliberately laid back, pretending not to be interested... you're playing with him a bit.” Zu suchen needs “a bit of colour” in the voice: this is “a brief bit of enjoyment for the Wanderer”. Although Druiett was singing beautifully, he was not giving the text much definition, and, to the delight of the audience, Sir John sang key phrases from his signature role to demonstrate how the words should be sung. It was as though the years had rolled back suddenly. “You're talking to someone and it's got meaning... never make sound just for the sake of making sound... Do be careful with details, or you'll learn them wrong and then you're stuck with them! Get the right information in and do it slowly. Otherwise it's like something saved on a computer, you can't get rid of it... Your voice sounds beautiful, but when you enhance it with meaning and energy and thought, it sounds so much better.” He seemed unable to conceal his delight when they repeated the passage having absorbed his advice, even silently singing along with them. He was the very personification of the energy that he was urging them to instil into their words. To Cooper, he stressed the importance of “really good, closed vowel sounds which are very healthy for the voice – a variety of vowel sounds massages the voice... The more you play Siegfried as a child, the better it is. He's an unruly teenager.” Sir John described the Wanderer's return to Erda, after so many years, as being “like Macbeth going to the witches.” In this scene it is the Wanderer who is vital and energetic, contrasting with Erda's passivity. “The earth is the same as it always was.” Again, he sang with Druiett during the opening invocation, urging him on. “He is working to awaken her, but pleading too... At Wasser , water flows through the phrase.” He stressed the importance of the singer remaining true to the character they are playing, not always thinking about the themes in the orchestra because the orchestra may be playing a unbeknown to the character. He observed that when he played Hagen, conductors have asked him to “double up” in response to the malevolent orchestral music, “but I think it's better to show a bit of humanity.” – 41 – Browne was truly wonderful in her first, tranced utterances, singing with wondrous depth and power, confronting the Wanderer straight away. Sir John advised her: “hold the first note. The first three notes are important, then you're on a good track... the voice has to resonate. Balance the sound as though you could sing each note for ever.” Her glare at Was weckst du mich? radiated all Erda's anger at the Wanderer's intrusion. Sir John worked hard to get Druiett to anticipate his next lines more: “It's not a question of tempo but of momentum”, like huge waves of emotion bursting from within the character, “I need to know this, I want to know, you must tell me , that's why I've woken you up.” The singer needs to encourage thoughts, ideas and changes. The Wanderer's mood changes when Erda mentions the Norns, and at Die Walküre meinst du the scene changes from dialogue to narrative. “This is vivid storytelling. Mann is important because Brünnhilde is no longer a goddess. She's beginning the wondrous task of being a real, human woman.” He demonstrated the phrase, letting his voice crack with emotion on Weib . The sense of loss was so overpowering that I could not have been the only person with tears in my eyes. For his second masterclass Sir John coached Michael Druiett and Richard Roberts in the Wanderer/Mime scene from Siegfried Act I. Both singers will perform these roles with Opera North this summer. Roberts, who was singing “off book”, was already deeply into the character, captivating the audience with his neurotic grumbles in his opening solo and jumping most realistically on first hearing the Wanderer’s voice. Druiett sounded simply fantastic in the glorious, flowing urbanity of the Wanderer’s opening music, aptly allowing a grimmer, more forbidding tone to intrude at und setze mein Haupt . Given that Sir John is the world’s greatest Wotan, it was fascinating to hear his insights into the character of Mime, “a clever, skilful smith but a wise fool”. He made Roberts sing Wie werd' ich den Lauernden los? as though he were talking to himself, “as intensely as possible, but quiet. Turn away a bit. How do I get rid of this guy? It’s all to do with the thought before the line. It’s what’s going on in your head. Mime is a frenetic, fanatic, highly intelligent nutcase with agoraphobia. Nobody has come into your domain for the last twenty years, except for the odd bear. Possibly the last to come was Sieglinde, and you remember what happened that day. This guy’s a real threat; your life depends upon getting rid of him.” To the delight of the audience he even demonstrated by acting Mime. “Got to be clever. That’s what I’m going to be, hmm, and I’m good at that – yes! You’re gonna regret this, your head rests on this, and I know a lot, I’m a clever guy!” The fault is in Mime’s thinking. His own intelligence blinds him, and he is so fanatical that he needs to be clever. – 42 – Roberts’ wonderful, antagonistic smugness when asking the first question, and his reaction when the Wanderer answered, were a joy. Sir John advised Druiett that the Wanderer’s initial reaction to the question should be annoyance: “Hey, he hasn’t answered the crucial question!” but that his answer should move the scene from conversation to narrative, with the Wanderer responding to the memories he describes – “Schwarzalben sind sie – I remember them – Schwarz-Alberich – oh, yes, I remember him .” He spoke the words to demonstrate how Druiett should use the language and how it is enhanced by the consonants and alliteration. “Think of all that gold piled up in front of Alberich!” He also acted Mime again to demonstrate how to react as soon as the Wanderer replies. The Wanderer should finish with irony: “What’s our next treat?” and clip the word Zwerg as “a bit of a put-down: you little dwarf!” This is where Mime begins to panic. He has been agonising over how to reforge the sword for over twenty years, yet when someone offers to tell him anything, he won’t ask. The question of the sword should shadow the whole scene. The Wanderer should react as soon as he hears Mime sing welches Geschlecht for the second time, and his second narrative in response is longer and larger than the first. “We want to see your mind working, it’s all about imagination.” Mime should react at Fafner den Hort –he has been thinking about that for twenty years – and Sir John demonstrated how Mime should be turned away from the Wanderer. “You have a phobia against this person. It’s an effort to face him.” The Wanderer’s third response encapsulates the life of Wotan and is imbued with the approach of Das Ende . “I was the greatest in the whole world. But this is in the past.” He will be finished within the week.

