See the September 2001 Washington Post notice of the death of Andrew Gray, and read about his December 1999 presentation to the Wagner Society.
Bayreuth, Germany, Summer 2002
Wagner Society members traveled to Bayreuth Germany to
attend Wagner's Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger, and
Tannhäuser, performed at the famous Festspielhaus.
Annual Gala Banquet and the
Wagner Society Award
- Friday, May 31, 2002; The Arts Club of
Washington
The fourth annual banquet for Wagner Society members
and their guests consisted of an elegant dinner, the presentation of the WSWDC
Award, and Wagnerian highlights sung by Amanda Mace and Paul Mow. These
young singers are part of the Evelyn Lear/Thomas Stewart Emerging Singers Program,
in partnership with the Wagner Society of Washington DC. The banquet was held
again at the historic Arts Club, former home of President James Monroe. The library is
of particular interest to WSWDC because of its extensive collection of Wagneriana.
Wagner in der Wildnis -- Second
Annual Weekend Event -- Focusing on Die Walküere
- Friday evening, June 7, through Sunday afternoon,
June 10, 2002; Capon Springs, West Virginia
The WSWDC repeated last year's successful weekend
event in the countryside, Wagner in der Wildnis, a seminar and retreat
featuring noted author and lecturer Professor Simon Williams and pianist and
musicologist Jeffrey Swann. This event was for Society members and their guests
to study and enjoy Wagner's art in a pleasant, rural mountain setting.
Winnie Klotz, Photographer at the
Metropolitan Opera
- Thursday, May 16, 2002, The George Washington
University
Winnie Klotz presented an illustrated lecture about her work
as photographer of Met singers, conductors, and other opera professionals -- with
particular emphasis on Wagner at the Met.
Fourth Evelyn Lear and Thomas
Stewart Emerging Singers Concert
Festtage! -- Wagner-Opera Orgy!
Daniel Barenboim!!
- April 2002, at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin all ten of Wagner's
major operas were performed, in two cycles. WSWDC members were well represented. Carol Berger, The Dialectics in Die
Meistersinger: Sacred Rituals in the Awakened State
Dr. Donald Crosby
Parsifal -- at the Chicago Lyric Opera
House
Dr. Elise Kirk, author of American Opera
Excursion to New York Metropolitan Opera
Die Meistersinger
WSWDC Director Phillip W. Raines on
Die Meistersinger
Saul Lilienstein on Die Meistersinger
The Third Evelyn Lear and Thomas
Stewart Emerging Singers Concert
Iain Scott, Baptism of the Morning Dream:
The Quintet from Die Meistersinger
- Friday, May 3, 2002, The German Embassy,
Washington DC
Internationally acclaimed opera greats Evelyn Lear and
Thomas Stewart have generously devoted their time and experience to developing
this program. The program is designed to provide emerging singers with financial
help as well as career-development advice and professional contacts. This concert
featured singers Nathan Bahny, bass-baritone; Gail Sullivan, soprano; Jennifer
Roderer, mezzo-soprano; Thomas Rolf Truhitte, tenor; and Betty Bullock, pianist.
See program.
- Thursday, March 14, 2002, at The George Washington
University
Musicologist, author, and WSWDC supporter Carol Berger explored
the philosophical, psychological, and artistic neuro-network which transverses this most complex
Wagner drama. A current of dialectics, Die Meistersinger crosses Beethovenian
transcendence and Eastern philosophies, prophetic theories of creativity, and the unconscious,
sacred German rites and contemporary political realities. Ms. Berger is a musicologist of the
music dramas of Wagner and Strauss and an expert in musical rhetoric and Baroque opera. Her
upcoming book, Wagner's Hand in Die Frau Ohne Schatten: The Nexus of the Swan, describes
the connections between the two composers' works and clarifies the musical and metaphysical
influence of Wagner in the mature dramas of Richard Strauss. Ms. Berger's talk was very well
received, and the Society looks forward to a future talk.
- Thursday, February 14, 2002, The George
Washington University
Professor Donald Crosby returned for another in our Year of
Die Meistersinger series. Dr. Crosby spoke on Die Meistersinger in Historical
Contexts.
- February 21, 2002, at the Chicago Lyric Opera
House
The Wagner Society was able to purchase tickets for the Chicago
Lyric's evening performance of Parsifal. This was a new production by Nicholas
Lehnhoff, Sir Andrew Davis conducting, with the following cast: Parsifal: Gösta Winbergh;
Kundry: Catherine Malfitano; Amfortas: Håkan Hagegård; Gurnemanz: Matti Salminen;
Klingsor: Egils Silins.
- Thursday, January 17, 2002, at The George
Washington University
Dr. Elise Kirk, noted author, lecturer, musicologist, and WSWDC
member, explained the indisputable force that Richard Wagner has had on important
American opera composers. Using excerpts from American operas, Dr. Kirk showed how
Wagnerian aesthetics, dramaturgy, visual elements, and musical ideology have shaped the
creative processes of American opera composers. Society members and guests heard and
met the author of the recently published book, American Opera.
