Wagner: Making a National Hero
Stephen Johnson explores the worlds of Wagner's heroes, from Norse myths to his own Tannhauser, Siegfried and Parsifal. He charts how Wagner himself became a national hero.
Wagner 200
Stephen Johnson explores the worlds of Wagner's heroes and how his Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Siegfried and Parsifal were created from a particularly Wagnerian concoction of ancient Norse legends, medieval German myths and current political thinking at the dawn of Bismark's Germany. He finds out how Wagner himself became a different sort of national hero through the efforts of Cosima, his zealously loyal widow, and then through misinterpretations of his writings about nationalism by the Third Reich.
Stephen talks to conductor Donald Runnicles, Wagner experts Barry Millington and Barbara Eichner, writer and opera director Adrian Mourby, Ring expert Edward Haymes, and Cosima's biographer Oliver Hilmes.
Last on
More episodes
Broadcast
- Sun 19 May 2013 19:45
Featured in...
Wagner Week
A collection of programmes marking the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth.