Jussi Bjorling, Kirsten Flagstad, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr, Nellie Melba, Pia Tassinari, Frida Leider, Eleanor Steber, Eduard Habich, Heinz Gohrig, Kerstin Thorborg, Maria Olszewska, Astrid Varnay, Wolfgang Windgassen, Josef Janko, Gerhard Stolze, Rudolf Bockelmann, Adam Klein, John Horton Murray, Margaret Jane Wray, Wolfgang Schone, Folke Alin, Christina Hornell, Attila Jun, Josef Greindl, Jon Frederic West, Helene Ranada, Bjorn Waag, Gabriela Herrera, Lisa Gasteen, Heinrich Tessmer, Albert Reiss, Nora Grubn, Emil Schipper, Florence Easton, Hans Braun, Hermann Uhde, Alfons Herwig, Theo Adam, Wilhelm Pitz, Falk Struckmann, Camilla Nylund, Linda Watson, Alessandra Marc, Sandor Sved, Norman Cordon, Mack Harrell, Emmy Bettendorf, Deborah Humble, Hans-Peter Konig, Susan Bullock, Andrew Shore, Juha Uusitalo, Gerhard Siegel, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Peter Anders, Peter Galliard, Robin Johannsen, Martin Ritzmann, Hannelore Kuhse, Christa Mayer, Christian Franz, Wolfgang Koch, Magnus Baldvinsson, Catherine Foster, Ha Young Lee, Albert Dohmen, Stephen Gould, Lance Ryan, Diogenes Randes, Terje Stensvold, Meredith Arwady
Conductor:
Sten Frykberg, Gaetano Merola, Sebastian Weigle, Arturo Toscanini, Willem Mengelberg, Michael Halasz, Erich Leinsdorf, Antonello Gotta, Christian Thielemann, John McGlinn, Frieder Weissmann, Hannu Lintu, Karl Muck, Eugene Ormandy, Robert Heger, Leif Segerstam, Johannes Wildner, Karl Alwin, Michael Gielen, Joseph Keilberth, Otto Ackermann, Lothar Zagrosek, Gerard Schwarz, Albert Coates, Edwin McArthur, Ivan Anguelov, Simone Young, Otmar Suitner
Choir:
Bayreuth Festival Chorus, Berlin State Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Slovak Philharmonic Chorus, San Francisco Opera Company Women's Chorus, Bolshoi Theatre Chorus, Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Royal Swedish Opera Chorus, Bratislava National Opera Choir
Orchestra:
Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Victor Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden, Royal Swedish Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Staatskapelle , Berlin State Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Milan La Scala Orchestra , Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra, Studio orchestra, Compagnia d'Opera Italiana Orchestra
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813, the acknowledged
son of a Government official Carl Friedrich Wagner and his wife Johanna, but
apparently fathered in fact by the actor Ludwig Geyer, who was to marry Johanna
after Carl Friedrich’s death. Wagner’s education was an intermittent one, much
of it in Dresden, where he fell under the spell of Weber and Der Freischütz,
the first great German romantic opera. Returning to Leipzig he was to profit
more from contact with his uncle Adolf, a widely read scholar with a knowledge
of Greek tragedy, as well as of the classics of Italy, the works of
Shakespeare, and of course, of the literature of his own country. In Leipzig
Wagner took the opportunity of furthering his own interests in music,
stimulated by the performances of the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra and
Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, which he heard in 1829. He borrowed books from the
music lending library of Robert Schumann’s future teacher and father-in-law,
Friedrich Wieck, and took private music lessons at the Thomasschule, where J.S.
Bach had been employed a century earlier.
The later career of Wagner was a turbulent one. His income
never matched his ambitions, and he was driven on by an aggressive and ruthless
urge to create a new form of music, the music of the future, particularly in
the conjunction of all arts in a series of great music dramas. He worked first
as conductor at the undistinguished opera-house in Magdeburg, married a singer,
Minna Planer, moved to Königsberg and later to Riga. From there, pursued by
creditors, he sailed for England, and thence a week later to Paris, where
success continued to elude him. Recognition was finally to come from his native
Saxony, with a production for the opera Rienzi in Dresden and an official
appointment to the royal court. His own tactless espousal of revolutionary
notions led to his flight from Saxony in 1849, at first to Liszt in Weimar, and
then to Switzerland. Further troubles were to follow as the result of the
political suspicions he had aroused, the constant attention of creditors and
his selfish unscrupulousness in his relations with women. The protection later
afforded by King Ludwig II of Bavaria allowed some respite from difficulties,
but his liaison with Liszt’s daughter Cosima, wife of the Bavarian court
conductor Hans von Bülow, and his unpopularity in Munich, led to a further
period of exile in Switzerland. His final relative triumph in the establishment
of a Festival devoted to his work in Bayreuth was accomplished again with the
encouragement of King Ludwig. The first festival took place in 1876, but did
nothing to reduce his increasing personal debts.
