Wagner
Wagner at the Movies
[Richard Wagner Society of SA, Adelaide University, 17 August 2025] Although Wagner, in his essay, foresaw “The Artwork of the Future,” as a communal matter, a ‘fellowship of all artists,’ it is hard to contest Stephen Whittington’s surmise that had Wagner lived in the time of film, he would have been something of an intractable auteur. What one would give to see a discussion between Wagner and Jack Warner, or for that matter, with Errol Flynn. Yet as Stephen pointed out in his entertaining and informative Brian Coghlan Memorial Lecture, the Maestro looms large in the Hollywood firmament (to borrow…
Continue Reading →Songs of Richard
(North Adelaide, 13 July 2025) This was a very pleasant presentation organised by the Richard Wagner Society SA, wherein South Australian mezzo soprano Fiona McArdle, with Josh van Konkelenberg on grand piano, presented a selection of the non-operatic songs of Richard Wagner. Fiona made her professional debut in 2017 as La Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with the State Opera of South Australia. With the company she also played Magdalene (Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg) and second saleswoman (La Vida Breve). Fiona completed her Master of Music at the New England Conservatory, Boston, USA, 2018. Role highlights within her studies include…
Continue Reading →Simone and the Valkyries
Die Walküre, Sydney Opera House, 15 November 2024 (Simone Young, Conductor /Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Stuart Skelton, Siegmund/Peter Rose, Hunding/Vida Miknevičiūtė, Sieglinde/Tommi Hakala, Wotan/Alexandra Ionis, Fricka, Roßweiße/Anja Kampe, Brünnhilde/ Helena Dix, Helmwige/Madeleine Pierard, Gerhilde/Natalie Aroyan, Ortlinde/Deborah Humble, Waltraute/Margaret Plummer, Siegrune/Kristin Darragh, Grimgerde/Liane Keegan, Schwertleite) The Sydney Opera House does not have the capacity to mount a proper Ring Cycle, but its beautiful concert hall can put on a brilliant concertized version, and Die Walküre offers a chance to savour the key spoke in Wagner’s wheel without the distractions of the monumental amount of staging required for a full-scale production. Instead there were…
Continue Reading →Bel Canto, davvero!
Alberich monsters Mime (by Arthur Rackham)
Richard Wagner Society of South Australia – Wake for Wagner (18 for 13) February 2024 President Geoffrey Seidel welcomed, and Barbara Fergusson interviewed, tenor Andrew Goodwin. Andrew grew up in the inner west Sydney suburb of Summer Hill and after certain vicissitudes, got the opportunity, arranged by Mira Yevtich, to study at the St Petersburg State Conservatory. Since then, he has appeared in numerous roles* and performed with all the major Australian symphony orchestras, but thus far at least, in few Wagner operas (when this was pointed out, he hilariously channeled “The Fast Show” and said: “I’ll get my coat.”)…
Continue Reading →The Ring in Brisbane
(Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Second Cycle: 8, 10, 12, 14 December 2023) Like Wagner’s monumental work, the first ever staging of The Ring in Brisbane grew in the telling. It was commissioned in 2017, and advertised in early 2019, with bookings in a ‘shuffle format’ scheduled from 13 June of that year, for performances in November/December 2020. Then a Sino/American research project let a bat loose from Hell, and gross inconvenience, and death, ensued. The Ring was set aside, although not as long as Wagner did while he fretted, and tinkered, and researched. With a revised cast, it was…
Continue Reading →