Wagneriana

Du konntest morden? Hier im heil’gen Walde, Summer 2008 dess’ stiller Frieden dich umfing? Volume 5, Number 3

—Parsifal

From the Editor

he Boston Wagner Society will turn five on September 20. We are planning some festivities for that day that will include live music. This special event will be open to members and their guests only. Invitations will be forthcom-ing.

This year we have put in place new policies for applying for tickets to the Bayreuth Festival. Before you send in your application for 2009, please make sure that you have read these policies (see page 7). Here is a sneak preview of the next season’s events: a talk by William Berger, co-host of Sirius Met Opera’s live broad-casts and author of Wagner without Fear: Learning to Love–and Even Enjoy–Opera’s Most Demanding Genius (on October 18); a talk by Professor Robert Bailey, a well-known Wagnerian scholar and the author of numerous articles on Wagner, titled “Wagner’s Beguiling Tristan und Isolde and Its Misunderstood Aspects” (on November 15); an audiovisual presentation comparing the Nibelungenlied with Wagner’s Ring Cycle, by Vice President Erika Reitshamer (winter 2009). We will add more programs as needed. Due to space limitations, in this issue we are omitting part 4 of Paul Heise’s article “The Influence of Feuerbach on the Libretto of Parsifal.” The series will resume in the next issue.

–Dalia Geffen, President and Founder

Wagner from a Buddhist Perspective

Paul Schofield, The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner’s Ring (New York: Amadeus Press, 2007)

he Redeemer Reborn is a very important book. Dense in ideas and analyses but not in language, this long-overdue work offers an unconventional, refreshing, and joyful way to grasp Wagner’s vast worldview. In so many ways this astute and penetrating book turns

the established Wagnerian canon on its head and demonstrates what we have always dimly intuited about Wagner’s works but haven’t had the foresight or courage to express. Here is one example: Wagnerian scholars have always maintained that the composer was much influenced by the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and the denial of will, as demonstrated in the ending of the Ring Cycle (which Wagner changed from a more optimistic denouement). Schofield notes: “We are certainly aware of the great tragedy that has just taken place, but emotionally, when we leave the theater, it is with thoughts of hope, renewal, and faith in the fundamental goodness of life. Nothing could be more anti-Schopenhauerian. . . . Wagner has transcended Schopenhauer” (pp. 31–32). To a Wagnerian, this rings so true that one is glad that a scholar has finally brought this to our attention. Similarly, the quest for the Grail, rather than representing an abdication, is a search for enlightenment and renewal. Schofield, who is a Buddhist monk on leave from his monastery, maintains that what Parsifal gives up “is not the will, but the pursuit of desire and illusion” (page 34). The reader and listener will instinctively agree with this point of view, since the music speaks to us in the same terms as Schofield’s prose. Another major theme in the book is the idea of a character reborn in a subsequent opera in an attempt to expiate for his or her earlier failures. In Buddhist terms, this is the teaching of karma, which, of course, Wagner was familiar with

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from his readings, as Schofield amply demonstrates with quotations from Cosima’s diary. For instance, Alberich, the rejected lover, is reborn as Klingsor, who cannot control his sexual urges. Klingsor fails to change this karma and to achieve salvation, since self-mutilation does not signify self-control. Wotan, too, after his final renunciation in the Ring, is reborn as Amfortas in Parsifal but has not yet atoned sufficiently to expiate his overweening ambition. Brünnhilde, a Promethean figure guilty of participating in Siegfried’s murder, is reborn as Kundry, but in this case the character does achieve salvation at the end of Parsifal. Likewise, Parsifal, as the reincarnation of the foolish and thoughtless Siegfried in the Ring Cycle, acquires wisdom and becomes a redeemer. Schofield, a writer, musician, Wagnerian scholar for more than thirty years, and former editor of Leitmotive, in refreshingly accessible language, discusses the importance of Greek tragedy in Wagnerian drama from a Buddhist perspective, showing the consequences of arete, or “the attempt to make the universe answerable to one’s own individual will” (page 57). “The Ring,” writes Schofield, “is a portrayal of misdirected arete on the grandest of scales” (page 60). Schofield, who has thought deeply about these matters, then examines the Arthurian legends in great detail and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s work Parzival. He notes the parallels between the Volsunga Saga and the Arthurian legend in all their permutations. There is much to be savored in this very learned book, particularly when on page 74 Schofield sums up the importance of Wagner’s works in the following words: “Wagner gave musical and dramatic expression to the primal emotions in all of us that are suppressed . . . for and by society. . . . Wagner lets them loose, opening all the doors to our deepest consciousness.” Due to Schofield’s wide-ranging mind and complicated subject matter, more subheadings would have helped the reader greatly. As it is, the reader must frequently refer back several pages to remember the original thread of the dis-cussion. A more detailed index would have helped too. On the whole, though, Schofield has done an admirable job of distilling a tremendous amount of information and presenting it step by step, without overwhelming the reader. The Redeemer Reborn deserves a prominent place on any Wagnerian bookshelf. For an interview with the author, “A Discussion on Wagner and Buddhism,” see page 4.

