The conference was very well attended. All three days. Which was wonderful. Students and all kind of other people came to what was a very stimulating and intensive discourse on Wagner and other phenomena. Wagner audiences is a strange but fruitful topic on its own. The people attending a Wagner performance – or a Wagner conference – seem to be quite diverse coming from all kind of different cultural, ethnical, age or gender backgrounds; but then: a Wagner audience is not so diverse at all, because the composer asks for strong identification. They, we – the Wagner conference attendees –  are „Wagnerites“, „Wagnerianer“, real fans. I am one of them, I guess: wearing the nice T-shirt the USC-conference team came up with, with Wagner’s suggestive eyes on my chest and „WagnerWorldWide:America 2013“ on my back. You are either part of the circle of admirers (throwing into the conversation, where you confirm that you love Wagner, that this is the case despite the fact that he was a horrible guy...). Or one clearly distances him- or herself from Wagner, finding the person inacceptable, the music too long, the theater too complicated, and all of it too germanic. No in-betweens. What could be noted in the South of the US was the fact that the huge majority of the people attending the conference was white. Kind of not proving Alex Ross’ point of an African-American Wagnerism; at least not in Columbia 2013.
Other Wagner identities? Celia Applegate found out on „Women’s Wagner“ and highlighted the fact that women in the 19th and early 20th centuries were probably the most passionate admirers of Wagner’s work. While Hilan Warshaw’s documentary „Wagner’s Jews“ dealt both with the rejection of Wagner in Israel and the passionate fight of other people to make ‚Wagner happen’ in live performances. Wagner in the radio actually is not an issue. Is it the difference between public and private or the difference between live and mediatized? Hilan Warshaw’s film had its very well received world premiere in Columbia on Friday night. Being a co-production with the German broadcast station of WDR it will be shown on German television in May (on ARTE) and in November (on ARD). Check out our facebook site for exact dates and watch this fascinating view on Wagner 2013 by a filmmaker who – by the way – is also a musician. The question of how (!) we actually listen to Wagner and watch his operas is not only a major topic of discussion in that very special situation of reception history in Israel. How are we able to look at the ‚whole’ at a time where detachment and the consumption of clips and pieces (online and elsewhere) is becoming the normal and part of our everyday culture? Mediatized Wagner depictions were discussed at the conference, where stage productions are formatted to screening in film and TV. An experience which can never be compared to the ‚real thing’. This is just because of the fact that the spectator has to be following the film director’s decisions on close ups and cuts, where film creates its own rhythm. While, at the live performance, the spectator has all the pictures available at once: having the totality of the image. I thought about a solution, which would make the Wagner experience not only very private but also a game like interactive procedure. It popped into my mind that somebody could develop something what one could call an „I-Pad-Opera“. People would be using an interactive screen while watching Wagner’s „Siegfried“ for example. If I were interested in focussing on the moment where Siegfried finds the warrior aka Brünnhilde at the end of Act 3, I would be the one who – with that new charcateristic movement of fingers on screens – is deciding on detail. A little bit like using the „Opernglas“ in the old days at the theatre: as a lense for ‚eye-privacy’. 
As most kids in Germany growing up in the 1960s and 70s we were fascinated with everything coming from America. We knew abouth this country through television. Almost no movie we watched at that time where one of the characters would not go on a Greyhound bus on a long journey through the country. I came here a lot since the mid 1980s. But it is always a first time and I always wanted to do this. I boarded one of those busses going from Columbia to Charleston on Saturday. This is not the way everybody travels anymore in the US. I was the only white person on that bus. And: I am for sure bringing back home that question of African-American Wagnerism.

