Forthcoming Events

All talks will be delivered over Zoom, unless otherwise indicated, from 6.30-8.30 pm.  Members are not required to pre-book on Eventbrite.  Non-members are welcome to attend, and they should book on Eventbrite via the link provided for each event.  A notice will be sent to members of the Society one month before each talk with Zoom details if appropriate.  A link to the Zoom meeting will be sent to non-members who book on Eventbrite.

 

Admission:
Zoom: £5 for non-members, free for members. Free for students.

In-person:  £5 for members, £10 for non-members.  Free for students.

Student membership of the Society is free.

 

26th October

PLEASE NOTE:  British Summer Time will end at 2.00 a.m. on this date, when clocks will go BACK BY ONE HOUR.

Dr Michael Downes OBE – Wagner and Schumann:  Parallels and Contrasts

Michael is a versatile and experienced musician and musicologist, with particular interests in opera and in music of the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. Since 2008 he has been Director of Music at the University of St Andrews, where he recently led the development of the multi-award-winning Laidlaw Music Centre. Michael was awarded an OBE in the King’s 2025 Birthday Honours List for services to music and education.

Although Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann were only three years apart in age, knew each other well when they both lived in Dresden (Schumann’s diaries record the pair meeting on at least 24 occasions between 1845 and 1849), and shared a preoccupation with finding new ways to convey narrative in music, it is comparatively rare for them to be discussed together. In large part this is because Wagner later deliberately downplayed the importance of Schumann to his own career, as he did with every other contemporary composer who might have been considered a rival. Michael’s talk will examine the relationship between the two composers, consider the similarities and differences between their ideas on music and drama, and point out some intriguing evidence from Wagner’s work that suggests that Schumann might have had more of an influence on him than he let on.

 EVENT ENDED

23rd November

With regret, Dr Edward Primrose has had to cancel his talk, due to ill health. 

It is hoped that a replacement talk can be arranged for this date.  Please check back here for updates.

 

 

 

7th December 2025 – 6.30 pm

Annual General Meeting  – in person at Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3BL.  This will be a hybrid event, and the Zoom link will be sent before the date.  Attendance at the AGM in-person or on Zoom is for members only, however non-members may attend the talk and recital, either in-person or on Zoom.

Following the AGM, our Bayreuth Stipendiatin Roisin Linehan and Chloe Miller will talk about their Bayreuth experiences, and Roisin will give a short recital.  This will be followed by drinks and a light buffet.

 

2026

11th January

Joshua Borths – Wagner’s Artistic Foundations

Joshua Borths is Director of Opera Theatre at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, VA and the Company Dramaturg of the internationally acclaimed Des Moines Metro Opera. As an opera professional, Borths has served as a stage director, educator, dramaturg, and writer across the United States. During the 2024/25 season, Borths directed new productions of The Flying Dutchman, Hansel & Gretel, Idomeneo, and The Little Prince. In 2025/26, Borths will direct new productions of Three Decembers, Dialogues of the Carmelites, La traviata, and Tosca. Borths’s productions have been rapturously received, including an “uproariously funny new production” (Arizona Daily Star) of The Barber of Seville at Arizona Opera and a “beautiful, even poetic” (Opera Today) new production of The Falling and the Rising. As educator, Borths was the Resident Scholar at Virginia Opera, served on the faculty of Capital University, and taught at SUNY Potsdam-Crane School of Music, The University of Richmond, Shenandoah University, and University of Maryland. He has given over five hundred opera presentations, and his work has been featured in Opera News, TED Ed, Virginia Public Media, and more. As a dramaturg and surtitle creator, he has created numerous original translations including The Valkyrie and Siegfried, and he is the official surtitlist for the Carlisle Floyd Cenntenial. He has previously spoken for the Triangle Wagner Society and Wagner Society Manchester. More information can be found on JoshuaBorths.com, and his children’s operas can be licensed on OperaClassroom.com.

Richard Wagner provocatively changed the course of music, drama, and art throughout the twentieth century, and his work continues to influence artists well into our own time. Since Wagner’s death in 1883, much of the discourse surrounding him has focused on his artistic legacy. However, Wagner was a man of the nineteenth century, firmly rooted to a specific time and place. Although tracking the ebb and flow of an artist’s influences and innovations brings great aesthetic enjoyment, focus on what influenced Wagner has largely been absent from the conversation surrounding him. Using Wagner’s enigmatic autobiography, Mein Leben, as a starting point, Joshua Borths will explore the artistic influences on Wagner, emphasizing his art as a conversation between the old and new and discovering the foundations of his greatest music dramas.

