Wagner's Christmas

In this podcast my good friends Francis and Julia Creighton discuss their insights into the Santa Fe Opera The Flying Dutchman., which they saw this past summer. Francis and Julia discuss the production, as well as the incredible theater, one of the unique places in the world to hear opera.

This summer the Bayreuth Festival will present a new production of PARSIFAL that will use Augmented Reality glasses. It promises to be a landmark production in the history of Bayreuth.

In this podcast I am joined by my good friend, Francis Creighton, as we explore the custom of presenting Wagner at the MET during Spring time, which coincides with the 2023 new production of Lohengrin from the Metropolitan Opera.  

This Lohengrin is one of the great recordings of the 1930's from the Bayreuth Festival. It features Franz Völker and Maria Müller, two of the leading singers of the time, in excerpts from this opera. Many consider Völker to be the greatest Lohengrin of the 20th century.  

  The Metropolitan Opera is currently presenting Wagner's Ring, and the return of the Robert Lapage controversial production. Last Saturday I attended a performance of Die Walküre, and the mechanical problems that plagued this staging during the first season now seem to be gone.

It’s that time of the year, when that midsummer classic the Bayreuth Festival begins once again. I will be attending this yearly ritual, and ahead of me will be performances of The Flying Dutchman, Parsifal, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and the new production of Lohengrin, directed by the first American to mount a production at the Green Hill.

In this podcast, we explore the link between the musical score of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo, written by composer Bernard Herrmann, and the music of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The 1959 film, whose themes center on obsession, and the links between love and death, covers similar terrain as Wagner’s opera. As a result, Herrmann’s music at times appears to be a loving homage as well as a tribute to Wagner’s greatest work.

When Parsifal is playing in town at the Metropolitan Opera it is a not-to-be-missed event.  Luckily this year, I get to see it twice.  My first visit was yesterday at the Saturday matinee.  I was joined by my good friends Francis and his wife Julia, as well as my friend Vlad.  Francis and I went to Bayreuth last summer, so he is well-seasoned in the works of Wagner, but this was Julia and Vlad’s first Parsifal. The reaction of my friends to this production, including musical interludes of their favorite moments from this opera, is at the heart of this podcast.  Also watch this New York Times video program detailing how they get a pool of blood on the stage of the MET for Act II of this opera.  

The Christmas season does not usually bring to mind the music of Richard Wagner, but it should, for on Christmas morning, in the year 1870, Cosima, the composer's wife, woke from her slumbers to a new composition written by her husband to celebrate her 25th of December birthday, and played at their house by her friends.  The composition was the Siegfried Idyll, Wagner’s very special Christmas music.

The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer) is Richard Wagner’s answer to Halloween.  The story of a ghostly sea captain who is doomed to sail the seven seas for eternity is the perfect opera to enjoy during this spooky festive season.