Wagner: the long and the short of it

Jonathan Gaisman

BREVITY IS NOT A CHARACTERISTIC usually associated with Wagner, but it is a happy paradox that many of the best books on the composer have been short (and some of the worst long). A standout in the second category is Robert Gutman’s almost demented biography; the muchmissed Bryan Magee and Michael Tanner have made enduring contributions to the first. They are now joined by Patrick Carnegy’s attractive and thoughtful collection of essays, Wagner’s Theatre, into which he distils a lifetime’s engagement with the composer. It is a pendant to his 2006 study Wagner and the Art of Theatre, which garnered high praise from Pierre Boulez among others (“one of the best documented publications of all the recent literature on Wagner”). Carnegy has been steeped in opera and theatre criticism for more…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August/September 2024

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