The first Australian to sing at the Bayreuth Festival
The soprano Norma Gadsden was the first Australian to sing at the Bayreuth Festival, performing there in 1937 just two years before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Tristan in Shanghai, Colin Mackerras
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...
WAGNER DUETS, Peter Bassett.
“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…