The Unknown Wagner

While the Royal Opera at Covent Garden is doing their Ring cycle (sans Bryn Terfel), they've also spiced up the usual attendant lectures and exhibits with a concert of Wagner Rarities. The program includes excerpts from his first operatic effort, Die Hochzeit, the 1850 attempts at Siegfrieds Tod, Henze's orchestration of the Wesendonck songs, and the opening of something called Männerlist größer als Frauenlist, or Die glückliche Bärenfamilie--no doubt the difficulty involved in pronouncing the title doomed the effort.

Southbank Sinfonia/Barlow: Wagner Rarities - MusicalCriticism.com (concert review)

Chasms of Poe's Brain

Whose head is swinging from the swollen strap?
Whose body smokes along the bitten rails,
Bursts from a smoldering bundle far behind
In back forks of the chasms of the brain,--
Puffs from a riven stump far out behind
In interborough fissures of the mind . . . ?
***
That last night on the ballot rounds, did you,
Shaking, did you deny the ticket, Poe?
--Hart Crane, The Bridge

A new theory of what killed Edgar Allan Poe: brain tumor.


Poe’s Mysterious Death: The Plot Thickens! The New York Observer

Young Conductor Watch

Asher Fisch (StageDoor) is just named principal guest conductor of the Seattle Opera (via Arts Journal). I haven't heard him conduct aside from some YouTube clips, but he has already built a reputation as a Wagner conductor.

A New Approach to Thematic Programming

I've been enjoying a biography of the French composer Alberic Magnard, who flourished at a time when enmity between France and Germany was high, and felt not only by the people but by artists as well. Romain Rolland, the writer, music lover, pacifist, popularizer of Indian mysticism, and Stalin-boosting communist--and also acquaintance of Magnard--had a brilliant suggestion for dealing with nationalism on concert programs. In speaking out against a decision at the 1905 Strasbourg festival to schedule a small piece of Charpentier before a concert performance of the last scene of Meistersinger--in effect marginalizing the French composition--he wrote: "If one wants to have a joust between German and French music, let it be on equal terms: oppose Berlioz to Wagner, Debussy to Strauss, and Dukas or Magnard to Mahler." (quoted in: Perret, Simon-Pierre and Harry Halbreich: Alberic Magnard. Paris: Fayard, 2001, p. 259)

I like the idea of dueling pieces on concert programs. It might be more instructive than some of the anemic thematic programming that is so fashionable these days.

Webcast Alert

Those who are fond of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants--and who isn't?--can catch a webcast of their upcoming production of Landi's Il Sant' Alessio this Thursday, October 18, according to Playbill Arts. And here's the best part: The video will be offered in streaming format for 24 hours after the live webcast. Check the link for complete information.