The Wagners : the dramas of a musical dynasty / Nike Wagner ; translated by Ewald Osers and Michael Downes.
| Author/creator |
Wagner, Nike |
| Other author/creator | Osers, Ewald, 1917-2011 translator. |
| Other author/creator | Downes, Michael, 1946- translator. |
| Format | Book and Print |
| Publication Info | Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, ©1998. |
| Description | xix, 327 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Subject(s) |
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| Uniform title | Wagner Theater. English |
| Contents | Introduction: Bayreuth and the Wagners -- Part one: Wagner's theatre -- Wandering Jew or exploiter?: thoughts on the Dutchman -- 'Without any comfortable intermediate stage': Tannhauser -- The universal poetry of Lohengrin -- Incest in The Ring -- The 'blissful union': Wotan and Brünnhilde -- The twice-solitary death in Tristan -- Folly and wit in Die Meistersinger -- 'No change will come to our western art': New Bayreuth as waste disposal plant -- A tragedy of understanding: Parsifal and anti-semitism in fin de siècle Vienna -- Disquiet about Parsifal -- Part two: The theatre of the Wagners -- Wieland Wagner: a 'negative' life -- 'To us, he wasn't the Führer at all': the enigma of Winifred Wagner -- The Wagner family and its home -- 1874-1930: the first generation at Wahnfried -- 1930-51: the deaths of Cosima and Siegfried to the post-war festival -- 1951-66: the reign of the brothers -- 1966-80: Wolfgang and the next generation -- 1980-90: after the death of Winifred -- 1990-2000: the battle for the succession. |
| Abstract | Nike Wagner, the great grand-daughter of the composer, exposes the dramas behind the ever-controversial Wagner family and the Bayreuth Festival. She discusses Richard Wagner's life, his character and the music-dramas he wrote; the Bayreuth Festival; her father and the new style of Wagner production which he inaugurated after the Second World War; their relationship to extreme right-wing political movements; and the battles for the succession of the principality of the Festival. The book chronicles in detail the often horrifying internecine warfare within the family, and its relationship to the extreme right-wing ideologies which have dominated much of its history. The extraordinary role that Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival have played in German life is relayed with irony but no animosity, as Nike Wagner attempts to understand how such a sublime art should have been appropriated by a gang of semi-illiterate thugs for their own purposes. |
| General note | Includes index. |
| Language | Translation of: Wagner Theater. |
| LCCN | 00111384 |
| ISBN | 069108811X |
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