Forthcoming Events

Owing to ongoing concerns re Covid-19, 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.

Student membership of the Society is free.

NEW – Please scroll down this page to see information on events in the “Discover the Ring” event in February/March 2025, supported by our Society

2024

29th October – 7.00 pm.  Please note this is a Tuesday.  This will be a joint Zoom event with the Wagner Societies in London and Manchester, hosted by London.  Members  will receive the Zoom link from their own society.  Non-members who book through the Wagner Society of Scotland on Eventbrite will receive the Zoom link from us.

Ulrich Jagels – “View Behind the Scenes at the Bayreuth Festspiele”

Managing Director of the Bayreuth Festival.

View behind the scenes of Bayreuther Festspiele covering the changing
Audience, Sales and Marketing initiatives, Finance, and Building renovations.
Jagels, who is a business economist, has held positions at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Foundation, Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre gGmbH Berlin (roc berlin), Städtische Theater Chemnitz gGmbH and, most recently, as Administrative Director of the Leipzig Opera, where he was responsible for several construction projects with an estimated total volume of 30 million euros – including the elaborate renovation of the Musikalische Komödie, one of the few German theaters specifically for the operetta genre.
Event Ended

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24th November – 6.30 pm

Rachel Nicholls (Soprano) in conversation with Derek Williams

Rachel Nicholls has sung a number of Wagnerian roles including a flower maiden, Senta and Brunhilde. and she is widely recognized as one of the most exciting dramatic sopranos of her generation. Her Brunhilde at the Longborough Festival received the highest acclaim. We will hear about the challenges as well as the joys of singing Wagner.

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8th December – 6.30 pm.  In-person event at Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 5 Belford Road, Edinburgh  EH4 3BL

Annual General Meeting (Members only)  Members will be sent the Zoom link in advance.

followed by Laurence Dreyfus – “Wagner and the Erotic Impulse in Munich”  Non-members may attend this part of the event.

Professor Laurence Dreyfus is emeritus professor at the University of Oxford. Professor Dreyfus is the author of the award-winning book ‘Wagner and the Erotic Impulse’, which was the American Musicology Society best book of the year in 2010. Professor Dreyfus is both a noted Bach and Wagner scholar, as well as an expert performer. He founded the viol consort Phantasm which went on to win a gramophone award, and collaborated with Sylvia Mcnair in a grammy winning album of Purcell songs. Alex Ross describes the book as an illuminating study “which shows how Wagner’s obsession with sexuality prefigured the composition of operas such as Tannhauser, Die Walkure, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal”. Professor Dreyfus will talk about aspects of his award-winning book pertaining to Munich.

 

2025

26th January 6.30 pm

Dr Patrick Carnegy, 15th Earl of Northesk – “Wagner’s Theatre – In Search of a Legacy”.  In conversation with Derek Williams.

Patrick Carnegy will be presenting the turbulent story of Wagner and his interpreters over the course of the twentieth century. He gives vivid accounts of Gustav Mahler’s radical reinvention of the Wagnerian stage, and of the post-war rehabilitation of Wagner’s works after Hitler’s appropriation. He also offers sharply written reappraisals of great Wagnerian Conductors such as Klemperer, Toscanini, Karajan and Solti. In a fascinating conversation with Sir Michael Tippett, the composer talks with unique authority about the problems facing would-be musical dramatists today. Patrick Carnegy’s new book Wagner’s Theatre is an essential insight into how interpretations of Wagner have developed and how we can respond to them.
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2nd February – 6.30 pm – Note change of date from 23rd February

Marc Weiner – “Wagner’s Anti-Semitism and its Relevance to his Music Dramas”

Professor Emeritus, Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University.

Weiner was Editor of German Quarterly from1997 to 2004. One of many awards Weiner has won is the M Kayen National University Press book award for the Humanities. The award was for the well known book Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination. Early in his career Marc Weiner had a Richard Wagner Gendenkstaette scholarship to Bayreuth.

In the second half of the 20th century there was widespread reticence, both in Wagnerian scholarship and in the general public alike, to acknowledge and discuss Richard Wagner’s antisemitism, and a refusal to recognize its role in the understanding of his music dramas.  But an appreciation of the composer’s thoughts concerning the allegedly nefarious danger Jews posed to the development of German art and society is essential to assessing both the construction of various individual dramatic characters and the ideological implications of the dramatic machinations of many of Wagner’s most celebrated works for the stage.

