Table of Contents

Acknowledgments      vii
Preface      1
Introduction      3
Brief Chronology      7

I. The Individual Operas
1. Tradition and the Individual Talent in Wagner’s Juvenilia
YVONNE NILGES      9
2. The Flying Dutchman: An Introduction
JAMES K. HOLMAN      23
3. Deciphering The Flying Dutchman
GREGORY KERSHNER      31
4. Revelation and Obfuscation: Wagner’s Readings in Romanticism for Tannhäuser
STEVEN R. CERF      40
5. Romanticism in Tannhäuser and Lohengrin
BARBARA JOSEPHINE GUENTHER      55
6. Don’t Ask: Faith, Magic, Knowledge, and Sources in Lohengrin
LISA FEURZEIG      80
7. Tristan and Ecstasy
HANS RUDOLF VAGET      105
8. Infomercial in Three Acts: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
NICHOLAS VAZSONYI      122
9. Relativities: Einstein, Wagner, and Die Meistersinger
JAMES K. HOLMAN      141
10      Musical Characterization in Parsifal: A Study of Parsifal and Kundry
JOHN J.H. MULLER      157

II. Wagnerian Opera and the Other Arts
11. Wagner and Dance: Tannhäuser and Beyond
MARY CARGILL      175
12. “The Dream Organ”: Wagner as a Proto-Filmmaker
HILAN WARSHAW      184
13. Wagnerian References in the Fiction of Willa Cather
RICHARD C. HARRIS      199

III. Wagnerian Opera in Performance
14. Michelle DeYoung: An Interview
JOHN LOUIS DIGAETANI      217
15. Ben Heppner: An Interview
JOHN LOUIS DIGAETANI      221
16. The Silver Age of Wagnerian Singing
BARBARA JOSEPHINE GUENTHER      227

A Manichean Conclusion
JOHN LOUIS DIGAETANI      251
Appendix: Discography and Videography of Recommended Performances      255
About the Contributors      259
Index      261