When I came up with my idea of WagnerWorldWide some years ago, I was not so sure, where this would take me. Now I know. Step no. 4 with our next conference took me to the town of Columbia, the captital of South Carolina. While we were suffering from snow in Germany, I landed on Wednesday at a small local airport after a long journey. And it was warm that night. Nice. Compared to the Franconian winter. Where did Wagner take me? Very generally speaking, www2013: took me to a good spot of academic investigation dealing with the anniversary culture in music and the arts. Again very interdisciplinary, here at the University of South Carolina. I think the project works out, basically. But I am also asking myself: what makes the difference of having that series of conferences instead of just one? It is probably the amount of approaches but also the fact how certain aspects – let’s say Wagner and Bismarck – are relating to each other from Bern to Columbia or vice versa. And how these aspects are looked at differently. The www2013:-books we are planning on will show this – hopefully. It is also interesting to see which topics are focused on at each place. The Columbia conference with its impressive programme WagnerWorldWide:America, put together by Nicholas Vazsonyi and Julie Hubbert, features a lot of talks on the Media topic as well as on the Gender topic, the last one being quite prominent also in all sections. The Northamerican scholars at the conference are in the majority, with people from the UK and from continental Europe. Different Wagner perspectives? Yes. Alex Ross, the very acclaimed music critic from the „New Yorker“, gave an impressive keynote and brought a complete new topic to Wagner Studies. As far as I can see. His talk was dealing with the African American Wagner connection, introducing the term of „African American Wagnerism“. Not only African American Bayreuth singers (L. Aldrige in great detail and Grace Bumbry very briefly) were discussed but also William Du Bois. The civil right advocat and writer went to Bayreuth in 1936; to be precise on August 19, 1936, he saw a performance of „Lohengrin“. About the same time, when Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Berlin olympics. Two African Americans in Hitler’s Nazi Germany. With very different experiences.

Back home. Being a little bit exhausted after 10 days of academic conferences, I have to admit. But: after more than 45 papers later I am also very happy I did this. Not only this trip, but also trying to put together this global Wagner enterprise in the first place. 
Cultural phenomena in musicology are very often dealt with mainly from a historical angle. But culture also shapes all kind of spaces. Not only we experience spaces through culture and its history, but cultural spaces as countries, cities, and also the globe define themselves through the arts: as there is pop culture, literature, theater and classical music. The last topic of my conference blog from Bern: spaces as/for culture.
As Peter Hagmann wrote in his review of Marthaler’s Handel pasticcio “Sale” at the Zürich Opera house on November 6 (Neue Zürcher Zeitung): to him, this production was not so much a night on Handel and Marthaler but more an evening on Zürich and Marthaler. Meaning that the town of Zürich as a cultural but also as an economic space inspired this production maybe more than Handel’s music did. I was always fascinated with the “if”-question. 
Karol Berger’s brilliant paper on Saturday brought one up. He discussed the ending of “Meistersinger” within a fascinating range from formal analysis to the content of the opera and to its broad cultural-political context. The paper also made people think and ask: “what if Wagner would have come up with a different solution for this ending?” My own “if”-question relates to the cultural space topic. What if Wagner would have been successful in Paris? What if “Rienzi” in the 1840s would have been staged at the Académie Royale de la Musique? And this very successfully? The answer: there would be no Bayreuth Wagner Festival, no “Ring des Nibelungen”, no “Meistersinger”, no Music Theater Studies at Bayreuth University, no WagnerWorldWide project … But maybe: the model of French Grand opera would have been further developed and would have become the most important model for opera globally. Maybe, there would be the “Institut National Wagner” (founded in 1872), and also the “2013 Paris PACuG”; standing for “2013 Paris Projet d’Arts de la Culture Globale”. A gigantic arts festival including and celebrating contemporary music and theatre, the movies, but also sports, education etc. Being made possible by national funds and celebrating Wagner the cosmopolitan French. I know, a silly idea. But the example might illustrate: Spaces do create culture
both on a national and global level. There were many papers at the Bern conference looking at spaces for/as culture: the stage, the orchestra pit, the auditorium, the opera house, the town, the region, the country, the globe; but also more concrete: the  Palais Garnier in Paris, Calcutta, Italy, Prague, London Russia, Poland and so on. Today in our everyday cultural life we are used to global phenomena as World Music, Holly- and Bollywood. All being art forms relevant to the world. Historically, Opera was one of the first art forms
being truly global. 
The conference was finished with a podium discussion. This brought together three representatives looking at the Wagner year from a more practical perspective: the general manager of Geneva Opera House and opera director Tobias Richter, the dramaturg and head of the Opera and Music department at Bern Theater Xavier Zuber and journalist Peter Hagmann, whom I mentioned above. My question to all of them: what can we expect from the Wagner year 2013? Tobias Richter is preparing a “Ring”-production for Geneva. He made it very clear, how important it is to make sure this work (and all of Wagner’s work) is prepared carefully with a lot of time. Peter Hagmann is looking forward to especially the musical aspect of Wagner performances in 2013, pointing out that the predominance in the newspapers on the visual aspect takes away the focus from the music. Xavier Zuber’s idea for an innovative way of dealing with globalisation and Wagner is quite futuristic. But the future is not too far away. There will be another Wagner year rather soon, that is in 2033 to commemorate 1883, the year when he died. He suggests a WorldWide production of the “Ring”, each part being introduced at a different cultural space throughout the globe. Here is a list of possible places: “Rheingold” in Abu Dhabi, “Walküre” in Bejing, “Siegfried” in Manaus and “Götterdämmerung” in Bern 2033. Or where ever Xavier Zuber will be at that time.
This blog is to be continued end of January 2013, from Columbia, South Carolina for WagnerWorldWide:America. Please stay tuned!

