Performing Wagner: A Singer’s Perspective on the Major Tenor Roles with F. Peter Phillips

HERE IS THE LINK TO AN ARCHIVAL VIDEO OF THIS PRESENTATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_bFehhlW0g

Join us for this Zoom talk by F. Peter Phillips, President of the New York Wagner Society, who will discuss his book “Performing Wagner: A Singer’s Perspective on the Major Tenor Roles” which he co-authored with the world-renowned heldentenor tenor, Stephen Gould. At the time of his untimely death in 2023 Gould was putting the finishing touches to this unusual book with Phillips, where he shared his unique insights into Wagner’s major tenor roles: Tannhäuser, Tristan, Siegfried, Siegmund and Loge in The Ring of the Nibelungen, Lohengrin, Erik in The Flying Dutchman and Parsifal. Basing his understanding on his experience of hundreds of performances around the world, he described how he learned to inhabit each character, portraying motivation in a manner that matches Wagner’s music with narrative cohesion on stage. He also discussed what he learned from working with conductors and stage directors and offered some thoughts on vocal technique. Phillips will offer some highlights of Gould’s fascinating account.

The book opens with a preface by Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great-granddaughter and director of the Bayreuth Festival, and ends with tributes to Stephen Gould from among the leading Wagner singers of the current age.

Peter Phillips is President of the Wagner Society of New York.  He graduated from Dartmouth College cum laude where he was awarded the Heiman Award in Creative Arts.  He trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating with Ciaran Hinds and Kevin McNally.  He made his Broadway debut as Nugget in Equus with Anthony Perkins.  During his acting career he appeared in Macbeth with Nicol Williamson; Henry V with Meryl Streep; Cherry Orchard with Irene Worth; the TV-film Stone Pillow with Lucille Ball; and a recurring role in ABC-TV’s All My Children.  He also directed Off-Broadway and in University Theatre, including La Boheme at Brooklyn Opera, Sweeney Todd at the University of Michigan, and Company at RADA.  He later trained as an attorney and now practices as a mediator and arbitrator, as well as serving as the Director of the ADR Skills Program at New York Law School.