– 43 – The Mastersingers Gods and Heroes Weekend AN OPERATIC BESTIARY Katie Barnes Having launched the weekend with a fascinating lecture to show how Wagner, Verdi and Britten had influenced each other, David Edwards produced another absorbing lecture recital which examined how animals pervade the works of the three composers. All three were passionate about animals: all owned dogs, Wagner and Britten both kept parrots, and at 16 Britten wrote an essay against hunting, followed six years later by Our Hunting Fathers , a savage critique of the Nazi regime, to texts by WH Auden. Rhonda Browne sang Britten’s The Red Cockatoo , to a translation from an ancient Chinese poem, with exquisite point and irony, followed by Adam Tunnicliffe in two songs from Winter Words to texts by Hardy, The Wagtail and the Baby and Proud Songsters , which demonstrated how ideal his lovely, soaring lyric voice is for the Pears repertoire. Wagner too was a vigorous opponent of hunting and later became both a vegetarian and an anti-vivisectionist. The Ring , of course, is full of fauna: fishy Rhinedaughters, a toad, a serpent, flying horses, a dragon and a bear. Neal Cooper knocked the audience for six with a dazzling account of Siegfried’s first entrance, with Kelvin Lim unexpectedly revealing vocal talents as the cringing Mime. Edwards pointed out how Siegfried, who never knew his father but has seen affection in animal families, has an affinity with Wagner, who was tormented by never knowing who his father was. Returning to Britten, Stuart Pendred was utterly captivating as Bottom, the ass who wants to play the lion as well. He acted Bottom’s Dream to the hilt, leaning against the piano and sleepily pawing the ground. He radiated star quality and, as ever, the resonance in that amazing voice was simply astonishing. , the violent, visionary fisherman and dreamer who can see the shoals to which the rest are blind, uses abundant animal imagery. Cooper, accompanied by Lim on piano and drum, made Sometimes I see that boy the highlight of the recital and one of the high points of the whole weekend. His acting and singing were a revelation, utterly spellbinding. I only hope that he has the chance to play the role sometime.

– 44 – Lady Billows is a dragon, and the recital ended with a brace of dragons. Wagner based Fafner on a beast of Norse legend, but as he conducted Die Zauberflöte in in the late 1830s it is possible that the serpent in Zauberflöte was a precursor of Fafner.

To demonstrate the point, Tunnicliffe joined forces with Cheryl Enever, Browne and Lee Bisset to perform the Three Ladies’ rescue of Tamino. Although Edwards did not mention the possibility, it occurred to me that, just as Mozart’s dragon prefigures Fafner, so the Three Ladies could be regarded as anticipating the Rhinedaughters. As a grand finale Sir John gave a superlative rendition of Fafner’s death scene, his mighty voice huge enough for any dragon yet giving the great brute’s demise unexpected dignity and pathos, with Cooper his splendid Siegfried and Enever, in the choir loft at the far end of the chapel, a soaring Woodbird.

– 45 – The Mastersingers Gods and Heroes Weekend SIR JOHN TOMLINSON PERFORMING WITH THE MASTERSINGERS Katie Barnes Stuart Pendred launched the first concert in fine style with a magnificent account of the Dutchman's Die Frist ist um , the grimness and bleakness of which could not have been a greater contrast to his lovable account of Bottom's Dream in the afternoon. As before, I was astonished by the amazing resonance of his voice and by his sheer star quality. Lee Bisset stunned the audience with Senta's Ballad. In the past I have been concerned that she has given her singing so much emotional commitment that she was in danger of placing too much pressure on her voice, but now she has it well under control, and the sheer intensity of her portrayal was overwhelming. In the love duet from Neal Cooper showed that he is as much at home in Italian opera as in German and English. His voice rang out like a bronze trumpet, and he made much of the character's insecurity and inability to trust that his happiness can last, prefiguring the tragedy to come. Cheryl Enever matched him as his sweet Desdemona. At the end, they walked away up the aisle, their voices disappearing into the distance, a very effective moment. Rhonda Browne walked onto the stage, fixed the audience with her gaze, and had us all hypnotised before she sang a single syllable. Her Stride la vampa was like a very still, controlled mad scene. Her grim gaze conveyed all the horror of a woman who cannot stop reliving her mother's terrible death, and yet again, her singing was a marvel. Adam Tunnicliffe sang Macduff's aria well, yet I felt that he was over-parted and that his voice did not sound comfortable. Heroic Verdi is probably too heavy for his vocal equipment at this stage of his career. Bisset's La luce langue was utterly eerie, a portrayal of almost violent intensity, with enormous vocal power. To end the first half, Cooper brought the house down with Siegfried's forging aria. The audience cheered as wildly as any football crowd.

Rhonda Browne Lee Bissett Neal Cooper – 46 – I liked the fact that the first half was devoted entirely to the weekend's young singers, allowing them all to make their mark before Sir John took the stage with the first of the evening's Britten contributions, a shattering account of Claggart's lament O beauty, handsomeness, goodness . It was an object lesson in how to present the character in a single aria detached from its context, terrifying yet oddly pitiful, and vocally overwhelming. Browne's account of Lucretia's Flowers bring to ev'ry year was equally shattering, beginning in the preceding with a tidal wave of frenzied hysteria which dwindled to chilling calm in the aria. Her deep, rich contralto did full justice to a role first sung by Kathleen Ferrier and, like Ferrier, she has the gift of caressing the words, especially the homely ones. She makes one realise how the words should be articulated, but so often are not. Her accusing gaze was so intense and so authoritative that the audience could not have moved while she was singing, to save their lives. Druiett's singing of King Philip's Ella giammai m'amo continued the sombre theme, beautifully sung (and preceded by an exquisite account of the prelude by Kelvin Lim which left me unable to regret the absence of a cello), but less involving than his predecessors. The stage came alive with the grim, implacable entrance of Sir John as the Grand Inquisitor. He galvanised Druiett into a breathtaking duel of basses with no holds barred, but inevitably, given his mighty stage presence, riveting acting and superlative singing it was Sir John who won the battle. The sound of his voice singing his final Forse as he exited down the side aisle chilled my blood.

Pendred and Bisset returned to give their Holländer arias from the first half a conclusion with a substantial section of the Dutchman/Senta duet Wie aus der Ferne . As before, Pendred's wondrously resonant voice captured all the Dutchman's isolation and despair, while Bisset watched him with all Senta's obsessive adoration.

Tunnicliffe returned with a mellifluous account of Alfredo's De’ miei bollenti spiriti , which suited his sweet tenor far better than the earlier Macbeth extract, before the concert proper concluded in fine style with Sir John and Cooper in the Good Friday scene from Parsifal . Gurnemanz has been one of Sir John's specialities for many years, and I felt that he poured all his long, rich experience of the role into his ecstatic interpretation of the aged knight's response to the healing Good Friday magic. I found it very touching that he then turned towards the altar in silent prayer, leaving the stage to Cooper for his final solo. Cooper once again astonished us with his thrilling singing, by turns pain-racked and weary, then soaring with rapture. He was the outstanding discovery of the weekend.