Wagner died during the course of a visit to Venice in 1883.
In his lifetime he had inspired equally fanatical devotion and hatred, both of
which continued after his death. His principal achievement must be seen in the
creation of massive and stupendous masterpieces for the theatre, such as his
German epic cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, and his expansion of traditional
harmonic and constructional devices in music.
The opera Lohengrin was first performed in Weimar in 1850
under the direction of Liszt, who had helped Wagner in his flight from Dresden.
The work opens with King Henry the Fowler hearing the accusation of fratricide
brought by Telramund against Elsa of Brabant, to whom he had served as guardian
after the death of her father, suggesting that she had killed her brother
Gottfried in order to assume control over the land with a secret lover. The
King decrees mortal combat to discover her guilt or innocence, and she declares
that her champion will be a knight that she has seen in a dream. As the herald
summons the combatants and Elsa prays for help, a swan is seen drawing a boat,
from which steps an unknown knight. Telramund is defeated but the knight spares
his victim, while the heathen Ortrud, Telramund’s wife and fellow conspirator,
wonders if her powers are waning. Reproached by Telramund, now condemned to
banishment, she tells him that the knight’s power can only be broken if he is
made to reveal his name. She arouses the pity of Elsa and at the same time
casts doubt on the origin of the mysterious knight. A herald announces
Telramund’s banishment and the appointment of the knight to rule Brabant, as
husband to Elsa. Telramund seeks to learn the knight’s name and rank but is
denied an answer by the knight, who seeks Elsa’s assurance of trust in him as
they proceed to their wedding.
[1] The Prelude to the third act depicts the wedding
celebration. [2] The King and his men escort Lohengrin, and the ladies of the
court Elsa to the bridal chamber, before leaving them alone together. [3] They
exchange avowals of love. [4] Lohengrin explains the feelings that had brought
him to become her champion, but she returns to the mystery of her husband’s
name. [5] He urges her to accept the mystery, like the scents wafted to them
from the garden. [6] Elsa would prove her worth by risking danger for him,
seeking to share knowledge of his name, that must conceal some danger.
[7] Lohengrin reminds her of her promise not to seek his
name and tries to reassure her, hinting at his own noble origin. [8] Elsa is
further disturbed by this confession, now imagining that he will leave her to
return to the high state from which he came; she seems to see the swan that
brought him, ready to take him away again. At last she asks the question,
seeking openly to know his name. [9] Telramund and four companions burst in
with drawn swords, but Lohengrin, with a sword that Elsa hands him, strikes
Telramund dead, while the other knights yield. Lohengrin leads Elsa, fainting,
to a couch, and tells the knights to take Telramund’s body to the King’s court.
He calls to Elsa’s maids to take her before the King, where he will answer her
question about his identity.
In the final scene Lohengrin, before the King, rejects the
commission to lead the royal troops in war, and, revealing the body of
Telramund, seeks and finds justification for his action. He accuses Elsa of
breaking her word and explains his own origin, as a Knight of the Grail. As he
takes his final leave, he tells Elsa that her brother Gottfried is alive,
transformed by her magic, as Ortrud claims, into a swan. Gottfried reappears,
as Lohengrin sadly sails away, his boat now drawn by a dove, and Elsa sinks
lifeless into her brother’s arms.
Siegfried is the third part of the great Wagnerian
tetralogy, The Ring, and was first staged at Bayreuth in 1876. As the work
opens, Mime sits by the forge in his cave in the forest, hammering out a sword
and complaining about his endless labour. He can make swords strong enough for
giants yet Siegfried breaks them in two like children’s toys, but if he could
join together the blade of the great sword Nothung, Siegfried would be able to
kill the dragon giant Fafner, and then Mime could gain possession of the ring.
He continues his work and his complaint. Siegfried comes cheerfully in from the
forest. He is leading a bear, jokingly provoking it to attack Mime, who cowers
in fear. Siegfried sets the bear free and it trots back to the wood. He had
sought a friend in the forest, sounded his horn and been joined by the bear.
Mime has forged a sword for Siegfried, who takes the offered weapon, looking at
it critically. He strikes the anvil with it and the sword breaks in pieces. He
abuses Mime for his bad craftsmanship. Mime reproaches Siegfried for his
ingratitude; he has looked after him, but is only hated in return. Siegfried
admits that he has learned much from Mime, but never to like him. In fact he
cannot stand him, always recognising the evil in him and preferring animals to
him. Mime tries to come near him, saying that in his heart he really loves him,
claiming to be both mother and father to him, but Siegfried has seen his own
reflection and knows he in no way resembles Mime. He asks where his true
parents are. Mime declares that he is no relation to Siegfried, but found
Sieglinde in the forest, about to give birth to a child, and sheltered her out
of pity. She died and Mime looked after the child. In answer to Siegfried’s
question, he tells him that his mother said that the child must be called
Siegfried and that her name was Sieglinde. The sword was left him by his
mother.