Through an analysis of a host of Wagner’s essays and central passages from the third of his Ring dramas, Siegfried, the talk will seek to demonstrate the importance of recognizing the role that antisemitism plays in his dramatic project.
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30th March – 6.30 pm.  In-person Event at Edinburgh Society of Musicians, 5 Belford Road, Edinburgh  EH4 3BL

Hans Rudolf Vaget – “Es Lebe Amerika!”  Richard Wagner and the New World

Professor Hans Vaget is Emeritus Helen and Laura Shedd professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature and founding editor of Wagner Spectrum (the German Wagner Journal).
Wagner declared his intention to emigrate to the United States on three occasions. This baffling biographical item has not received the attention that it calls for. Professor Vaget will examine Wagner’s plan emigrate to the United States and start a ‘New Bayreuth’ – who knew! What emerges is an appreciation of Wagner’s lifelong interest in America, rendering his dependence on the patronage of King Ludwig the second all the more fraught and problematic. The lecture will be a condensed version of his biographical essay ‘Richard Wagner’s Amerika: Eine ausgrabung’ (Wuertzburg 2022). There is currently no English translation of the book, so this is your opportunity to hear about this fascinating research.
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20th April – 6.30 pm

Richard Bell – “The theology of Tristan and Isolde”

Richard Bell is Professor of Theology at Nottingham University, where he previously ran a course entitled ‘Doing theology with Richard Wagner’. Bell argues that despite Wagner’s personal failings,he did actually make a fundamental contribution to theology in  his writings as well as in his works. Professor Bell has published books on the theology of the Ring and also of Parsifal. Currently, Professor Bell is​working on a further book about the theology of Tristan und Isolde, and  he will be sharing with us some of his theological insights into this work.
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18th May – 6.30 pm

Reverend Professor Patrick S Cheng – “Wagner from a Queer Perspective”

It has long been suggested by Hanns Fuchs in his book ‘Wagner und die Homosexulitaet’ published in 1903 that Wagner might have been a spiritual homosexual. More recently books of interest to the queer Wagnerian such as Alex Ross’s Wagnerism have been published. The talk will explore writings about Wagner and homosexuality, the homosexuality of key people in Wagner’s circle, unorthodox sexual relationships and ethics in Wagner’s life and works, LGBTQIA+ devotees of Wagner, as well as queer influence on productions.
Dr Patrick Cheng is visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, an Episcopal priest, lawyer and Wagner lover. Dr Cheng has published three books on queer theology including ‘Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology’. Dr Cheng holds a BA from Yale, a JD from Harvard and a PhD from Union Theological Seminary.
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22 Feb-1 Mar 2025
Stockbridge Music Hub supported by the Wagner Society of Scotland, Stockbridge Parish Church, Edinburgh
‘Discover The Ring’

L>R: Lionel Friend, Sir John Tomlinson, Susan Bullock. and Keith Warner 
The Wagner Society of Scotland are pleased to support the Stockbridge Music Hub‘s eight-day event in Edinburgh, UK, titled ‘Discover The Ring’. Suitable for those new to the work as well as those who may have seen it before!

Musicians and scholars, renowned for their Wagner interpretation and knowledge will perform and share their experiences and opinions about Richard Wagner and his most famous work. Spread throughout the week will be screenings of the Bayreuth1992 – Kupfer/Barenboim Ring production.Opening the week, scholar Michael Downes, will talk about his recently published book Story of the Century: Wagner and the Creation of The Ring.

On the second day there will be recital by Susan Bullock and emerging star Laura Margaret Smith. A programme will include the Wesendonck Lieder and extracts from Götterdämmerung.

Conductor Lionel Friend who worked closely with Barenboim on the production being screened will deliver four 60 minute talks. With musical illustrations at the piano and from recordings, Lionel will look into various aspects of Wagner’s Ring cycle: its origins, text, characters and music to see how Wagner explores the frailties and triumphs of human nature.

On Tuesday evening Keith Warner, opera director, will talk about his work and the challenges of working on this scale and often provocative themes.

The final day will begin with a talk by one of the great interpreters of the often misunderstood character, Wotan, Sir John Tomlinson.

Saturday 22nd:
11am: ‘Story of the Century: Wagner and the Creation of the Ring’ – Michael Downes
2.30pm: Talk 1 – Lionel Friend
4pm: Talk 2 – Lionel Friend

Sunday 23rd:
2.30pm: Talk 3 – Lionel Friend
4pm: Talk 4 – Lionel Friend
7pm: Susan Bullock and Laura Margaret Smith recital:

Wesendonck-Lieder  (Susan Bullock, accompanied by Lionel Friend – c20′)
Götterdämmerung Act I, Scene 3 – Brünnhilde, Waltraute (Susan Bullock, Laura Margaret Smith, accompanied by Lionel Friend – c25′)
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Das Rheingold, Scene 4 – Erda (Laura Margaret Smith, accompanied by Lionel Friend – c6′)
Götterdämmerung Act III, Scene 3 – Brünnhilde “Immolation” (Susan Bullock, accompanied by Lionel Friend – c15′)
Monday 24th:
7pm: Das RheingoldTuesday 25th:
6pm: An evening with Keith Warner

Wednesday 26th:
5.30pm: Die Walküre 

Thursday 27th: Free day

Friday 28th:
5.30pm: Siegfried

Saturday 1st March:
11pm: Sir John Tomlinson talk/performance and Q&A
4pm: Götterdämmerung

Light refreshments will be provided during the intervals of the screenings on 26th, 28th and 1st. ‘Discover The Ring’

Bookings now open on Eventbrite.