– 47 – Sir John teamed with Rhonda Browne for the Letter Scene from as an encore, which they sang in English. I could feel the instant rise in the audience's attention as they found that they understood the words. It was a triumphant vindication of opera in English. As ever, Sir John's genial, devious Ochs was a perfect, scene- stealing joy, and it says everything for Browne that, even with Sir John firing on all cylinders, she never once let us forget that she was onstage as well. What charisma that girl has. her glare when Ochs refused to tip her was lethal enough for any Fricka. The rest of the young singers were almost standing on top of one another at the side of the platform in their eagerness to see the master at work. When we returned to the chapel for the final time it had been transformed into a banqueting hall, with twelve circular tables decorated with flowers and illuminated by candles. Such was the quality of the performance that, if music be the food of love, we barely needed to eat. As hors d'oeuvres, Cheryl Enever gave a spirited account of Elena's Siciliana from I Vespri Siciliani , Michael Druiett sang Tu sul labbro from with grave beauty, Stuart Pendred scared and thrilled us with his justly famed account of Hagen's Watch, beautifully articulated despite an acoustic as cavernous as that amazing voice, and Enever and Adam Tunnicliffe heralded the first course with the La Traviata Brindisi, for which the audience was invited to join in. The brandishing of wine glasses was optional. Between the starter and main course, a surprise guest, the fine young harpist Alex Rider, joined Tunnicliffe for Britten's Fifth Canticle. Once again, Tunnicliffe demonstrated how perfect his lovely, lyrical voice is for the Britten repertory, and the sound of tenor and harp, soaring into the vaulted roof of the chapel, was haunting. Druiett followed it up with something equally haunting, but in a very different way: 's dream, complete with stirring cabaletta, before Enever and Tunnicliffe reunited to pursue Violetta's and Alfredo's ill-fated love affair in Un di, felice . After the main course, Rider returned with an enchanting rarity, Britten's Suite for Harp Op. 83, composed in 1969 for the great Osian Ellis and all too seldom perfomed since. Before dessert the mood lightened, with Richard Roberts charming the spots off the audience with De Curtis's Voce 'e notte , Tosti's Marechaire and Brodzsky's Be my love , while Pendred brought the house down with Where is the life that late I led? from Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate , during which he ranged among the tables, passionately wooing a different lady (including your critic!) with every verse. That was meant to be all, but as a final treat Sir John was prevailed upon to rise from his table to give us his very special encore, the Siegfried Act II trio for one voice. It was spellbinding to see the great singer whirling about the platform like a twenty-year-old, standing at the left to personify the confident Wanderer, spinning to the right to become the cringing Alberich, and twirling back to the centre to stand with his back to audience, his hands cupped around his mouth, maximising the chapel's acoustic to create the massive voice of the dragon Fafner. – 48 – What energy, what inspiration Sir John generated all weekend. Surely none of the young singers he took under his mighty wing over those two days will ever forget the experience or the lessons they have learned from him. His smallest remarks are full of wisdom. The role of Wotan is in his blood and bones, and it was so wonderful to see and hear him sharing that with the next Wagnerian generation.

While celebrating the Lord of the Gods let us not forget Kelvin Lim, most patient of repetiteurs, the pianist who can make a concert grand sound like a full orchestra. He was the weekend's non-singing, but not unsung, hero.

– 49 – The Mastersingers Gods and Heroes Weekend FIONA MADDOCKS’ INTERVIEW WITH SIR JOHN TOMLINSON Katie Barnes

Sir John’s family included organists and choirmasters and were involved in Gilbert and Sullivan. “Everybody sang and played the whole time.” He was a boy soprano and then “a little tenor” until his voice broke properly, when he was mocked at school for his big voice but “loved making a lot of noise singing in chapel”. Encouraged by his family to go for a “proper job”, he studied to be a civil engineer, was taught by Patrick McGuigan while still at university, and performed as an amateur singing Messiah and Victorian songs. He won a scholarship to the Royal Northern College of Music, where for the first time he had to think about acting and stage work. He admitted that the concept was totally foreign to him, and that he was “discombobulated” at the idea of having to “get into a character”, but he picked it up very quickly. In 1967 he sang his very first Wagner role, Schwartz in Die Meistersinger in a cast which included Norman Welsby as Sachs and as Pogner, and he later sang more Handel and Le Bailli in Werther . An extract from his recording of Hercules , which demonstrated how much lighter and more flexible his voice was at that early stage of his career, was a reminder of his “happy days” singing the Handelian repertoire. He observed that in those days there was a commitment to singing in English. He was not brought up to speak foreign languages and only addressed them at college and thereafter, working with John Mathieson, who was “inspirational” because he spoke all languages. Sir John admitted to “not being a

– 50 – good linguist”, but he has a good ear and now speaks German well. One cannot sing Wotan without understanding the grammatical structure of the language. He considers that opera in English has a bad reputation because of bad translations, but that it is a wonderful language to sing in a good translation, citing his Gurnemanz at ENO, which was “hard work but tremendously rewarding” as he felt the audience hanging on to his every word, and the previous night’s concert, where he had “felt the room come alive…a tangible difference” when he sang in English. Learning a new role is “a relationship between you and the score”. He deplores the practice of listening to recordings of the role being learned, which is a sure way to pick up bad habits which become lodged in the memory, “like a computer”. He studies the text, translates it, learns the notes and speaks through the text. Then he sits at the piano and whistles through the role while thinking about the character and the dramatic situation. “Why is there a rest here? Why did the composer do that? What’s happening here?” Only then might he try singing the first act. Singing at the piano too much is not good for the voice, and he learned at college the important ability to read music without making a sound. Having previously sung the bass roles in The Ring : a vassal with Scottish Opera, Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen with Sir Reginald Goodall, he “exploded” into the bass- baritone repertoire after Daniel Barenboim chose him to play Wotan at Bayreuth, which in turn led to Sachs, Gurnemanz and the Dutchman, as well as Golaud and Balstrode. Playing the 1997 live recording of the Wahnmonolog led him to recall that, at that performance, he smashed his hammer down onto the last with such fury that he nicked his finger, which bled profusely. Unable to leave the stage, he had to call on the stage manager for first aid. Asked which role is “nearest to his heart”, he said that they are all quite close. The god and the shoemaker both have to sacrifice their desires. Sachs “wants to live for years with Eva and have twenty children” but relinquishes her to Walther. Wotan is often viewed as “a political gangster”, yet he has many good sides. Vocally the two roles are a complete contrast. Sachs is the longest role ever written, but it is all conversational. Wotan’s role is colossal in terms of power and energy, as he demonstrated by singing a snatch from Die Walküre Act II, but it also requires intense pianissimi , and “there’s not a phrase that’s relaxed”. It requires a “very muscular” voice. In the course of a three-hour rehearsal he is able to immerse himself in a role and then come out of it. Asked if he ever suffers from nerves, he replied that they are part of a performer’s existence: “it would be odd if I were not nervous”. The only times he has not been nervous have been when personal anxieties have predominated. On difficulties with producers he said that he can deal with any inventive concept and likes producers who have lots of ideas (he had a wonderful time doing the Richard Jones Ring ), but “the deadly thing is a producer who doesn’t know the piece”, which “doesn’t happen that often, but happens too often!” From the audience he was asked for his views on surtitles. He replied that it is pointless to discuss the subject as audiences expect them and complain if they do not get them. He recently sang Parsifal in Berlin with German surtitles! But he is against their use at ENO as he feels that they tempt singers not to bother with their diction. In the old days singers fired out their diction “like rifle shot”. Told by an audience member that “your Hagen terrifies me”, he asked mildly, “Is that a good thing?” In his view “you don’t play terror. You play emptiness and sadness inside.” Hagen is bitter and resentful because he has no personality of his own.