–Dalia Geffen

A Defense of Regietheater

Patrick Carnegy, Wagner and the Art of the Theatre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)

t’s rare that I fall in love with a book early in its introduction, but Patrick Carnegy’s Wagner and the Art of Theater is such a work. Published during a conflict of major pro-portions among audiences, critics, and production teams over contemporary production

styles, Carnegy’s book states boldly that operas exist to be interpreted in the light of the specific experience of the generations following the era of their creation. He backs up his thesis with impressive documentation, not least from the opinions of Richard Wagner himself. Carnegy stands by a fact insufficiently understood by audiences: the majority of the great opera composers were creatures of the theater, Wagner supreme among them, as recognized by his old Viennese nemesis Eduard Hanslick, who shortly after the composer’s death deemed Wagner “the world’s first Regisseur.” Those who decry Regietheater might consider that Wagner may well have pioneered it. Wagner’s family was steeped in theater and opera during an era in provincial Germany when an actor for spoken drama and an opera singer were most often one and the same person—a combination of talents he would strive to bring to the major opera stages of Europe. His own first stage appearance was at the age of four, his apprenticeship including stage management, choral directing, dance, acting (Nietzsche considered Wagner the finest actor he had ever seen—a skill that may illuminate his personal and political relationships off-stage as well), and various jobs backstage. Carnegy drops several surprises in the course of his narrative, ascribing to the eventually aborted premiere of Die Feen the story almost universally told of Tannhäuser: Wagner refused to allow an Arabian Nights–style palace hall to be pulled from the theater’s stock and used for the Wartburg, and Wagner was against strict historical realism in staging his music dramas and actually preferred a stylized, mythologized design concept for his settings, one that put them into a timeless evocation of the locations into which he placed his characters. With this fact in mind, Carnegy follows his chronicle of Wagner’s premieres (and the expansion of his understanding of the interdependence of sight, sound, and text onstage) with a fascinating, detailed look at the “ripple effect” of the com-poser’s reforms and theories on the arts after his death—all the arts, not just theater and opera—in Europe and America. A great advantage to Carnegy’s writing is its virtually complete avoidance of theoretical jargon. He lays out clearly the lines of descent from the composer through Gustav Mahler and designer Alfred Roller in Vienna; through Konstantine Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold to Sergei Eisenstein in Russia; through Otto Klemperer and Caspar Neher at the Kroll Opera in Berlin; and through Swiss visionary Adolphe Appia to all of the above and then back to the source in the work of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner in post–World War II Bayreuth. Carnegy documents proposed productions, ex-

