Archive | Essays & Reviews

On Sunday 6 July (2025), I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of Tristan and Isolde in the Lyric Theatre (Da Juchang) of the Shanghai Grand Theatre (Shanghai Da Juyuan). It was one of three performances of the work that constituted, as Katharina Wagner, the Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival…

“Nothing but duets!” Originally published in a Deutsche Grammophon 2-CD set: Wagner Duets, DG 480 7308. Looking back at Tristan und Isolde twenty years after its composition, Wagner told his wife Cosima: “My model was Romeo and Juliet – nothing but duets!” He was invoking Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi which he had conducted […]

SOME OBSERVATIONS BY MEMBERS OF OUR SOCIETY

On the 15th and 17th November 2024, the SSO presented two performances of Die Walküre conducted by Simone Young.  A small group attended from the Queensland Society and the consensus was that it was one of the most outstanding performances experienced.  The singers, without exception, were fantastic, and the performance in concert allowed the interaction […]

Wagner’s choruses are amongst the glories of his stage works. They are central to the action, not extraneous to it, and the mood and style of each reflects the dramatic imperatives of the work concerned. The aptness of these choruses is illustrated in the final act of Der fliegende Holländer where three contrasting groups interact […]

Shakespeare drew inspiration from the ‘dark lady of the sonnets’ and Beethoven found solace in his mysterious ‘immortal beloved’, but Richard Wagner was often inspired by relationships closer to home. Fleeting romantic encounters and domestic celebrations stimulated a private, intimate style of art rarely associated with a composer best known for his lofty theatrical visions […]

Colin Mackerras reviews a Parsifal performance in China.