Posted May 08, 2018

PROGRAM UPDATE: It is with sadness that we must announce that Heath Lees is unable to be with us for Forum #2 due to a serious concern requiring him to remain in Australia. 

FORUM #2 Program:

“The First Ring: Art, Ideology, and Politics at Bayreuth, 1876.” with David Clay Large
In his talk, Large will discuss about the ideological, aesthetic and political issues surrounding the first full Ring performance at Bayreuth in 1876.

“The Ring” on Stage: Where Are We Today in the Debate about Wagner productions? with William Berger
From the first realization of the Ring in 1876 down to the present day, there has been a great debate about the intentions and relative merits (or offenses) about the physical production. In fact, there has been no single consensus about what we should see on the stage, let alone why we see what we do see. Where is this issue in 2018? Can we get beyond the stalemate of “traditional” vs. “avant-garde”? Do those terms even mean anything anymore? We’ll look at how things became the way they did in order to have a better sense of (1) what we are seeing this year and (2) what we want, need, and say with various means of staging the Ring.

Wagner’s non-thematic moments with Jonathan Khuner
In the Ring there are special places where a very fitting, unique musical idea appears, seemingly not part of the web of leitmotives at all. Wagner was proud to have every corner of his scores related to every other (and to the dramatic process of the piece, obviously) by means of thematic connections, but there are a few places where this imperative seems to have been abandoned. How? Why?