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perimental productions, great productions, failed productions—and the unceasing fascination with Wagner’s work that drove generations of men and women in both theater and opera. The reader, however, need not be conversant with either the technical or the critical terminology of the stage to understand anything that is discussed in this eminently readable, highly informative book. The most controversial part of the book for most contemporary Wagner lovers will be the detailed analyses of post–World War II Wagner productions in the Russian Zone of Occupation—East Germany. It is here that Carnegy confronts the issue of whether there have ever been productions that would fully have pleased Wagner, who was frustrated by the failure of so many stagings of his operas, not least his own direction of the premiere of the Ring of the Nibelung in 1876. Not only does Carnegy embrace these Soviet-era Walter Felsenstein– and Berthold Brecht–influenced productions by di-rectors like Götz Friedrich, Joachim Herz, Harry Kupfer, and—especially—Ruth Berghaus (a devil woman to traditional-ists), he believes that the unique political restrictions in which they worked and which they incorporated into their pro-ductions addressed Wagner’s needs as no others previously had. Carnegy points out clearly that the East German Wagnerians profoundly influenced the second decade of New Bayreuth; Herz’s 1960 Meistersinger, set not in Renaissance Nürnberg but in an Elizabethan theater, was appropriated by Wieland Wagner in 1963. In doing so, Wagner’s grandson recognized that Herz’s concept solved for him the overwhelm-ing political problem of placing Meistersinger on the stage in a historically re-created Nürnberg in post-Nazi Germany. The Elizabethan-theater setting distanced the opera from the massive National Socialist Party congresses held in a field just outside the city, uncomfortably similar to the one that contains Meistersinger’s final scene. After Wieland’s death, his brother, Wolfgang, opened the Festival Theater to these directors from the Marxist East in the third decade of New Bayreuth. Carnegy’s discussion of Götz Friedrich’s 1972 Tannhäuser (the production so contemp-tuously dismissed by Erich Leinsdorf in his book) throws many questions in the audience’s lap concerning the place of politics in art and the necessity of relating productions to the audience’s experience rather than creating a museum ex-hibit—questions that opera-goers who insist that politics should never be “introduced” into opera seriously need to con-sider. The entire book is informed by careful scholarship and a keen understanding of theater, which Patrick Carnegy obvi-ously believes opera to be. In fact, while discussing the various styles through which Wagner’s operas passed as they left the nineteenth century and made their way through the tumultuous twentieth, he presents a comprehensive overview of the many “isms” that tumbled over each other in the struggle to supplant realism. Wagner and the Art of Theater is essen-tial reading for anyone looking to navigate the culture wars onstage, learn how production concepts are really conceived and developed, or enjoy one of the best performing-arts books in recent memory.

–William Fregosi William Fregosi, a member of the Boston Wagner Society, is a retired Technical Coordinator for Theater Arts at M.I.T., as well as a freelance artist, theatrical designer, and writer and lecturer on opera

Revisiting “Neu-Bayreuth” Götterdämmerung; Wolfgang Schmidt, Deborah Polaski, Eric Halfvarson, Falk Struckmann, Ekkehard Wlaschiha, Hanna Schwarz, Anne Schwanewilms. Conductor: James Levine. Staged by Alfred Kirchner. Sets by Rosalie. Video direction by Horant H. Hohlfeld. Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus (1997). Deutsche Grammophon DVD. Video: 16:9. Stereo and DTS 5.1 sound. Length: 275 minutes.

hen the Met launched its Otto Schenk production of the Ring in 1986, this event was seen as an attempt to return the Ring to its original visual and conceptual roots, do-ing away with the socio-political overtones that had become standard since the 1976

Chéreau Ring. Whether this attempt was successful or not is still being debated. Another approach was tried in Bayreuth in 1994, with a Ring directed by Alfred Kirchner. Kirchner also did not impose any ”concept” on the production. However, rather than return to naturalistic sets like the Met’s, Kirchner’s production opted for an abstract setting visually similar to the ”Neu Bayreuth” style of the 1950s and 1960s. The entire Ring takes place on a disc representing the world (sound familiar?). Sets are minimal, and lighting is key. You won’t see fire and smoke at the end of this performance. All the effects are done with lighting alone, and I found this very impressive. What made this Ring so controversial in its day were the designs of Rosalie, particularly the costumes. Some audience members could never see anything beyond them, even though the costumes were mere abstract representations. They found them too distracting. I had the opportunity to see this Ring during three Festival seasons in the 1990s, which proba-bly helped me to put the costumes in perspective. The director and designer were always roundly booed during the cur-tain calls—Kirchner for having no ”concept,” and Rosalie for her designs. Booing, of course, is not unusual at Bayreuth. Levine was sometime booed for his slow tempos, and Heldentenor Wolfgang Schmidt often received a smattering of

