Richard Wagner's Women
A well-researched and exhaustive analysis of the role of women in Wagner's operas.

Richard Wagner's music contains some of the most powerful portrayals of emotions in all opera, particularly love. Eva Rieger presents a new picture of the composer, showing how the women at his side inspired him and how closely his life and art intertwined.
We follow Wagner's restless hunt for the 'ideal woman', her appointed task being to give him shelter, warmth, inspiration, adventure and redemption, all in one. He could hardly have desired anything more contradictory, and this is reflected in the female characters of his operas. They are all in some way torn, faltering between their own desire for self-realization and the societal constraints that impel them to sacrificethemselves for their men.
Rieger bids farewell to essentialist, naturalized notions of femininity and masculinity. Her investigations are both comprehensive and convincing, for she avoids the pitfalls of imposing extraneousinterpretation, instead focussing keenly on the music itself.

EVA RIEGER is Professor Emeritus in Historical Musicology at the University of Bremen and lives in the principality of Liechtenstein.
1102037827
Richard Wagner's Women
A well-researched and exhaustive analysis of the role of women in Wagner's operas.

Richard Wagner's music contains some of the most powerful portrayals of emotions in all opera, particularly love. Eva Rieger presents a new picture of the composer, showing how the women at his side inspired him and how closely his life and art intertwined.
We follow Wagner's restless hunt for the 'ideal woman', her appointed task being to give him shelter, warmth, inspiration, adventure and redemption, all in one. He could hardly have desired anything more contradictory, and this is reflected in the female characters of his operas. They are all in some way torn, faltering between their own desire for self-realization and the societal constraints that impel them to sacrificethemselves for their men.
Rieger bids farewell to essentialist, naturalized notions of femininity and masculinity. Her investigations are both comprehensive and convincing, for she avoids the pitfalls of imposing extraneousinterpretation, instead focussing keenly on the music itself.

EVA RIEGER is Professor Emeritus in Historical Musicology at the University of Bremen and lives in the principality of Liechtenstein.
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Richard Wagner's Women

Richard Wagner's Women

Richard Wagner's Women

Richard Wagner's Women

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Overview

A well-researched and exhaustive analysis of the role of women in Wagner's operas.

Richard Wagner's music contains some of the most powerful portrayals of emotions in all opera, particularly love. Eva Rieger presents a new picture of the composer, showing how the women at his side inspired him and how closely his life and art intertwined.
We follow Wagner's restless hunt for the 'ideal woman', her appointed task being to give him shelter, warmth, inspiration, adventure and redemption, all in one. He could hardly have desired anything more contradictory, and this is reflected in the female characters of his operas. They are all in some way torn, faltering between their own desire for self-realization and the societal constraints that impel them to sacrificethemselves for their men.
Rieger bids farewell to essentialist, naturalized notions of femininity and masculinity. Her investigations are both comprehensive and convincing, for she avoids the pitfalls of imposing extraneousinterpretation, instead focussing keenly on the music itself.

EVA RIEGER is Professor Emeritus in Historical Musicology at the University of Bremen and lives in the principality of Liechtenstein.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781843836858
Publisher: BOYDELL & BREWER INC
Publication date: 10/20/2011
Pages: 248
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

EVA RIEGER is professor emeritus in historical musicology at the University of Bremen.

CHRIS WALTON is the author of many works on Central European music.

Table of Contents

Prelude
'...the world as yet has no notion of it': Wagner's Musical Language
From Rienzi to Der fliegende Holländer
'The glitter of a high-class brothel': Tannhäuser
'Take all that I am!': Lohengrin
Sexual Promise and the Womanly Redeemer: Tristan und Isolde
Mathilde, the 'dear muse': Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
The Ring of the Nibelung: Genesis and Prelude - The Ring I
Wotan and the Valkyrie - The Ring II
Siegfried and Women - The Ring III
Götterdämmerung - The Ring IV
Between Eva and Kundry: '...no woman at my side!'
'...the suffering of love's seduction': Kundry and Parsifal
Postlude
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