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1st February

Nicholas Vazsonyi – “Belonging”

Nicholas Vazsonyi is an American academic, author, and artistic director. Since 2023, he is Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Clemson University.[1]

Nicholas has authored articles on German national identity, German literature and culture of the 18th through the 20th centuries, and cultural intersections of music, literature and film. His research interests include composer Richard Wagner and literary figure Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He is the author of two books Lukács Reads Goethe: From Aestheticism to Stalinism, and Richard Wagner: Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand, translated into German as Richard Wagner: Die Entstehung einer Marke, and has conceived and edited several volumes, including The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia[2] and the Cambridge Companion to Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. He is also the Writer and Director of the 4-part Video/DVD film series, titled Klassix-13: Mozart – Beethoven – Schubert – Brahms.[3]

He is the Co-Editor of WagnerSpectrum, and serves on the advisory board of the Wagner Society of New York and the journal Leitmotive.[4]

“Belonging” and its opposite, not belonging, were central preoccupations for Wagner lifelong, saturating questions of his own identity as well as haunting protagonists in every one of his mature works. There is even a musical trademark he uses across his works to convey belonging and rootedness. This talk will provide a brief introduction to this surprisingly rich and as yet unexplored topic that has become so important in today’s conversations about inclusivity.

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15th March – in person at Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 3 Belford Road, Edinburgh, and on Zoom.  The Zoom link will be sent before the event.

Sarai Cole – Recital

Sarai Cole is an international soprano celebrated for her rich, powerful voice, drawing comparisons to opera legends such as Birgit Nilsson and Jessye Norman. As a Verdian and Wagnerian specialist, she has captivated audiences around the world with her heartfelt interpretations and commanding stage presence.

Most recently, Sarai performed as Elisabeth in a scene from “Tannhäuser” with the Boston Wagner Institute and portrayed Chrysothemis in “Elektra” with Dramatic Voices Berlin. She is currently covering the role of Sieglinde in “Die Walküre” with Regents Opera, further cementing her reputation as a sought-after dramatic soprano.

 

19th April

Rev Dr Michael Fuller – Alienation, Deconstruction, Re-presentation: The approach of some contemporary directors to the staging of Wagner.

Michael Fuller lectures in science and religion at the University of Edinburgh. He has authored and edited numerous papers and books in this interdisciplinary field and has served as Chair of the Science and Religion Forum and Vice-President for Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. He has also written on theology, literature and music, and is a regular contributor to The Wagner Journal.
Stage directors over the past couple of decades have demonstrated a rich variety of perspectives in their staging of Wagner’s works in the theatre. This talk will explore aspects of the work of figures such as Peter Konwitschny, Stefan Herheim and Dmitri Tcherniakov, analysing their various approaches and attempting to discern themes which emerge from their work.

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17th May

Susan Vincent – Death of Richard Wagner in Venice 1883 and the three months before and three months after his death.

Susan Vincent was introduced to Richard Wagner’s music by her late husband Edward Vincent whose own father, Ernest Vincent, had been a tenor in the Moody Manners Opera Company in the early part of the twentieth century.

Following research into Richard Wagner’s life, Susan became especially interested in his death in Venice in 1883 and the events leading up to this. The talk will cover the key events leading up to the death of Richard Wagner and try to understand what exactly happened on the day of his death (13th February 1883). This will cover his final writings about women, an argument with Cosima (possibly over Carrie Pringle), the worldwide obituaries, the journey from Venice to Bayreuth with Wagner’s body, and more.

The presentation will show how Venice was in Richard Wagner’s time and how his favourite places are today. It will also cover the music that was important to the composer in his last six months of life. Wagner’s favourite coffee shop, church and afternoon pastime in Venice will also be covered, as well as the importance of his Symphony in C Major (the Symphony in C Major, WWV 29, from 1832, is the only completed symphony of Wagner).

Susan, having successfully completed an M.A. in Classical Studies in 2023 with the Open University is now completing an M.A. in Music ,also with the O.U. Susan’s dissertation will look at the impact of Richard Wagner’s three visits to the UK on his reception both in England and Scotland and how this changed over the next 40 yrs.

As Conversation Director of the Wagner Society of Scotland Susan hosts a tea with Wagner Zoom the third Tuesday of every month.

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