– 51 – The Mastersingers Gods and Heroes Weekend PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING’S BOOK LAUNCH Katie Barnes

Paul Dawson-Bowling took the stage for an absorbing talk to launch his new book, The Wagner Experience and its meaning to us , the last event in this weekend organised by the Mastersingers. He showed how the book tries to explain the lessons and suggestions in Wagner’s operas which are often lost in production. Above all, it is about worthwhileness. Jung believed that a spiritual dimension is vital to humanity, and that religion, with man in the image of God, imparts worthwhileness. Wagner’s dramas express myths which we know to be untrue but they can make sense of our lives without our having to accept them as fact. The book puts right a number of misconceptions about Wagner. He is often decried for his personal shortcomings, yet other composers, Debussy for example, did more damage in their private lives without being attacked in the same way. Wagner claimed in his autobiography that he had a happy childhood, yet the facts as set out in Dawson-Bowling’s book show that the boy was moved from pillar to post between schools and a number of different relatives from the age of two onwards. This peripatetic childhood may account for the large number of wandering and “outsider” characters in his dramas, such as the Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Siegmund and the Wanderer. The book also corrects common misconceptions about Minna. “ was the most blistering and mind-cutting personality ever to hit Wagner. She virtually reworked and reconfigured him. She was stunningly beautiful, the Alma Mahler of her time.” Surviving letters from their correspondence in the Burrell Collection show how Wagner was completely besotted with her in a way he would never feel for any other woman, even Cosima. Yet, perhaps because Wagner’s autobiography was written after Minna’s death, with Cosima as his amanuensis, he presented his long-suffering first wife as a dull hausfrau who did not really love her husband. I simply cannot wait to read the book! – 52 – OPERA NORTH SIEGFRIED : A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR’S REVIEW Town Hall, Leeds: 15 th June 2013 Trude Silman This was a really enjoyable evening. Overall the performance was very good, the voices were good and the orchestra excellent (that is what we expect from Opera North). For me the brass section (especially the solo horn) were brilliant, the Woodbird had a very pleasing, clear voice and I always enjoy the sound of the harps. In Act I I found the voices to be not loud enough and the text on the screens difficult to read. This may all have been because I was sitting in almost the very back row of the balcony. Act II had more activity and was more interesting visually. Act III was a totally different experience. The singing and music were great and what had been a fairy tale now brought in the romantic element and one could feel Siegfried's overwhelming desire and the initially inhibited response from Brünnhilde, the characters ending the Act with both of them yielding to their emotions. To me the words are almost irrelevant. It is the music that “soothes and/or excites the breast”. As with most operas the words are often not understood if sung in a different language. Although I understand German I did not “hear” most of it. It is essential before hearing an opera to read up the story and so be able to fit it to the music. To me there is no anti-Semitism in Wagner's music. The music is deep and emotional and often in a minor key, which possibly mirrors some of my thoughts of the world in general, which consist of more tragedy than joy. It may also be a yearning for my childhood where Grimm's fairy tales and Oscar Wilde's were read to me by my mother. The dark and often loud music (the ranting of Hitler's speeches that I heard on the radio as a child?) possibly expresses for me the terrible effects of the Holocaust and the destruction of my family. Trude Silman was born in 1929 in Bratislava as the youngest of three children within a large Jewish extended family. Her mother was one of the two million people of the Holocaust who were not accounted for. She is a volunteer for the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association whose aim is to work towards a more tolerant society through research and teaching. Members visit schools and universities to give living witness accounts of their experience as refugees, hidden children and survivors of Nazi concentration and death camps: www.holocaustlearning.org Trude adds: “The HSFA has been shortlisted for a National Lottery Award. We need as many people as possible to vote for us. Please go to the website below and take a couple of seconds to vote for Sustaining the Legacy Project to secure the legacy of the last remaining Holocaust survivors. http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/project/holocaust-sustaining-legacy?utm_source=1

