Wagneriana, a Publication of the Boston Wagner Society

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Wagneriana Spring–Summer 2014 Volume 11, Numbers 2–3

Ihrem Ende eilen sie zu, die so stark im Bestehen sich wähnen.

From the President

We had a busy and successful 2013–2014 season, starting with a fun celebration of the Boston Wagner Society’s 10th anniversary in September, with a presentation by the Metropolitan Opera’s William Berger and an amazing

German chocolate cake partly donated by Konditor Meister! In October we collaborated with Professor Deborah Burton of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts to bring you several events on Wagner, including two talks by In This Issue Wagner’s great-grandson Gottfried Wagner, a new film by musician and ■■ From the President 1 filmmaker Hilan Warshaw, a concert with excerpts fromTristan und Isolde, a ■■ “An Alternative to roundtable discussion, and more. Bayreuth”: The Ring December brought board member David Collins’s wonderful, in-depth in Budapest 2 examination of The Flying Dutchman. In February Boston composer Tony ■■ Sound as Story in Schemmer regaled us with a witty, informative, and irreverent take on the Ring Wagner’s Ring 4 Cycle, which was great fun; March brought the talented director and stage ■■ Brünnhilde and designer William Fregosi, who gave a wonderful presentation on the staging Parsifal as Seen by of Wagner’s operas; in April the distinguished musician and musicologist Saul Odilon Redon 6 Lilienstein spoke about the music of the two giants of the nineteenth century: ■■ Play a Bigger Role in Wagner and Brahms. This was a terrific talk with visual illustrations and music. the Boston Wagner In May, Wagner’s birthday month, we brought you the soon-to-be-famous Society! 15 baritone Marcelo Guzzo and the hugely accomplished pianist Rainer Armbrust in a lovely concert of Wagner and Italian composers. And finally, in June the great and wonderful chairman of the Wagner Society of Washington DC gave a most enjoyable talk on Strauss in celebration of the composer’s 150th birthday. What a variety of events! It truly was an outstanding year.

This double issue brings you a review of the recent Ring Cycle in Budapest by our regular reviewer Atsuko Imamura. In addition, we have a substantial article by Donald Rosenthal, a retired curator, the Boston Wagner Society’s

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“An Alternative to Bayreuth”: words. In an age of decreasing financial support for opera houses and classical music in general, semi-staged The Ring in Budapest or concert-style performances of operas may very well Der Ring des Nibelungen, June 12–15, 2014, become the new norm. These “alternative” styles often Budapest, Béla Bartók National Concert have the advantage of focusing both the singers’ and the Hall, Palace of the Arts audience’s attention on the music and text, with fewer distractions in the form of sets, costumes, and props. Artistic director and conductor: Adam Fischer; Zachary Wolfe recently wrote an interesting article in featuring: MR Symphonics; dramaturgy: Christian the New York Times on this very topic, using several Martin Fuchs; costumes and puppets: Corinna Crome; recent performances presented in the U.S. as examples. lighting design: Andreas Gruter; stage designer, The Budapest Ring succeeds admirably on many director: Hartmut Schorghofer levels in attaining the objective of presenting Wagner’s Das Rheingold operas in an accessible, realistic, modern, and exciting manner (a paraphrase of Maestro Fischer’s comments in Wotan: Eglis Silins; Fricka: Judit Nemeth; Alberich: the program), with excellent playing by the orchestra led Hartmut Welker; Freia: Tunde Szaboki; Donner: Oskar by an energetic and involved conductor, and with gener- Hillebrandt; Froh: Zoltan Nyari; Loge: Christian ally a high level of international soloists. Although sets, Franz; Mime: Gerhard Siegel; Fafner: Walter Fink; costumes, and props (a sword lay on the stage, and there Fasolt: Geza Gabor; Erda: Erika Gal; Woglinde: Polina were chairs for the singers to sit on) were lacking for Pasztircsak; Wellgunde: Gabriella Fodor; Flosshilde: the most part, some of the projections were sometimes Zsofia Kalnay distracting and did not enhance the musical experience; Die Walküre when the Rhinemaidens, for example, sang in Das Rhein- gold and in Götterdämmerung, three large blond, animat- Siegmund: Christian Franz; Sieglinde: Anje Kampe; ed women were swimming in a background projection, Hunding: Walter Fink; Wotan: Egils Silins; Fricka: all of whom resembled Marilyn Monroe. A great deal of Judit Nemeth; Brünnhilde: Iréne Theorin blood splattered on the screen when Fafner killed Fasolt Siegfried Siegfried: Jay Hunter Morris; Mime: Gerhard Siegel; Wanderer: Eglis Silins; Alberich: Hartmut Welker; Fafner: Walter Fink; Wood Bird: Gabi Gal; Erda: Erika Gal; Brünnhilde: Petra Lang

Götterdämmerung 1st Norn: Erika Gal; 2nd Norn: Judit Nemeth; 3rd Norn: Polina Pasztircsak; Siegfried: Christian Franz; Brünnhilde: Iréne Theorin; Hagen: Kurt Rydl; Gutrune: Erika Markovics; Gunther: Oskar Hillebrandt; Alberich: Hartmut Welker; Waltraute: Marina Prudenskaya

Presented in a semi-staged version, with the orchestra in the pit, singers in concert attire, and a mirrored screen in the back for projections, the Ring Cycle in Bass-Baritone Egils Silins, an Budapest aimed to “pave the way for alternative perfor- expressive Wotan at the Budapest mance styles to Bayreuth,” in conductor Adam Fischer’s Ring

– 2 – A Publication of the Boston Wagner Society and Hagen slayed Siegfried. There were also dancers portraying the principal characters (during the love duet in the third act of Siegfried, for example) and during the ride of the Valkyries. A dancer in a red suit, representing Loge, seemed omnipresent whenever the fire music played, as were two men dressed as ravens observing various events. I would have preferred fewer projections and dancers, but then these performances might have turned into mere concerts, and not semi-staged operas. These are minor quibbles, as the overall experience was exciting and at times moving. The biggest acco- lade must go to the orchestra, whose playing was both dynamic and sensitive, enhanced by the superb acoustics of the Palace of Arts. I was fortunate to witness Maestro Fischer with the Vienna Philharmonic the following week in Vienna’s Ring Cycle, and if my experience in Vienna is any guide, it was obvious that Fischer main- Dramatic soprano Iréne Theorin tains close contact with the orchestra and the singers, sang Brünnhilde in the Budapest often mouthing the words in the libretti and truly enjoy- Ring ing the musical experience. In Budapest the orchestra pit is deep, and it was difficult to observe the musicians about its two best Brünnhildes, Nina Stemme and Iréne closely, but I suspect a similar communication was Theorin, both worthy successors of Birgit Nilsson. occurring there as well throughout the performances. Unfortunately, Christian Franz as Loge, Siegmund, Fischer’s conducting was brisk but not hurried, and he and Siegfried in Götterdämmerung was a weak link in an emphasized the yin and yang of Wagner’s music. A case otherwise excellent ensemble of singers. He fared the in point was the stupendous immolation scene, sung best as Loge, a character role often (but not always) sung exquisitely by Iréne Theorin. At times the orchestra per- by an older tenor. As Siegmund, and especially as Sieg- formed so quietly that she whispered the words and was fried, Franz lacked vocal heft and often resorted to near still audible, a truly moving moment. barking. He also tended to duck the high notes. Notable among the soloists were Egils Silins, a light- The audience, a mix of young and old, Hungarian voiced but expressive Wotan; 73-year-old Hartmut and foreign, applauded the singers, chorus, conductor, Welker, who nearly stole the show as Alberich; Gerhard and orchestra enthusiastically. Many people said they Siegel as one of the best Mimes today; Anje Kampe as would return to the Budapest Ring next year. a moving Sieglinde; Bayreuth veteran Judit Nemeth as Fricka and the 2nd Norn; Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried —— Atsuko Imamura (in Siegfried only); Walter Fink as Fafner and Hunding; Atsuko (Ako) Imamura, a member of the Boston Wagner and Marina Prudenskaja as Waltraute. Society, is a native of Tokyo and has lived in the United The highest vocal honor goes to Iréne Theorin, who States for over 35 years. She frequently travels around the sang Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung. world to attend operatic performances. Her high notes have a tendency to turn shrill, but on this occasion she had excellent control throughout her vocal range and was in excellent voice. Despite having to use a cane due to a recently broken limb, which limited her stage movements, she was an authoritative Brünnhilde, both vocally and stylistically. Today Sweden can boast

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Sound as Story in Wagner’s Then the harmonies change, and the song of human voices is heard. These are the daughters of the Rhine, Ring and the sounds with which they begin, “Weia, Waga, This essay is an excerpt from Saul Lilienstein’s Wagner’s Woge, Welle, walle zur Wiege, Wagalaweia! Wallala weiala Ring of the Nibelung: An Interpretive Journey, a book weia!” are like the sounds that appear before coherent awaiting publication. Another excerpt from the book, on human speech, as a mother would sing to a child, “Lulla Götterdämmerung, will appear in the next issue. –Ed. lulla, lullay.” The priest and humanist Father Owen Das Rheingold Lee spoke of this music as “coming out of the cradle of An article in the New York Times in September 2003 waves. The song of the Rhinemaidens is a lullaby to the stated, “Astronomers say they have heard the sound of newborn world. There is something in us that longs for a black hole singing. And what it is singing and per- lost innocence in a union with nature.” haps has been singing for more than two billion years is The composer believed the ultimate goal of nature the tone B flat—57 octaves below middle C. The black was to evolve into human consciousness—and here are hole is playing the lowest note in the universe,” said the five beautiful minutes of descriptive music that demon- scientists at the Institute for Astronomy at Cambridge strate how a philosophical thought can be transformed University in England. into a work of art. That’s what they discovered in 2003. One hundred fifty years before that, almost to the day, Richard Wag- Scene Four: On a Mountaintop, Near ner set down the tone E flat, symbolically five scale tones the Rhine deeper still than anything science has come up with. Even Wotan is distracted by the gorgeous display in Wagner wrote to his friend Franz Liszt, “The prelude to the sky—and the sound of Wagner’s music. But he [Das Rheingold] represents the beginning of the world.” knows that this moment came with a heavy price, and as he salutes his fortress, he recognizes it as a necessary Scene One: At the bottom of the Rhine refuge, that place where by mastering fear he can live The first sound, like an undifferentiated element of safe from terror and dread. The warm and noble theme nature not yet separated into its parts, will gradually by which we first knew him peals out again and again reveal itself through a series of tones in which eight in the orchestra. Wagner is going to tell us that Wotan French horns, overlapping, create the theme through is suddenly inspired with a grand idea. We don’t know which the first stirrings are heard. what this is, but we’re stunned by a new theme that, It is the overtone series, the so-called chord of nature, as Father Owen Lee described it, “leaps through the built here on a low E flat that keeps sounding and rainbow music, a shining idea just emerging from the resounding. For the initial moment of variation, bas- unconsciousness of the Father God.” Announced by a soons and cellos take this almost formless undulation solo trumpet, high C drops down an octave to middle C, and give it the quality of measured time. Other wind then leaps upward through the tones of a C major triad. instruments subtly enter. Higher strings will momen- Clear, piercing, precise. tarily continue the cello’s rhythm, like a wave that rises No moment in Das Rheingold will eventually be more and subsides. Flutes take up the theme, reaching upward revealing than this one—of Wagner’s newfound power even as the deep tones hold on. Then a new variation: to tell us things through sound alone. We will have to the tempo remains but the inner pulse quickens. Four wait for the first act ofDie Walküre to truly recognize clarinets sing out the song of the river. Oboes join them. its import. Here, in Das Rheingold, it must function as The upper strings come back, like an undeniable tide. a purely musical device—a theme introduced just for A final variation on that one tone, one continuing the E the coda, as Beethoven frequently did. But what a risk; flat major triad: it’s the full orchestra—and everything is Wagner hopes we will all show up for the next opera, bristling into life, bubbling up, coming to the surface. hopes that he will have a chance to write it, knowing that

