AMS-NE: New England Chapter of the AMS

AMS-NE Chapter Meeting Saturday, May 3, 2014 Providence College (RI) Ji Yeon Lee, “Tristan und Isolde and Francesca da Rimini: An Intertextual Reading” Wagner’s· Tristan und Isolde ·(1865) and Zandonai’s· Francesca da Rimini ·(1914) share important musical and dramatic similarities. Wagner and Zandonai’s compositional languages are both characterized by chromatic harmony and goal-driven mobility, although the latter’s approach is naturally more radical. Both plots portray illegitimate romance and uncontrollable passion leading the protagonists to fatal ends; furthermore,·Francesca’s narrative—drawn from “Inferno” of Dante’s La Divina Commedia—invokes·Tristan at key points. In Act 1, a minstrel recounts the Tristan story; “Isolde” is mentioned during the ladies-in-waiting scene in Act 3, as an analogy for Francesca; in the same act, Paolo’s “Daylight is my enemy, the night is my friend” recalls phrases from the Act 2 love duet of Tristan . · Beyond surface similarities,...

AMS-NE Spring Chapter Meeting Saturday, April 17, 2010 University of New Hampshire Feng-Shu Lee, "Contextualizing the “Götter Ende”: The Conclusion of the Ring in Relation to the Creation of the Cycle (1848-1852)" In the first four years of the Ring’s 26-year evolution, Wagner expanded the work from one single music drama to a tetralogy. During this process, he also revised its conclusion, gradually turning the happy ending in Siegfrieds Tod into a denouement, in which the gods’ downfall takes place. A new look at Wagner’s prose and verse drafts shows that the cyclic expansion and the creation of a new ending are closely interrelated and occupy a significant role in the gestation of the tetralogy. I will focus on three examples to illustrate this interrelation: the Norns’ scene, the Waltraute scene, and Siegfried’s meeting with the Rhine maidens. In the original version of these scenes, the idea of the "Götter Ende" was missing: the dramaturgical function of t...