Loving Wagner, Hating Wagner...and the Middle Path

Listen now—wherever you get your podcasts—to Seattle Opera's episode "Loving Wagner, Hating Wagner...and the Middle Path." 

Seattle Opera Scholar-in-Residence Naomi André and Dramaturg Jonathan Dean discuss the most controversial of all opera composers, Richard Wagner, whose Die Walküre the company will present, in concert (and abridged) at Fisher Pavilion on August 28. Wagner’s astonishing masterpieces continue to challenge and delight audiences, although his legacy is tainted because of his obnoxious attitudes and how his work was appropriated by the Third Reich. André and Dean discuss approaching Wagner, not from an ‘either/or’ mentality, but from a “both...and” way of thinking.

A few excerpts of their conversation below:

Dan Wallace Miller shares Ring memories

Before and after at Seattle Opera: Dan Wallace Miller atop a prop horse from our 1995 Die Walküre and now, about to direct our Welcome Back concert of the same opera in 2021. 

Our upcoming concert of Die Walküre will be directed by an artist raised on the Wagnerian tradition at Seattle Opera. In this blog post, stage director Dan Wallace Miller shares more about his love for all-things Ring. Fresh off his acclaimed presentation of Seattle Opera's streaming Tosca ('21), Miller returns to direct a concert version of the Ring cycle's most popular opera.