Siegfried orders Mime to repair immediately the broken
sword, threatening him. With it he will go forth into the world, happy and
free, and never come back. He dashes out into the forest, leaving Mime calling
after him, then returning to the anvil and musing on the impossibility of
mending the sword and letting Siegfried deal with Fafner.
In the following scene Wotan, in the guise of the Wanderer,
comes out of the forest, carrying a spear as a staff. He seeks Mime’s
hospitality, which the latter is unwilling to give. The Wanderer offers to
stake his life on being able to answer Mime’s questions, if he fails; if he
succeeds, he claims hospitality. Mime, anxious to defeat the unwanted guest,
asks what race lives in the depths of the earth, and the Wanderer tells him the
Nibelungs, who were forced by a magic ring to provide a rich treasure for
Alberich, who sought to rule the world with it. To the second question as to
the race living on the surface of the earth, the Wanderer answers that it is
the giants; the giants Fasolt and Fafner took the Nibelungs’ treasure and
Fafner then killed his brother, taking the form of a dragon and guarding the treasure.
Mime asks a third question as to what race lives above. The Wanderer tells him
that gods live in the cloud-covered heights and their ruler is Wotan, in
Valhalla. He has a spear and on it are the decrees that make the Nibelungs and
giants subject for ever to the gods. Mime’s questions were nothing, but now
Mime too must wager his head against three questions from the Wanderer. He asks
first the name of the family that has been the object of Wotan’s anger,
although he loves them. Mime answers correctly that it is the family of the
Volsungs, Siegmund and Sieglinde, and their offspring Siegfried. The Wanderer
asks what sword Siegfried must use to kill Fafner, and is told that it is
Nothung. Mime rashly continues with the story of Nothung, broken by the spear
of Wotan, but to be mended by a clever smith and used by a childish hero for
Mime’s own profit. The Wanderer’s third question as to who will join together
again the broken sword Mime cannot answer; his life now must be at the mercy of
the one who will forge Nothung, the one who is fearless. The Wanderer leaves,
smiling, while Mime sinks down on his stool in fear.
[10] Shuddering, Mime looks towards the forest, now lit by
an accursed light that seems to approach, Fafner coming for him. With a cry, he
collapses behind the anvil. Siegfried comes cheerfully in, looking around for
Mime, and when he sees him asks why he is hiding behind the anvil. He asks
about the sword. Mime recalls that only the one who has never known fear will
forge the sword and resolves to teach Siegfried this lesson, thereby saving his
own life. [11] Siegfried asks what fear is. Mime tells him that his mother has
said that he must learn what fear is, before going out into the world. He talks
of the terrors of the darkness in the forest, strange noises and mysterious
lights that make him tremble.
[12] Siegfried knows nothing of this, but Mime will take him
to Fafner, who will teach him. [13] Mime admits that he cannot mend the sword
and Siegfried takes the broken pieces, files them down and heats the forge
until it is glowing hot. Mime now realises that it is Siegfried who will kill
him, but resolves, nevertheless, to use Siegfried to kill the dragon Fafner and
then to try to take the ring from him. [14] Siegfried, who now knows the name
of the sword, Nothung, sings to it as he forges it anew, describing what he is
doing, how he felled a tree in the forest, which now blazes in the forge. [15]-[16]
Mime makes ready a drugged drink to give Siegfried after the combat with
Fafner, while the hero happily continues his work. [17]-[18] Enjoying his task,
Siegfried bids his hammer strike and continues his song, while Mime is busy
with his own plans. He takes the sword, now made whole again, and strikes the
anvil, breaking it in two, now holding Nothung on high.
In what follows, Alberich watches outside Fafner’s cave and
threatens Wotan, planning to use the ring given in payment by Wotan to Fafner,
to overthrow the gods. Mime and Siegfried approach. Mime stays back, while
Siegfried rouses Fafner with his horn-call. They fight and Fafner is killed,
but not before warning Siegfried of the danger from Mime. The giant’s blood on
his hand helps him to understand the song of the bird, which tells him to seek
in Fafner’s cave the Nibelung’s gold, the Tarncap, and the ring, which will
give him power over the whole world. He now understands Mime’s treachery as he
can read his thoughts, and kills him. From the bird he learns of Brünnhilde,
whom he is to waken and rescue, on the way breaking the spear and the power of
Wotan.
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