President's reports 2023
March / June / AGM / September / December
March 2023
Dear members and friends,
I am writing this on the eve of our second live event for 2023 at the Goethe Institut, in which we will hear from Maestro Anthony Negus and Carmen Jakobi as they prepare for the Ring in Bendigo. A few weeks ago, we hosted Suzanne Chaundy and the designer Andrew Bailey as they gave some insight into the Melbourne Opera production – read a review of it inside.
Bendigo Ring Cultural Festival
Whilst it hasn’t been widely publicised, there is a cultural festival around the three cycles in Bendigo. A brochure is in the offing. However, you can see and book what is on offer by going into the Bendigo tourism link (https://www.bendigoregion.com.au/arts-culture-theatres/ring-cycle-festival). There are a number of recitals, concerts, a masterclass by Deborah Humble, something down a mine and a gala dinner on the Ring stage itself! There will be surprises I am told. The idea of Bendigo becoming the Bayreuth of the South Pacific is appealing. To be fully supported.
Bayreuth Festival 2023
The way we used to obtain tickets to the Bayreuth Festival is evolving. Whereas before we would await an allocation from the RWVI (Richard Wagner Verband International) and sought additional tickets via the Gesellschaft der Freunde von Bayreuth, we can now apply directly to them both for what we want. This has closed for the 2023 Festival but if you want to attend in 2024 be aware that obtaining tickets via the WSNSW is a fairly sure way of getting there. Of course, that does not mean that 2023 is out of the question – single ticket sales and also latent orders via the RWVI and Freunde are still possible. And for those who like to live on the edge you can wait until closer to the Festival and pick up returns from members across the world (one of the many benefits of being a WSNSW member and part of the global Wagner network). As I always say: if you want to attend an event, even if heavily booked, the chances are you will get there…….somehow.
Richard Wagner Museum Bayreuth
Some of you may have seen a petition from the Richard Wagner Museum Bayreuth asking for support to secure funding to complete the editing and production of the last 5 volumes of correspondence. These correspond to the last decade of Wagner’s life covering the setting up of the Bayreuth Festival, the building of the Festspielhaus, the first Ring and Parsifal performances. Whilst always controversial these documents provide an historical insight and are therefore invaluable. I urge anyone interested to support this petition.
Josef Lienhardt
We heard of the death in early February of Josef Lienhardt. He was instrumental is resurrecting the Wagner Verband Freiburg after the war and remaining its President for nearly six decades. He was also President of the RWVI from 1988 to 2008. He helped found many Wagner Societies around Germany specially after the fall of the wall in 1989. Our deep condolences to his family. And from us monumental respect and gratitude for his singular contribution to the cause.
WSNSW Jane Mathews Scholarship
The 2023 WSNSW Jane Mathews Scholar is Olivia Swain. She is a young Australian soprano, recently graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with a Masters of Music Studies (Opera Performance), under the guidance of Dr. Rowena Cowley. We will get an opportunity to hear the first two recipients of the Scholarship, Ellen McNeill and Olivia Swain, in recital as part of our traditional combined AGM and Richard Wagner Birthday event in May.
Your Society and Committee
The WSNSW has survived the worst of the COVID pandemic. The membership held despite not being able to meet in person for a year. In that period we developed alternate ways to communicate, email, E-News, social media. But in order to maintain these means of communication and keep evolving them, we need help with IT. We restarted the catering roster and hope to take that to the level set by Barbara de Rome. And finally, we continue to assist young artists via several projects. But we need your generosity to lend much needed support to these stars of the future. Please contact me for further information on donating to a WSNSW project.
Epilogue
Need I remind you that there is much Wagner to be had in Australia in 2023 with two Rings (Bendigo and Brisbane), a Tannhäuser in Melbourne, two “local” Rheingolds (in Sydney with our Patron Simone Young and the SSO, and in Singapore) as well as excerpts from Die Walküre in Perth. For those going to Melbourne there is a rare opportunity to catch Philip Glass’ Satyagraha a few days before Tannhäuser. This is an OA first and I highly recommend this work not only because of its beauty and power but also its place in the evolving narrative of music drama in the Wagnerian sense of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Stay safe and happy listening.