– 4 – A Publication of the Boston Wagner Society if all goes well, that theme will allow us a glimpse into The Architecture of the Ring the mind of the god. Richard Wagner thinks in vast architectural spans. For Filled with new confidence and in a beautiful example instance, we know that the prelude to this opera was the of alliterative poetry, Wotan sings, “Folge mir, Frau: in prologue for the three scenes that followed it, the prelude Walhall wohne mit mir!” (Follow me, my wife, and live in E flat major. From Wotan’s entrance to this conclu- with me in Walhalla!). sion, everything is framed within the key of D flat. This There’s only one among them who is not taken in by shaping foreshadows the entire Ring of the Nibelungen. the splendiferous show, and that’s Loge, of course. No Das Rheingold is a prelude to the three operas that fol- master is a hero to his valet. Loge knows that Wotan low it. It all begins in E flat; it all ends in D flat. Does it and the others are moving toward their own inevitable matter? It’s almost impossible for anyone to retain these destruction. So he will return to a state of fire and, as an sounds in memory. Does it matter that we can’t hear elusive flame, be free of them, perhaps even to consume all of the notes in many Renaissance motets? Does it them all in the burning fire that he creates in the end. matter that it is impossible to see all of the statues in the The summing up continues. The gods’ rainbow jour- cathedral of Milan? Is it just possible that the B flat, 57 ney takes them over the river, and the Rhinemaidens octaves below middle C, that resounds from the black are heard, lamenting the loss of their shining treasure. hole—that no one can hear—that if it stopped, the world “What are these sounds?” Wotan wants to know. Loge would come to an end? tells him: “It’s the children of Rhine crying out for their gold. The treasure that was stolen from them.” Wotan —— Saul Lilienstein has no time for this. Loge obeys his master’s orders one Saul Lilienstein, a musician, musicologist, and former stu- more time and tells the maidens to bask instead in this dent of Leonard Bernstein, gave a presentation to the Boston new shining light—the radiance of the gods. The last Wagner Society in April 2014. Lilienstein served as Artistic words of this opera belong to them: “Now only in the Director and Conductor of Maryland’s Harford Opera The- depths of the river is there tenderness and truth. False atre and then of Operetta Renaissance in Baltimore, con- and fainthearted are those who celebrate above us.” ducting and producing over fifty operas. A highly regarded Professor of Music, his is a familiar voice at the Smithson- ian Institution, Johns Hopkins University in Rockville, the Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, and at music symposiums in New York, California, and Ohio. He has completed over seventy-five highly acclaimed CDs for the Washington National Opera. His articles on music have appeared in newspapers and periodicals throughout the coun- try. In 2005 the Wagner Society of Washington DC bestowed the Society’s Award for “uncommon contributions.”

Design for the firstRing Cycle performance in Bayreuth, 1876, by Josef Hoffmann

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Brünnhilde and Parsifal as Odilon Redon originally came to prominence through his sets of black and white lithographs, noted in particu- Seen by Odilon Redon lar for the strangeness of their subjects, such as a giant In the decades following Richard Wagner’s death in floating eyeball or a smiling spider. These lithographs 1883, one of the leading European visual artists most often were inspired by, though only loosely related to, interested in Wagnerian subjects was the French painter such celebrated works of the Romantic period as Fran- and lithographer Odilon Redon (1840–1916). Though cisco Goya’s grotesque etchings (the Caprichos and he was an exact contemporary of such Impressionist Disparates) and Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of horror. The painters as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, images sometimes had no obvious interpretations, and Redon’s career began to develop only around 1880, Redon declined to provide any. Active early in his career much later than theirs. Redon is often classed with the as an art critic as well as an artist, Redon in a newspaper Symbolist painters of the 1880s, the most famous of review in his native Bordeaux of the Paris Salon of 18681 whom is Paul Gauguin, an acquaintance of Redon. Sym- voiced his disapproval of naturalistic art styles such as bolism was in many ways a kind of neo-Romanticism Realism (Gustave Courbet) and Impressionism (Edu- that looked back for inspiration to the artists of the first ard Manet and Monet). Redon half of the nineteenth century. felt that these artists, in their This is perhaps the connection focus on accurate depictions of between Wagner’s operas and The dreamlike quality of everyday reality, were turning Redon: Though we often empha- Redon’s early work continues away from the true source of art: size Wagner’s uniqueness, he the imagination, which the poet belonged to the Romantic move- in his Wagnerian subjects, Charles Baudelaire had called ment as much as older artists like particularly in his depictions “the queen of the faculties.” In the composers Carl Maria von the review Redon demonstrates a Weber and Hector Berlioz or the of Parsifal. tendency to generalize about art, painter Eugène Delacroix. Like rather than concentrating on one them, Wagner set his works in specific work after another like an idealized or mythical past. most other Salon reviewers. It is difficult to imagine him composing an opera on a Though the subjects of Redon’s later works became contemporary subject: Wagner has no Traviata. Redon’s less opaque and highly charged, they remained unusual choice of subjects was to be much the same. choices for an avant-garde painter in the era of Impres- If Wagner’s operas continued to inspire major French sionism: themes from Classical mythology, such as the (and British) visual artists, the leading modernist artists chariot of Apollo and the winged horse Pegasus, or tra- of late nineteenth-century Germany—Max Klinger, ditional religious subjects such as the Madonna, treated Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann—largely avoided Wag- in an untraditional manner. It is not surprising that nerian subjects, perhaps because they were overwhelmed Redon, especially in the later phase of his career, was by the composer’s reputation. The “musical” Klinger, attracted to Wagner’s world of remote Northern mythol- for example, had contributed to a memorial album for ogy, which, like most of Redon’s subjects, had little to do Wagner in 1884. Thereafter, though he collaborated with the realities of nineteenth-century urban life. The with Johannes Brahms on a large Brahms-Phantasie dreamlike quality of Redon’s early work continues in album of etchings and sheet music, and produced a his Wagnerian subjects, particularly in his depictions of colossal sculptural monument to a Jupiter-like Beethoven Parsifal. (Leipzig, Museum der Bildenden Künste; the reduced Redon was a competent amateur violinist and, as version is in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), Klinger did he wrote in his journal, To Myself, “a faithful listener not create any Wagnerian works. to concerts” who considered himself a “symphonist painter.”2 On the other hand, he had little opportunity