My first blog on the Bern conference was on identity and culture. This one deals with the public sphere, the publicity of opera and Wagner research. I know. A much too big topic for a blog. But the format makes it short.
What would Wagner ‘be’ as a phenomenon, if we would not write about him? An interesting thought: What kind of an existence would he and his work have, if there were no publications on him, just the performances? Christine Lemke-Matwey in her article in Die Zeit “Ekstasen mit viel Rosenwasser” (October 4, 2012, link below) also picks up on Wagner. She is looking at the academic outcome of the anniversary so far. She herself is somehow also writing on Wagner, but not exactly. She is writing on the people who write academically about Wagner; as I am writing about Lemke-Matwey who writes about the academics who write about … Her main point: Wagner studies is going in a cercle, and she is right; my point: We all participate being part of that circle. Sometimes – sure – this seems redundant. But sometimes this is fruitful and – also – fun. 
Let’s take another look at our conference again. First of all: It is amazing how information we know about transforms into something else once we create a new ‘case’ around this. As Daniel Jütte did with his talk on the German-Jewish reception of Wagner in the late 19th century. Second: Press, PR and also academic and general communication is basic to both the distribution and the politics of information. There were quite a high number of papers at the conference looking at 19th century press as a central instrument to shape up the relationship between identity and opera. In many cases these articles in the contemporary newspapers were more important than the actual outcome of reception within opera performances itself. Journalists took a great part in creating 19th century national discourses. This was done more and more on an international platform. Benjamin Walton showed in his paper: Not just the fact that a Rossini opera was performed in Calcutta makes 19th century opera more international than before. But the circumstances, how it was proudly communicated worldwide, gave culture a new kind of existence, which was a global one. 
The Wagner circle and the circus around Wagner studies will be also serving the book market (which could be actually much smaller than people assume right now …). There is a very high number of new books on Wagner already being published now. And, there is also a high number of old books on Wagner being either updated or just published again. And there is even a book being published before its event should have created it (I know…). The main Wagner conference next year in Leipzig scheduled for the birthday week of may already prepares for its proceedings now. The book will be out at the conference. There will be more of this next year: Other books on Wagner including more Wagner encyclopedias (one being edited by Nicholas Vazsonyi, host of WagnerWorldWide:America next year at the University of South Carolina).
And finally: www2013 wants to be part of the circle (and trying to avoid the circus aspect of this…), meaning: We will be presenting the results of our enterprise as well creating two or three volumes on WagnerWorldWide. That is more stuff being written on Wagner, on Wagner scholars and journalist, and also on Wagner performances and Wagner art.

