Sunday 7 July 2019
1pm: Seminar by Dr Antony Ernst on Parsifal

(No DVD beforehand)

Goethe-Institut, 90 Ocean Street, Woollahra (Cnr Jersey Road)
All welcome: Members $40, Guests $45, Students fulltime $20

However, to assist with catering please fill out this contact form with your full name

and in the description section, how many people for the seminar.
 

“Parsifal is Wagner’s most enigmatic work, at once apparently simple and yet containing deep symbolic and musical complexity. We will be exploring how this last and in some ways most sophisticated work of Wagner’s relates to his personal concerns, the world around him, the changes in culture and society which had happened around him, and, not least of all, the position of Parsifal as a piece of polemic about the state of humanity and its future. “

Antony Ernst is currently the orchestra director of the Royal Danish Orchestra, the world’s oldest orchestra. He has worked as a dramaturg, opera director, translator, writer, lecturer and artistic planner, most recently as Artistic Planning Manager of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg. Previously he has worked with the Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Oper Frankfurt, Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Opera Australia, as well as being a tour leader for Renaissance Tours and regular contributor of programme notes, articles, surtitles, translations and lectures for Symphony Services and numerous other organisations. Antony was born in Sydney and obtained his doctorate from the University of Newcastle.

He is a frequent very popular guest lecturer on opera and previous presentations to the Wagner Society include Tristan und Isolde (2018), Lohengrin (2017), Bach to the Future: Wagner's Roots and the German Nation (2016), Beyond the Twilight of the Gods: Wagner's Musical  Legacy (2014), From Malediction to Valediction - curses and dramatic resolution in Wagner (2009), Tristan und Isolde  (2007), A survey of Ring Cycle production styles (2004), Parsifal (2003) and Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot (2002).

Sunday 21 July 2019
12pm: DVD Act 3 of Barrie Kosky’s Bayreuth
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
2pm: Stuart Skelton talks about singing on the world stage

Goethe-Institut, 90 Ocean Street, Woollahra (Cnr Jersey Road)
All welcome: Members $25, Guests $30, Students fulltime $10

Grammy nominee and 2014 International Opera Awards Male Singer of the Year, Stuart Skelton is one of the finest heldentenors on the stage today, critically acclaimed for his outstanding musicianship, tonal beauty and intensely dramatic portrayals.

Stuart was born in Sydney. He won the McDonalds Aria Competition, which led him to study singing at the University of Cincinnati and on the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera. He now appears for the major opera companies worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Seattle Opera, La Scala, Milan, Paris Opéra, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera and at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus. He is especially renowned for his interpretation of dramatic and Heldentenor roles, including Florestan (Fidelio), Lohengrin, Siegmund, Tristan (Tristan und Isolde), Parsifal, Gherman (The Queen of Spades), Laca Klemen (Jenufa), Boris (Kát’a Kabanová) and Peter Grimes.

Stuart was supported in his early career by the Wagner Society in NSW. He is visiting Sydney for SSO concert performances of Peter Grimes, with Nicole Car and conductor David Robertson on 25 and 27 July.