Wieland Wagner
Encyclopedia
Wieland Wagner was a German
opera
director.
and Winifred Wagner
and grandson of composer Richard Wagner
.
In 1941, he married the dancer and choreographer Gertrude Reissinger. They had four children Iris (b. 1942), Wolf-Siegfried (b. 1943), Nike
(b. 1945) and Daphne (b. 1946).
Late in his life, Wieland had a love affair with the much younger Anja Silja
, one of the singers he had recruited for Bayreuth.
In 1965, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite
.
He died of lung cancer in October 1966.
through ushering in a new modern style to Wagnerian opera as a stage director and designer, substituting a symbolic for a naturalist staging and focusing on the psychology of the drama.
Wieland began his directorial career before World War II
, working on operas by his father and grandfather. His innovative approach did not become clear until after the war. His design for the 1937 Bayreuth production of Parsifal
, for example, was conservative, though it did have film projections during the transformation scenes.
When the Bayreuth Festival
reopened after the war in 1951, Wieland and his brother Wolfgang
became festival directors in place of their mother, whose association with Adolf Hitler
had made her unacceptable. (Wieland's own past was, however, suppressed.) The revolutionary productions evoked extreme views both for and against.
Wieland's long-lasting 1951 production of Parsifal included many features with which he later would be identified. Post-war austerity and his own interest - influenced by Adolphe Appia
- in lighting effects led to the use of round minimalist sets lit from above.
Wieland's first post-war Siegfried
represented Fafner
with a 30 ft statue of a dragon belching fire. In his later production of the opera he instead used pairs of giant eyes, which were picked out in turn from the back-projected forest, to suggest the movements of a huge creature stretching halfway down the Bayreuth hill.
Wieland's 1956 "Mastersingers
without Nuremberg" was the symbolic culmination of his campaign to move away from naturalism in Wagner production with the medieval town represented by the cobbled shape of a street and, above the stage, a ball suggestive of a flowering tree.
Wieland's minimalism extended beyond the stage furniture and props. The performer of Gunther
, for example, was expected to sing leaning forward in Act 1 of Götterdämmerung
until he felt his authority challenged by Hagen
and sat up straight. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast with traditional operatic acting.
The successive productions of the 1950s were matched by an extremely strong succession of conductors including Hans Knappertsbusch
, Joseph Keilberth
and Clemens Krauss
. Hans Hotter
, Astrid Varnay
, Wolfgang Windgassen
and Birgit Nilsson
were among the leading singers. Many recordings of this period are available on CD.
Although Wieland is best remembered for production's of his grandfather's works at Bayreuth, he was often asked to work elsewhere in Germany and Europe. For example, he produced Tannhauser and Holländer in Copenhagen, the Ring
in Naples
, Stuttgart
and Cologne
, and Beethoven's Fidelio
in Stuttgart
, London
, Paris
and Brussels
.
The great love of his life was the German soprano Anja Silja. Only 20 years old, she took over as Senta in 1960 in Bayreuth when Leonie Rysanek cancelled, and created a sensation. Blessed with a strong, agile, youthful and gleaming voice, and with an extraordinary talent for acting, she embodied Wieland's ideals. She sang Elsa in Lohengrin
, Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser
and Eva in Meistersinger at Bayreuth. Elsewhere, he cast her as Isolde, Brünnhilde, Richard Strauss
's Elektra
, and Salome
, and Alban Berg
's Lulu
and Marie in Wozzeck
. She even sang Desdemona in Verdi's Otello in Wieland's production. But Wieland cooperated with all the best singers of his age, and Neu-Bayreuth was able to present the elite: Nilsson, Windgassen, Vickers, Rysanek, Hotter, Resnik, Vinay, Adam, Gwyneth Jones. Wieland wanted great actors, but he also wanted the singers to execute his plan faithfully.
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
director.
Life
Wieland was the elder of two sons of SiegfriedSiegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...
and Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner was an English woman married to Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler....
and grandson of composer Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
.
In 1941, he married the dancer and choreographer Gertrude Reissinger. They had four children Iris (b. 1942), Wolf-Siegfried (b. 1943), Nike
Nike Wagner
Nike Wagner is the director of an arts festival held annually at Weimar, Germany , and a noteworthy collaborator in the Bayreuth Festival, founded in 1876 by Richard Wagner, her paternal great-grandfather...
(b. 1945) and Daphne (b. 1946).
Late in his life, Wieland had a love affair with the much younger Anja Silja
Anja Silja
Anja Silja Regina Langwagen, , born April 17, 1940, in Berlin, is a German soprano who is known for her great abilities as a singing-actress and for the vastness of her repertoire....
, one of the singers he had recruited for Bayreuth.
In 1965, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite
Pour le Mérite
The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max , was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I....
.
He died of lung cancer in October 1966.
Career
Wieland Wagner is credited as an initiator of RegietheaterRegietheater
Regietheater is a term that refers to the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera is staged so that the composer's original, specific stage directions can be changed, together with major elements of geographical...
through ushering in a new modern style to Wagnerian opera as a stage director and designer, substituting a symbolic for a naturalist staging and focusing on the psychology of the drama.
Wieland began his directorial career before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, working on operas by his father and grandfather. His innovative approach did not become clear until after the war. His design for the 1937 Bayreuth production of Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
, for example, was conservative, though it did have film projections during the transformation scenes.
