In the late 19th century, talking about attention was all the rage. And of all that century’s artists and thinkers, Richard Wagner had perhaps the most wildly oscillating views on the fraught relationship between the production and consumption of works of art. At times, these views were a holdover from his revolutionary days: He held […]
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“Disney, of course, would do it better”
The morning before “Siegfried,” the “curator” of the Bayreuth “Ring,” Marcus Lobbes, gave an interesting question and answer session with Griffin Kaiser, a filmmaker and a member of the Wagner Society of New York. Before I report on what Lobbes said, I must make the point that if a work of art needs discursive intervention […]
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A Day of Genuine Dread
Unlike, apparently, the Wagner family and the minds behind the Bayreuth Festival, I actually like and respect the “Ring” cycle as both a work of art and a way of looking at the world. It feels insane to me that the cycle needs to be defended on its own merit, being one of the most […]
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Enfeebled Expression
AI is everywhere in Bayreuth. When I go to the coffee shop on Sophienstraße, there are AI portraits of Richard Wagner wearing bad emo eyeliner on the walls. On my way to the Festspielhaus, there are AI posters for what can only be described as a “dinosaur rodeo.” AI-generated signs litter the streets—for breakfast, for […]
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Heavy Shadows
This summer’s Aix-en-Provence Festival began with two journeys from darkness toward light. The first, under the stars at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché, showed Mozart’s Tamino as a little blond boy growing up amid the ruins of civilization. The second, at the indoor Grand Théâtre de Provence, began in near-total darkness, with Richard Strauss’s Amme rocking […]
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Turned-On Bach
Bach’s music has been recorded on synthesizer, launched into outer space, and inspired 300 years of Western classical music. Now, it’s on OnlyFans. On May 13, the Berlin-based violist, composer, and arranger Shasta Ellenbogen premiered the first of a new series of solo viola performances on OnlyFans. Performing naked in her living room, Ellenbogen filmed […]
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The Impossible Task
This year’s Venice Biennale of Art is titled “In Minor Keys,” a curatorial vision proposed by the late Koyo Kouoh, who died a year before the Biennale opened last week. The theme asks us to take a deep breath, close our eyes, and listen for the music that continues in the face of repression, tragedy, […]
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Posing The Question of Palestine at Crisco Disco
A librettist-turned-priest, a dramatic soprano, and the creative director of Christian Dior walk into a bar called Crisco Disco. It’s a late April evening in Florence, and the room smells of high-end fragrances, mildew, and poppers. A bear in a SnapBack is spinning tech house. Dancers dance. The walls are covered with guides to the […]
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The Vicissitudes of Concept
Her voice precedes her; this, at least, is no surprise. It is among opera’s oldest tricks, for an onstage character to “overhear” the future object of their desire in advance of both their own and the audience’s sight; falling in love on voice alone is, after all, the very premise of the genre. In “Salome,” […]
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Sin City Drifting
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” is a work of relentless cynicism, where three runaway convicts build a Sin City that peaks then crashes. The opera also charts the gradual souring of a philosophy through liberal ideals, to the libertarian pursuit of freedom at all cost, to an […]