– 6 – A Publication of the Boston Wagner Society during his early career to familiarize himself with with a general chronology (Paris, Bibliothèque Jacques Wagner’s operas. Redon missed Wagner’s lavish 1861 Doucet). From the lists we learn that he began to treat Paris production of Tannhaüser, which failed, probably some Wagnerian subjects in 1884, the year following because it became entangled in French domestic parti- Wagner’s death, and continued to do so until at least san politics.3 Nor did he attend an 1869 production of 1905, when he began to stop recording the production Rienzi that, as Wagner predicted, was a popular success. and sale of his works. After the disastrous Franco-Prussian War and siege of Redon’s opinions about specific composers, as Paris in 1870–71, nationalistic hostility in effect banned on other subjects, can be difficult to pin down. His German opera, even in translation, from Parisian stages musical tastes seem to have been wide-ranging; his for two decades. As late as 1887, a production of Lohen- friends claimed he was interested in the music of Bach, grin at the Eden-Théâtre had to be canceled after one Beethoven, and César Franck, among others. In his performance. The principal mode of gaining familiarity journal, however, with its discussions of many painters, with Wagner’s operas in France (and indeed in much Redon devotes sections to only two composers: Robert of the rest of Europe) was through piano transcriptions Schumann and Hector Berlioz, exemplars of “pure” played at home, with which Redon was familiar (he was instrumental composition, since their operas were little friendly with the Wagnerian-influenced composer Ernest known. (He also executed a Symbolist Homage to Robert Chausson and the Catalan piano virtuoso Ricardo Schumann in pastel.) Redon acknowledges the greatness Viñes) or through occasional concert performances of of the two composers without trying to define it. He is orchestral excerpts. We know that Redon attended the more interested in his view of their contrasting person- Concerts Lamoureux in Paris, where he heard music by alities: Schumann as generous and accepting, Berlioz Wagner.4 A reluctant traveler, Redon in correspondence (Redon’s primary subject) as ambitious, angry, and later mused about a visit to the Bayreuth Festival: disappointed.7 Before leaving Paris I heard Tannhaüser with great Redon’s only mention of Wagner in To Myself was writ- emotion. That gives me the desire to go to Bayreuth ten in 1882, the year the composer presented Parsifal. It one day; that would suggest crowds of ideas to me. comes in a discussion of the lithographs of Henri Fantin- What a new art, for the eyes as well! Latour, probably the best-known contemporary inter- preter of Wagnerian themes. After critiquing the older Yes, Wagner, with his cycles and the whole world painter’s emphasis on “worldly” external detail and his that he evokes, the ink that has spilled about him, handling of color and composition, Redon continues: was really somebody. We must not yet really judge all Laborious and careful research led this artist to that. His writings make me think.5 attempt the interpretation of music through paint- In the end, however, Redon never made the pilgrim- ing, forgetting that no color can render the musical age to Bayreuth. Rather than regarding Wagner’s works world which is uniquely and deeply internal and as the culmination of modern art, Redon preferred to without any support from real nature. Not having use them as a source of reflection and inspiration for his succeeded, he doubtless takes revenge in discharg- own work. ing his sorrows through lithography in pale, soft Since Redon did not date his works, little was known sketches on the poems of the musician, Wagner. But about their evolution until the recent publication of whether he draws out of the “libretti” of Brahms, his livre de raison, or listing of authentic works.6 A few Schumann, or Berlioz, it is always the expression of earlier painters had kept such books or lists, though a vague German sentimentality that is not new for us true to his less organized persona as a writer, Redon’s and that needs to be given with less emphasis.8 livre consists of several lists of works, payment records, In discussing Fantin’s art, Redon inverts a criticism and so on, arranged according to a variety of criteria. of Wagner that was common in France in the 1850s and Three notebooks record sales of works; “noirs” or draw- 1860s: that Wagner was trying (perhaps through his ings, as well as pastels and oil paintings; and prints

– 7 – Wagneriana early use of the Leitmotif) to imitate the effects of realist mention. With Mallarmé, the unofficial arbiter of the painting in his works (“the Courbet of music”). Redon’s literary avant-garde, Redon planned to produce a lavish attitude toward Fantin must have been ambivalent, since artist’s book of the poet’s works, though Mallarmé’s the older painter appears to have taught him the tech- death prevented its completion. nique of transfer lithography, which was the basis of At this time Richard Wagner’s influence in France Redon’s early success. In his writings, Redon repeatedly was exerted less through his music than his writings, speaks with approval of the suggestive, indeterminate, or especially his popularization of the idea of the Gesa- ambiguous nature of music as a model for visual artists. mtkunstwerk, the synthesis or union of the arts in one His belief in the esthetic superiority of the art of music, work.12 Both Huysmans and Mallarmé contributed arti- due to its abstract or intuitive nature, was widespread cles on Wagner to the important literary journal Revue among visual artists and theorists of the time. As the wagnérienne, founded in 1885. Redon first recorded a English art critic Walter Pater wrote, “All art aspires to Wagnerian subject in his livre de raison in 1884: A War- the condition of music.”9 In most of his own Wagnerian rior: For Wagner. This drawing, probably in charcoal, works, Redon avoids the dramatic scenes often favored was undoubtedly a response to the composer’s death in by Fantin-Latour, preferring static images (with the the preceding year. The work is lost. important exception of Brünnhilde’s immolation) that capture the spiritual quality or essence of the character he is depicting. Many commentators on Redon’s work have noted his use of Wagnerian subjects. In recent years a number of art-historical studies have been devoted to the Wagnerian images, mainly the lithographs, and in the broader context of artists’ interest in Wagner in the late nineteenth century.10 There is no study discussing all of Redon’s Wagnerian pictures, which include four lithographs, a charcoal drawing, and two pastel paintings. Additional works by Redon on Wagnerian themes once existed but are now lost. The Wagnerian subjects make up only a small part of Redon’s oeuvre and cannot be considered in isolation from his work as a whole. Nev- ertheless, the surviving Wagnerian works are consistent in subject matter—only Brünnhilde and Parsifal are depicted—over a period of more than twenty years. These subjects are drawn from Wagner’s most recently produced works: the Ring operas, premiered in their complete form at Bayreuth in 1876, and Parsifal of 1882. Redon’s career followed an unusual pattern: initially he was better known in literary than artistic circles.11 Among his critical champions were leading members of the literary avant-garde, including the novelist Joris- Karl Huysmans and the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. In Huysmans’s influential, anti-naturalistic novelA rebours ( , 1884), dealing with an eccentric Against the Grain Figure 1. Odilon Redon, Brünnhilde on Horseback, art collector and aesthete, Redon and the painter Gus- charcoal, c. 1885, sale, Bern, Kornfeld und Klipstein, tave Moreau are the only living artists given favorable 10–12 June 1971, no. 1088

