Abstracts
Abstract
Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer is unusual among the composer’s mature operas for the brevity and relative unfamiliarity of its source material. Since the legend of the Flying Dutchman was relatively unknown, both Heine and Wagner contextualize the Dutchman by relating him to better-known figures: Heine refers to the Dutchman as the Wandering Jew, and Wagner, through hunting music, connects him to the Wild Hunter. This article addresses the significance of these associations by examining the meanings of all three legends and demonstrating how they are used by Wagner to provide dramatic and musical structure in the opera.
Résumé
L’opéra de Richard Wagner, Le Vaisseau Fantôme, est une oeuvre inhabituelle en comparaison avec ses autres opéras de la même période, en raison de sa brièveté et du fait que ses sources sont moins familières pour le public. Étant donné que la légende du Hollandais volant était moins connue, Heine et Wagner l’ont mise en lien avec deux autres figures mieux connues : Heine présente le Hollandais comme le Juif errant, et Wagner, en donnant à sa musique un caractère de musique de chasse, le rapproche du Chasseur sauvage. Cet article examine les significations de ces associations en analysant les trois légendes et en montrant comment Wagner les utilise pour construire la structure dramatique et musicale de son opéra.
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Appendices
Biographical note
J. Drew Stephen completed his PhD thesis titled “The Motif of the Hunt in Romantic Opera” under the supervision of Carl Morey at the University of Toronto in 2002. He is associate professor of musicology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research concerns the social and cultural significance of the hunt in the nineteenth century with a particular focus on opera and the role of the hunt in the works of Weber, Wagner, Verdi, Haydn, and Brahms, and on the influence of the hunting horn and hunting music on the development of the orchestral horn and its repertoire.
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