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Wagner in Performance
Despite the voluminous literature on Wagner's operas, little has been published that does justice to all the elements of their performance. This book, addressed to both specialists and the opera-going public, brings together a team of authorities from around the world to examine the performance history and reception of Wagner's works in Europe and America.
- GenresMusic
224 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 1992
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September 19, 2013
An interesting and informative collection of essays.
Fifield's contribution on the history of Wagner conducting is insightful, but suffers from excessive brevity; the futility of trying to reconstruct the performance styles of unrecorded conductors is evident.
Shawe-Taylor on Wagnerian singing disappoints: after a good start he lapses into reminiscences about the good old days at pre-War Covent Garden, seemingly oblivious to developments elsewhere.
Ashman and Carnegy are excellent on the history of Wagnerian production design, although both feel obliged to respect the modern cult of directorial self-indulgence. That same cult is also celebrated in a diatribe by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, the only contribution to the book which I found required skimming; possibly readers with a taste for bombast and opinion-as-fact will enjoy it.
Lurching from Nattiez's extremist rejection of "authenticity" to the question of how Wagner actually sounded to his contemporaries, Clive Brown on "Performance Practice" offers much fascinating information. I think he's right about the use of portamenti; the vexed question of string and vocal vibrato is explored lucidly and reasonably, although I am less convinced by his conclusions. He suggests that Wagner would have been infuriated by productions which tamper with his mise-en-scene, but would have allowed conductors and performers considerable latitude in interpreting the music.
Glauert's essay on the Viennese and Wagner is only moderately interesting; the next item, a piece by a Bayreuth press officer arguing that the Festival is related to hydrotherapy, or perhaps ancient "sanatorial" water magic, is truly bizarre, and I can't imagine why it was included.
Breckbill's "Wagner on Record" raises the bar considerably. His essay is concise, informative, and (to my mind) inarguable in its conclusions: Wagner's original casts were made up of singers of diverse attainments and uneven merit, who did not display a single identifiable, 'Wagnerian' singing style; Wagner singing peaked between the two World Wars as Cosima's word-fixated Bayreuth style merged with bel canto elements derived from other traditions; Wagner singing has been in decline ever since, supplanted in importance by novelties of production design. A superb essay.
The book winds up with an interesting piece by Joseph Horowitz about conductor Anton Seidl's (and, more sketchily, Wagner's) impact on turn-of-the-century American audiences. Horowitz's King Charles' Head, a seemingly pathological hostility to Toscanini, is not altogether absent.
Fifield's contribution on the history of Wagner conducting is insightful, but suffers from excessive brevity; the futility of trying to reconstruct the performance styles of unrecorded conductors is evident.
Shawe-Taylor on Wagnerian singing disappoints: after a good start he lapses into reminiscences about the good old days at pre-War Covent Garden, seemingly oblivious to developments elsewhere.
Ashman and Carnegy are excellent on the history of Wagnerian production design, although both feel obliged to respect the modern cult of directorial self-indulgence. That same cult is also celebrated in a diatribe by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, the only contribution to the book which I found required skimming; possibly readers with a taste for bombast and opinion-as-fact will enjoy it.
Lurching from Nattiez's extremist rejection of "authenticity" to the question of how Wagner actually sounded to his contemporaries, Clive Brown on "Performance Practice" offers much fascinating information. I think he's right about the use of portamenti; the vexed question of string and vocal vibrato is explored lucidly and reasonably, although I am less convinced by his conclusions. He suggests that Wagner would have been infuriated by productions which tamper with his mise-en-scene, but would have allowed conductors and performers considerable latitude in interpreting the music.
Glauert's essay on the Viennese and Wagner is only moderately interesting; the next item, a piece by a Bayreuth press officer arguing that the Festival is related to hydrotherapy, or perhaps ancient "sanatorial" water magic, is truly bizarre, and I can't imagine why it was included.
Breckbill's "Wagner on Record" raises the bar considerably. His essay is concise, informative, and (to my mind) inarguable in its conclusions: Wagner's original casts were made up of singers of diverse attainments and uneven merit, who did not display a single identifiable, 'Wagnerian' singing style; Wagner singing peaked between the two World Wars as Cosima's word-fixated Bayreuth style merged with bel canto elements derived from other traditions; Wagner singing has been in decline ever since, supplanted in importance by novelties of production design. A superb essay.
The book winds up with an interesting piece by Joseph Horowitz about conductor Anton Seidl's (and, more sketchily, Wagner's) impact on turn-of-the-century American audiences. Horowitz's King Charles' Head, a seemingly pathological hostility to Toscanini, is not altogether absent.
Displaying 1 of 1 review