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The first surviving Wagnerian subject picture listed in the livre de raison is a Brünnhilde, a charcoal drawing made in 1885 that was sold at auction in 1971 (Figure 1).13 The background of literary interest in Wagner may have provided an impetus for Redon’s turn to Wagnerian subjects: in 1885 he contributed to the Revue wagnéri- enne, probably by invitation, a second treatment of Brünnhilde, this time in lithography (Figure 2). Redon’s first twoBrünnhilde images, though nearly contemporary, are handled quite differently. The charcoal drawing is relatively large for a work on paper, more than twenty inches in height. Brünnhilde, her face in nearly full profile facing right, crouches atop her rearing horse, Grane. She wears a light shift that covers most of her torso while leaving the breasts exposed. She raises her right forearm, and in her hand is a small object she prepares to throw. This surely depicts Brünnhilde at the conclusion of Göt- terdämmerung, throwing the ring into the Rhine, which is shown as a small and rather placid stream at the right. Such a gesture would be clearer to the viewer than showing the heroine wearing the ring as she rides into the fire. Figure 2. Odilon Redon, Brünnhilde, lithograph, The mountainous landscape behind the figure at the left Revue wagnérienne, 1885 , TS 40.40, Harvard Theater is undefined. Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University Most unusually, the image shows a second, more sketchy Brünnhilde seated behind the first. She carries The critic Teodor de Wyzewa wrote about Redon a large, ornate circular shield behind her on the left, but in the Revue wagnérienne in June 1885, a few months otherwise her face and costume are not detailed. Her before the artist’s contribution to the journal. Wyzewa right arm is raised and her forearm and hand thrown far included Redon among the few practitioners of “Wagne- back, as if to hurl something forcefully. Grane also has a rian painting,” an imprecise term referring to artists who curious feature in possessing vestigial wings, suggesting worked by suggestion rather than description.14 Around that the artist might originally have thought of depicting the same time Léo Rouanet defended Redon’s art against the winged horse Pegasus, a subject he treated elsewhere. the accusation that it was too “literary,” citing Wagner’s In contrast to these unresolved elements, the horse’s head advocacy of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and Charles Morice and mane, and the grasses in the foreground, are treated and other literary critics linked the names of Wagner in detail. One might describe the sketchy Brünnhilde and Redon in their often diffuse theories of Symbolism, figure as a pentimento, drawn before an artist’s second sometimes to the painter’s dismay.15 thought or revision. While pentimenti are usually cov- Redon’s lithographic Brünnhilde of 1885 is a small ered over, however, Redon has intentionally left the entire work, proportioned to fit the dimensions of the Wagne- figure visible. He apparently regarded the drawing as rian journal. The subject’s face is in full profile, this time finished, and it is probably the work on this subject that he to the left, though her body, as in the earlier work, large- exhibited at the forward-looking Salon des XX in Brussels ly faces toward the viewer. Encased somewhat awkwardly in 1890. The indeterminate aspect of the composition, if in heavy armor with a helmet and large shield, she stands anything, enhances a “modern” quality that has appealed before a sketchy mountainous landscape, as in the char- to artists: the distinguished British sculptor Henry Moore coal drawing. She is shown here as she appears in Die (1898–1986) at one time owned the Brünnhilde. Walküre, still fully active as Wotan’s warrior daughter.

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Redon did not see the opera until the 1890s: perhaps Redon’s final version,Parsifal II, mentioned in the in Paris in 1893, and certainly in London in October livre de raison as completed by October 1891, has the 1895.16 Nevertheless, he was already familiar with it to same composition as the rejected plate, yet the two some extent, if only through the libretto. Brünnhilde’s images differ considerably (Figure 3). Judging from youthful, small, sensitive features and down-turned reproductions, the left side of the face in Parsifal I is in mouth seem to contrast with her formidable armor, sug- deep shadow. The dark eyes, which seem to glance to gesting a certain vulnerability. the viewer’s right, and the slightly asymmetrical mouth Redon’s earliest surviving depictions of Parsifal date give the figure an alert, active look. In the final version, from 1891. He had not seen Wagner’s opera, which at Parsifal’s broad face is smooth and more evenly lighted, this time was performed only in Bayreuth; neverthe- producing a decidedly youthful appearance. His large less Redon must have had some familiarity with Wag- eyes look forward yet are not focused, giving the figure ner’s version of the Parsifal legend. The piano and full a detached, dreamy quality that heightens the impres- scores of the opera had been published, and the plot and sion of his innocence. The decoration of his helmet and interpretation of Wagner’s work had been discussed in a costume, as well as the detail of the architectural set- detailed article by the critic Edouard Schuré in the Revue ting behind him, have been much reduced, placing all wagnérienne in 1885,17 as well as in later articles. The emphasis on the face. Although he already holds the subject interested other artists of the period: the young sacred spear that he wrested from Klingsor, Parsifal Belgian Symbolist Jean Delville, for example, produced hardly conveys the impression of a man of action. As at least two works related to the last act of Parsifal: a charcoal drawing of Parsifal as an androgynous, disem- bodied face in a state of ecstatic vision (1890; private collection); and a strange painting in which the hero peers from behind a curtain at the distant Monsalvat (1894; Brussels, Musées Royaux). By this time Redon was nevertheless the best-known artist working on Wagnerian subjects. Redon was thinking about the meaning of the Parsifal story by the summer of 1891, albeit in somewhat negative terms. Writing to a friend, Redon stated that, despite what moralists may say, older men (Redon was fifty-one) regret the unfulfilled desires of their youth. Referring no doubt to the hero’s encounter with the Flower Maidens and Kundry, Redon affirmed: “Renun- ciation, Parsifal to the contrary, leaves a malaise.”18 Redon began a lithograph showing Parsifal frontally at bust length, which we may call Parsifal I. A line from a crack in the lithographic stone at the level of the figure’s forehead caused Redon to reject the print after a few proofs were printed; only three are known today.19 Not wishing to waste the stone, Redon inverted it and depicted an aged druidess; the crack was hidden in the druidess’ costume. While not a Wagnerian subject, the Druidess suggests Redon’s casual attitude toward the interchangeability of male and female figures, which can Figure 3. Odilon Redon, Parsifal II, lithograph, 1891; sometimes be difficult to tell apart in his work. photograph © 2014 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bequest of W. G. Russell Allen, 60.698