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boos. Still, to my mind, this Ring was more successful than many others, and its abstract setting gave viewers the oppor-tunity to form their own opinions on the stage action. One might ask when the other three operas from this cycle are going to be released on video. Unfortunately, the an-swer is “never.” This opera was the only one to be videotaped. Evidently funding couldn’t be obtained for the remaining operas in the final year of the production in 1998. Also, I believe that Bayreuth taped this so that they would have at least one Levine performance on record. Until then, Levine, who had been conducting there since 1982, had not been involved in any video production (Barenboim, by contrast, was in seven videos during his Bayreuth stint). Like most Bayreuth vid-eos, this was taped during rehearsals so that camera and microphone placements could be optimized and singers would be well rested. Here Bayreuth has assembled one of the best casts possible. At that time Schmidt and Halfvarson were singing these roles all over the world, and Polaski was in her prime. With Schmidt, there was never any question of whether he had enough voice to sing Siegfried; nevertheless his has never been a voice I’ve enjoyed much. Still, he acquits himself well enough, particularly in the third act. Polaski gives a committed performance as Brünnhilde, with plenty of voice and nu-ance. Occasionally her high notes are of uncertain pitch, but overall this is an excellent performance. The real star of this production, however, is Eric Halfvarson as Hagen, whose black bass and excellent acting dominate the proceedings. Smaller roles are cast from strength, as was usual at Bayreuth during this period. Ekkehard Wlaschiha makes the most of his brief scene as Alberich. The Norns consist of Brigitta Svendén (also Erda in this Ring), Yvonne Naef (recently Cas-sandre in Les Troyens with the BSO), and Frances Ginzer (now a Brünnhilde in her own right). Falk Struckmann and Anne Schwanewilms are effective as the doomed Gibichungs. Hanna Schwarz (who is also Fricka) gives an excellent perform-ance as Waltraute. As for the conducting, although Levine had a tendency to slow things down at Bayreuth relative to the Met, the over-all timing here is about the same as at his Met performances. During the early years of this Ring one of Levine’s Rheingolds had clocked in at a mind-numbing three hours. In this performance, however, tension is maintained, and the conducting never feels slow. Even with the ”blended” Bayreuth sound, Levine brings out the details of the score quite clearly. I waited for over 10 years for this video to be released. It’s unfortunate that the entire Ring will never be seen, relegat-ing this Götterdämmerung to the status of a mere curiosity. In a future issue, I will review the just-released Bayreuth Tristan und Isolde from the mid-1990s, directed by Heiner Müller. It, too, is being released in this country for the first time, which leaves one more video from the 1990s to be re-leased: Wolfgang Wagner’s Parsifal, with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting.

–Carleton Gebhardt Carleton Gebhardt is the Bayreuth Coordinator of the Boston Wagner Society.

A Discussion on Wagner and Buddhism

On April 19, 2008, Paul Schofield, author of The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner’s Ring, gave a talk to the Boston Wagner Society on Wagner and Buddhism. A lively discussion ensued, which we had to curtail due to time constraints. Here is an interview with Paul Schofield. If anyone has more questions for Mr. Schofield, please submit them to us, and he will be happy to answer them. BWS: If Wagner, as you say in your book, was so heavily influenced by Buddhism at the time and his message in this work is really a Buddhist message, why is it filled with, and built around, Christian symbols and imagery? PS: By the wording of your question, I assume you are talking about Parsifal. But my thesis in The Redeemer Reborn is that Parsifal cannot be separated from the Ring. The Ring and

Parsifal constitute one five-opera cycle, and the Ring is not Christian. In the course of the Ring and Parsifal as one work, Wagner uses Buddhist, Christian, and pagan symbolism all together in one cohesive process. The key here is what Wagner wrote at the beginning of Religion and Art: “One could say that at the point where religion becomes artificial it is for art to preserve the essence of religion by grasping the symbolic value of its mythic symbols, which the

former would have us believe in their literal sense, so that the deep, hidden truth in them might be revealed by their ideal representation.” In other words, it is up to art to portray in symbolic form the inner truths of religion. This is what the Ring and Parsifal as one work do. Wagner is not trying to convert us to any one outward religious system. He is not concerned with a literal interpretation of religious doctrine or dogma. He is concerned with symbol. We must there-fore look beyond the outward form and see the inner truth expressed through that outward form. Sometimes the outward form is Christian, sometimes Buddhist, sometimes pagan. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the inner truth Wagner is communicating to us. As to the outward form of Parsifal, Wagner used the traditional legend for his story line, and by the time of the

