A useful dictionary of about 1,000 entries, covering persons connected to
Wagner, the operas, opera characters, archives, theaters, and other topics.
With a name index, in dauntingly small print.- Lewsey, Jonathan. Who’s Who and What’s What in Wagner. Brookfield, Vt.:
Ashgate, 1997. xiii, 350p. ISBN 1-8592-8280-6. ML410 .W2 L497.
A breezy dictionary of characters, things, and events in the operas, with much
space given to synopses. No index. - Hodson, Phillip. Who’s Who in Wagner: An A-to-Z Look at His Life and
Work.New York: Macmillan, 1984. 182p. ISBN 0-02552030-X. ML410
.W19 H64.
A useful book, intended only “for the most general audience,” but of wider
application. Consists of entries, in alphabetical order, for persons, characters
(including such categories as ambassadors, apprentices, and the like), works,
topics, objects in the operas (such as the ashtree in Hunding’s cottage), places
as settings, and places in Wagner’s life. No bibliography or index. - Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. The Wagner Companion. New York:
Hawthorn, 1978. x, 265p. ISBN 0-8015-8356-X. ML410 .W13 M27.
Production histories with good illustrations, glossary of the names of charac-
ters, discography of all complete recordings in print. Name and title index,
weak bibliography. Note that #1974 has the same name.
Conferences
1973.Wagnerliteratur—Wagner Forschung: Bericht über das Wagner-Symposium,
München, 1983.Ed. Carl Dahlhaus and Egon Voss. Mainz: Schott, 1985.
239p. ISBN 3-7957-2202-0. ML410 .W231 W22.
Consists of 21 papers from the 1983 conference. Three are entered separately:
Friedrich Lippmann on Wagner’s early influences (#2017), Reinhard Strohm
on the overtures (#2016), and Heinz Becker on Meyerbeer (#1192). Other
entries of special interest are Martin Grego-Dellin, “Wagners Bild in der Liter-
ature,” Stefan Kunze, “Dramatische Konzeption und Szenenbezug in Wagners
Tannhäuser,” and Oswald Georg Bauer, “Das Tannhäuser-Bacchanal.” The
volume has an expansive name index.Collections of Essays
1974.The Wagner Companion. Ed. Peter Burbidge and Richard Sutton. New York:
Cambridge U.P., 1979. 462p. ISBN 0-521-2287-9. ML410 .W13 W137.
Essays by various scholars, dealing with the genesis of the operas, Leitmotiven
and some of the less obvious elements of the musical language, the music
drama as a total work of art, and so on. Robert Bailey makes an important
contribution with “The Method of Composition,” continuing the line of
thought in his “Siegfrieds Tod” article (see #2045). A useful study by Geoffrey
Skelton on the founding of Bayreuth is also worth noticing, but most of
the content of this volume is derivative or otherwise unsatisfying. Backnotes,Richard Wagner 367