Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction: ‘After Wagner’
- Part I In the Shadow of German Idealism: From Parsifal to Capriccio
- Part II Composition after the Second World War: From Germany to Italy, and Back Again?
- Part III Performance and the Fruitful Instability of the Work: From Parsifal to Nono
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction: ‘After Wagner’
- Part I In the Shadow of German Idealism: From Parsifal to Capriccio
- Part II Composition after the Second World War: From Germany to Italy, and Back Again?
- Part III Performance and the Fruitful Instability of the Work: From Parsifal to Nono
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
When dealing with operatic performance ‘after Wagner’ it does not seem unreasonable to have devoted considerable space to Parsifal and to Lohengrin. However, it would have been unduly restrictive to leave matters there. The Wagnerian legacy of the ‘director’ extends far beyond his own works – and did so when he was alive too; one may even trace it back, as here, beyond the visit of the Duke of Meiningen’s troupe. It certainly holds interesting implications for our understanding of the artwork and its conceptual stability.
It is not difficult to imagine Wagner’s reaction had conductors, directors, singers, or anyone else questioned the aspirant totality of his own works. Konwitschny’s Hamburg 2002 Meistersinger, in which the final scene is interrupted by a discussion as to whether one can or should proceed in the light of preceding – or should that be succeeding? – German history would surely have met with an angry response. Nevertheless, Konwitschny’s breaking down of boundaries between stage and audience, rupturing the aura of the work, had Romantic precedent, for instance in the deconstructionism of Ludwig Tieck’s Puss in Boots, which has roles for authors, actors, audience, and stagehands, and would itself most likely exert some influence over the communal idea of the ‘artwork of the future’. Porges, in his report upon the Ring rehearsals, described Wagner’s aim as having been:
to imbue the company of artists as one organic entity with that complete freedom of expression which as a rule is exercised only be a single personality. In order to achieve this artistic freedom the performers must from the outset subordinate themselves without reservation to the creator of the work, and thereby acquire that gift of self-abandonment (Selbstentäusserung) which, in his penetrating essay, ‘On Actors and Singers’, Wagner singled out as the basis of all dramatic talent.
Maybe that was indeed Wagner’s aim, though we need not necessarily conflate Porges and Wagner. However, even if Porges is correct, Wagner provides alternative examples and the act of ‘subordination’ cannot but help incite insubordination, some at least of it potentially fruitful.
One of Wagner’s alternative examples may be found in his Dresden performances of other composers’ operas during the 1840s.
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- After WagnerHistories of Modernist Music Drama from Parsifal to Nono, pp. 251 - 274Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014
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