Paul Schofield at his April 19, 2008, lecture for

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romance writers, the Grail stories had become Christianized. As I explain in my book, Die Sieger was the forerunner of Parsifal. What Wagner had originally conceived as a Buddhist opera set in India in the time of the Buddha became an opera based on the Grail legend of Perceval/Parzival. When Wagner was asked why he never completed Die Sieger, he said that he had never been to India, and that he didn’t know the sights and sounds and smells of India, and therefore didn’t feel that he could write a drama set there. But he did know Bavaria, and so he set his drama according to the Grail legend. But the Buddhist symbolism is still there, along with both Christian and Pagan symbolism, as I explain in detail in my book. As Zen Buddhism says, do not mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. BWS: One of the main theses of your book is that the Ring is carried over into Parsifal in a more enlightened version due to what the characters have learned in the Ring. One of these rebirths is Siegfried as Parsifal. Why does it seem as if the young Siegfried is more advanced than Parsifal, who knows nothing of himself, kills animals, and does not know why? PS: Siegfried is not more advanced than the young Parsifal. We know much more about the young Siegfried, but he too is wild, violent, ignorant about the ways of the world, and in search of his mother. The difference is that there is a seed in the young Parsifal that was not there in Siegfried, and that seed is awakened during Gurnemanz’s admonishment at the killing of the swan. Once again we must remember that Wagner is using symbol. He is pointing toward a great truth. If we become too literal concerning the symbol, we will miss the truth. BWS: We normally think of Wagner as being perfectly aware and in charge of everything he writes. In chapter 6 of your book (pages 196-97), you mention that Wagner thought Wotan is reincarnated as Titurel, when in fact he is reborn as Amfortas. So was Wagner unaware of the Wotan-Amfortas link? Was he in fact mistaken? PS: Many people have asked me how much of my thesis Wagner consciously understood, and how much he only intuited. On pages 222–23 I explain why Wotan is reborn as Amfortas and not Titurel. It’s not that Wagner was mistaken, it is that he still accepted Schopenhauer’s view of renunciation of the will, which, as I explain in chapter 1, is not in accord with Buddhist teaching. Wagner never wrote an essay detailing my whole thesis. Much of what is in the Ring and Parsifal is intuited. The quotes I use in the book show what Wagner did consciously intend, but he did not have the advantage of a true Buddhist teacher, and thus there were aspects of Schopenhauer’s misunderstanding of Buddhism that Wagner was not aware of. Pete Seeger once said that there is always more in a good song than the songwriter originally intended. This is true for all good and great works of art, and the greater and more expansive the work, the greater the extent to which this will be true. We now have the advantage of more than a century in which to view Wagner’s works, and to see them in a light that even he could not have been completely aware of. BWS: On page 63, you write: “Siegmund and Sieglinde revel in the pride of being Volsungs, separate from all others.” You mention this in a negative sense, as a failing of theirs. But is it not true that they have no choice but to be themselves as demigods? Isn’t it perfectly natural that they would feel themselves apart from everyone else, more enligthened, more aware? Is this pride or just who they are? And Sieglinde is quite humble. In Act 2 of Die Walküre she feels terribly guilty and ashamed. Please explain. PS: In the context of Wagner’s scheme of the Ring, Siegmund and Sieglinde do not have complete free will. Thus, to a certain extent, they have no choice but to be themselves. It’s not that this is negative, as in a kind of evil or wrong, but rather that the two of them are not in harmony with their surroundings and not in harmony with the others in their world. They, like the other characters of the Ring, are unable to transcend and let go of self. At the root of any attachment to self is pride. Ultimately, it is Parsifal who is able to transcend and let go of self, and thus it is he who becomes the redeemer. My point on page 63 was simply that Siegmund and Sieglinde, like the others in the Ring, have their own form of pride. It is not only Alberich and Wotan who have this attachment. BWS: You cite Siegmund’s decision not to abandon Sieglinde as an example of his compassion, in contrast to the lack of compassion that Siegfried evinces toward Brünnhilde. It could be argued that Siegmund’s willingness to slay Sieglinde is a selfish act, that Siegmund feels if he can’t live, neither should Sieglinde. After all, what man would want to kill the woman he loves? Why deprive her of life? PS: Siegmund’s willingness to slay Sieglinde is not selfish. His reason is not, as you say, if he can’t live, neither should she. He says to Brünnhilde in the Todesverkündigung: “So long as she lives / I’ll allow no other to touch her: / if I have to die, / I will kill her first while she sleeps.” Siegmund will not trust anyone else to protect Sieglinde, and if he can’t, no one else will. His thought is out of care for Sieglinde’s welfare, not his own. At this particular point in the scene, his concern is only for her. BWS: It is curious that although Brünnhilde’s compassionate nature is awakened when she sees that Siegmund will not leave Sieglinde, she does not teach this compassion to Siegfried even though she says that she gives him all her