http://www.zeit.de/2012/41/Richard-Wagner-200-Geburtstag-Literatur

This is my second trip within the www2013 project. In that sense: this is also my second trip ‘to’ Wagner, so to speak. I feel like not only travelling to the places but also to the cultural phenomenon within the places. Each time Wagner becomes something different: Wagner in China, and Wagner in Switzerland now, in November 2012.After China and WagnerWorldWide:Asia, I yesterday arrived in Bern for WagnerWorldWide:Europe organized by Arne Stollberg, Ivana Rentsch and Anselm Gerhard. This is exciting. Sure, this is the same globe (I am not on Mars…), but still: this seems like a whole different ‘world’ here. Bern is a very pretty, friendly and beautiful small town, and much calmer than Shanghai, the busy metropolis of the 21^st century; different people, different foods, different energy etc. I flew in yesterday from Berlin where I attended a conference on music in Prussia. That was a good prologue to the Bern conference and its topic: “Wagner and Opera between Nationalism and Globalisation”.Is it possible and does it make sense to talk of “Prussian” music? What does “Prussian” music sound like? I myself at the Berlin conference gave a talk on Gaspare Spontini and his opera “Agnes von Hohenstaufen”. This composer was born Italian, became French under Napoleon and started to engage himself with German national opera in the Prussian capital of the 1820s and 1830s. He was covering with his life quite a bit of the European world at that time as it can be considered a typical 19^th century bio of a composer. Richard Wagner was born in Saxony, tried to compose operas for Paris, where he failed. He went to Switzerland, and finally ended up in the upper Franconian province. Not quite as international as Spontini, but still also very European. Spontini’s opera “Agnes”, by the way, was not accepted to be a national opera. Culture in the 19^th century wants to construct identity, especially national identity. In that sense, Spontini and the official Prussian cultural politics of his King Friedrich Wilhelm III. also failed. Culture and opera tried to make people feel good to “be” something: either Prussian, Italian, French, German or even a combination of those. One major topic of the Bern conference is to ask, how aspects of national culture were constructed within different European spheres and how these relate to other concepts as globalisation or transnationalism. Not only the term national opera was used in the 19^th century but also – in a similar way – the term of world opera. Giuseppe Verdi for example was very proud that his Italian operas were performed – almost – all over the places. The national and the global met in the 19^th century. Jürgen Osterhammel introduced both categories in the first paper of this conference as instruments to analyze 19^th century culture, also asking: “Was ist Welt?” (“What is World”)? ‘World’ is also something being represented by its achievements. The Bavarian ‘world’ of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, as Osterhammel showed, became global because of three phenomena (or ‘products’): that is BMW, that is Siemens and that is – last but not least – Richard Wagner. Wagner the ever changing cultural phenomenon may be looked at from two sides here, that is production and reception: As somebody who engaged himself with representing ideas with national impact as in “Die Meistersinger”; and as somebody who is still identified by his audiences as specific German (or Bavarian…). Identities may shift.Is Wagner – by now – part of a global culture?