– 53 – PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING THE WAGNER EXPERIENCE AND ITS MEANING TO US Roger Lee With 800 pages of text plus 100 more of illustrations, this monumental work invites comparison with ’s 736 page The Wagner Operas , its predecessor by 64 years which provided this reviewer’s epiphany regarding Wagner’s canonical output. Wagner News readers who are familiar with the work of Paul Dawson-Bowling are likely to have positive expectations of his magnum opus . As one whose fairly diligent reading over the last 20 years or so has resulted in an accumulation of the “usual” yard and a half shelf-full of Wagner books I was not expecting The Wagner Experience (to use a less unwieldy version of its title) to provide me with another such epiphany. I should declare at the outset that it has succeeded in doing exactly that. The distillation of a lifetime’s work which has clearly been a labour of love, this book is organised as two beautifully illustrated volumes. The first deals with Wagner’s output as a whole and attempts (very successfully, in my view) to explain what the author terms “the miracle of the music”. Those of us who struggle for coherence when asked what the secret is of Wagner’s hold over the imagination and the intellect will find such chapters as the boldly-titled “Towards a definition of Wagner’s fascination” to provide much assistance. One may have reacted sceptically to the pre-publication blurb which claimed that this is a book like no other on the subject, but the fact that it is written with the benefit of a lifetime’s experience as a medical practitioner alone brings an abundance of justification for such a claim. The biographical chapters in particular provide a doctor’s insight into Wagner’s psychological development and the influences upon his work which can be traced back to his earliest childhood and beyond. The work and life of “the supreme artist of dramatic psychology” are illuminated for the author by the psychologist Carl Jung. We are told that Wagner never escaped a compulsive tendency to be self-centred to its pathological point of narcissism. “Narcissists are often aware of exactly how different people work and how they are likely to respond, but exploit this awareness overwhelmingly for their own interests.” So Wagner came to have an insight and a feeling for character that was extraordinary, “as outsiders often do”. Throughout the book original angles of approach provide freshness, but one chapter in particular may come to be seen as revolutionary. Would you have expected “ Femme inspiratrice, femme fatale ” to be about Minna Wagner? With this chapter the author has to justify its opening sentence: “Of all the experiences which went into the making of Wagner, Minna Planer was the most far-reaching.” He adds: “The importance of her role is impossible to exaggerate, and yet it goes unrecognised.” The 39 meticulously researched pages which follow cover the ground of comparing her influence with that of . Although he concedes; “It was Cosima that made possible what is for me the most extraordinary achievement of Wagner’s life, the fulfilment of Parsifal down to its staging within a year of his death.” He continues: “It was Minna who became the source of all the heroines in Wagner’s dramas. Cosima, and briefly Mathilde, would re- invigorate the paradigm of woman as life’s ultimate fulfilment which Minna had instilled in Wagner. But it was Minna who had forged it in the first place.”

– 54 – The chapter: “Puzzles, Obstructions and Objections” addresses the matter of the hostility which the music itself can call up. “When Wagner stirs the depths what comes welling up can be ecstatic and liberating, but it can also take the disturbing form of dark phantoms that come screaming out of the blackness. Not many people are happy to recognise any shadow or disunities in themselves.” He explains that this is not the only inner problem which some people foist outwards onto Wagner. Another objection to Wagner apparently represents another pathology: “it is bound up with the lure that Wagner holds for anyone who is looking for shortcomings in greatness and feels satisfaction from finding them. To do this is the mark of a neurosis, a compensation mechanism for people who cannot accept that others exist who are more significant than they are themselves. Wagner’s towering greatness and his great faults provide these people with a ready target.” Two important refutations are adroitly provided in this chapter, namely that Wagner’s political views (“he always remained far away to the left”) were in some way compatible with Hitler’s and that the composer’s anti-Semitism is present in his musical output. We are provided with a useful tool to test the work to determine whether or not it qualifies as “anti-Semitic art”. Volume 2 is a guide to each of the ten “great dramas”. The author throws medically- informed illumination upon many of Wagner’s characterisations in a 21 st Century handbook which is likely to become as indispensible as that of Ernest Newman. The author avoids dry presentations of the stories by integrating narrations with the points of discussion which they generate at the very places in the plots where they come up as he does with the music examples. Those who are unable to read musical notation are catered for with the verbal descriptions of motifs , etc which are also provided. Space allows the picking of no more than a couple of exemplar cherries. Remember that each of the following claims have closely-argued support. We are told that, thanks to its music, “ Tristan und Isolde describes romantic love and erotic passion more vividly than any other story or description in existence. Because of the music Tristan und Isolde is more than a description; it creates the actual feeling within us. Through the music it creates the very experience in the imagination. It conjures up all that love might be, even for people who have never known it, switching on the mind to ecstatic possibilities that may previously be unimagined but are innate, and to the hope that they may be realised.” Of the author’s favourite work, Parsifal , he writes: “Our encounter with Montsalvat comes with a demand that we accept its standards for actual life. The experience of Parsifal enjoins kindness, compassion, loyalty, generosity, integrity, responsibility, a willingness to get involved and act, and a willingness to leave well alone.” Paul Dawson-Bowling has written powerfully succinct conclusions to the Volume 2 chapters, each covering one of the great music dramas. If I may be permitted an editorial quibble it is that, with one exception ( Parsifal ), the effect is spoiled by the fact that before the reader can sit back and contemplate the chapter now completed it starts up again with a list of performers of the work’s first performance at Bayreuth! Let me challenge the wisdom of this editorial decision with the example of Götterdämmerung . Who would want to move on to the 1876 cast list immediately upon reading the following? “ The Ring as a whole is a compelling validation of human existence, a secular redemption. Simply to have lived life in all its richness and variety is an experience of such value that is not negated by the fact that it must end. The prospect of it ending does create a degree of regret; yes, that is there in The Ring’ s final eight bars; but it still establishes the conviction that to have lived life is an experience so worthwhile that not even the prospect of total, eternal oblivion can detract from that worth-whileness.”

– 55 – FORBIDDEN MUSIC THE JEWISH COMPOSERS BANNED BY THE NAZIS Kevin Stephens Michael Haas was the producer for the enterprising Decca series Entartete Musik in the 1990s which explored repertoire largely forgotten since it was banned from 1933. With the takeover of Decca by Universal (DG etc) the series was dumped, but Haas continued to research the music, curating a large exhibition in Vienna and later helping to found the International Centre for Suppressed Music. This book is the result of his labours, and a most impressive outcome it is: a very depressing tale, told with spirit and detailed scholarship. The interest for Wagner lovers is that Haas takes the story right back to its roots after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and tells of the growing assimilation and acceptance of Jewish musicians in the German-speaking parts of Europe through the (mostly) rather liberal climate of the 19 th century. Equal rights for Jews arrived in the constitutions of two new German states: Austro-Hungary in 1867 and the German Reich under Prussian leadership in 1871. Haas describes the enthusiastic response of the Jewish musical community. “It was the long-awaited entry into the most elite, educated and cultivated ‘club’ on earth.” The implication of Haas’ story is that by 1933 the Jewish musical presence in German life was all-pervading and in many ways represented the brightest and best of German music. The Nazi persecution tore a vast hole in the nation’s cultural life. Wagner and his relationship with Jewish composers and musicians merits a whole chapter and it’s a familiar and chilling section covering the vitriolic anti-Semitism that seemed only to become more strident once Cosima came on the scene. Wagner was too blinkered to recognise where his friends were. As Haas puts it, “decades before the rise of Naziism, Jewish Wagnerians in their capacities as performers, writers and musicologists were leading the fight for the musical dynamism that they believed to be uniquely German.” The details of the twelve years of the Third Reich are harrowing enough, but the sad story of what happened afterwards does not alleviate the suffering. Those composers who escaped the murder camps came up against more anti-Semitism and protectionism in their adopted countries and most often found work only in areas they did not especially want it, for example in the film industry. Many scores were lost, and a whole generation of composers seemed to be forgotten.

