Event Archives

The Wagner Society of Northern California is pleased to announce that Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins will provide us with a preview of the 2013 Ring Cycle in Seattle.

Jenkins has engaged a wonderful of cast, some returning to roles in the Seattle Ring and others new to the produciton, this is certain to be a fantastic program with many musical examples.  Always interesting and informative, Speight Jenkins is a welcome addition to our program schedule for 2012

After Mr. Jenkins' talk, we will take time to share our memories of Steve Sokolow.  The loss of this 30-member of the Society and two-term President has taken an emotional toll on our group.  We would like you to join us in celebrating Steve's life and legacy to the Wagner Society.  As the date nears, we will ask people to sign up, should they wish to share.  Through the sign-up process we can determine timings so that everyone gets a chance to be part of the Life Celebration.

The Wagner Society of Northern California has formally closed registration for the 2011 Cosima Wagner Birthday

Thank you for your interest in our event.

Sincerely, The 2011 Cosima Party Social Committee

Yes, you read correctly - this program will be on a Sunday.  The Wagner Society is delighted to welcome back Professor Nicholas Vazsonyi to our program schedule.  At his last talk in October 2010, Vazsonyi talked about Wagner as an icon - a brand name.   Unfortunately, because the talk was scheduled for the same day as the Met HD of Das Rheingold and so the attendance wasn't as good as we had expected.

You might be asking, "WHY Sunday?".   When preparing the schedule we could find no other available dates during the month of November.  The JCC-SF was booked solid.  And since the Professor will be in town for the American Musicological Association Convention, we decided to seize the opportunity to present a talk from this dynamic speaker.

In his talk "What is Isolde Inhaling?",  Professor Vazsonyi will take a closer look at the concluding moments of Tristan und Isolde and offer a new interpretation of the text. This will be based on a discussion of Wagner's writings on music as well as a look at clues offered earlier in the opera. Vazsonyi's talk last year was extremely interesting and provocative.  The Wagner Society is excited to have the opportunity to hear him again.

In part three of the Ring, Wagner’s cosmic vision focuses on his hero’s early conquests, while Robert Lepage’s revolutionary stage machine transforms itself from bewitched forest to mountaintop love nest. Jay Hunter Morris has just been announced to sing the title role and Deborah Voigt’s Brünnhilde is his prize. Bryn Terfel is the Wanderer.  Fabio Luisi conducts, as James Levine is on medical leave following back surgery.

Consult your local theatre for locations screening Siegfried.

Marie Plette, Buffy Baggot and Emma McNairy star in Richard Strauss' comedy.

The Wagner Society will screen a new documentary on the life of Siegfried Wagner.  This is the first documentary about the life and music of Richard Wagner's son.  It is 60 minutes in length with excerpts of his 16 operas with stage sets, pictures, projects and drawings.

The film also contains exclusive interviews with singers Giacomo Aragall and Elena Obrastova and Siegfried's son the late Wolfgang Wagner.

This is a German-Spanish coproductions with comments from people that either knew Siegfried Wagner or his work, individuals such as Arnold Schoenberg, Albert Schweitzer, Engelbert Humperdinck and Friedlind Wagner.

Join your fellow Wagnerians for a post-Ring wrap-up.  We will begin the meeting with Professor David Littlejohn.  Professor Littlejohn will review the 2011 San Francisco Ring and then moderate an open discussion of the Ring.  It should be an exciting meeting because we all know . . . . Wagnerians are seldom SHY about their opinons.

