Wagners Ring Cycle And The Greeks

Author : Daniel H. Foster
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139486314
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wagner's Ring Cycle and the Greeks written by Daniel H. Foster and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-04 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through his reading of primary and secondary classical sources, as well as his theoretical writings, Richard Wagner developed a Hegelian-inspired theory linking the evolution of classical Greek politics and poetry. This book demonstrates how, by turning theory into practice, Wagner used this evolutionary paradigm to shape the music and the libretto of the Ring cycle. Foster describes how each of the Ring's operas represents a particular phase of Greek poetic and political development: Das Rheingold and Die Walküre create epic national identity in its earlier and later stages respectively; Siegfried expresses lyric personal identity; and Götterdämmerung destructively culminates with a tragi-comedy about civic identity. This study sees the Greeks through the lens of those scholars whose work influenced Wagner most, focusing on epic, lyric, and comedy, as well as Greek tragedy. Most significantly, the book interrogates the ways in which Wagner uses Greek aesthetics to further his own ideological goals.

Author : Jeffrey L. Buller
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Classically Romantic written by Jeffrey L. Buller and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did Richard Wagner know about ancient Greece? More importantly, what did he think he knew? How did Wagner's attitudes towards the past shape his construction of the Ring cycle? Classically Romantic attempts to answer these questions through an examination of Wagner's intellectual background and the structure of the Ring itself. The book explores the differences between Wagner's "romantic classicism" and traditional "philological classicism." Anticipating the "Great Books" movement of the twentieth century, Wagner's views were an interesting blend of classical formalism and romantic idealism. Wagner believed, for instance, that classical literature was important, not because it shed light on the past, but because it had "continued relevance" to each succeeding generation. The classics purified and redeemed ancient society, Wagner concluded, and only an equivalent type of work could purify and redeem the modern world. It was out of a desire to create a "modern classic" that Wagner's four-drama cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, arose. In Wagner's romantic view of the past, Greek tragedy was the only perfectly unified form of art. The composer believed that, in ancient tragedy, all the arts worked together harmoniously so as to guide the audience towards a single, significant purpose: a harmonious social order. In this way, although Wagner saw himself as imitating classical models, his ultimate goal was identical to that of many Romantic Age social reformers. Fundamental aspects of Wagnerian drama may thus ultimately be traced to the composer's unusual combination of the classical and the romantic. For example, Wagner's central concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the "total work of art" in which every artistic element blended perfectly with every other artistic element, has a direct connection to the composer's desire to recreate classical tragedy, the one form of art in which he believed those elements had been unified. By examining each of Aristotle's six constituent elements of tragedy (plot, music, speech, thought, character, and spectacle), Classically Romantic demonstrates what Wagner envisioned when he sought a perfect "union" of all the components of art. Perhaps most important of the book's contributions is its demonstration that the leitmotif, usually regarded solely as a musical phenomenon, was actually a thematic principle of construction employed on many levels of the drama. Wagner introduced were repeated themes of plot, characterization, speech, and imagery, all endowed with meaning in a manner precisely parallel to that of the musical leitmotivs. Moreover, since Wagner dictated nearly every aspect of how the original productions of his work were staged, even visual elements of the drama could be given a consistent, "thematic" role. Colors, images of light and darkness, and mist all serve as "visual leitmotivs" in much the same way that one can also speak of musical leitmotivs, leitmotivs of plot, character leitmotivs, and so on. Finally, Wagner's desire to bring all social classes together in a festival similar to the Great Dionysia of ancient Athens helps explain why the composer created the Wagner Societies throughout Germany in his own lifetime and why the Festspielhaus of Bayreuth was established as it was, with annual festivals rather than continual performances...

Author : M. Owen Lee
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 9780802085801
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Athena Sings written by M. Owen Lee and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Wagner's knowledge of and passion for Greek drama was so profound that for Friedrich Nietzsche, Wagner was Aeschylus come alive again. Surprisingly little has been written about the pervasive influence of classical Greece on the quintessentially German master. In this elegant and masterfully argued book, renowned opera critic Father Owen Lee describes for the contemporary reader what it might have been like to witness a dramatic performance of Aeschylus in the theatre of Dionysus in Athens in the fifth century B.C. – something that Wagner himself undertook to do on several occasions, imagining a performance of The Oresteia in his mind, reading it aloud to his friends, providing his own commentary, and relating the Greek classic drama to his own romantic view. Father Lee also uses Wagner's writings on Greece and entries from his wife's diaries to cast new light on Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, Parsifal, and especially the mighty Ring cycle, where Wagner made extensive use of Greek elements to give structural unity and dramatic credibility to his Nordic and Germanic myths. No opera fan, argues Father Lee, can really understand Wagner saving Brünhilde without knowing the Athena who, in Greek drama, first brought justice to Athens. Written with a clarity and depth of knowledge that have characterized all Father Lee's books on the classics of Greece and Rome and made his six other volumes of opera bestsellers, Athena Sings traces the profound influence – an influence few music lovers are aware of – that Greek theatre and culture had on the most German of composers and his revolutionary musical dramas.

