The Cambridge Companion to Wagner

Wagner was one of the most influential and controversial figures in the history of music.
This volume explores new and continuing debates regarding the musical, cultural, and political impact of his dramas and published writings. It provides up-to-date biographical data and interpretive views valuable to academics, students, and opera enthusiasts.

CONTENIDO

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Preface and acknowledgements
Chronology
List of abbreviations

Part 1. Biographical and historical contexts
1. Wagner lives: issues in autobiography
2. Meister Richard's apprenticeship: the early operas (1833-1840)
3. To the Dresden barricades: the genesis of Wagner's political

Part 2. Opera, music, drama
4. The "Romantic operas" and the turn to myth
5. Der Ring des Nibelungen: conception and interpretation
6. Leitmotif, temporality, and musical design in the Ring
7. Tristan und Isolde: essence and apparance
8. Performing Germany in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
9. Parsifal: redemption and Kunstreligion

Part 3. Ideas and ideology in the Gesamtkunstwerk
10. The urge to communicate: the prose writings as theory and practice
11. Critique as passion and polemic: Nietzsche and Wagner
12. The Jewish question

Part 4. After Wagner: influence and interpretation
13. "Wagnerism": responses to Wagner in music and the arts
14. Wagner and the Third Reich: myths and realities
15. Wagner on stage: aesthetic, dramaturgical, and social considerations
16. Criticism and analysis: current perspectives
Notes
Select bibliography
Index