Welcome to the Wagner Society of America
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Welcome to the Wagner Society of America
Chicago, Illinois, USA
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Saturday afternoon, November 23 Professors Katherine Syer and William Kinderman
Wagner's Parsifal Hotel Allegro
1:30 pm CST Reception
2:00 pm CST Program
Program: We are pleased to have the husband and wife combination of Professors William Kinderman and Katherine Syer, both of the Department of Music at the University of Illinois. His presentation is "Wagner's Parsifal as Art & Ideology, 1882-1933." Her presentation is "Women on Stage in Parsifal."
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Sir Andrew Davis Hotel Allegro Reception: 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 18, 2013 Hilan Warshaw Documentary, 55 minutes, 2013 Produced, directed, and written by Hilan Warshaw Richard Wagner was notoriously anti-Semitic, and his writings on the Jews were later embraced by Hitler and the Nazis. But there is another, lesser-known side to this story. For years, many of Wagner's closest associates were Jews'young musicians who became personally devoted to him, and provided crucial help to his work and career. Who were they? What brought them to Wagner, and what brought him to them? These questions are at the heart of Hilan Warshaw's new documentary Wagner's Jews, co-produced with WDR and ARTE and broadcast in Europe in 2013 to mark Wagner's bicentenary. Filmed on location in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, Wagner's Jews tells these remarkable stories through archival sources, visual re-enactments, interviews, and musical performances. Parallel to this historical narrative, the film explores the ongoing controversy over performing Wagner's music in Israel.
HILAN WARSHAW is a filmmaker and writer based in New York City. Through his production company, Overtone Films (www.overtonefilms.com), he produces and directs independent projects as well as videos for organizations including Carnegie Hall and the League of American Orchestras. His writings on Wagner have been published by McFarland Press, The Wagner Journal, Wagner Spectrum, and in the new Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia. He recently taught a course on Romanticism and Film at Barnard College, Columbia University, and he has lectured at venues including New York University, Hofstra University, Wagner Society of America, Wagner Society of New York, and Boston Wagner Society. He has a B.F.A. with honors (Film & TV) and M.F.A. (Musical Theatre Writing) from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and he studied orchestral conducting at Mannes College of Music and the Aspen Music School. www.hilanwarshaw.com Hotel Allegro Sunday, May 19th Soprano Christine Brewer returns this time to sing accompanied by Craig Terry. This is our 200th birthday event and we will be joined by the Barrington, Evanston, The University Club Lunch - 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 24th Jeannie Williams Hotel Allegro Monday, March 25th William Berger
After Wieland Wagner's stage innovations in the 1950's, commentators began to speak frequently about the duality of "traditional" productions and "avant-garde" productions of Richard Wagner's works. People still talk in these terms, but these two choices no longer cover the range of possible interpretations. Other influences, such as nationalism, environmentalism, specific political readings, psychoanalytic allegories, and many others, have created a more complex and nuanced paradigm. So where are we now? How can we judiciously interpret what we see on the stage today without relying on the terms of a half a century ago? How can we best judge if a Wagner production has succeeded or failed? Hotel Allegro 171 W. Randolph Street Chicago Wednesday, March 13th PROFESSOR JESSE ROSENBERG
DANK HAUS 7:00 pm Reception with refreshments ' FREE Northwestern Professor Jesse Rosenberg will give a talk on Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder as sung by soprano Rebecca Wascoe and accompanied by Jeffrey Peterson. Included will be Professor Rosenberg's description of the connection to Tristan und Isolde and a vocal selection from it ("Mild und Leise"). Native Texan Rebecca Wascoe, known for her commanding stage presence and critically acclaimed as "vocally resplendent," she brings a dramatic intensity to each role she takes on. Some roles performed include Agathe in Der FreischÃ�¼tz, Fiordiligi in CosÃ� fan tutte, First Lady in The Magic Flute, Nedda in I Pagliacci, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Ann Putnam in The Crucible, Madame Lidoine in ter. Her solo repertoire includes major works by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Mahler, Verdi and Brahms, amongst others. Ms. Wascoe has been a winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation Awards, and has placed in the Sigma Alpha Iota Graduate Performance Awards. Jeffrey is on the faculty at Baylor University. 