Sunday, June 24

In the air. On LH 729. Going west, back to Germany. Exhausted, but happy with all new kin of impressions, academically and culturally. Sometimes I am not sure what kind of an impact we are able to make as academics in the humanities. Especially if we are constantly asked to produce ‘numbers’: in Euros for extra financial support on research or in new students coming to our university. But after my China experience it seems clear how important it is to do the work we are doing: to connect culturally. And not only commercially. Finding ways of communicating with each other is so important. Wagner with his critique of an alienated world is a good medium for this exchange with China. The intellectual and emotional connection to Wagner and his work is big in the East and the West. The general curiosity on both sides amazing. In that sense Wagner is truly universal being able to bring people together with different cultural backgrounds. Yesterday I had my sightseeing day in Shanghai. A warm day, cloudy, with a lot of humidity and rain. My first impression: Other cities of that scope seem to be so dated compared to this… I am getting a quick glance on that hungry and shiny surface of a modern world with all its lights, fancy skyscrapers, high rise freeways, expensive stores and hotels. This is fascinating. But it also leaves a somewhat strange taste at the same time. China here is so much about money. As my friend pointed out the first night at dinner, smiling at me with some slight traces of disgust in his face. Now I understand better what he was referring to. The day before my sightseeing experience at the conference made me believe again that it is important what we are doing in the humanities. Danny gave an excellent talk on Carl Dahlhaus, my first academic teacher in Berlin in the 1980s. She and I agree: Dahlhaus’ work is still amazing, since he connected all kind of historical, aesthetical and cultural information to our field of interest: music. Truly modern in that sense. As for him there are translations available of his books in Chinese by now, which is great. They help to connect. Rémy Campos and Aurélien Poidevin talked about their recent historical reconstruction of the Paris “Meistersinger” production of 1897. Their talk demonstrated that the shift from the Wagner version of the Munich premiere in 1868 to this version done in France at the end of the 19^th century (and its recreation) is quite a big one. The staging of Wagner became somehow its own leitmotif at that conference. One of the questions brought up after my own talk that day on the history of the Bayreuth festival referred to this as well: Will there be some kind of a Chinese version of the “Ring” soon? And what would that look like? The conference was ended with a very lively final discussion. Sitting at tables and facing each other, this was the most stimulating part of the conference. We were discussing topics which had not been touched yet. And somebody suggested – it was meant to be more of a joke – to combine Chinese Opera with Wagner. I ask myself right now: why not? With all of this we missed Nicholas Vazsonyi’s presence in China. The planned presentation and workshop on “Meistersinger” would have been extremely relevant within the context of the other talks and the general topic of how to stage Wagner in the 21^st century. I am very glad I did all of this, and I am looking forward to more cultural encounters between the East and the West. In December 2013 we hope to be able to welcome our new Chinese friends in Thurnau. The big city will be replaced by a remote countryside and the venue of the conference, the castle of Thurnau, could be covered with snow. Another place, another time: helping us to shape up another perspective on Wagner.

Thursday, June 21

The conference in Shanghai starts this morning. It is taking place in the newest building of Shanghai Conservatory which is only a few years old and very well equipped. The class room is full of people: mostly the speakers of the conference and also lots (!) of students. There are film cameras set up, and many photos are shot during the whole day. Opening addresses are being given. Than we take a picture outside of the building with everybody posing in front of the blue conference poster which has all the information on the event. The next thing will be my own presentation: an introduction to WagnerWorldWide. Danny is helping out with the Chinese version of my paper. And again I have a good feeling talking and being translated. She is doing a great job. There is that very quiet and concentrated atmosphere to be observed in the room, but – again – because of the ‘indirect’ communication, it is hard to tell what people think. But this time too, as in Huangzhou: after my talk, there are lots of questions. And, we have time to get to talk. Professor Yang wants to know my personal areas of research which are linked to the five topics. There is an interesting question on the general situation on German musicology today, how the discipline contextualizes the areas of research we are dealing with. Another question is: Are there specific ways of looking at Wagner in the academic reception to be distinguished in Europe depending on the national point of view? All of this shows the wide range of interest. As also do the papers of this first conference day. But despite the fact that there are a lot of different areas of interest being tackled in these papers, I would like to point out a couple of special topics where Chinese scholars seem to focus on: one is Mythology and the other one is Wagner’s Antiquity reception. The famous music critic and head of the Wagner Society China Liu Xuefeng reflects on options of directing Wagner today. He uses his huge treasure of performances he experienced in Europe and elsewhere. According to him Wagner’s work could be looked at as ‘not perfect’ – while the music actually is. Which makes me think: that could be the reason, why Wagner still stimulates all these different new approaches. Exactly the creative impulse he brings out is probably his major legacy. Professor Tao Xin from Shanghai conservatory delivers a brilliant analysis of Robert Carsen’s “Ring”-production from Cologne opera house which was performed at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. As I hear, not everybody liked this interpretation. But the wide range of opinions on this and the arguments to prove these opinions seem as diverse as in Europe. There can be no doubt: the appreciation for Wagner, the knowledge of Wagner and the critical thinking on Wagner is tremendous in this country.