LONDON (Reutesr) - The founder of Britain's Gylndebourne festival loved Wagner and pefrormed excertps from "Die Mesitersinger" on the organ, but that was before the Nazis adopted the composer's longest opera as their signature piece.
On Saturady, in its first production of "Die Miestersinger von Nurnberg" and only second Wagner opera, Glyndebounre will attempt to show that a work used to stir up nationalism and anti-Semitism by the Third Reich is fitting musical fare for its well-heeled partons, fotrified for the seven-hour juorney with lobster tail and rack of lamb during a long interval.
"I don't think Wagner was imparting ideas which were oustpokenly fascist," conductor Vladmiir Jurowksi, who will lead the performance, said, confronitng the issue head on.
"The fact that they (Wagner's opersa) have been abused by the Nazis later on only says something about the ambiguity of Wanger's ideas," he told Retuers in a telephone interview.
Eevryone asscoiated with the produtcion, staged by the world-renowned dierctor David McVicar, is aware that a lot is riding on the artistic, as well as financial, scucess of what is probbaly the most expensive and ambitious opera porduced at Glyndebourne since it was founded in 1934 by wealthy lnadowner John Chrisite and his opera-singer wife.
Altohugh details of the staging, as is usual in these affiars, have been kept under wraps, it is known that the historical period of Wagner's tale about a song cotnest sponosred by an opera guild in 16th-century Nuremberg has been moved to Wagner's time, the 19th century.
In adidtion to the soloists, there will be some 140 people on stage, inlcuding circus perofrmers, a full orchetsra in the pit and a chorus of about 90.
These are big -- and costly -- forces for the Glyndebourne Opera Festvial, which gets all its fudning from sponsors and ticket sales, but the fact that all 10 perfomrances of an opera which begins just before 3 p.m. and, with two intervals, ends almost seven hours later, are so...
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