Program for 2026
18th July. Illustrated talk by Peter Bassett entitled Enlightenment through Suffering and Love, with specific reference to Götterdämmerung.
3:00pm to 5:00pm, 4MBS Performance Studio, 384 Old Cleveland Road, Coorparoo. Attendance Fees are $20 for members, $25 for guests. Please transfer payment to Bank of Queensland, BSB 124021, Account No. 22612919. Quote your surname and month. Please advise the Secretary at alphayap60@gmail.com of the transfer and the names of any guests. The meeting will be followed by afternoon tea, for which donations will be gratefully received.
Peter will speak about Wagner’s evolving approach to Götterdämmerung and what distinguishes it from earlier parts of the Ring. There will be filmed excerpts from the groundbreaking Decca recordings by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Georg Solti with Birgit Nilsson, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gottlob Frick, and the sublime orchestral ending performed by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Lorin Maazel.
On 19 and 22 November, Simone Young will conduct Götterdämmerung concert performances in the Sydney Opera House, concluding four years of Ring concerts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and reminding us of the Ring concerts with the SSO and Edo de Waart between 1995 and 2000. The 2026 performances will feature Klaus Florian Vogt, Anja Kampe, Falk Struckmann, Samuel Dundas, Warwick Fyfe and Deborah Humble, with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.
Still from a 1924 film of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied (c. 1200 AD). The medieval poem was one of Wagner’s primary sources when writing the text for Siegfrieds Tod (the first version of Götterdämmerung) in 1848, immediately after Lohengrin.
15th August. A lecture/recital on ‘Liszt and Wagner’ presented by Alpha Yap together with virtuoso pianist John Granger Fisher.
19th September. An illustrated talk by Stephen Emmerson on ‘Hagen’s Watch’ – the Dark Side in Götterdämmerung.
17th October. Cinema screening of an Act of a Wagner opera (details to be confirmed).
14th November. Our AGM. Further details TBA.