Wagner and the Wonder of Art: An Introduction to Die Meistersinger

Amazon.com Price: $27.95 (as of 03/12/2019 11:15 PST- Details)

Categories: , , , , , , , , , ,

Description

Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger has at all times referred to as forth superlatives from those who have fallen under its spell. Toscanini wanted to lay his baton down for the last time only after he had conducted a performance of it. Paderewski referred to as it ‘the greatest work of genius ever achieved by any artist in any field of human endeavour.’ H.L. Mencken declared, ‘It took more skill to plan and write it than it took to plan and write the whole canon of Shakespeare.’

And yet Wagner’s many-splendoured comedy has come under severe criticism in contemporary years for what has been referred to as its ‘dark underside,’ its ‘fascist brutality,’ and its ‘ugly anti-Semitism.’ In Wagner and the Wonder of Art, renowned opera expert M. Owen Lee addresses that criticism. He also provides an introduction to the opera and an analysis so one can surprise even those veteran operagoers who won’t have explored the work’s intricate structure and the emotional drama at its centre. The book includes the on-air remark that Father Lee gave throughout the first radio broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera after the events of 9/11. He thought it essential, after making an attempt to refute the charges leveled against Wagner’s opera, to say something about its truthfulness, its life-affirming music, its insight into the madness that may destroy human lives, and its witness to the importance of art for the survival of our civilizations.

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Specialty Boutique » New, Used and Rental Textbooks » Humanities » Performing Arts » Music » Musical Genres » Opera » Wagner and the Wonder of Art: An Introduction to Die Meistersinger

Recent Products