– 10 – A Publication of the Boston Wagner Society in Jean Delville’s contemporaneous drawing, the figure has an androgynous quality, and it makes an interesting contrast to the similarly costumed but more force- ful-looking Brünnhilde in Redon’s earlier lithograph. Symbolist authors posited Parsifal’s androgyny as an aspect of his sexual purity and spirituality. While Redon maintained a certain distance from the Symbolist and spiritualist currents of the time, he certainly was aware of this interpretation of the hero’s personality, which has some support in statements made by Wagner himself.20 Redon attempts to convey Parsifal’s spiritual essence, rather than the events of the story; in this he is faithful to Wagner’s opera, which relies more on the presentation of the characters’ thoughts and emotions than on scenes of action. Redon’s last Wagnerian lithograph, Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung), appeared in 1894, at a time when Redon was particularly interested in Wagner and his operas (Figure 4). In his livre de raison Redon listed an oil painting of Tannhäuser for 1894, around the time he saw this opera for the first time, but the painting is lost. Though the pose in the Brünnhilde is similar to that in the earlier lithographic image, the draftsmanship is com- Figure 4. Odilon Redon, Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung), pletely different. In contrast to the broad treatment of lithograph, 1894, www.metmuseum.org the earlier Brünnhilde and Parsifal II, Redon here uses a delicate linear style, particularly in the outline of the face and the long, flowing hair. While the caplike treatment Beardsley’s designs on Wagnerian themes were published of the head and the topknot somewhat recall the earlier in British journals; Redon also could have seen them in Brünnhilde’s helmet, the figure otherwise wears a loose- exhibitions during his trips to visit collectors in London.21 fitting dress instead of armor. Standing before faintly Beardsley’s drawings, though, have an erotic and satirical sketched tree trunks, Brünnhilde has only a flowering emphasis that is foreign to Redon’s seriousness. branch at left as her attribute. Her face, with its down- After 1900 Redon virtually ceased making litho- turned mouth, nevertheless shows the same determina- graphs or charcoal drawings, concentrating instead tion as in the earlier figure: perhaps she is plotting her on brilliantly colorful works in pastels or oil. He even revenge for Siegfried’s supposed betrayal. attempted large decorative paintings: these were com- Redon dated his emergence as an artist to the mid- missioned for specific locations and had to be executed 1870s, when he gave up trying to achieve “perfect” on site, since all of Redon’s earlier works had been drawing in an academic style; nevertheless, as this litho- completed in his Paris apartment. Estimates of the dates graph shows, he could draw very subtly when he wished of Redon’s late works vary widely, since around 1905 he to do so. Some critics have seen the influence of English stopped recording the completion and sale of his works Pre-Raphaelite art here or, in particular, the drawing in the livre de raison. style of the brilliant English illustrator Aubrey Beard- Even the recorded works are difficult to identify, due sley (1872–1898). Beardsley, unlike Redon, was a true to repetitions of titles and/or subjects. Redon’s move to “Wagner fanatic” who saw every Wagnerian operatic color opened many new formal possibilities, and some of performance he could attend in London or Paris. Many of the late works are in a loose technique that approaches

– 11 – Wagneriana abstraction. He continued, however, to produce works on A large pastel and charcoal titled Parsifal retains the same subjects as before. some of the strangeness of Redon’s earliest lithographs As already noted, Redon was relatively casual about (Figure 5). The work was long owned by members of the subject matter of his works, an attitude often regard- Redon’s family, who provided the identification of the ed today as “modern.” There is some evidence that subject. The work currently occupies a central place Redon himself was unsure of the subjects of some of in the Redon room of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. It is his works. In a list of 321 drawings in the livre de raison, relatively restrained in color, in keeping with the somber Redon describes the next to the last item as follows: tone of Wagner’s opera: the figure wears a black robe 320 Drawing. Is this a Parsifal, a bard, a barbarous and cowl, over which a gold-colored cloak is fastened by and mystic knight? a strap across the chest. His face is young and bearded, with large eyes, a dreamy expression, and tonsure-like Head covered and viewed from the front. hair. He stands before a landscape of high mountains Since Redon is usually specific about the medium, and a gold and pink sky. Redon does not include a Parsi- this does not seem to be a work that is known at the pres- fal in the chronological list of his later works, though ent time. The discussion of the work near the end of the there are various references to “Ohannès,” that is, Saint list may mean not that it is recent, but merely that the John the Baptist in the desert. A listing for “Saint John” artist postponed discussing this ambiguous subject until might indicate another traditional subject, Saint John the the end. Evangelist on the island of Patmos writing his Gospel. However, the usual iconographic attributes of these saints (an animal-skin cloak or an open book) are not present here. On the other hand, the figure does not hold a spear as in the earlier Parsifal lithographs. The monk- or pilgrimlike attire of the young figure in the pastel fits with the general meaning of the Parsi- fal story. In Wagner’s scenario an older Parsifal returns to Monsalvat dressed in armor, which he removes, but this detail is often omitted in productions. A hard-to- read outcropping at the upper right in the image may represent the knights’ castle. The loose handling of the pigments suggests that this is a late work, and special- ists have proposed various dates from 1890 onward, an unusual disparity for a picture by a well-known modern artist. The museum dates the Parsifal on stylistic grounds to 1912, a very late stage of Redon’s career. The work could have been done in two phases: an early drawing in charcoal (the black robe), whether of Parsifal or some other subject, later reworked in pastel colors, a pro- cedure Redon is known to have followed in other cases. The strong emotions expressed in the opera are notably absent in this representation, as in Redon’s lithographs of this subject. Redon again seeks to capture the charac- Figure 5. Odilon Redon, Parsifal, pastel and charcoal. ter’s spirituality, now not as androgyny but through the Photo: Hervé Lewandowski, Musée d’Orsay, Paris © RMN weary inwardness of Parsifal’s lowered gaze. – Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY The latest, and perhaps the most unusual, of Redon’s Wagnerian subjects is a pastel Brünnhilde, now in a