7:00 p.m. - Reception with Refreshments (free) Directions and Dinner Suggestion Wednesday, December 5th MARLIS PETERSEN (Soprano) Universtiy Club of Chicago We are pleased to have Marlis join us as she did when she was at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Lulu. This time she is doing quite a different kind of role in Don Pasquale. In between these performances she was a huge hit at the Metropolitan Opera in Hamlet (on very short notice) and in Lulu. She will certainly have something to say about that and will take questions from the audience. 5:15 p.m. - Reception Wednesday, November 7th ANTHONY FREUD
Enjoy a unique opportunity to meet Lyric Opera of Chicago's General Manager, Anthony Freud. Hotel Allegro 171 W. Randolph Street Monday, October 8th CHRISTINE GOERKE, EMILY MAGEE, JILL GROVE, and ALAN HELD
You will have the opportunity to meet, hear from, and ask questions of these artists who have all sung many Wagner opera performances. Christine Goerke makes her Lyric Opera debut in the title role of Elektra, Jill sang a role in all 4 Ring Cycle operas in Chicago. Emily has been our guest on a previous occasion when she was in Peter Grimes at Lyric Opera. Most recently she sang the role Elsa in Lohengrin also at Lyric Opera. Alan is one of Bill Smith's "all-born-in-Illinois fantasy dream cast) for Die WalkÃ�¼re as Wotan. (You just might be asked to name the other 5 singers in the principal roles. This question was aired on a Sirius XM radio broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera. No one got the answer and no one could come up with a better cast from another state or even from another country. The singers had to have actually sung the role. Unfortunately there were no prizes for the submitter of the question but the 11 minutes spent on the question may have set a record. But YOU will have a chance to win a prize!!!) Hotel Allegro 171 W. Randolph Street Friday, September 28th JENNIFER TIPTON JENNIFER TIPTON, lighting designer. A graduate of Cornell University, she has won two Tony Awards, a MacArthur Grant, and The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award among others. She has served as an adjunct Professor at the Yale School of Drama for 20 years. She did the lighting design for Peter Sellars' TannhÃ�¤user in 1988 and is here now for Elektra. She and her husband live in New York City. We are delighted to present this talented artist. Hotel Allegro Sunday, April 22, 2012 Luncheon and Recital The University Club 1:00 PM - Cash Bar Sunday, March 18th, 2012 This lecture explores Wagner's influence on the work of Sergei Eisenstein, the pioneering Soviet filmmaker and theorist. The talk will include clips from Eisenstein's films and Wagner's operas, as well as a discussion of photographs and designs from Eisenstein's historic 1940 production of Die WalkÃ�¼re for the Bolshoi Theater. HILAN WARSHAW is a filmmaker, writer, and educator based in New York City. He has produced and directed videos for organizations including Carnegie Hall, the League of American Orchestras, Dicapo Opera Theatre, and Quill Classics. In addition to his directing work, his writing and editing credits include PBS documentaries about music and the arts. His writings about Wagner and film have been published by McFarland Press, The Wagner Journal, and Wagner Notes, and he recently wrote film-related entries and appendices for the new Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia (forthcoming in 2013). In autumn 2011, he was a Visiting Scholar at Barnard College, where he taught a course in Romanticism and Film. He has lectured at venues including NYU's Deutsches Haus, Hofstra University, the Wagner Society of NY, Wagner Society of America, and Boston Wagner Society. He has a B.F.A. with honors (Film & TV) and M.F.A. (Musical Theatre Writing) from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and he studied orchestral conducting at Mannes College of Music and the Aspen Music School. www.hilanwarshaw.com Affinia Chicago Hotel Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 Eric Weimer has established himself as one of the pre-eminent coach/Assistant Conductors in the international opera world. Through his work at some of the world's leading companies'in particular, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Bayreuth Festival, but also the