A TRIPLE BILL: Focus on Gotterdammerung 19/09/2026

         The September meeting of the Society provided to attendees three distinct presentations, related to each other by a broad focus on Gotterdammerung.
Firstly, our President Stephen Emmerson and our Treasurer Judy Xavier presented observations on their recent experiences at this year’s Bayreuth Festival, sharing their reactions to the productions offered in what was the 150th anniversary session. Their remarks were helpfully illustrated by photos of the current productions from the Festival web site.
Both speakers enthused over the attractions of the town of Bayreuth and the marvels of the Festspielhaus with its unique interior and remarkable acoustic (but not forgetting its hard seats and lack of air-conditioning!). For those of us who have previously attended the Bayreuth Festival, the speakers evoked memorable moments. For others, a persuasive case was made for partaking of the Bayreuth experience.
Turning to the new and controversial production of the Ring Cycle, our speakers were not surprisingly full of praise for the singers, the musicians and the conductor Christian Thielemann. But the AI staging drew a more muted reaction. AI-driven projections were employed, generated from a range of archival Wagner sources and a bewildering variety of historical scenes. There was a seething, constantly changing visual collage, with each performance being unique. The visuals dominated the staging with the singers providing only minimal acting. Some of the images were visually striking. But the images were sometimes too random and not an effective match to the evolving music drama. Nonetheless, Stephen and Judy found the staging preferable to that in recent Ring Cycles, afflicted as they were by the bizarre excesses of Regietheater. Our speakers concluded with brief and far from enthusiastic remarks on the stagings of the other Bayreuth operas they managed to attend. For Stephen, the whole staging of Parsifal was misconceived and crass, while the modular sets of Der Fliegende Hollander were annoying. Judy observed that the contemporary take on Rienzi messed about with characters and plot.
The second part of the September meeting consisted of a discussion and analysis by Stephen of the episode from Act 1 of Gotterdammerung known as “Hagen’s Watch”. Here Hagen delivers a brooding monologue in which he reveals his dark character and gloats over the anticipated success of his deceits. Stephen closely examined the text of the monologue and played Gottlob Frick’s powerful singing of the passage in the classic Solti Ring Cycle recording. “Hagen’s Watch” reveals Hagen in all his malevolent and manipulative nature. But Hagen, like other Wagnerian villains, is a complex character with a tragic aspect. Stephen noted the various attributes of Hagen discerned by commentators. Driven by a lust for power, Hagen is emotionally empty, unloved and unloving, and contemptuous of the world. Ultimately Stephen found Thomas Mann’s approach instructive: Hagen as the antithesis of Siegfried, as the “shadow” of that hero.
The afternoon concluded with a performance of an arrangement by Stephen of music extracted from Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. Stephen was joined by two colleagues well known to Queensland music lovers, violinist/violist Warwick Adeney and horn player Ysolt Clark, both of whom played in the orchestra for the Brisbane Ring.
Stephen’s “Hagen-Siegfried Suite” consists of arrangements of these excerpts:
• Prelude to Siegfried, merging into the sunrise preceding Scene 2 of the Prologue of Gotterdammerung
• Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, transition from Prologue into Act 1 of Gotterdammerung
• Merging into “Hagen’s Watch”, Scene 3 from Act 1 of Gotterdammerung
• Merging into a short coda, extract from towards the end of Act 3 of Gotterdammerung
Stephen’s sensitive and effective arrangements were performed entertainingly by the accomplished trio of musicians. The warmth of the applause that the performers received attested to the enjoyable musical experience. The meeting ended on a high note!

Geoff Fisher