Wagner's visions : poetry, politics, and the psyche in the operas through "Die Walküre" / Katherine R. Syer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Syer, Katherine Rae, 1967- author.

Series:

Eastman studies in music ; v. 115.

Eastman studies in music ; v. 115

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883.

Wagner, Richard.

Opera--Germany--19th century--History and criticism.

Opera.

Physical Description:

x, 256 pages, 9 unnumbered leaves of plates : black and white and color illustrations, music ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2014.

Summary:

Wagner's Visions studies crucial influences on Wagner's dramatic style during the years before and just after the failed Dresden revolutionary uprising of 1849. Offering a detailed examination of Die Feen, Wagner's least-known complete opera, together with analysis of Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and the four Ring dramas, Katherine Syer explores the inner experiences of Wagner's protagonists. Sources of particular political significance include the fables of the eighteenth-century Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi, the Iphigenia operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck, and the legacy of the martyr Theodor Körner, whose poetry became the lingua franca of the revolutionary movement to liberate and unify Germany. Syer's book offers fresh insights into the historical context that gave rise to Wagner's dramatic art, revealing how his distinct and powerful imagery is intimately bound up with the crises and instabilities of his era. Book jacket.

Contents:

To be born in Leipzig in 1813

Fairytale madness: Wagner and Gozzi

Senta the Somnambulist

Opposing worlds: Tannhäuser and Lohengrin

Hunding's horns, Wotan's storms, Sieglinde's nightmare.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-252) and index.

ISBN:

1580464823

9781580464826

OCLC:

865246184