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calling for the female nude, and the Brünnhilde probably dates from this period. As in the earlier charcoal drawing, a detailed pentimento, above and to the left of Brünnhilde, is clearly visible under strong lighting. Yellow flames burst from the roof of a square castle tower representing Valhalla. Before it, sketched in an orange-red similar to Brünnhil- de’s hair, stands at least one armored figure with the right arm raised, echoing Brünnhilde’s gesture. This is perhaps the Valkyrie Waltraute, who had unsuccessfully urged Brünnhilde to give up the ring. Did Redon treat any Wagnerian subjects other than Brünnhilde and Parsifal? A lost painting of Tannhäuser has already been mentioned. At least one critic reports an undocumented drawing of Isolde, though it is not Figure 6. Odilon Redon, Brünnhilde on Horseback, possible to locate this work at present.22 The large retro- pastel, Collection of Dian Woodner, New York spective exhibition of Redon’s work at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 2011 included a little-known oil painting from private collection in New York (Figure 6). At twenty- a private collection depicting two figures in a boat at sea. nine inches in width, it is the largest of Redon’s surviv- Beginning in the late 1890s, Redon recorded more than a ing Wagnerian pictures. The heroine, as in the charcoal dozen works with the word “Barque” in the titles. Redon drawing of 1885, is again shown on her rearing horse, seems to have recorded the Paris picture in May 1907: in near profile to the right. Her right arm is held far “858 Boat (gray sail) four figures. Good small painting”. back to hurl the ring into the Rhine. If the composi- The boats in such pictures carry one or two passengers, tion is similar, the handling is radically different, with usually women; this scene is atypical in that it depicts two large blocks of brilliant, undefined color, extremely loose males. A large figure in a brilliant red cloak and hood sits drawing, and flat, “conceptual” modeling, especially in upright at the tiller, while a young figure in shirtsleeves the body of the horse, which is mostly blue in color. A leans wearily against his shoulder. In the front of the ves- large central core of orange indicates Siegfried’s burning sel, near the sail, are two ghostly forms, probably sailors. pyre, while the green and blue area at the right is associ- The curator of the Paris exhibition suggests that the ated with the Rhine. Grane’s rearing pose is explained picture depicts a scene from Tristan und Isolde.23 The by a water snake that crawls beneath his hooves; Redon action is not shown on the stage but is described in a has signed the work in this area. monologue by Kurwenal. When the wounded Tristan on Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the work is the awakening asks how he came from Cornwall to Brittany, depiction of Brünnhilde in the nude. The idea of a nude the loyal Kurwenal replies: Brünnhilde is certainly unusual, if not unique. It prob- No horse hither you rode: ably does not derive from any of the medieval epics Wag- a vessel bore you across. ner consulted during his preparations for the Ring. Nor But on my shoulders was Redon particularly known as an artist who depicted down to the ship the nude; although painting from the nude model was you had to ride: they are broad, long the core of the academic art curriculum, Redon they carried you to the shore. had relatively little formal training. In 1904 Redon, then Now you are at home once more; aged sixty-four, hired his first nude model. In the follow- your own the land, ing years he became more interested in painting subjects your native land. —— Tristan und Isolde, III, i

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In the painting the ship sails under a brilliant sky lithographs and etchings had already been published in the before high cliffs that might be found in a number of artist’s lifetime in André Mellerio’s Odilon Redon (Paris: Secrétariat, 1913). places along the coast of Britain or of Brittany, an area 7. To Myself, 117–19. where Redon regularly vacationed. The choice of a scene 8. Ibid., 130. not actually shown on the stage suggests that, if this is 9. Walter Pater, “The School of Giorgione,” Fortnightly indeed the subject, Redon was working from Wagner’s Review, October 1877, and subsequent editions. printed libretto. 10. Michael Tymkiw, “Pictorially Transcribing Music: The Although Redon claimed to have lost his early interest Wagner Lithographs of Henri Fantin-Latour and Odilon in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, he continued to pro- Redon,” in Martha Ward and Ann Leonard, eds., Looking duce pictures based on Richard Wagner’s operas in the and Listening in 19th Century France (Chicago: University of Chicago, Smart Museum of Art, 2007), 51–59, and late period of his career. Redon’s principal Wagnerian Rachel Sloan, “The Condition of Music: Wagnerism and subjects, Parsifal and Brünnhilde, exemplify different Printmaking in France and Britain,” Art History 32, no. 3 aspects of psychological and moral life. For Redon Parsi- (June 2009): 545–77. See also Astrid Sebb, Peinture Wag- fal, though a warrior, represents interiority and contem- nérienne: Phasen und Aspekte der Wagner-Rezeption in der französischen bildenden Kunst zwischen 1861 und 1914 (Diss., plation; as we know, Parsifal survives and eventually is University of Düsseldorf, 1999). recognized as king at Monsalvat. Brünnhilde’s engage- 11. Recently this aspect of Redon’s career has been exhaus- ment, in contrast, is exteriorized and uncompromising, tively analyzed in Dario Gamboni’s The Brush and the Pen: resulting in her death. Redon’s pictures of these subjects Odilon Redon and Literature (Chicago and London: Univer- demonstrate the strong interest Wagner’s operas contin- sity of Chicago Press, 2011). ued to arouse in some of the leading visual artists of the 12. Wagner’s influence on Symbolist literature and art, particularly in France, is discussed in Grange Wooley’s Richard late nineteenth century. Wagner et le symbolisme français (Paris: Presses Universi- NOTES taires de France, 1931) and Berlin, Akademie der Künste, Die Symbolisten und Richard Wagner (1991). 1. Odilon Redon, review of Paris Salon of 1868, in [Bor- deaux], La Gironde, 19 May, 9 June, 1 July, and 2 August 13. Bern, Kornfeld und Klipstein, Moderne Kunst, sale, 10–12 1868. See Odilon Redon, Critiques d’art, ed. Robert Cous- June 1971, no. 1088, ill. Tafel 16. tet (Bordeaux: W. Blake, 1987), 43–66. 14. Teodor de Wyzewa, “Peinture wagnérienne: Le Salon de 2. To Myself, trans. M. Jacob and J. L. Wasserman (New 1885,” Revue wagnérienne 1, no. 5 (8 June 1885): 155, and York: George Braziller, 1986), 19. The original French “Notes sur la peinture wagnérienne et la Salon de 1886,” edition, A soi-même (Paris: José Corti, 1923), was published Revue wagnérienne 2, no. 4 (8 May 1886): 113. after the artist’s death. Though the title was Redon’s own, 15. Léo Rouanet, “La 8e Exposition des impressionistes,” he did not finalize the contents and order of the work. [Perpignan] Le Passant (5 June 1886): 199–202, and 3. For Wagner’s influence on Parisian art in the 1860s, see Charles Morice, La Littérature de tout à l’heure (Paris: Per- Wagneriana 8, no. 4 (2011): 4–8, and Therese Dolan, rin, 1889), 281. Manet, Wagner, and the Musical Culture of Their Time 16. Lettres, 26, letter of October 1895 to Maurice Fabre. (Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013). 17. Edouard Schuré, “Parsifal,” Revue wagnérienne 1, no. 10 4. Lettres d’Odilon Redon, 1878–1916 (Paris and Brussels: Van (8 November 1885): 270–81. The journal subsequently Oest, 1923), 23, letter of 1895 to Maurice Fabre. published other articles about this opera, including one 5. Ibid., 25 and 27, letters of 7 August 1895 to Andries by Houston Stewart Chamberlain, later the husband of Bonger and 4 August 1896 to Maurice Fabre. Wagner’s daughter Eva, as well as a sonnet by the poet Paul Verlaine. 6. Paris, Grand Palais, Odilon Redon: Prince de rêve, 1840– 1916, ed. Rodolphe Rapetti, 2011. The catalogue of this 18. To Myself, 14, letter of 25 August 1891 to Maurice Fabre. major exhibition includes a transcription, “Le ‘Livre de 19. See Tymkiw, “Pictorially Transcribing Music,” fig. 49; also raison’ d’Odilon Redon,” in CD-ROM format. A mas- Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Inge Christine Swenson, “A sive catalogue raisonné of Redon’s paintings and draw- new ‘Parsifal’ by Odilon Redon,” Print Collector’s Newsletter ings, published before the livre de raison became available, 7, no. 4 (September–October 1976): 108. is arranged not in the usual chronological order but by 20. Jean-Jacques Nattier, Wagner androgyne (Paris: Christian subject matter: Alec Wildenstein et al., Odilon Redon: Bourgeois, 1990), 195–96, quoting Cosima Wagner, Tage- Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint et dessiné (Paris: Wilden- bücher (27 June 1880). stein Institute, 1992–98), 4 vols. A catalogue of Redon’s