When the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
reopened after the war in 1951, Wieland and his brother Wolfgang
Wolfgang Wagner
Wolfgang Wagner was a German opera director. He is best known as the director of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's death in 1966...
became festival directors in place of their mother, whose association with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had made her unacceptable. (Wieland's own past was, however, suppressed.) The revolutionary productions evoked extreme views both for and against.
Wieland's long-lasting 1951 production of Parsifal included many features with which he later would be identified. Post-war austerity and his own interest - influenced by Adolphe Appia
Adolphe Appia
Adolphe Appia , son of Red Cross co-founder Louis Appia, was a Swiss architect and theorist of stage lighting and décor.Appia is best known for his many scenic designs for Wagner’s operas...
- in lighting effects led to the use of round minimalist sets lit from above.
Wieland's first post-war Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
represented Fafner
Fafnir
In Norse mythology, Fáfnir or Frænir was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Ótr. In the Volsunga saga, Fáfnir was a dwarf gifted with a powerful arm and fearless soul. He guarded his father's house of glittering gold and flashing gems...
with a 30 ft statue of a dragon belching fire. In his later production of the opera he instead used pairs of giant eyes, which were picked out in turn from the back-projected forest, to suggest the movements of a huge creature stretching halfway down the Bayreuth hill.
Wieland's 1956 "Mastersingers
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
without Nuremberg" was the symbolic culmination of his campaign to move away from naturalism in Wagner production with the medieval town represented by the cobbled shape of a street and, above the stage, a ball suggestive of a flowering tree.
Wieland's minimalism extended beyond the stage furniture and props. The performer of Gunther
Gunther
Gunther is the German name of a semi-legendary king of Burgundy of the early 5th century...
, for example, was expected to sing leaning forward in Act 1 of Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
until he felt his authority challenged by Hagen
Hagen (legend)
Hagen or Högni is a Burgundian warrior in tales about the Burgundian kingdom at Worms. Hagen is often identified as a brother or half-brother of King Gunther .In the Nibelungenlied, he is called Hagen of Tronje...
and sat up straight. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast with traditional operatic acting.
The successive productions of the 1950s were matched by an extremely strong succession of conductors including Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....
, Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth was a German conductor who specialized in opera.He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. Near the end of World War II he became principal conductor of the Dresden...
and Clemens Krauss
Clemens Krauss
Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss.-Biography:...
. Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter was a German operatic bass-baritone, admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He was extremely tall and his appearance was striking because of his high, narrow face, wide mouth, and big, aquiline nose...
, Astrid Varnay
Astrid Varnay
Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation...
, Wolfgang Windgassen
Wolfgang Windgassen
Wolfgang Windgassen was a tenor internationally known for his performances in Wagner operas.-Life and career:...
and Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson
right|thumb|Nilsson in 1948.Birgit Nilsson was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works...
were among the leading singers. Many recordings of this period are available on CD.
Although Wieland is best remembered for production's of his grandfather's works at Bayreuth, he was often asked to work elsewhere in Germany and Europe. For example, he produced Tannhauser and Holländer in Copenhagen, the Ring
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, and Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
.
The great love of his life was the German soprano Anja Silja. Only 20 years old, she took over as Senta in 1960 in Bayreuth when Leonie Rysanek cancelled, and created a sensation. Blessed with a strong, agile, youthful and gleaming voice, and with an extraordinary talent for acting, she embodied Wieland's ideals. She sang Elsa in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
and Eva in Meistersinger at Bayreuth. Elsewhere, he cast her as Isolde, Brünnhilde, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Elektra
Electra
In Greek mythology, Electra was an Argive princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon...
, and Salome
Salome
Salome , the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament...
, and Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
and Marie in Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
. She even sang Desdemona in Verdi's Otello in Wieland's production. But Wieland cooperated with all the best singers of his age, and Neu-Bayreuth was able to present the elite: Nilsson, Windgassen, Vickers, Rysanek, Hotter, Resnik, Vinay, Adam, Gwyneth Jones. Wieland wanted great actors, but he also wanted the singers to execute his plan faithfully.
Associations with Hitler and Nazism
Winifred Wagner's close friendship with Hitler meant that, as a teenager and young man, Wieland knew the dictator as "Uncle Wolf". His family connections allowed him to avoid the draft in the war. Instead, he was a deputy civilian leader of the Bayreuth satellite of the Flossenbürg concentration campFlossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...
.
Videography
- Wagner: Tristan und IsoldeTristan und IsoldeTristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
(Nilsson, Windgassen, Hotter; Boulez, 1967) [live] Bayreuth Festival at Osaka - Wagner: Die WalküreDie WalküreDie Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
(Silja, Dernesch, Thomas, Adam; Schippers, 1967) [live] Bayreuth Festival at Osaka
Further reading
- Carr, JonathanJonathan Carr (writer)Jonathan Carr was a British journalist and author, who lived and worked primarily in Germany.He was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire....
: The Wagner Clan: The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007. ISBN 0-87113-975-8
External links
- Wieland Wagner: New Bayreuth at Wagneroperas.com includes pictures of Wieland's Bayreuth productions.
- http://archivowagner.info/6002s.html is a Spanish site listing Wieland's productions.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRQoVnO2m8w YouTube: An excerpt from Wieland Wagner's production of Die Walküre, with Anja Silja and Theo Adam (1967).