Esteban Insausti
President
Wagner Society in NSW Inc
June 2023
Dear friends,
The last quarter has been replete with Wagner. Three complete cycles of the Ring at the wonderful Ulumbarra Theatre in Bendigo and two concert performances ofTannhäuser in Melbourne. Both productions delivered at very high quality – commentary and reviews within. It is a privilege not to have to travel overseas for these. Many of our members made the trip south. Twice. Whilst I don’t begrudge Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth or Brisbane hosting Wagner performances, I hope that with Simone Young/SSO’s concert Ring starting with Das Rheingold in November, and new management at OA, Sydney will once again become a Wagner city.
With only one viable theatre in Sydney and many of the larger ones presenting the never ending factory line of musicals, new and reheated, mostly reheated, my dream will be a long time coming I think. This is a problem for opera companies as well as the art form. Will it ever be addressed? Should it be addressed? Perhaps this is a discussion for another time. For the time being let us wallow in all the wonderful live Wagner.
It was a pleasure to co-host drinks with Miki Oikawa (President of the WSVictoria) for Wagner Society members from around Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, at the first interval of Die Walküre for each cycle of the Bendigo Ring. This was a further opportunity to reconnect with friends and make new friends. The Bendigo Ring will be long remembered as one with a clear narrative, beautiful images and strongly sung roles. But it will also be remembered as the “friendly” Ring, the social Ring, given the geographically tight Festival atmosphere afforded by Bendigo and the amazing side entertainment curated by Greg Hocking and his team. This is what we live for.
The Committee has fleshed out our events programme for the rest of the year. We are still curating the Wednesday Zooms with overseas speakers. Apologies for the sporadic way this has occurred in 2023, but our focus and priority was Bendigo and the briefings/logistics for it. We hope that the upcoming events do justice to the Brisbane Ring and the SSO/ Simone Young Das Rheingold. With regards to the latter we are finalising the details for a one (half) day symposium focusing on the Preliminary Evening to the tetralogy. The idea for the symposium is to view the work from diverse disciplines and experiences, a heterogenous approach, to really open our minds to the work before we hear what will be a couple of spectacular performances under Simone Young.
I am writing this after our AGM and Wagner’s birthday concert and drinks. A very enjoyable and successful afternoon. See you all at the Goethe Institut in June for a conversation with veteran producer Noel Staunton.
Happy listening.
Esteban Insausti
President
Wagner Society in NSW Inc
PS I would like to acknowledge the recent retirement from the Arts pages of the SMH of Jill Sykes AM. A fantastic recorder and critic of our stages for a long time. She remains a treasured member of the WSNSW. We wish Jill all the best and more deadline free time to listen to much Wagner!
PRESIDENT’S REPORT FOR AGM 2024
Welcome to the 44th Annual General Meeting of the Wagner Society in NSW Inc. Back in our spiritual home, the Goethe Institut, for the first time in quite a few years. The date for this AGM had to be pushed back from the traditional time coinciding with Richard Wagner’s birthday because many of the Executive were travelling overseas (chasing Ring cycles and other attractions in Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, etc etc.).
I will now comment and summarise aspects of our Society’s activities for the year 2023.
MEMBERSHIP
Our membership currently reached 248 members at the end of 2023. 24 members remained unfinancial. There were 17 new members (including 5 joint memberships), or a total of 22, through 2023. This is closer to our normal size which is a good sign that we are getting back to the pre-Covid normal.
FINANCIALS
We continue to hold a reasonable balance and I’ll let Danny May our Treasurer say more about that when he presents his report.
SUPPORT AND DONATIONS
The Society raised $16,500 in donations through 2023. We are extremely thankful for the generosity of the membership. That money allowed the Society to support emerging artists and continue to feed the cultural ecosystem. We continued our association with Pacific Opera, funding one of their Scholarships which was awarded to Olivia Swain (currently in the UK, studying and performing). We also assisted Jessica Harper, Katrina Waters, Celeste Haworth, Menila Moineaux, Elise Morton and Claudia Osborne. In 2023 all this support amounted to $15,000. We reap the rewards, often many years into the future, when some of these recipients break through into a career in opera (hopefully involving Wagner).