David Littlejohn, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, University of California Berkeley

David Littlejohn (a native son) has been attending performances of  the San Francisco Opera--and many other companies--for more than 50 years, and reviewing them (along with several other art forms) since 1967.  While teaching critical reviewing at Berkeley, he served as "Critic at Large" for television station KQED and the PBS network until 1975.  From 1980 to 1989 he reviewed the San Francisco Opera season regularly for The Times of London, and in April 1990 began a monthly report on the West Coast cultural scene for the Wall Street Journal, which he continues, and in which he covers both major California opera seasons, as well as occasional performances elsewhere.  From 1975 to 1990 he contributed one or two background essays each season to the San Francisco Opera Company's program-magazine, fifteen of which (including two on Wagner) were collected in 1992 into a book published by University of California Press (one of fourteen he has written or edited) called "The Ultimate Art:  Essays around and about Opera."  You can now read it read it free through the UC Press website.  He also serves on the Editorial Board of the WSNC publication Leitmotive. 

Das Ende Banquet - Reservations are now closed

Join the WSNC for a fantastic banquet immediately following the Cycle 2 performance of Götterdämmerung.  This is a festive way to end this spectacular week of Wagner and share the camaraderie of like-minded Wagnerians at this grand finale to the Ring.  This event is open to anyone, even if you did not go to the Ring.  And we welcome Wagner Society of Northern California Members and non-members.

Among the Special Guests in attendance:

Mark Delavan, Wotan and Wanderer

Daveda Karanas, Waltraute and Second Norn

Heidi Melton, Third Norn and Sieglinde Cycle #3

We will continue to update the site as additional RSVP's are received.

Menu includes salad, entrée, dessert and coffee and wine at the table. The price is $85 per person (price includes meal, wine, wine corkage, banquet gratuity and sales tax)

 Menu

Salad:  Vine-ripened tomatoes with fresh Mozzarella and Micro Greens, Kalamata Olives and Pesto Vinaigrette

Entrees: select one entree and indicate your choice in the note field when you check-out

For multiple registrants, please list the name of each registrant and their entree selection

A)  American Kobe Flat Iron Steak, grilled with cracked peppercorns and coriander, carmelized onions, served with garlic Yukon Gold potatoes and Julienne Vegetables

B)  Grilled Salmon with Red Miso glaze, Crispy Noodle cake and pickled Asian Vegetable Slaw

C)  Vegetarian - Roasted Vegetable Napoleon with tomato and red pepper coulis and baby vegetable garnish

Dessert:   Tiramisu served with Starbuck's coffee or tea

The meal also includes red and white wine at the table.

Please join us for this festive conclusion to Cycle #2

Seating is limited so reserve early - follow the link below to order  and please remember to indicate your entrée choices at check out . . . .

Enhance your Ring experience and learn more about Wagner’s masterpiece. Each symposium will explore different facets of Wagner’s Ring with unique talks given by nationally and internationally noted scholars, many of whom have lectured at the Bayreuth Festspiele.  Among the topics will be the myths, legends, music, drama and literary aspects of this extraordinary work.

This event is closed

The Enigma of Wagner’s Genius and Anti-Semitism

Wagner Through a Jewish Lens

With Panelists:
Deborah Lipstadt, Emory University
Randy Cohen, Former author of The New York Times column “The Ethicist”
Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle Music Editor

Wagner composed music of astounding beauty. He was also a virulent anti-Semite. Hitler so closely identified with Wagner that he played his operas at Nazi rallies and throughout the death camps. Is Wagner’s music inherently anti-Semitic? Can it be separated from the man? As a community, should we ban performances or try to better understand the enigmatic Wagner?

Standard: $17 Members | $20 Public | $10 Students
Premium: $22 Members | $25 Public

As a courtesy to members of the Wagner Society of Northern California, the JCC-SF will offer WSNC Members a reduced price of $17 for Standard Admission.  Please mention to the Box Office that you are a Wagner Society of Northern California member in order to obtain the discount.

The JCC-SF is an ancillary partner for the San Francisco Opera's Ring Festival 2011
 

Wagner - Die Walküre - New Production by Robert Le Page

9:00 a.m. start, running time approximately 5 hours 30 minutes

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_next.aspx   for more information

A stellar cast comes together for this second installment of Robert Lepage’s new production of the Ring cycle, conducted by James Levine. Bryn Terfel is Wotan, lord of the Gods. Deborah Voigt adds the part of Brünnhilde to her extensive Wagnerian repertoire at the Met. Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek star as the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Stephanie Blythe is Fricka.