- Saturday, December 8, 2001, matinee performance
A sizeable group of WSWDC members traveled to NYC for the
wonderful matinee performance. Afterward, many of these members dashed across the
street to Fiorello's to join New Yorkers for a festive dinner and informal discussions of the
opera.
- Thursday, December 6, 2001, at The George
Washington University
The WSWDC continued its Year of Die Meistersinger
events with a presentation by opera reviewer, teacher, and member of the Wagner Society
Board of Directors, Phil Raines., titled Human Dramatic Elements and Events in Die
Meistersinger. Mr. Raines, a Washington favorite, offered a unique video-illustrated
presentation that concentrated on particular moments in Wagner's monumental work, Die
Meistersinger, when the composer's words and music most expertly inform us about
the great opera's characters and their relationships.
- Thursday, November 15, 2001, at The George
Washington University
Maestro Lilienstein, a favorite of WSWDC and Washington area
audiences, presented an entirely new and fascinating lecture created for this WSWDC
program.
- Friday, October 19, 2001, at The German Embassy,
Washington DC
The concert of Wagner arias and song featured five "Emerging Singers" with the talent and potential for
careers singing Wagner in the world of opera. They were selected by Ms. Lear and Mr.
Stewart and John Edward Niles, the Director of the Opera Theater of Northern Virginia and
WSWDC Board Member. The singers were: soprano, Alma De Lon; baritone, Jason
Detwiler; tenor, Thomas Rolf Truhitte; soprano, Jennifer Wilson; and mezzo, Laura Zuiderveen.
They were accompanied by pianist Betty Bullock.
See Phil Raines' review of
the concert.
See program.
- Thursday, October 18, 2001, at The George
Washington University
The Wagner Society continued its "Year of Die
Meistersinger" when it again hosted one of Canada's leading experts on Wagner's
operas, Iain Scott -- who talked on his favorite opera! Mr. Scott, from Toronto, is well known
to WSWDC program audiences from his outstanding lecture on Tannhäuser
in 2000.
See details in .pdf format.
Wagner Society Annual Banquet --
Dinner and Presentation of the Annual WSWDC Award.
- Saturday, June 23, 2001, at the Washington Arts
Club
An evening of good food, fine friends, in a lovely, interesting
setting was enjoyed by WSWDC members. The Annual Wagner Society Award (our third
award) was given to Placido Domingo. The first two awards had been presented to Martin
Feinstein in 1999 and to Thomas Stewart in 2000.
Wagner in der Wildnis
- Friday to Sunday, June 8 to 10, 2001, at Capon Springs
resort, West Virginia
A wonderful weekend of enlightening seminars, beautiful scenery,
heated discussions in the dining hall, and good fun was experienced, by WSWDC
members and friends from the New York and Dallas Wagner societies, in the West Virginia
countryside. Programs were presented on the Ring, with a special emphasis this
first year on Das Rheingold. Noted Bayreuth lecturer Dr. Simon Williams and
WSWDC's own Phil Raines lectured, showed slides, played music clips, and lead
discussions on Das Rheingold. A new translation of the first opera of the Ring cycle
by WSWDC member Dr. Maureen Polsby was dramatized by the amateur thespians of the
WSWDC.
Paul Fryer, more on opera
singers and silent film
- Thursday, May 24, 2001, at the Library of
Congress
British scholar, Paul Fryer, who had just completed a major study
on the relationship between opera singers and the silent cinema, returned to the Pickford
Theatre after last year's successful Caruso evening. Mr. Fryer spoke on Parsifal in
silent films, in his film lecture jointly sponsored by the Library of Congress. The first film
of a Wagnerian opera, the 1904 Edison film version of Parsifal, was shown. Bugs
Bunny also appeared.
Washington Men's Camerata, An
afternoon of "Romantic Voices"
- Sunday, May 20, 2001, at The John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts
An afternoon of romantic voices was presented in the Terrace
Theater by the Washington Men's Camerata, soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, and the DC Boys
Choir. They sang nineteeth century music, including opera chorus pieces by Beethoven
and WAGNER: the wonderful Pilgrims chorus from Tannhäuser!
Second Thomas Stewart and
Evelyn Lear Emerging Singers Concert.
- Wednesday, May 2, 2001, at The German
Embassy, Washington DC
In this outstanding concert the singers included: Amy Fuller,
Soprano; Ray Karns, Baritone; Amanda Mace, Soprano; Jay Hunter
Morris, Tenor; and Paul Mow, Tenor. The excellent pianist was Betty Bullock.
See the program.
See Phil Raines' review.
Saul Lilienstein, Uncommon
Resonance: Discovering Wagner's Long Reach into Unexpected Places and Amongst
Musicians and Writers Far from German Lands
- Thursday, April 26, 2001, at The George Washington
University
In an entertaining and informative lecture, Saul Lilienstein discussed
how Wagner and his music influenced music and literature in Europe and even America in
the generation that followed Wagner himself.
