Problems of production

Shakespeare aside, there isn’t a dramatist whose work has proved more protean than Wagner’s. Patrick Carnegy explores the astonishing variety of interpretation it has provoked, in a book that has been long meditated as well as meticulously researched. It isn’t comprehensive —Wolfgang Wagner, Rennert, Wernicke and Lehnhoff are only a few of the significant directors who are omitted — but its over-view is magisterial, and, despite its considerable length, the crisply organised structure and unfailing lucidity of the prose make it worth the effort of a thorough and continuous reading. Other scholars have written forcefully on aspects of this subject, but Carnegy’s treatment will surely be considered definitive.

Virtually born in the trunk, Wagner was a profoundly practical man of the theatre, blessed with what Carnegy calls ‘a childlike delight in the ingenuities of stage deception’. As well as his multifaceted musical genius, he also had remarkable directorial skills — singers testified to his eye for detail and brilliant ability to impersonate.