EVENTS AND COMMUNICATIONS
In 2023 we organised 12 events as well as hosting drinks at the intervals at both the Bendigo and Brisbane Rings. We held our first symposium aligning with the SSO’s concert Ring conducted by our Patron Simone Young AM. Four papers (by Suzanne Chaundy, Colin Piper, David Larkin and Esteban Insausti) were presented followed by a round table discussion led by Graeme Gee. The focus of the events through 2023 was the Ring, with an unprecedented two productions in Australia. The Melbourne Opera team of creatives gave us an insight into their production with director Suzanne Chaundy and designer Andrew Bailey giving a talk in January followed by conductor Anthony Negus, Carmen Jakobi and Robert Macfarlane talking music in February. We hosted talks by Peter Bassett, Noel Staunton, Tahu Matheson, Terence Watson and Mike Day. We were serenaded by Ellen McNeil,Olivia Swain, Chris Curcuruto, Kori Miller, Adrian Tamburini and Katherine Day. The mix and quality of the events continues to be very high. There were no zoom events (except for the hybrid ones with Melbourne Opera) as the calendar was replete with Wagner performances together with their respective schedule of lectures and the like. And as we were expecting to catch up with friends from outside Sydney and NSW at all the Wagner opportunities throughout the year we paused our zoom programme. It was very gratifying to reconnect with members from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, New Zealand, Singapore and beyond through the year. This is what being part of a Wagner Society is really about.
BAYREUTH AND WAGNER PERFORMANCES
2023 was an unprecedented year for Wagner productions and performances in Australia.
Two Ring productions, in Bendigo and Brisbane, a Tannhäuser in Melbourne (with a Satyagraha by Philip Glass in the same week if you were keen) and then Das Rheingold in concert in Sydney under Simone Young. This will probably never be repeated. Some of our members did travel to Bayreuth but with so much at home, travel beyond our shores was a real commitment to the Wagner cause, or overcommitment perhaps. Sydney stages, however, continue to be Wagner free. Will this ever change?
THE COMMITTEE
I would like to thank the Committee for your wonderful work and support through 2023. This year sees the retirement from the Committee of Margaret Whealy and Nick Dorsch. I would like to thank them for their were on the Committee long before I joined but it has been a pleasure working alongside them for the last 6 years. Please join me in thanking them.
There will be openings to join the Committee in future. There are challenging projects coming up in 2024-25 and we will be looking for members with particular skills to join and contribute towards the success of these projects. Watch this space.
Alasdair Beck continues as our Public Officer. Leona Geeves continues to perform for us and also to submit proposals for our sponsorship. Lis Bergmann, whilst no longer on the Committee, continues to administer our website, YouTube channel and the E-News. We are very grateful for their combined contribution to the success of the Society. May it continue.
Even though this report looks backwards to last year, it underpins a very exciting future for the rest of 2024 and beyond.
With that I conclude my report and commend it to the membership.
ESTEBAN INSAUSTI
President, Wagner Society in NSW Inc
16 June 2024
September 2023
Dear friends,
We are fast approaching another intense time of Wagner performances in November and December. The Brisbane Ring will round off what has been a spectacular year for Wagner in Australia. I am not alone in hoping that companies around our continent get the message that Wagner is good box office and that we are blessed with local singers and artists who can do him justice. So more please.
Opera in this country is very much alive and well. Whilst we may debate the logic of some of the overall programming and the merits or otherwise of individual productions, we can all agree, I hope, on a few things. There needs to be much more funding and focus from our governments on opera and music. Actually more funding and focus on The Arts in general would be welcomed. And that in Australia we have a very deep pool of talent to draw from on stage and production – it would be nice to keep them here and employed. But can we be more spoiled? In a short space of time since that wonderful double
of Tannhäuser and Satyagraha (by Philip Glass) in Melbourne, we enjoyed the rare La Gioconda with a cast headed by Jonas Kaufmann, Jessica Pratt singing in Tales of Hoffmann plus Mad Scenes, and if you could travel to Melbourne (as I did in July) see two premieres: George Dreyfus’ Gilt Edged Kid and Ernst Krenek’s Der Diktator. Pinchgut Opera and Sydney Chamber Opera will present their latest productions from September.
The range in genres and scale is quite varied. There could be more, more often, especially if you are not in Melbourne or Sydney, but it isn’t a drought either. More collaboration would also be welcomed I also think that Artistic Directors should trust their audience a little more with new works and challenging repertoire (hint, hint Jo Davies). Commercial realities will mean that a Miss Saigon or yet another Madame Butterfly will be on the programme but please balance this with something that will really challenge the audience.