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wisdom. How come? And why does Brünnhilde say that she gains compassion only at the end of the Ring Cycle? PS: This is a complex question requiring a complex answer (see pages 241–44). What I can say briefly is that an initial awakening to compassion is not yet the full, deep, and matured compassion of the redeemer Parsifal, based on long suffering and great spiritual training. Brünnhilde could not teach compassion to Siegfried because she did not yet have it herself, at least not yet at the depth that she would have needed it. At the end of the Ring she says, “He, truest of all men, / betrayed me, / that I in grief might grow wise!” The German is the same wissend that we find in Parsifal: “Der reine Tor, durch mitleid wissend.” But this comes after everything she has gone through in the Ring. On the rock she didn’t have it yet. BWS: On page 71 of your book, you write what to me is a startling statement: “Parsifal is not yet completely purged of [karmic] violence, for when he is attacked by the knights at Klingsor’s castle he does defend himself.” Let me clarify one thing: According to Buddhist tenets, then, one must allow oneself to die rather than attack someone else? PS: Buddhism teaches us the Precepts, but allows us to make our own decisions. Buddhism simply tells us that whatever course of action we choose, we will experience the consequences. Like the Ten Commandments in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism teaches the Ten Great Precepts, and these Precepts start with “Do not kill.” Buddhism does not say that we can never defend ourselves, but only that we need to know the consequences of what we choose to do. Ultimately, we come to the same point as Jesus: we let ourselves be killed rather than choosing to kill someone else. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. One of the Buddha’s chief disciples, Moggallana, was attacked by robbers later in his life, and he allowed them to kill him rather than fight back. Before that, however, he tried to explain to them what the consequences of killing him would be. When they did not listen, he allowed them to kill him. Buddhism does not say that we all have to respond in the same way, but that there will be karmic consequences if we do choose to kill. It is up to us. Parsifal eventually renounces all violence, as he says at the end of the opera. “Then I was forced to despair / of holding unsullied the treasure / to defend and guard which / I earned wounds from every weapon; / for I dared not wield this / itself in conflict;/ unprofaned / I have borne it beside me / and now bring it home, / gleaming clean and bright before you, / the holy Spear of the Grail.” Parsifal took the violence of the world upon himself without returning it, and this cleansed the karma of his and Siegfried’s violent past. Ultimately, this is what we all must do, even if it means our death in a particular lifetime. But again, it is up to us. If we choose to kill, even in self-defense, there will be con-sequences, and we must be willing to accept them. Eventually, those in advanced spiritual training choose not to kill. BWS: You write that Alberich is reborn as Klingsor, and near a holy place such as Monsalvat, because some of Alberich’s karma was cleansed in the Ring due to suffering. But there is no evidence that Alberich has learned anything in the Ring. He may be suffering there because he is humiliated and yearns for the ring, but he has done nothing to redeem himself. How, then, do you explain Klingsor’s privileged contact with the knights in Parsifal? PS: Karma can be cleansed through suffering without any specific deed of atonement being made. We have to go beyond Christian terminology here, where the idea of sin and atonement is used for the cleansing of karma. Karma is more complex than sin and atonement. Alberich did not do any discernible deed to cleanse his karma. But he is reborn with the others in a circumstance where he has the opportunity to cleanse his karma. The reason for this has more to do with the nature of karmic bonds than with any specific deed done by Alberich. Wagner was vague about what happens to Alberich at the end, and Wagnerians have often discussed and argued about what happens to him. Does he die in the conflagration? Is he alive at the end, watching it all? Wagner doesn’t say. What is true is that Alberich was “hanging around” at all the events leading up to the end, and at the very least he would have seen the end of all his plans. There would have been not only suffering as a result, but also an insight into the nature of impermanence and the futility of machinations. Yes, we have to use our imaginations here. But the fact that Alberich did not do any specific deed to cleanse his karma is one of the reasons that the karma Klingsor inherits is so heavy, heavier than that of the others. Klingsor has the opportunity, but it’s harder for him than the others, and ultimately he fails where the others succeed.

–Dalia Geffen and Robert Reed Dalia Geffen and Robert Reed are, respectively, the President and Treasurer of the Boston Wagner Society.

