The Wagner Journal, July 2013, Volume 7, Number 2

Guest-edited by Tash Siddiqui

Features

Na’ama Sheffi, Sound of Silence and Struggle: Wagner and the Israelis

Eva Rieger, ‘Only You Could Save Bayreuth!’: The Life of Richard Wagner’s Granddaughter Friedelind

Edward A. Bortnichak and Paula M. Bortnichak, Parsifal as Contagion Narrative and Discourse of Mourning

Reviews (live performances)

The Year of Magical Thinking: Emanuele Senici is deeply touched by Jonas Kaufmann’s Lohengrin at La Scala, but finds Italians unconvinced by attempts to stir up a bicentennial controversy

Bridging the Sexual Divide: Barry Millington is stimulated but ultimately unmoved by François Girard’s new Parsifal for the Met

Notes from Behind a Biedermeier Column: The new Zurich Holländer is assessed on the concert platform in London by Tash Siddiqui and on stage in Zurich by Laura Möckli

A Quest for Authenticity: Peter Quantrill is fascinated by the perspectives opened up by Hengelbrock’s ‘period’ Parsifal

Reviews (CDs)

Restricted Vision: A fifty-CD bicentenary set fails to do justice to the Bayreuth legacy, says David Breckbill

Reviews (DVDs)

Directors’ Decade: Matthew Rye finds plenty to enjoy in a bicentennial set that brings together recent interpretations of all ten of Wagner’s canonic music dramas

A Lang Overdue Restoration: Roland Matthews welcomes a sumptuous re-release of Fritz Lang’s 1920s film epic Die Nibelungen

Reviews (books)

Wagner Brought to Book: Wagner’s fictionalised death in Venice and a study of Wagner and 19th-century realist fiction reveal novel aspects of the composer’s life, works and death, suggests Heath Lees

Boon Companion: Tash Siddiqui goes Dutch with a trusty old friend and guide

A Curate’s Egg: Arnold Whittall relishes some good parts, but as a whole this weighty multi-lingual collection lacks substance

Just the Way the Master Wanted It? David Breckbill weighs the pros and cons of a major new work on Wagner conductors

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Joseph Horowitz appraises a facsimile reprint of Anton Seidl’s essay on conducting