FULHAM OPERA SIEGFRIED ORCHESTRAL STUDY DAY Fulham Opera are holding an Orchestral Study Day on Act I of Siegfried on 13 th July from 10am to 5pm at St James’ Church in West Hampstead. The day consists of two rehearsals plus a full run through with singers. Tickets (£10) for audience and players available from www.fulhamopera.com/site/productions/siegfried-act-i-orchestra-study-day/ The Fulham Opera production of Götterdämmerung in November is now open for booking. Tickets are £25/£20 from www.fulhamopera.com/site/productions/ gotterdammerung/2013/ Full performances are at 5pm on the 8 th , 10 th , 15 th and 17 th November. A concert is planned at St John’s Road Fulham to remember both the Bicentenary of Verdi’s birth Robert Presley (see: page 62). – 56 – THE NEW WAGNER SOCIETY WEBSITE: WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU Charlie Furness Smith The world increasingly finds itself “online”. During the last decade we have gone from simply buying books on the internet to a state in which we can organise weekly shopping deliveries from Waitrose and see our favourite television shows published, somewhat incongruously, not on television but directly on a membership-only website. The days when Tim Berners-Lee invented the “World Wide Web” at CERN are long gone; 1989, the year that Otto Schenk's Ring was broadcast from the Met and Harry Kupfer's Ring was recorded at Bayreuth. The internet is fast moving, and sooner or later most businesses and organisations have to come to terms with that. I am proud to say that the Wagner Society, despite its interests being predominantly artistic, historic and entirely non-technical, has been hugely proactive about “moving with ” and trying to grow its online presence. For the Society, the internet is not only about giving more to its members, but it is also a tool to attract new members and in doing so ensure that the Society's focus – Richard Wagner and his works – remains relevant and freshly appreciated into the future. To this end the Wagner Society is working on a new website which will incorporate not just the news, articles and events information that our previous website contained, but also the ability for members (new and old) to sign up for membership, customise their details (email address or postal address for instance) and even pay for their membership or an event online. In order to do any of this, we, the members, will be asked from time to time to insert personal details into the website. However, this will be no more complicated or potentially insecure than buying a book on Amazon or a ticket to the Royal Opera, and the data itself will be names and addresses rather than card details! However, to assuage any fears I thought that I should lay out some of the detailed security aspects of the site. In the future, the Wagner Society members database will be stored online. Access to it however will be heavily restricted. What this means is that only certain members of the Society Committee who have specific privileges will have the ability to log in to the database and view any membership information. We, the members, will be able to log in and manage our own account information and subscriptions etc, much as can be done on the Royal Opera House website. Passwords to accounts are never visible to anyone and are stored in the database using powerful encryption methods called TripleDES and SHA-256. These are industry-standard encryption methods used by banks, governments and the military. Our servers are running Linux Red Hat Enterprise Edition. They are stored in a highly secure data centre with 24 hour security systems. The servers are permanently monitored for any suspicious behaviour and are always protected by firewalls. Critically, no credit card information will ever be stored on our servers. Instead, all financial transactions will be performed by a dedicated company called APP55. Their security credentials can be seen at this website: www.app55.com/docs/faq/security. Needless to say, security is their number one priority! We are very excited about the functionality that our new website is going to offer. However we are sensitive to the fact that this is new territory for many of our members! If you have any specific security concerns then we will be happy to answer them or put you in touch with the IT professionals who are helping us to build the new website. We really look forward to sharing the website with you all in the coming months! – 57 – NICK FOWLER’S LONGBOROUGH REHEARSAL DIARY Continued from page 35 Rehearsing with cover performers Rehearsing a scene with a cover on is tricky. They need to be taken through the moves so they can at the very least be in the right position on stage. If any of the moves are then changed the cover will have to be briefed before their next rehearsal. It gets really complicated when Gunther is not available for one session and his cover takes over. The cover is also playing Donner and is required for his Rheingold scene which is also being rehearsed that day. So we spend the session swapping this poor chap from one studio to the other. When we don't have him, but are running a scene in which others react to him so that it is difficult to rehearse with just a blank space on stage, I leap down from whichever tower or other space I am occupying in my Vassal persona and fill the Gunther space for that moment then dash back to do the next Vassal bit. Initially, even when the cover is on (because he of course hasn't even seen the scene before) I have to step out of Vassal-ness to guide him around the stage, but he's a quick learner, so that doesn't last long. First rehearsals with the Vassals About half of last year's Vassals have returned, so half of them are new. We’ve also got a new chorus master. It takes a little time to adjust to new colleagues, but before long it starts coming back and the returnees are quickly off the book, followed in an impressively short time by the newcomers. We're ready to start moving around! Assistant Director Greg was also here last year, so between him, “the book” and those of us who were in it, we manage to reconstruct what happened last year and even start improving on it. Our Siegfried is new, and it is amazing how essentially the same moves can feel completely different when a new person is making or even just reacting to them. It isn't easy for our Siegfried. Normally you would work through a scene such as this with just the principals, sorting out their interactions with each other and with the Vassals, and then slot the Vassals in. But when the schedule is as tight as ours, you just have to get on with it. My first rehearsal as the Alberich cover I need to get into another mindset: very different from moving people around the stage effectively, and making sure they are appearing to think and feel appropriately; different again from singing as one of the group of Vassals. Singing a role involves a much more self-oriented approach. You have to establish and maintain a solid base from which you can present your voice to its fullest potential while of course concentrating on text, music, vowels, consonants, and still thinking and feeling appropriately. It takes me a little while to stop thinking about all the other aspects and just focus on my body and voice. The list of characters I have had to step in to play at some point during rehearsals (sometimes only to the extent of lying prone in order to be dragged off) so far is: Alberich, Mime, Fafner, Wanderer, Woodbird, Gunther, Hagen, all the Vassals! It's fascinating watching the different layers – the directing staff, the music staff, stage management, the design team – at work. All are to be found in little huddles discussing the various issues that the latest rehearsal session has raised, each working at finding a common language amongst themselves. The music staff will be discussing particular passages of the music, sometimes even particular bars, and the person who last spoke to Anthony Negus about that passage or saw him conduct it will be the authority on how he wants it to go. – 58 – The production teams: who’s responsible for what? The Directing Team make sure that every scene is covered in sufficient detail, try and identify areas that need a bit more work and sort out how to make time to get that work done. The Stage Management Team will be talking about the logistics of getting each rehearsal space ready for the next session, making sure the right bits of set and props are available and keeping a record of changes in the action that need a specific response from the Stage Manager who will eventually be running the actual performance. The Design Team will be discussing aspects of costume, set, lighting and the overall look of the thing. Everyone is trying hard to make sure that nothing slips through the net or is left to chance.