On another topic altogether, I was rummaging through my library the other day and came across two Wagner in Australia volumes (Volume 1 No.1 from 1988 on Meistersinger and Volume 2 No.1 from 1991 on Lohengrin). I was wondering
if any of you had copies of other papers or publications. It would be good to have these as a ready resource on our expanding webpage sometime soon. Please contact me if you have any more lying around. We can arrange to have any new
material found scanned.
Two other matters. First, we would like to compile a set of your impressions, thoughts, reviews, notes, photos, on the Bendigo Ring. Don’t know what will do with this material but at the very least we would have a consolidated snapshot of what we experienced in Bendigo. The second matter regards Brisbane. Thank you everyone who responded to the call for who is attending and when. I have grouped everyone into their respective cycles and will soon send a group email to test
this as a means of quick communications for events, drinks, meetings and the like during the three cycles in December.
I hope that you can all join us in person for the last events in 2023 before Das Rheingold in Sydney and the Ring in Brisbane. We are looking at the events programme for 2024, so this is your opportunity to tell us what you would like to see, hear and experience. We try to provide a variety of experiences but there is always something we haven’t thought of or a particular topic which you have been wanting to hear about. So please let us know. Write me an email.
Until the next live event.
Happy listening.
Esteban Insausti
President
Wagner Society in NSW Inc
December 2023
Dear friends,
One more Ring to go to complete the 2023 Wagnerfest in Australia. Will future programmers and producers present so much Wagner in Australia in a calendar year ever again? Somehow, I think we will all be travelling overseas for our Wagner fix in 2024. Except, of course, for the SSO’s Die Walküre late in the year.
Since our last Quarterly we’ve had a variety of super interesting live events to finish the year. Two of our stalwarts, Dr Terence
Watson and Mike Day, presented talks on specialised topics which gave us all a great insight. Whilst not an official WSNSW
event, the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra under WSNSW member Dr Sarah Penicka-Smith, gave a concert titled “Villains and Valkyries” based on an idea by Leona Geeves. It was a lot of fun and hopefully planted the Wagner-bug on many a first timer in the audience. We held our first SSO-Simone Young Ring symposium focussing on Das Rheingold, with great success. We’ll do the second in late 2024. And as I write this, we just enjoyed our last event for 2023 at Ampico Towers (thank you Robert Mitchell for hosting) with a beautiful concert by Adrian Tamburini and Katherine Day, followed by much food, drink, chatter and raffle prizes. Many thanks to SSO, Bach Akademie, Philharmonia and Willoughby Symphony for donating tickets to 2024 performances.
The Committee is busy planning the full event calendar for 2024 which we will finalise in the new year as guest confirmations come in. But we have a number of events already lined up. And we are bringing back our Wednesday Zoom series with speakers from overseas. I can reveal that many of our favourites will be back in 2024: Robert Gay, Peter Bassett, Christopher Cook and Erica Miner, as well as some reknowned names. We’ll update through the E-News before the March Quarterly. I reiterate my invitation for you to let us know what topics you would like to see and hear presented. So do write me an email or let one of our Committee know.
Some sad news with the passing of our Immediate Past President Colleen Chesterman. Our condolences to Michael and the family. There was a very happy, it is the only word to describe it, memorial at Belvoir St Theatre which was very well attended. A foundation member of the Society, Margaret Suthers aged 99, passed away in October. And we lost Jacqui Dark and Stephen Gould from our stages, both great Wagnerians. Some of us had the pleasure of hearing Stephen in Tristan und Isolde and the Ring at Bayreuth last year.
Before I extend best wishes to you all for the end of 2023, I would like to mention our recurring programme supporting NSW artist as well as Wagner productions across Australia. You have all seen and heard what our local talent can do from Bendigo and Sydney to Brisbane. It is an honour, and a pleasure, to say that the WSNSW, through your donations, attendance, and continued membership, has been able to assist a number of future stars. In order to maintain this programme, we need your help. So please consider a donation.
That’s it for 2023. Thank you to everyone for making it a very
successful year for the WSNSW. Wishing you a happy end of the year and hope to see you in 2024 for more Wagner and Wagner related events.
With best wishes. Happy listening.
Esteban Insausti
President, Wagner Society in NSW Inc