Bayreuth Festival Ticket Policies for 2009

iven the increased demand for Bayreuth tickets in recent years, we have made some modifications in our ticket policy for 2009. This is to ensure that the limited number of tickets we receive are distributed as equitably as possible. Please read these instructions carefully.

Membership: Members may request one set of tickets each. To request two sets of tickets, a dual membership is required, or both persons must be members. Membership must be at the regular level. Priority will be given to those who have been members for more than a year. Priority will also be given to those who have not received tickets from the

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Boston Wagner Society (BWS) in the longest period of time–or have never attended. Members must maintain their membership through the 2009 calendar year. Ticket requests: Custom requests for tickets will no longer be accepted due to the difficulty of fulfilling exact requests. You may request one of three options:

• A Ring set • A non-Ring set • All seven operas

Tickets to individual operas are not available. In your request, please indicate your general price range (high, medium, or low). The performances will generally be toward the end of the Festival, during the third cycle. The program and schedule for the 2009 Festival will be posted on the Bayreuth Web site shortly after the close of the 2008 Festival:

http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/ Ticket requests to the Boston Wagner Society will be accepted between August 15, 2008, and September 15, 2008. Requests may be mailed to the Boston Wagner Society, P.O. Box 320033, Boston, MA 02132-0001, U.S.A., or e-mailed to info@bostonwagnersociety.org. A $100 deposit (per person) must be received before the September 15 deadline, or your request will not be processed. Important note: Please keep in mind that there are no guarantees of tickets, dates, requested prices, or operas. If you request all seven operas, there may be times when we will be able to offer you only the Ring or non-Ring operas. Payment: Once the BWS receives confirmation of its allotment from the Festival (usually during the winter), those who requested tickets will be notified. At that time, if you have been allotted tickets, you will be provided with the exact dates, seat assignments, and price. The price will include a 10 percent surcharge to cover the Society’s expenses and to further our relationship with the Festival. The entire payment must be received in full (minus the deposit) within 30 days. We will also send you a copy of these policies, which you will need to sign and return to us. In the event you are unable to use the tickets you are offered, you will forfeit your $100 deposit. If, after receiving the tickets, you find yourself unable to use them, you must contact the BWS, and we will arrange resale of the tickets. You will be reimbursed for the face value of the tickets minus administrative costs of 10 percent of the value of the tickets. Do not attempt to resell tickets yourself or to give them away, as we provide a list of attendees to the Festival, and they reserve the right to check patrons for identification when entering the theater. To preserve our good working relation-ship with the Bayreuth Festival, we reserve the right to suspend Bayreuth ticket privileges for those who don’t comply with all of these policies. You may also request tickets directly from the Festival. Keep in mind that it reportedly can take up to 10 years to receive tickets—provided you make a request every year. If you miss a year, you drop back to the bottom of the list. You can write to the Festival House to request a brochure (se the address below). All ticket requests from the public must be received by them by October 16, so request your brochure early in the summer by writing to Bayreuther Festspiele Kartenbüro, Postfach 10 02 62, D-95402 Bayreuth, Germany.

–Carleton Gebhardt, Bayreuth Coordinator

Historical Singers: Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861–1936)

Ernestine (or Tini) Schumann-Heink, the outstanding Wagnerian contralto of her time, was rec-ognized as such throughout the operatic world for well over half a century. She was born on June 15, 1861 in Lieben, Prague. At that time Lieben, today in the Czech Republic, was part of the Austrian empire. Her father, Hans Rössler, was an Austrian army officer. Both Tini and her mother were raised in an Italian convent, a common practice in the days when Austria ruled a large section of Italy. Even as a child, she was involved in performing for the public. After school each day, she would spend time with the circus, helping out and riding the horses. When her father found out about her escapades, he put a stop to them at once, fearing that his daughter would end up as a common ”circus girl.” At the convent, Mother Bernardine was the first person to discover her voice. Sending for Tini’s mother, she said to her, ”She will be a great actress or singer. Yes, I think she will be a

great singer, for the voice is beautiful” (Mary Lawton, Schumann-Heink: The Last of the Titans [New York: Macmillan, 1928]). The family was very poor, but young Tini was resourceful. One day, when her mother craved a piece of Swiss cheese, she promised to sing and dance the Czàrdàs (a Hungarian folk dance) for the grocery woman in lieu of monetary payment. Tini obtained the cheese, and the grocery woman enjoyed the performance she was promised. It was in Graz, Austria, that Ernestine began to study singing. Her teacher was Marietta von Le Clair. Many years later,

