Books On Bayreuth, Please
R W
I'm hoping you can recommend some books on the history of the Bayreuth
Festival.
I would be especially interested in the period from inception through
the '51 reopening and Wieland's innovations.
Good pictures are a great plus; in fact, I'd love also a complete photo
book, devoted exclusively to good pics of past productions, if such
exists.
English language editions a must, except for photobook, of course.
Thank you.
- RW
acdouglas
The "standard" text is: _Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival_, by
Frederic Spotts. It's an excellent and accurate resource, and very well
written.
bo...@boston.quik.com
For the early years try "BAYREUTH: The Early Years", edited by Robert
Hartford. This collects first person accounts from some very famous
people - starting with Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Hanslick, Lili
Lehmann - all present at the first festival, and in the ensuing years
till 1914, we hear from Humperdinck, Shaw, Mark Twain, Richard
Strauss, Virginia
Woolf, Bartok, Arthur Sullivan, Stravinsky and a number of others.
Cambridge University Press.
For the period 1924 to 44 there are a variety of books that are really
addressing the larger issue of Wagner's appropriation by the Third
Reich, and the family's level of responsibility for that. Brigitte
Haman's biography of Winifred Wagner is thorough, as is Jonathan
Carr's "The Wagner Clan". A more intimate account of the family comes
from Wieland Wagner's daughter Nike, in her book "The Wagners". Avoid
her articles on the operas themselves and stick to the family soap
opera.
***
strauss...@gmail.com
wrote:
> For the period 1924 to 44 there are a variety of books that are really
> addressing the larger issue of Wagner's appropriation by the Third
> Reich, and the family's level of responsibility for that. Brigitte
> Haman's biography of Winifred Wagner is thorough, as is Jonathan
> Carr's "The Wagner Clan". A more intimate account of the family comes
> from Wieland Wagner's daughter Nike, in her book "The Wagners". Avoid
> her articles on the operas themselves and stick to the family soap
> opera.
Let me add a second endorsement for Brigitte Haman's biography. It's
a fascinating read, informative and even-handed. I wouldn't recommend
Gottfried Wagner's book, except if you become deeply interested in the
more current ongoings of the family soap opera and want to know who
hates who, etc.
-lms
Mike Scott Rohan
wrote:
> The Spotts book is superb. The publisher is Yale University Press.
>
> For the early years try "BAYREUTH: The Early Years", edited by Robert
> Hartford. This collects first person accounts from some very famous
{snip}
Spotts is excellent, although on some subjects -- the tragicomedy of
the Peter Hall/Solti Ring, for example -- he's rather "gone native"
and accepted the local version of events too uncritically. Never a
good thing to do at Bayreuth!
But for an account of the productions, primarily, and not of the
bitching, backbiting, bed-hopping and general infighting -- which can
be very boring for those actually excited by the music -- Penelope
Turing's New Bayreuth, if you can find it, is highly enjoyable. She
was personally at every post-war festival except the first, which
should suit your specs well enough, and there are some decent
pictures. So far as I know, there are no current Bayreuth picture-
books, except for the ones the festival itself. The nearest would be a
German-texted book called Werkstatt Bayreuth, which is more of a
photo-essay. There are plenty of well-illustrated books partially on
Bayreuth, though, from Charles Osborne's World Theatre of Wagner to
Patrick Carnegy's recent effort, interesting but flawed (forgotten
the title, but easy to find on Amazon).
Hope that's of some interest,
Mike
Bert Coules
conversational rather than heavy and intellectual, but none the worst for
that. And it's highly and splendidly opinionated, too: if she'd had her
way, Hermann Uhde would have sung every male lead in every opera.
More than most, Turing's book conjures up what it's like actually to go to
Bayreuth.
For a detailed look at the genesis of a specific (and very troubled)
production, the Peter Hall Ring of the early eighties, The Ring: Anatomy of
an Opera by Stephen Fay and Roger Wood is hard to beat.
And though this thread is about books, maybe I should mention the DVD
documentary Baptism of Fire about Katherina Wagner's Meistersinger, which
enjoyed unparalleled access to the entire process of mounting the piece.
Bert
Bert Coules
books on the *history* of the festival, making two of my suggestions rather
irrelevant.
Bert
R W
Each suggestion sounds very much like what I'm looking for, and I'll
definitely look into them.
- RW