The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Wagner Society of Northern California

  • James Conlon at WSNC

    * Notes * James Conlon, the Music Director of Los Angeles Opera, and Dr. Katherine Syer gave talks at the Wagner Society of Northern California today in San Francisco. Conlon spoke on how he came to love classical music and Wagner, and how he decided to become a conductor a young age. We heard that the two conditions…

  • Conrad Susa at WSNC

    Composer Conrad Susa gave an amusing talk entitled "In Wagner’s Musical Forge: Das Rheingold" on Saturday afternoon. The focus was very much on the music itself, as evidenced by the beginning of the score taped to the wall. Susa played recordings of Bach's F Major Toccata and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major,…

  • Gold Rush – Forging The American Ring Symposium

    The Wagner Society of Northern California held a Das Rheingold symposium on June 14, 2008, which was declared Wagner Society of Northern California Day at San Francisco Opera. The first talk, entitled "From Iceland to Valhalla: What do the medieval Icelandic sources of Das Rheingold really say?," was from Dr. John Lindow of UC Berkeley. His…

  • Redeemer Reborn Talk at WSNC

    Notes * Yesterday afternoon Paul Schofield gave a talk on his book The Redeemer Reborn: Parsifal as the Fifth Opera of Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Wagner Society of Northern California. It was the second time he had talked on this subject at WSNC, so his talk was slightly incoherent for someone who had not…

  • Meeting Venus Talk at WSNC

    * Notes * Last weekend the Wagner Society of Northern California had its first meeting of the year, featuring a talk by Professor Heather Hadlock based on a paper entitled "From 'beloved hall' to Evening Star: The televisual apotheosis of the diva in István Szabó's film Meeting Venus (1991)." Dr. Hadlock presented the paper last…

  • Wie, hör’ ich das Licht?

    * Notes * The Wagner Society of Northern California held a symposium on Tristan und Isolde last Saturday, October 21, 2006. There were seven speakers whose topics ranged from the day-to-day administration of Tristan at San Francisco Opera to a Jungian analysis of Wagner. The turn out was good, about a hundred people. The highlight…