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Schumann-Heink stated that ”God and nature endowed me with a beautiful natural voice and I learned to sing and per-fect my art by experience and working things out for myself here and there” (Lawson, Schumann-Heink). At the age of 17, she made her operatic debut as Azucena on October 15, 1878, at Dresden’s Royal Opera House. In 1882 she married the first of her three husbands—Ernest Heink, secretary of the Dresden Opera. They had four children together. In 1893 they were divorced, and later that year she married Paul Schumann. She had three children with Schumann. This marriage was the happiest for her. Unfortunately, Schumann died in 1904. The following year Schumann-Heink married her secre-tary, William Rapp Jr. The couple, however, soon separated and then divorced in 1914. Schumann-Heink’s breakthrough came in Hamburg. Most of her assignments had been in comprimaria roles, such as Mercedes in Carmen. When the leading house contralto, Marie Götze, quarreled with the company manager, Herr Pollini, he asked Ernestine to sing Carmen that night without rehearsal. She sang and she conquered. Then, as now, news trav-eled fast in the opera world, and soon she was singing major roles at the most prestigious houses on the Continent. She was at Bayreuth from 1896 to 1914. She had auditioned for Cosima Wagner with Waltraute and Erda and was “proud all the days of my life” that Cosima liked her and wanted her at Bayreuth. Schumann-Heink made her Metropolitan Opera debut with the company in Chicago on November 7, 1898, as Ortrud, with Emma Eames as Elsa and Andreas Dippel as Lohengrin. On January 9, 1899, she appeared for the first time on the Metropolitan stage, again as Ortrud, this time with Lillian Nordica and Jean de Reszke. The New York Times wrote of her debut, “Mme. Schumann-Heink as a debutante claims the place of honor. She made a strong impression on the audience, and her first appearance may be set down as successful. She will undoubtedly prove, as the season goes on, to be a valuable acquisition to the dramatic forces of the company” (January 10, 1899). She sang with the company 157 times in 14 scattered seasons from 1899 to 1932. Among her 17 roles there were Fricka, Flosshilde, Brangäne, and Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète. An interesting date on her calendar was June 4, 1915, when the Metropolitan Opera Company performed a complete Siegfried, with Johanna Gadski as Brünn-hilde and Schumann-Heink as Erda at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her last appearance was as Erda in Siegfried on March 11, 1932, at the age of 70. On January 15, 1909, she appeared in Dresden as Klytemnestra in the world-premiere performance of Elektra. Noting that the opera’s combination of massive orchestration and dire happenings onstage nearly killed her, she vowed never to sing the role again. During the course of a long career, Schumann-Heink worked with numerous leading conductors and composers of the day. She studied many of the Brahms songs with the composer, who was one of her champions in her early Hamburg days. Schumann-Heink became a naturalized American citizen on March 3, 1908. During World War I she toured her adopted country, raising money for the war effort. From 1926 to 1935 she sang “Silent Night” on American radio every year during Christmastime. From 1912 on she lived in Southern California. She died on November 17, 1936, in Holly-wood.

–Angelo Mammano Angelo Mammano, a Boston opera lecturer, is the Assistant Editor of Wagneriana.

Upcoming Events

The Boston Wagner Society’s Fifth-Anniversary Celebration Saturday evening, September 20, 2008

Food, live music, and socializing with fellow Wagnerians Musicians: Joanna Porackova, soprano; Marion Dry, contralto; and Jeffrey Brody, pianist

Members and their significant others only; RSVP only Invitations will be sent

Opera con Brio’s “The Operas of Wagner”

13-week course beginning in early September Instructor: Richard Beams

This course includes Wagner’s entire operatic canon Cost: $425; seniors and couples $400 per person

Meets in West Roxbury, Massachusetts For further information, e-mail operaconbrio@verizon.net or call 617-469-0574

Wagneriana is a publication of the Boston Wagner Society, copyright © The Boston Wagner Society, Inc. Logo design by Sasha Geffen. Contact information: 617-323-6088; info@bostonwagnersociety.org; P.O. Box 320033, Boston, MA 02132-0001, U.S.A.; www.bostonwagnersociety.org.