“The book”: passing on the Directors’ notes Writing moves into “the book” for each show is a critical part of the work of the Associate and Assistant Directors. When there are several of you, it is even more important. The ideal is to write them clearly and concisely so that, if necessary, someone else who has never seen the show could pick up the book and be able to direct performers who might also never have seen it. I have already been in the situation of picking up Greg's notes on a scene which I hadn't up to that point worked on and taking a singer (in this particular instance the cover Siegfried in Siegfried ) through the scene before running it. All credit to the clarity of Greg's note-taking: it worked like a charm. I have yet to discover whether he finds my note-taking equally clear. I suspect not; my notes are much less tidy for one thing, and I tend to use them as aids to memory rather than a faithful record. But I'm getting better at it, I hope.

Working with the Language Coach Our language coach is a very dedicated chap with a passion for making we non-German speakers sound as if we're singing in our native language. His tireless enthusiasm is a wonder to behold, as he repeats over and over again the various points he feels we can improve upon. We all sort of dread his arrival after a rehearsal with a little page of notes because we somehow feel we've let him down by making the same mistakes, but he always has something nice to say. One of our cast was performing a Wagner role for another opera company recently, and had received almost no notes and a pronouncement that her German was “perfect” from the official language coach. Our coach then came to the dress rehearsal and afterwards presented her with three A4 pages of notes!

A long way in a short time… We have reached a huge milestone: the end of studio rehearsals. After this it's goodbye to the cramped compromises of the studio and on to the wide-open spaces of the stage itself, working with the real set. We had aimed to finish the studio rehearsals with a run of each opera. We didn't quite achieve that, and several scenes are still in a very makeshift state, but we all feel we've come a long way in an incredibly short time.

– 59 – LONGBOROUGH: MARTIN GRAHAM’S BLOG 1st March 2013 Last week we had a beautiful Cotswold sunrise. Dora (the dog) and I sauntered up to a little coppice to drink in the view. We heard and then saw the 8.11 train from Moreton to Paddington race across the Evenlode valley. As tranquility returned I sensed a rustling noise followed by a cough and I noticed I had a visitor (see photo). We exchanged courtesies in English. I picked up a wine glass discarded by a visitor and toasted Herr Wagner. “Pretty cold up there..” he motioned to the theatre’s pediment; “I sometimes go for a stroll… usually when the moon is up..” We chatted for a few minutes. Wagner wanted to know about casting this summer, especially Brünnhilde and Sieglinde. “And another thing. I like a spivvy Loge. I hope you’ve got a good one By the way, are there any German papers coming to review this year? I’d like to meet them”. I promised to keep in touch. He added that he thought “that young Negus” was doing splendidly…then abruptly he left. After a few yards he turned and shouted “I like the view…it reminds me of Tribschen”. Dora gave me a mournful walking look, so off we went over the hills and far away. I thought of humming the tune…but I wanted to be certain we were out of earshot of Wagner. who I doubt was a Delius fan.

PARSIFAL AND THE ZOROASTRIANS OF INDIA Freddie Desai Parsis are the descendants of Zoroastrian people who fled to India to escape Muslim persecution in Persia during the Eighth Century AD. In Parsi temples a consecrated fire is continuously maintained above a large circular grail. As Ernest Newman notes in The Wagner Operas , the German orientalist Fridrich von Suhtscheck made out the case for a Persian origin and setting of the Parsifal legend, the word “Grail” being derived from Persian roots signifying “the pearl of pearls”. To Judith Gautier Wagner wrote that Parsifal relates to the Parsi, “the fire worshippers.” In the final Act of Parsifal Kundry anoints Parsifal with the contents of a golden phial. As a Parsi I can’t help imagining this liquid to be Nirang . It is used for initiation ceremonies when Parsi children are taken into the Zoroastrian fold. Nirang is also applied to the dead bodies of Parsis before they are placed in a Tower of Silence for vultures to consume. This ancient custom is still practised in Mumbai and elsewhere in India. From Kundry Parsifal learns that his father’s name was Gamuret. In our scriptures the name of the first man created is Gyarmured.

– 60 – THE DEMISE OF THE NORTHERN WAGNER ORCHESTRA Sue Watts I have played with the Northern Wagner Orchestra (started by Mike Williamson in Leeds) since its beginnings in 2005. Since we began the Ring Cycle with Das Rheingold , it has become a particularly important date in my calendar for both myself and friends. When I first heard about this new orchestra it seemed impossible that I could be part of it. I’m a late starter on the violin and though I work hard at playing, Wagner’s reputation as one of the hardest and most demanding of composers made it seem that it would be beyond me. Luckily Mike let me join, maybe influenced by my enthusiasm. That first year was terrifying due to the demands of the music and my awe at being part of it. But it was wonderful too. Listening to music from the audience is one thing; being sat in the middle of a hundred other musicians all working at those notes on pages and pages of score but with the music of Das Rheingold coming out of it all round you is quite another! It is the most amazing and moving experience. I was completely hooked There is also something about the sheer endurance required to play such a massive piece of work that draws the musicians together. At times you feel so weary you could fall off your chair, but then the Wagner horns start their call from way behind you and you feel the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, you forget your tiredness and are just thrilled to be part of it. Or the Valkyries sing their enormous song only feet from you and you feel your hair almost blown from your face. Many of our players and singers travel a long way to play. Players work all week then give their whole weekend up to work at this massive music. In the tea break you make light of it but we all know that we feel the same way and that’s why we are there, and why we have returned every year since then. Until this year. Since that first year we have played the whole of the Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde and Tannhäuser with a couple of short breaks in between for Rite of Spring and Der Rosenkavalier . I played Tristan with a broken arm but there was no way I was going to miss playing my favourite Wagner opera. A mixed and ambitious orchestra with some wonderful singers was brilliantly conducted by Mike Williamson with patience, humour and an intimate knowledge and love of the music. It became one of the high points of my year, eagerly looked forward to and discussed with friends. Yet this year, the Wagner Anniversary year, the Northern Wagner Orchestra has disbanded. Why? Not because of lack of enthusiasm clearly. Not because of a lack of plan (we were all organised to play Lohengrin this year) but because of finances. There have been two losses this year which have destroyed our plans. The first was the loss of our affordable venue at Leeds University and the second the loss of our grant from the Wagner Society. In this year of all years! It seems ironic and very, very sad. A response from The Wagner Society We are sorry to read that the Northern Wagner Orchestra partly attributes its disbandment to our not being able to support them this year. Our contribution was only ever very small, and we are therefore a little surprised to learn that this was a deciding factor. We had a number of major projects to which we had committed this year, principally Wagner 200 and the Inside The Ring events programme at Longborough. We receive a large number of requests for sponsorship every year and while we would dearly love to be able to support every worthy cause, we do not have the funds available to do so.