San Francisco Opera, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Cleveland Orchestra'he has prepared some 150 productions, collaborating with most of the world's greatest opera maestri: James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Bruno Bartoletti, Donald Runnicles, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Moest, Antonio Pappano, James Conlon, Christoph Eschenbach, Christian Thielemann, and Georg Solti. In this work, he has coached and worked closely with virtually all the major singers active on the international opera stage. While famous as a German specialist'he has prepared no less than twelve complete cycles of Wagners's Der Ring des Nibelungen'he is known also for the breadth of his experience with other repertoires, particularly the Baroque and the Italian. A fluent speaker of German and Italian, he has prepared most of the German and Italian repertoire that Lyric Opera of Chicago has presented in the past 24 years. A former musicologist'Dr. Weimer holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is the author of Opera seria and the Evolution of Classical Style'he is also in great demand as a coach of young singers. He joined the music staff of the Ryan Opera Center (training wing of Lyric Opera of Chicago) in 1992. (Marriott) Courtyard Chicago Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 Preliminary thoughts about the two bicentenaries of 2013: Wagner and Verdi were both born in 1813. Professor Gossett recently reviewed Peter Conrad's new Verdi/Wagner, for the Times Literary Supplement and will discuss some of the differences and similarities between these two composers, who represent two very different countries. Much separates them, but much also joins them together, and that is worth discussing! Affinia Chicago Hotel
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2011 Events
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Sunday, December 11th, 2011 Featuring: On the record, Samuel Clemens professed bemused confusion about the work of Richard Wagner, an extension of what is often assumed to be his feelings about opera in general. Did Mark Twain in fact say that Wagner's music is better than it sounds? And if he did, what did he mean? This talk looks into the deeper record of Twain's musical knowledge, his appreciation of opera and his complicated relationship to Richard Wagner. Twain's encounter with Wagner's music sets the stage for later American encounters with modernism and high art, and it displays in miniature cultural anxieties that plague Americans to this day. Philip Kennicott is chief art critic of The Washington Post, where he has also served as classical music critic and culture critic. He is a long time columnist for Gramophone, a frequent contributor to Opera News and former editor of Musical America, Chamber Music and Ovation magazines. Union League Club 12:30 PM - Social Hour Wednesday, November 16th MARTHA NUSSBAUM Nietzsche and Dionysus: We are proud to have Martha Nussbaum for our November program. Professor Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is an Associate in the Classics Department and the Political Science Department, a Member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a Board Member of the Human Rights Program. She is the founder and Coordinator of the Center for Comparative Constitutionalism. She has received over 40 honorary degrees from colleges and universities around the world. She has authored over 20 books and edited 14 others. Last year, she appeared in a 3-hour interview/call-in program on C-SPAN's BookTV's "In Depth" (Complete program is available for viewing at: http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11557/In Depth Martha Nussbaum.aspx ) She is also a long-time member of the Wagner Society of America. (Marriott) Courtyard Chicago Wednesday, October 19th MARK THOMAS KETTERSON Local writer Mark Thomas Ketterson, the Chicago correspondent for Opera News magazine, will discuss his own personal history as an arts writer, and share his thoughts about the current state of the art form as well as the process of assembling a critical review of an operatic performance, using Lyric Opera's 2010-2011 production of Wagner's Lohengrin for illustrative purposes. Hotel Allegro Sunday, May 22nd CARTER SCOTT
Michigan Shores Club CARTER SCOTT, soprano, who appeared at Lyric Opera of Chicago last season in Verdi's Macbeth, will give a program consisting of the Wesendonck Lieder, along wtih other works of Wagner, Bellini, Strauss (both Richard and Johann II), and Puccini! . Carter gave a wonderfully well received program for the Near North Chapter of Lyric two seasons ago. Fred Ockwell will accompany her.
