Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg has been one of the most performed operas ever since its premier in 1868. It was adopted as Germany's national operas ('Nationaloper'), not least because of its historical coincidence with the unification of Germany under Bismarck in 1871. The opera epitomizes themes of Germanness, including what many regard as blatant anti-Semitic imagery, and thus ideally suited the agenda of the Third Reich, or so it seemed. Despite or perhaps because of the ease with which the Nazis appropriated the work, it was selected as the first opera to be performed when the Bayreuth festival re-opened after the War.The first section of this volume, 'Performing Meistersinger, contains three commissioned articles from internationally respected artists - a conductor (Peter Schneider), a stage director (Harry Kupfer) and a singer (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), all experienced in the performance of this unusually demanding 5-hour work. The second section, 'Meistersinger and History', examines both the representation of German history in the opera and the way the opera has functioned in history through political appropriation and staging practice. The third section, 'Representations', is the most eclectic, exploring in the first place the problematic question of genre from the perspective of a theatrical historian. The chronic issue of Wagner's chief opponent, Eduard Hanslick, and his musical and dramatic representation in the opera as Bessmesser, is then addressed, as are gender issues, and Wagner's own utterances concerning the opera. Contributors: Nicholas Vazsonyi, Peter Schneider, Harry Kupfer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Lutz Koepnick, David B.Dennis, Klaus Van Den Berg, Thomas S. Grey, Lydia Goehr, Eva Rieger, Peter HAyng. Nicholas Vazsonyi is Associate Professor of German, University of South Carolina

Richard Wagner is one of the most controversial figures in Western cultural history. He revolutionized not only opera but the very concept of art, and his works and ideas have had an immeasurable impact on both the cultural and political landscapes of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From 'absolute music' to 'Zurich' and from 'Theodor Adorno' to 'Hermann Zumpe', the vividly-written entries of The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia have been contributed by recognized authorities and cover a comprehensive range of topics. More than eighty scholars from around the world, representing disciplines from history and philosophy to film studies and medicine, provide fascinating insights into Wagner's life, career and influence. Multiple appendices include listings of Wagner's works, historic productions, recordings and addresses where he lived, to round out a volume that will be an essential and reliable resource for enthusiasts and academics alike.

The Companion is an essential, interdisciplinary tool for those both familiar and unfamiliar with Wagner's Ring. It opens with a concise introduction to both the composer and the Ring, introducing Wagner as a cultural figure, and giving a comprehensive overview of the work. Subsequent chapters, written by leading Wagner experts, focus on musical topics such as 'leitmotif', and structure, and provide a comprehensive set of character portraits, including leading players like Wotan, Brunnhilde, and Siegfried. Further chapters look to the mythological background of the work and the idea of the Bayreuth Festival, as well as critical reception of the Ring, its relationship to Nazism, and its impact on literature and popular culture, in turn offering new approaches to interpretation including gender, race and environmentalism. The volume ends with a history of notable stage productions from the world premiere in 1876 to the most recent stagings in Bayreuth and elsewhere.

All modern artists have had to market themselves in some way. Richard Wagner may just have done it better than anyone else. In a self-promotional effort that began around 1840 in Paris, and lasted for the remainder of his career, Wagner claimed convincingly that he was the most German composer ever and the true successor of Beethoven. More significantly, he was an opera composer who declared that he was not composing operas. Instead, during the 1850s, he mapped out a new direction, conceiving of works that would break with tradition and be literally 'brand new'. This is the first study to examine the innovative ways in which Wagner made himself a celebrity, promoting himself using every means available: autobiography, journal articles, short stories, newspaper announcements, letters, even his operas themselves. Vazsonyi reveals how Wagner created a niche for his works in the crowded opera market that continues to be unique.

Opens up significant paths for conversation about how musical concepts, practices and products were shaped by interrelationships between culture and commerce. Art and money, culture and commerce, have long been seen as uncomfortable bedfellows. Indeed, the connections between them have tended to resist full investigation, particularly in the musical sphere. The Idea of Art Music in aCommercial World, 1800-1930, is a collection of essays that present fresh insights into the ways in which art music, i.e., classical music, functioned beyond its newly established aesthetic purpose (art for art's sake) and intersected with commercial agendas in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century culture. Understanding how art music was portrayed and perceived in a modernizing marketplace, and how culture and commerce interacted, are the book's main goals. In this volume, international scholars from musicology and other disciplines address a range of unexplored topics, including the relationship of sacred music with commerce in the mid nineteenth century, the roleof music in urban cultural development in the early twentieth, and the marketing of musical repertories, performers and instruments across time and place, to investigate what happened once art music began to be understood as needing to exist within the wider framework of commercially oriented culture. Historical case studies present contrasting topics and themes that not only vary geographically and ideologically but also overlap in significant ways, pushing back the boundaries of the 'music as commerce' discussion. Through diverse, multidisciplinary approaches, the volume opens up significant paths for conversation about how musical concepts, practices and products were shaped byinterrelationships between culture and commerce. CHRISTINA BASHFORD is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois. ROBERTA MONTEMORRA MARVIN is Director of the Opera Studies Forum in the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa, where she is also on the faculty. CONTRIBUTORS: Christina Bashford, George Biddlecombe, Denise Gallo, David Gramit, Catherine Hennessy Wolter, Roberta Montemorra Marvin, Fiona Palmer, Jann Pasler, Michela Ronzani, Jon Solomon, Jeffrey S. Sposato, Nicholas Vazsonyi, David Wright

The Companion is an essential, interdisciplinary tool for those both familiar and unfamiliar with Wagner's Ring. It opens with a concise introduction to both the composer and the Ring, introducing Wagner as a cultural figure, and giving a comprehensive overview of the work. Subsequent chapters, written by leading Wagner experts, focus on musical topics such as 'leitmotif', and structure, and provide a comprehensive set of character portraits, including leading players like Wotan, Brunnhilde, and Siegfried. Further chapters look to the mythological background of the work and the idea of the Bayreuth Festival, as well as critical reception of the Ring, its relationship to Nazism, and its impact on literature and popular culture, in turn offering new approaches to interpretation including gender, race and environmentalism. The volume ends with a history of notable stage productions from the world premiere in 1876 to the most recent stagings in Bayreuth and elsewhere.

Richard Wagner is one of the most controversial figures in Western cultural history. He revolutionized not only opera but the very concept of art, and his works and ideas have had an immeasurable impact on both the cultural and political landscapes of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From 'absolute music' to 'Zurich' and from 'Theodor Adorno' to 'Hermann Zumpe', the vividly-written entries of The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia have been contributed by recognized authorities and cover a comprehensive range of topics. More than eighty scholars from around the world, representing disciplines from history and philosophy to film studies and medicine, provide fascinating insights into Wagner's life, career and influence. Multiple appendices include listings of Wagner's works, historic productions, recordings and addresses where he lived, to round out a volume that will be an essential and reliable resource for enthusiasts and academics alike.