How Elsa Showed Wagner the Way to Siegfried – A Zoom Lecture with Paul Heise

Paul Heise’s zoom talk “How Elsa Showed Wagner the Way to Siegfried” is an update of his article of the same name originally published in the May, 1995 issue of Wagner, the peer-reviewed journal of The Wagner Society (London, UK). Its subject is how Wagner’s last traditional opera Lohengrin paved the way for Wagner’s revolutionary music-drama The Ring of the Nibelung, both conceptually and allegorically. It promises to be a fascinating lecture.

Mr. Heise is a lifelong Wagnerite, having had his first taste upon hearing the Forest Murmurs from Siegfried on the radio at 18. He has devoted his life to creating a “global interpretation” of the Ring. As such, he proposes that the entirety of the Ring‘s music, libretto, and dramatic structure can be construed in extraordinary detail within one universal frame of reference. Further, Heise proposes that Wagner’s other canonical operas and music-dramas, from The Flying Dutchman through Parsifal, can be fruitfully construed in light of the coherent world-view which he maintains gives the Ring its conceptual and artistic coherence.

BOOKS BY PAUL HEISE AVAILABLE FROM ACADEMICA PRESS:

Prequel to The Ring of the Nibelung: How Wagner’s Three Canonical Operas (The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser”, and Lohengrin) Paved the Way to his Mature Music Dramas (Academica Press, 2026: 470 pages)

The Wound That Will Never Heal: An Allegorical Interpretation of  Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung (Academica Press, 2021:  592 pages)

Wagner’s Mature Music-Dramas (Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers  of Nuremberg, and Parsifal) in Light of their Allegorical Relationship to The Ring of the Nibelung (Academica Press, 2025: 639 pages)

The hardback edition of each of these three books can be obtained for $59.95 per book by asking for the author’s discount of 40% at orders@academicapress.com.  Add $5.00 for domestic, and $10.00 for international, shipping costs. Furthermore, the paperback edition of The Wound That Will Never Heal can be obtained for $40.00 from orders@academicapress.com. Mr. Heise believes that these three books are the most comprehensive studies of Wagner’s librettos, his employment of musical motifs to enhance their meaning, and the secondary documentary evidence offered by Wagner’s mentors Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as Wagner’s own commentary on his artworks, in the literature. Each book concludes with detailed guides to the musical motifs of each of Wagner’s seven artworks discussed in them. Mr. Heise expects to update his website www.wagnerheim.com by making the sound files and musical notation for all of the numbered musical motifs listed in these seven motif guides accessible for visitors to hear later this summer.

NOTE THAT THIS LECTURE WILL BE RECORDED AND POSTED ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL. IN ADDITION A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS LECTURE WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE AFTER THE TALK.