Wednesday, April 27th NICHOLAS VAZSONYI
Professor Vazsonyi will speak on his recent book, Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Affinia Chicago Hotel Wednesday, March 2, 2011 AMBER WAGNER
When we asked Stephanie Blythe about young singers that we should keep an eye out for, she responded, 'There's Amber Wagner." Amber sang for our joint holiday event in December, 2009 with several Lyric Opera chapters. Amber is here in Chicago to sing two performances as Elsa in Lohengrin at Lyric Opera of Chicago on March 5th and 8th. For our evening with Amber, as usual for events with performing artists, she will give a brief autobiographical statement and then field questions from the audience. If you haven't seen the DVD of 'The Audition' do it ! Affinia Chicago Hotel
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 One of the leading mezzos of our day, Stephanie has been in Chicago for Un Ballo in Maschera and for The Mikado. From all reports she has stolen the show in her first ever Katisha. We know her best in roles such as Fricka in Die WalkÃ�¼re or Orpheus in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, but her diverse repertoire includes her personal tribute We'll Meet Again'The Songs of Kate Smith, which she'll be presenting in New York on February 16th at Lincoln Center as part of the American Songbook series. As usual with our get-togethers with performers a large part of the program was devoted to the Question and Answer portion. Hotel Allegro Sunday, January 2nd, 2011 Program will include excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier, works of Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, and more! 5:15 PM Social Hour - Cash Bar Michigan Shores Club
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Sunday, December 3rd, 2006
2006 HOLIDAY PARTY
Chicago Athletic Association - The Crystal Room
12 S. Michigan Avenue
TIMES: 5:00 PM Social Hour - Appetizers Cash Bar
5:45 PM Buffet Dinner THE QUIZ All sorts of prizes
7:15 PM Program - MARK DELAVAN
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
DONALD ARTHUR
"HAVE PROTOPLASM/WILL TRAVEL"
[Donald Arthur with Astrid Varnay]
Union League Club,
65 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago Room 710
Times: 7:00 pm - Reception
7:30 pm - Program
Cost: Free - Reservations not required
Program: DONALD ARTHUR will discuss 'Hans Hotter, Memoirs' which he translated,
expanded (working with Hotter),and edited. He also worked with Astrid Varnay
and James King on their autobiographies. Donald, a most entertaining speaker, has
had an extensive career in opera and in the broadcast media.
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Chicago Athletic Association
12 S. Michigan Avenue
Michigan Room, 3rd floor
Chicago, IL
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Sunday, December 4, 2005
Chicago Athletic Association � 2nd Floor
12 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago
Program
Soprano MELANIE TOMASZ
Our own MELANIE TOMASZ, soprano, will sing with and be accompanied by Professor FREDERICK OCKWELL of the Northwestern University School of Music. They have designed an interesting and delightful program of Wagnerian works. Melanie�s most recent stage appearance was as Maria Callas in Terrance McNally�s MASTERCLASS.
Pianist FREDERICK OCKWELL
Fred accompanied our holiday program in 2004 as well.
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Saturday, March 26, 2005
DR. STEVEN MARC WEISS
Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Coe College
"More Acting Please! : Putting Drama Back into Music Drama"
Wednesday Ring Dinners
Last spring, the Wagner Society of America hosted a dinner and program event
each Wednesday evening of the Ring Cycles at Lyric Opera of Chicago:
Wednesday, March 30th
DR. BERNARD J. DOBROSKI
John Evans Professor of Music, Northwestern University
How to Conduct Die Walküre
Wednesday, April 6th
P. CRAIG RUSSELL
Cartoonist
Visual Solutions for Purely Musical Moments in the Ring
An audio-visual presentation on 'Visual Solutions for Purely Musical Moments in the Ring.'
Wednesday, April 13th
MARILYN SHIELDS-WILTSIE, Steinway Artist
Recital of Works and Wagner Transcriptions by Franz Liszt
Thursday, October 27th, 2005
DONALD CULLOP, Presenter
Documentary on the Life and Career of Astrid Varnay
Donald Collup's acclaimed documentary on the life and career of Astrid Varnay
Thursday, November 3, 2005
PAUL FRYER - Presenter
The Life of Richard Wagner