James Levine; Deborah Voigt, Brünnhilde; Eva-Maria Westbroek, Sieglinde; Stephanie Blythe, Fricka; Jonas Kaufmann, Siegmund; Bryn Terfel, Wotan; Hans-Peter König, Hunding

Leitmotif and Memory in Götterdämmerung:   Siegfried and the potion –– In his talk, Professor Grey will be applying the ideas from new fields of music cognition and perception to both our understanding of Wagner's leitmotifs as well as the way they can be said to function within the "consciousness" of characters in the operas.

Thomas Grey is a Professor of Musicology, and by courtesy, German Studies at Stanford University. 

Recalling Brünnhilde: Leitmotif and Musical Memory in Götterdämmerung
In Act 1 of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung the hero, Siegfried, is given a potion that induces a highly selective form of amnesia (“that he has ever set eyes on a woman before”).  In Act 3, an antidote is administered by the villain Hagen, causing Siegfried to confess, unwittingly, to adultery and perjury and hence to justify his death at Hagen’s hands. On the face of it, this is merely one of the more awkward plot contrivances Wagner adopted from his medieval sources.  As deployed in Wagner’s version of the story, however, the motif of Siegfried’s loss and recovery of memory provokes some fundamental questions about Wagner’s influential system of musical signification, his so-called leitmotifs.  This paper looks at what these episodes tell us about the leitmotif as a mnemonic device –– with regard to the listener’s perception of musical and dramatic structure as well as what can be inferred about the dramatic characters’ ontological awareness of themselves and their surroundings.  How might traditional modes of musical analysis and interpretations of Wagner’s drama engage with contemporary theories of musical cognition and perception?  What does leitmotif have to tell us about the role of memory in the construction of musical meaning in formal, semiotic, or other cognitive terms?   

Professor Grey received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Special fields: Wagner, 19th-century opera, history of musical aesthetics and criticism, Romantic music and visual culture. Author of Wagner’s Musical Prose: Texts and Contexts, 1995. Editor and co-author of Richard Wagner: The Flying Dutchman, 2000, and Cambridge Companion to Wagner, forthcoming. Articles and reviews in JAMS, 19th Century Music, Music Library Association Notes, Current Musicology, Opera Quarterly, Cambridge Opera Journal, Beethoven Forum, Wagner, 19th-Century Studies; Analyzing Opera, 1989; Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism, 1996; The Arts Entwined (2000); Music and German Identity, 2001; The Don Giovanni Moment (2005); International Dictionary of Opera, Revised New Grove Dictionary, and ENO Opera Handbooks. Chapters contributed to The Wagner Compendium, 1992; The Mendelssohn Companion, 2001; Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera, 2003; Cambridge History of 19th Century Music; New History Of German Literature; and Cambridge Opera Handbooks: Tristan und Isolde, forthcoming. Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the American Musicological Society (1999-2001). Editorial/advisory board: Cambridge Opera Journal, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Wagner Spectrum.

Parking on-site $3.50 per hour  (max $15) or the $5 UCSF lot  or  street parking 

From the East Bay:  BART to Embarcadero and transfer to the MUNI #1 California line 

NON-MEMBERS $10 DONATION

Conrad Susa, Professor San Francisco Conservatory of Music, will discuss the development of Richard Wagner’s choral writing beginning with Das Liebesmahl der Apostel  - The Love-Feast of Penticost and continuing on through the opera choruses in Lohengrin and eventually Parsifal.