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21. On the possible mutual influences of Beardsley’s and Redon’s Wagnerian subjects, see Sloan, “Condition of Music,” esp. 565–67. Upcoming Events 22. Suzy Levy, in Odilon Redon: Lettres inédites (Paris: Corti, 1987), 162, mentions a drawing of this subject in the col- A Family Affair: Music of Liszt, lection of Redon’s patron Andries Bonger in Almen, The Netherlands. The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, which von Bülow, and two Wagners now houses most of this collection, has no record of a work Concert of this kind. (Lucinda Timmermans, personal communication, May 1, 2014.) Maestro Jeffrey Brody uses his highly expressive keyboard skills to 23. Paris, Grand Palais, 2011, cat. 116 (text by Rodolphe provide a sonic feast Rapetti). Sunday, October 5, 3 p.m. —— – Donald Rosenthal Park Avenue Congregational Church 50 Paul Revere Road (intersection of Park Donald Rosenthal is a member of the Advisory Commit- Avenue) tee of the Boston Wagner Society and associate editor of Arlington, MA 02476 Wagneriana. Advance tickets: $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students; $20 and $12 at the door For tickets, call 781-643-8680 and leave a message Reception to follow the concert

Artists and Wagner in 19th-Century France Talk and presentation by Dr. Marian Burleigh-Motley Sunday, October 26, 2014, 2 p.m. Hunnemann Hall Public Library of Brookline 361 Washington Street Brookline, MA 02445 Free and open to all

Musical Revolution in the Ring Talk and presentation by Maestro Asher Fisch With samples from Seattle’s Ring Cycle

Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 6 p.m.

Hunnemann Hall Public Library of Brookline 361 Washington Street Brookline, MA 02445 Free and open to all

– 15 – Wagneriana associate editor, and a member of its advisory board. This essay is about French Editor & Publisher: Dalia Geffen painter Odilon Redon’s paintings of Wagner’s operas, with beautiful color Associate Editor: Donald illustrations. Third but not least, we have an entertaining segment from Saul Rosenthal Lilienstein’s book Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung: An Interpretive Journey. Designer: Susan Robertson We have a partial list of events planned for the 2014–15 season for you. In Proofreader: Paul Geffen October Dr. Marian Burleigh-Motley, lecturer at the Metropolitan Opera Guild Logo design: Sasha Geffen and until 2009 head of the Office of Academic Programs at the Metropolitan Wagneriana is a publication of the Boston Wagner Society, Museum of Art and lecturer in the Concerts and Lecture program, will give a copyright © The Boston Wagner talk and presentation titled “Artists and Wagner in 19th-Century France: From Society, Inc. Delacroix to Cézanne.” In January, by popular request, Maestro Asher Fisch We welcome contributions to returns to the Boston Wagner Society to present “Musical Revolution in the Wagneriana. Please contact us at [email protected] or Ring,” about the historic significance of the musical innovations Wagner made 617-323-6088. as he pushed back the boundaries of the art form when he created the Ring. The Web: program will have samples from Seattle’s much-loved production of the Ring. www.bostonwagnersociety.org. Address: Boston Wagner Society, More events will be added on an ongoing basis. P.O. Box 320033, Boston, MA —— Dalia Geffen 02132-0001, U.S.A.

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Do you want to know what goes on behind the scenes Boston luminaries, as well as members. Familiarity at the Boston Wagner Society? Are you interested in with the computer is a big plus. learning the great variety of activities that keep our In addition, we are looking for a web designer. If society going? Come and discover for yourself all that you have the itch to be creative and design a brand- we do on a regular basis! The Boston Wagner Society new web site for the Boston Wagner Society with is involved in many different activities and is look- Word Press, an easy-to-use web-designing program, ing for an office assistant who can come in for 5 to 10 we would love to hear from you! To learn more hours a week to do a variety of tasks. Some of these about each of these volunteer positions, email us at tasks include searching for images online, helping with [email protected] or call 617-323-6088. We the newsletter, keeping mailing lists up to date, run- look forward to hearing from you! ning errands, and contacting musicians, speakers, and

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