SUNDAY 1 MARCH 2026

TONY PALMER’S ‘WAGNER’ – EPISODES 1 – 3

2.00pm:
DVD – Tony Palmer’s ‘Wagner’ – Episodes 1 – 3

Venue:
The Goethe Institut, Event Hall (upstairs), 
90 Ocean Street (cnr Jersey Road), Woollahra

Tickets:
$25 members, $35 non-members, $10 full-time students

PAYMENT DETAILS TO COME

INTRODUCTION

This epic film – described by Richard Hornak in Opera News as “one of the most beautiful motion pictures in history” – was originally made in 1982/3 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Wagner’s death. Filmed in 200 locations throughout Europe, many where the actual historical events took place, with a team from 19 different countries, the entire production was completed in less than a year. Sadly, it was to be Richard Burton’s last major role, but the stellar cast assembled partly because of him includes Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Franco Nero, Marthe Keller, Gemma Craven, Gwyneth Jones, Peter Hofmann, Arthur Lowe, Ekkehard Schall (Brecht’s son-in-law), Joan Greenwood, Sir William Walton, Gabriel Byrne, Andrew Cruickshank – the list is endless. Multi-Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro & Nic Knowland, the cameramen, produced a stream of astonishing images. And none of it would have been possible without the active and continuous support of Wolfgang Wagner, the composer’s grandson.

We will be showing the work in five parts over the course of 2026 using the 2011 restoration as it was originally edited by Tony Palmer. The music, conducted more-or-less as a favour by Sir Georg Solti, has never sounded better. Storaro’s photography has never looked better. And the script by Charles Wood remains a miracle of historical compression and accuracy, given that Wagner himself was an appalling fantasist and the truth often hard to ascertain.

EPISODES 1, 2, 3 SYNOPSIS

Opening in 1849, Richard Wagner is a respected composer living in Dresden, where he works as royal court conductor for the King of Saxony, Friedrich August II, and he is trying to arrange the first performance of his recently composed opera Lohengrin. Although his wife, Minna, enjoys their life and status, Wagner is bored with his work for the ageing king and spends most of his time writing revolutionary pamphlets against the establishment and aristocracy. Eventually, the May Uprising breaks out and Wagner becomes an important figure behind it. When Saxon and Prussian troops crush the uprising, Wagner becomes a wanted man and is forced to flee to Zürich. After refusing to join her husband for quite some time, Minna eventually agrees to move to Zürich to be reunited with Wagner. She manages to persuade him to start conducting and composing again and urges him to travel to France. In Bordeaux, Wagner meets a wealthy Scottish emigree, Mrs. Taylor, who agrees to become a patron of his, although he has a brief affair with her married daughter, Jessie Laussot. Upon traveling to Paris, Wagner is ordered to leave the city at once and return to Zürich. In Zürich he meets up with his good friend Franz Liszt, who arranges to perform Wagner’s operas in Germany during his exile. While in Switzerland, he begins his first work on Der Ring des Nibelungen and plans an opera about Wayland the Smith. He also takes on a pupil, Karl Ritter, the son of another patron, Mrs. Ritter.