Tag Archives: Ring Cycle

The Wagner Complex

Tom Artin, of Sparkill, NY, has been kind enough to send me a copy of his book The Wagner Complex: Genesis and Meaning of The Ring (Free Scholar Press 2012).  It is an interpretation of the characters and action of the Ring through a Freudian lens, and it has been an interesting though challenging read. I became prejudiced and close-minded …

June 28, 2012 – 3:39 pm | By peterp | Posted in The Wagner Blog | Tagged , | Comments (2)

The Met Ring and Critical Incompetence

Unlike others, I have waited to form my overall assessment of the new Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera until I actually saw it.  The Cycle is an entirely different experience from each separate installment (remember Wagner furiously refusing to cooperate with Ludwig’s premieres of Rheingold and Walküre in Munich?), though that didn’t stop Alex Ross and others from condemning …

May 8, 2012 – 9:43 am | By peterp | Posted in The Wagner Blog | Tagged , | Comments (7)

That D-Flat Theme….

The re-entry of a particular theme at the end of Götterdämmerung — heard only once before, in Act III of Die Walküre — has moved listeners and puzzled analysts since 1876.  The entire Ring Cycle closes with this theme, in D-flat (the same key as Wotan’s greeting Vahalla in Das Rheingold).  Early commentators labeled it …

March 19, 2012 – 5:13 pm | By peterp | Posted in The Wagner Blog | Tagged , | Comments (0)

New YouTube Channel on NY Wagner Society Events

The Richard Wagner Society of New York is the largest Society in North America.  For years it has offered U.S. Wagnerians opportunties “to learn, to teach, to share,” as its motto goes.  Now it has established a site on YouTube that permits Wagnerians around the world to delight in some of its many offerings. The site …

March 4, 2012 – 9:54 pm | By peterp | Posted in The Wagner Blog | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)