Wagner as Ecocritic : a talk by Professor Kirsten Page

Monday 8th May at 19.00 via Zoom

In recent years, stage directors have increasingly sought to present Wagner’s Ring Cycle as what Thomas Grey has referred to as an “ecological parable.” But how “green” was Wagner, really? What does it mean to make that kind of assessment? And how well does the tetralogy accord with nineteenth-century and more recent “green” thinking? This paper explores these questions and more, as it asks whether Wagner was, in fact, an ecocritic and why it matters.  Kirsten Paige is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Musicology at North Carolina State University. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at Stanford University and earned her Ph.D. in Music History from UC Berkeley in 2018