Richard Wagner was still reveling in his sucess with the premiere of Rienzi in December 1842 and then a less successful debut of Flying Dutchman, both in Dresden.  Wagner was among the composers commissioned to write a works for a choral festival in Dresden.  He was asked to write a choral piece celebrating the Christian feast of Penticost, the birth of the Christian Church through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The work had it's premiere on July 6, 1843 at the famed Dresdner Frauenkirche.  The performance was a massive event with 1,200 singers from all over Saxony and an orchestra numbering 100.  Although the concert was well received by the public, Wagner was disappointed, lamenting its "relatively feeble effect".  The work is rarely performed but it gives clues into Wagners early inspiration for the works that followed.

Professor Susa will give a talk about this grand choral piece with musical examples from Das Liebesmahl der Apostel and other Wagner works.

Conrad Susa (b. 1935) was resident composer for the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and served as dramaturge for the O'Neill Center in Connecticut. He also has written numerous scores for documentary films and PBS television productions, choral and instrumental works and operas (Transformations, Black River and The Love of Don Perlimplín) commissioned by the Minnesota Opera Company, San Francisco Opera and Pepsico. His church opera The Wise Women, was written for the American Guild of Organists and The Dangerous Liaisons, for the San Francisco Opera.
 
Mr. Susa has served as staff pianist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and as assistant editor of Musical America magazine. He has won numerous awards, including Ford Foundation fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts grants and a National Endowment Consortium grant. He earned a B.F.A. from Carnegie Institute of Technology and received an M.S. from The Juilliard School, where he studied with William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti, and P.D.Q. Bach.

Parking on-site $3.50 per hour  (max $15) or the $5 UCSF lot  or  street parking 

From the East Bay:  BART to Embarcadero and transfer to the MUNI #1 California line 

NON-MEMBERS $10 DONATION

Educated in Great Britian, Eugen d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria.  Feeling a kinship with German culture and music, he soon emigrated to Germany, where he studied in Weimar with the elderly Franz Liszt and began a career as a concert pianist.  A friend of Richard Strauss, Humperdinck and Pfitzner, d'Albert was heavily influenced by Richard Wagner.  d'Albert composed 21 operas the most well-known being Tiefland (1903).

Adrian Daub received his Ph.D. in May 2008 from the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation focused on philosophical approaches to marriage in German Idealism and German Romanticism (“Uncivil Unions – The Metaphysics of Marriage in German Idealism and Jena Romanticism, 1794-1801”). His recent publications include “’The Abyss of the Scream’- On the Music of Hermann Nitsch” (in a volume entitled Blood Orgies: Hermann Nitsch in America), “Adorno’s Schreker – Charting the Self-Dissolution of the Distant Sound” (in Cambridge Opera Journal) and “’Donner à voir’: The Logic of the Caption in Alexander Kluge’s The Devil’s Blind Spot and W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn” (in a volume entitled Searching for Sebald).  A German-language monograph on cultural perceptions of four-hand piano music in 19^th century Europe was published in 2010; Professor Daub's newest book on marriage from Kant to Nietzsche ("Uncivil Unions") will be out with the University of Chicago Press next year (2011).  

Parking on-site $3 per hour  (max $15)or the $5 UCSF lot  or  street parking 

From the East Bay:  BART to Embarcadero and transfer to the MUNI #1 California line 

NON-MEMBERS $10 DONATION

Myths are stories passed down through generations and are used by cultures as a way to understand the mysteries of human experience and through these stories to present inner realities. Wagner, drawing from Scandinavian and Germanic sources, created in the Ring a powerful story of fate that in its depth and complexity has allowed for a wide, varied and often contradictory range of interpretations by critics, directors and designers over the past century and a half. But these interpretations have extended beyond the operatic stages where visual artists, inspired and challenged, by the Ring have created their own unique realizations. We will explore these realizations in the works of several artists whose personal styles can placed within changing art movements from early19th century Romanticism to late 20th century comic books. Although this is really a small "footnote", we will also look briefly at the "comments and controversies" that surround a discussion of winged and horned helmets. Dr. William Eddelman is an Associate Professor, Emeritus, in the Stanford University Department of Drama, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design.