Author : Richard H. Bell
Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN 13 : 0227177479
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Theology of Wagner's Ring Cycle I written by Richard H. Bell and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wagner’s Ring is one of the greatest of all artworks of Western civilization, but what is it all about? The power and mystery of Wagner’s creation was such that even he felt he stood before his work ‘as though before some puzzle’. A clue to the Ring’s greatness lies in its multiple avenues of self-disclosure and the corresponding plethora of interpretations that over the years has granted ample scope for directors, and will no doubt do so well into the distant future. One possible interpretation, which Richard Bell argues should be taken seriously, is the Ring as Christian theology. In this first of two volumes, Bell considers, among other things, how the composer’s Christian interests may be detected in the ‘forging’ of his Ring, in his appropriation of sources (whether they be myths and sagas, writers, poets, or philosophers), and in works composed around the same time, especially his Jesus of Nazareth.

Author : John Louis Digaetani
Publisher : Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Penetrating Wagner's Ring written by John Louis Digaetani and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1991-03-21 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wagner's Ring cycle - The Ring of the Niebelung - has been described as one of the most enduring of operatic spectacles. This collection has brought together writings on the Ring and includes articles by George Bernard Shaw, Georg Solti and Andrew Porter, excerpts from Wagner's own letters and works and discourses by over 30 other writers.

Author : Richard H. Bell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1498235743
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Theology of Wagner's Ring Cycle II written by Richard H. Bell and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Vol 1.) Wagner's Ring is one of the greatest of all artworks of Western civilization, but what is it all about? The power and mystery of Wagner's creation was such that he himself felt he stood before his work "as though before some puzzle." A clue to the Ring's greatness lies in its multiple avenues of self-disclosure and the corresponding plethora of interpretations that over the years has granted ample scope for directors and will no doubt do so well into the distant future. One possible interpretation, which Richard Bell argues should be taken seriously, is the Ring as Christian theology. In this first of two volumes, Bell considers, among other things, how the composer's Christian interests may be detected in the "forging" of his Ring, looking at how he appropriated his sources (whether they be myths and sagas, writers, poets, or philosophers) and considering works composed around the same time, especially his Jesus of Nazareth. -- back cover.

Author : M. Owen Lee
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN 13 : 9780879101862
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wagner's Ring written by M. Owen Lee and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1994 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Limelight). Commentary on and a concise, lucid interpretation of the opera world's most complex masterwork, expanded from the author's popular intermission talks during Met Opera broadcasts. "Anyone, whether knowledgeable or not, will profit by reading it..." Opera Quarterly

Author : John Culshaw
Publisher : Viking Adult
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 136 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reflections on Wagner's Ring written by John Culshaw and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 1976 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the author's Metropolitan Opera intermission radio talks. Bibliography: p. [103]-105.

Author : Richard Wagner
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781542636827
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ring of the Niblung written by Richard Wagner and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-18 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ring of the Niblung by Richard Wagner and illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Translation by Margaret Armour.Some critics mention that The Lord of the Rings was directly and heavily derived from Richard Wagner's opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen.This edition includes:- The Rhinegold- The Valkyrie- Siegfried- Twilight of the GodsDer Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied.The cycle is a work of extraordinary scale. Perhaps the most outstanding facet of the monumental work is its sheer length: a full performance of the cycle takes place over four nights at the opera, with a total playing time of about 15 hours, depending on the conductor's pacing. The first and shortest work, Das Rheingold, typically lasts two and a half hours, while the final and longest, G�tterd�mmerung, takes up to five hours, excluding intervals. The cycle is modelled after ancient Greek dramas that were presented as three tragedies and one satyr play. The Ring proper begins with Die Walk�re and ends with G�tterd�mmerung, with Rheingold as a prelude. Wagner called Das Rheingold a Vorabend or "Preliminary Evening", and Die Walk�re, Siegfried and G�tterd�mmerung were subtitled First Day, Second Day and Third Day, respectively, of the trilogy proper.The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine. The Ring itself as described by Wagner is a Rune-magic taufr ("tine", or "talisman") intended to rule the feminine multiplicative power by a fearful magical act termed as 'denial of love' ("Liebesverzicht"), which is probably an allusion to ritual circumcision.

Author : Peter Bassett
Publisher : Wakefield Press
ISBN 13 : 9781862546240
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.4X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nibelung’s Ring, The written by Peter Bassett and published by Wakefield Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible text guides novice and seasoned opera listeners alike through Richard Wagner's renowned Ring cycle. To aid in understanding this complex and often contradictory work, a modern-day prose translation of its four component operas is provided, as is an explanation of "The Nibelung's Ring's mythological background, Wagner's creative process, and the ideas conveyed throughout each component. A section reviewing its numerous musical themes and how they bind the cycle together musically is also included. Rarely seen lithographs by artist Hugo Braune illustrate the story.