wagner rocks my world. i love the ring cycle. so naturally i was thinking about going to Bayreuth once for the festival. i checked the website and there is a 7-10 year wait for the festival....yeah, so that's not happening soon. but i will make it happen at some point. for sure.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
die walkure
i saw die walkure today in the cinema. i usually go to the met opera but today the performance was sold out. i also wanted to experience the opera in HD. so i went to the cinema. die walkure is by far one of my most favorite operas. definitely in top 5. i have seen two different productions at the met and i liked them both. but the movie experience was just great. first, the tenor was really really good. he was handsome, good acting, good volume and i think he sang really well. the soprano was really good too, and the chemistry of Siegmund and Sieglinde was so overwhelming on the stage. it was by far one of my most romantic theatrical experiences. i loved the acting, the music was marvelous and walkure is such a dramatic and romantic piece. i was sitting there thinking this scene makes me want to fall in love all over again. makes me want to experience the excitement and joy of young love, makes me wanna embrace someone that hard.
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Hi Just Notes, It was really surprising for somebody from Germany do read such an emotional comment about Wagner from somebody of a cultural background that is so much different. What I read and heard about Iran is colourful, has to do with poetry, Hafez, gardens, a philosophy with a positive view of life and the world. Maybe I"m completely wrong, but for me Wagner represents the very opposite: dark forces struggling to control people, fighting for superiority and for material wealth (like the Rhine Gold). The Rhine Gold is kept by the Rhine daughters, living on the ground of the river. This is not really producing romantic or inspiring emotions for me: If you have a look at a message from AliReza about a water-flooded apartment and my empathic reply to this probably says more about the male aversives against uncontrolled water.
ReplyDeletehttp://alireza04.blogspot.com/2011/01/all-best-for-2011.html
But to my biggest sorrow I have to admitt, that except of "Mastersingers" (that we were "forced" to watch several times during childhood) my opinion about Wagner is coined by secondary impressions through TV or readings. So maybe I am completely wrong, and should much more listen to what you, a person from the Land of Hafiz, Shah-Nameh, Avicenna and Persepolis Gardens finds in Wagners music and operas. It would not be the first time, that one nation needs the be tought about the values it possesses by somebody from another nation (the view from the outside is obviously sometimes clearer than what one sees from very nearby).
So I might have to change my view on Wagner, now that I learned that his music might also be part of a global musical language which makes people understand each other without using the same words. I usually considered the Rolling Stones, Chick Korea, edith Piaf, Abba, Verdi, Tchaikowsky (and maybe Kraftwerk or since last year a young german ESC winner "Lena Meyer-Landrut") as representing this global musical language. Thanks for telling us that Wagner also used music that sounds appealing to the worldwide audience. How difficult this can be you might see from the controversies when 2001 Daniel Barenboim conducted "Tristan and Isolde" in Jerusalem. This event polarized the audience: some where enthusiastic, remembering Wagner from the pre-war german opera scenes, whereas for many other Wagner was mainly the anti-semitic composer who made strange comments about Mendelson-Bartholdy and who was instrumentalized by the Nazis (against whom he could not defend himself anymore).
Bayreuth might indeed be difficult to get tickets for. It is a very official event, usually a get-together of the political establishment and cultural big-shots. I have been to Bayreuth only once, when we had an almost fatal car-accident at the nearby autobahn and were forced to stay there over night to wait for a replacement car. So not the most sweet memories to the town neither. I would recommend you to consider the Dresden Semper-Opera: they of course keep the Wagner Tradition alive, since he spend there is early professional years. And it is much easier to get tickets.
http://www.semperoper.de/en/
Sorry, I hope my comment did not exceeded a world limit now.
Best greetings, Radius
Dear Just-Notes,
ReplyDeleteI just saw a Swiss TV report about the NY Met performance of Walkuere (I guess that"s the one that you watched in cinema). The part of Siegmund is sung by Jonas Kaufmann, who a year ago or so was only known to opera experts (unlike Rolando Villazon, who was a big media star and on the front page of every tabloid magazin).
If you want to follow what the Swiss TV says about the Met's Walkuere, follow this link:
http://www.videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=2d56585c-30d1-4f26-9779-7c5a8def5a38
Best greetings Radius-of-the-persian-cat
(www.persian-cat.de)
thanks for your comments. i can see how wagner can be a polarizing figure, but i have long learned to be able to separate the artist from his art. i dont know if this is the right approach, but it is the only way for me to enjoy art. wagner's music is beautiful none the less. the stories are real human desires, inspirations and greed. but the love scenes are also very real, very deeply moving, maybe because they are so dark and deeply rooted in human nature.
ReplyDeleteand i really liked jonas kaufmann. my first time hearing him too, and he was a great performer, both singing and acting.
Hi Justnotes,
ReplyDeleteFor your information regarding the future of ticket distribution for the Wagner festival in Bayreuth: The federal auditing authorities have heavily criticized the practise of giving most tickets away to VIPs from politics, industry and other influential circles. Ordinary people who wish to attend the Wagner festival "just for the music" have to apply for tickets using a written form and usually wait for a positive decision for many years. The director of the festival, Wagners great-granddaughter Katharina declared that she will consider to cancel contracts that pre-allocate large numbers of Bayreuth tickets to Trade-Unions and Travel-Agencies. This should provide more tickets to the free market.
(http://www.24pr.de/article/Wagner+will+nach+Rechnungshof+Kritik+Kartenkontingente+ueberpruefen/127896.htm)
Greetings Radius