Note that this event was rescheduled from February owing to
bad weather.
See our notice in pdf format.
.
Gala Benefit!
- Wednesday, April 25, 2001, at "Evermay,"
the historic Georgetown mansion
This first-ever fund-raising event of the WSWDC included a silent
auction of valuable prizes, a buffet supper, live entertainment, and Thomas Stewart and
Evelyn Lear in attendance -- all to help raise money for the Society's on-going programs and
for a special fund to assist the collaborative Thomas Stewart and Evelyn Lear Emerging
Singers Program.
Heinz Fricke, Conductor and Music Director,
The Washington Opera
- Thursday, March 22, 2001, at The George Washington
University
Maestro Fricke talked about conducting the works of Richard Wagner
and other composers, and discussed his conducting of The Washington Opera's
Parsifal.
Jim Holman, Wagner: The Power
of Two
- January 25, 2001, at The George Washington
University
Wagner Society Chairman, James K. Holman, author of
Wagner's Ring: A Listener's Companion and Concordance, shared new ideas about
Wagner's music, illustrated with recorded examples.
Frank Ruppert, Schubert and
Wagner: A Better Mystery of Life
- Wednesday, December 6, 2000, at The George
Washington University
The Wagner Society member, former priest, and Schubert music
scholar and advocate gave a provocative lecture on the relationship of Schubert and Wagner.
Rupert showed that plot similarities between Schubert's Alfonso und Estrella and
Wagner's operas suggest that both of the great composers were drawing water from the
same mystical well -- although modern musicology tends to dismiss the mystical tradition
that underlies this art.
In cooperation with The Washington Opera and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for the Parsifal performances with Placido Domingo, WSWDC helped with: opening night performance ticket availability, invitations to the Cast party, a Hospitality Suite, a Backstage tour, the Inside-Out Lecture Series, and lectures at The George Washington University.
Wayne Conner, Opera Insight Lecture
on Parsifal
- Saturday, November 18, 2000, at The Washington
Opera
The renowned Curtis Institute of Music and Peabody Conservatory
faculty member, Wayne Conner, offered his stimulating views on Parsifal.
Penelope Turing, "Parsifal
at Bayreuth"
- Thursday, November 16, 2000, at The George
Washington University
Distinguished British music critic, travel writer, lecturer, and
historian of the Bayreuth Festival, last heard at WSWDC in 1998, shared her extensive
knowledge and slides about changing production styles and audiences for Parsifal
at Bayreuth.
The Washington Opera's Parsifal
- Saturday, November 4, 2000, The John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts
The opening night performance starred Placido Domingo, Karen
Huffstodt, Alan Held, Matti Salminen, Sergei Leiferkus, and Thomas Stewart, with Conductor
Heinz Fricke and Director Roberto Oswald.
A Hospitality Suite was hosted by WSWDC for opening night
ticket holders. Members and non-members were welcome at intermissions in the South
Tier Lounge for refreshments and information on Wagner and the Wagner Society.
WSWDC members and their guests later enjoyed the opening night cast dinner party
in the Kennedy Center dining room.
Backstage Tours
- November 6 and 12, 2000, at the Kennedy
Center Opera House
The Washington Opera and WSWDC Founder Janice Rosen,
respectively, hosted backstage tours where members received inside looks at the sets
and mechanics for the Parsifal performances.
Saul Lilienstein, Parsifal
Inside-Out Lecture Series
- Fridays, October 13, 20, and 27, 2000, at The
George Washington University
Distinguished musicologist, conductor and lecturer, Saul Lilienstein,
presented another of his captivating and infomative lecture series. It was jointly sponsored
by WSWDC and The Washington Opera.
Jonathan Lewsey, Parsifal
Insights
- Thursday, October 26, 2000, at The George
Washington University
Noted British singer, director, author, lecturer, and poet shared his
unique insights about Parsifal gained from his distinguished and varied career in opera.
Phillip Raines, "Parsifal:
A Visual Journey"
- Thursday, October 5, 2000, at The George
Washington University
Wagner expert and WSWDC Board of Directors member, Phil
Raines, narrated a journey through three visual approaches to Parsifal that included
scenes from the Met and Bayreuth productions and from the provacative Hans Juergen
Syberburg movie version.
Lou Santacroce, "Parsifal:
A Christian's View"
- Thursday, September 28, 2000 at The George
Washington University
The well known host of National Public Radio "At the
Opera" asked whether Nietzsche might have been right about Wagner's religion when
he characterized the choice of Parsifal, a story about the Holy Grail filled with
medieval nostalgia, as Wagner's sinking "helpless and broken, before the Christian
cross."
Read a copy of Lou Santacroce's talk (in two parts): part 1, and part 2.
The Wagner Society of Washington DC
P.O. Box 58213
Washington DC 20037
Phone: 301-907-2600 FAX: 301-907-8671
http://www.wagner-dc.org
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