“Tristan und Isolde: Wagner’s Most Subversive Opera?” with Simon Williams

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ARCHIVAL VIDEO OF THIS PROGRAM: https://youtu.be/b3kgYaRscdU          

The focus of the WSNC this fall will be the performances of “Tristan und Isolde” at the San Francisco Opera. Simon Williams will lead-off with a tantalizing talk on Wagner’s most revolutionary work and its wide-ranging implications.

Well-known to the members of the WSNC, Simon Williams has taught at universities on four continents, including the University of Regina, Alberta, Cornell University and UCSB where he was Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance for over thirty years. Now retired, he continues to lecture widely. His published works span the fields of continental European theatre, the history of acting, Shakespearean performance, and operatic history. His major publications include “German Actors of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” (Greenwood, 1985), “Shakespeare on the German Stage, 1586-1914” (Cambridge, 1990), “Richard Wagner and Festival Theatre” (Greenwood, 1994), and “Richard Wagner and the Romantic Hero” (Cambridge, 2004). He has contributed numerous articles in his fields of specialty in edited volumes and leading periodicals. He is also an active director and reviewer of opera. His current projects include co-editing “A History of the German Theatre” for Cambridge University Press and studies of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century and European opera in the nineteenth.