– 61 – REMEMBER ALBERICH? Fulham Opera’s Alberich, Robert Presley died suddenly on 10 th April 2013 aged 55 A tribute by Ian Wilson-Pope I first met Robert Presley whilst I was working as Stage Manager for New Sussex Opera’s production of in April 2004. Robert was playing Ford. He had very recently moved to the UK from the USA, having been a member of the chorus at for some years. I remember his vibrancy and charisma both on and off stage. He immediately became someone I would never forget. Until you got to know him better he could seem somewhat prickly, but he was soft-hearted and very warm underneath. A mutual colleague described him as being “like a Ferrero Rocher.” – hard and brittle on the outside, but soft and chewy underneath. He just didn’t want you to know this. His dark, sometimes abrasive sense of humour was shaped by his background. Born on 6th May 1957 on the Gulf coast of Alabama, his first taste of the operatic life was as Betto di Signa in Puccini’s for Mississippi Opera at the age of nineteen. He appeared with several companies in the USA in many roles and he performed in concerts in England, Italy, Lebanon, the USA, and the Larnaca International Music Festival in Cyprus. He covered the role of for Castleward Opera of Belfast in 2004, and that year made his acclaimed UK opera debut as Ford Falstaff with New Sussex Opera. In 2011 he sang his first Alberich in Das Rheingold with the newly-formed Fulham Opera, which is where I caught up with him again. He then returned to New Sussex Opera for Ramon in Gounod’s rarity Mireille at London’s Cadogan Hall. Last year he sang the title role in Gianni Schicchi and Scarpia for Fulham Opera, as well as co-directing Fulham Opera’s Die Walküre . Robert was to have sung Alberich throughout Fulham Opera’s on- going during 2013/14, and he was due to cover Siegfried Alberich at Longborough this summer, as well as appearing with me as a Vassal in Götterdämmerung . His last performances for Fulham Opera were as Alberich in Siegfried which were critically acclaimed. (See: April 2013 issue of Wagner News.) Ben Woodward (Artistic Director at Fulham Opera) always says that the initial idea to do Das Rheingold was Robert’s. I rather feel it was both of them! Whose idea it was doesn’t matter; I am very grateful that they both agreed to cast me to be their Wotan. A few days before his death we had a board meeting to discuss the way forward for Fulham Opera. He was full of life, and he wanted to organise a concert to celebrate the other operatic bicentennial this year, for Verdi. He had produced a similar concert in the USA called “Verdiana”, and with witty narration a là Anna Russell between items, wanted Fulham Opera to “go completely to pieces” in September in celebration. Indeed we shall, as a special tribute to him. I shall be forever grateful for his support and encouragement of me as Wotan at Fulham Opera. We always had fun during rehearsals, and his love and knowledge of Wagner, Verdi and of course Anna Russell brightened our days immensely. I know that everyone who met and worked with Robert will miss him tremendously, but I think that he will be smiling, looking down on us as we “all go completely to pieces” at his sudden and untimely passing. I for one will always remember Alberich! – 62 – the Wagner society

President: Dame Gwyneth Jones Vice President: Sir John Tomlinson CONTACTS

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– 63 – FORTHCOMING WAGNER SOCIETY EVENTS Peter Leppard, Events Manager Thurs 11 July, 7.30pm (following the Special General Meeting at 6pm) RICHARD WAGNER & GERMAN NATIONALISM Prof Tim Blanning, Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge “I am the most German being, I am the German spirit” wrote Wagner in The Brown Book. Many commentators, especially after 1933, have taken him at face value. This lecture will seek to show that in fact his relationship with German nationalism was a great deal more problematic, and that even such apparently nationalist passages as Hans Sachs’ final address in Die Meistersinger have been misunderstood. Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH. Tickets £12/£6 students Thurs 12 September, 7.30pm: WAGNER & MODERN PRODUCTIONS Mike Ashman, opera director & music historian To put his music dramas on stage, Wagner needed to invent a role in the theatre that hardly existed at the time – the opera director. In so doing, he helped return opera to being real theatre. His successors have taken up the challenge – new Wagner productions by directors such as , Patrice Chéreau, Ruth Berghaus, , Richard Jones and Keith Warner continue to lead the way in theatrical innovation. Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH. Tickets £12/£6 students Thurs 19 September, 7.30pm: UNUSUAL WAGNER RECORDINGS Dr Dan Sherman, Washington DC Dan Sherman has a particular interest in historical performances, and has compiled a large collection of recordings. He has given lectures to Wagner Societies on both sides of the Atlantic. We welcome him back after his very successful talk to us in 2012. Venue in London to be confirmed – check our website! Tickets £12/£6 students Thurs 10 October, 7.30pm: DOES WAGNER STILL MATTER? John Deathridge, Emeritus Professor of Music, King College London Early in the 20 th century, Wagner was a powerful voice in Western culture, but today he is compromised by a fraught legacy. In this lecture, John Deathridge rejects the inchoate image of the ‘failed’ humanist and suggests we go back to the drawing board with some basic questions about sources, reluctant scholarship, radical philosophy and a fundamental overhaul in the way we see Wagner. Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH. Tickets £12/£6 students Sun 27 October, afternoon: SCENES FROM DAS RHEINGOLD The Rehearsal Orchestra and The Mastersingers Henry Wood Hall, Trinity Church Square, London, SE1 4HO Sun 1 December, 2.30pm (tbc): WAGNER SOCIETY SINGING COMPETITION FINALS Judges: Elaine Padmore, John Tomlinson and Keith Warner Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT Tickets for Wagner Society events are available from Mike Morgan, 9 West Court, Downley, High Wycombe, Bucks., HP13 5TG. Please send cheques in favour of The Wagner Society and enclose an SAE. – 64 –