Nicholas Vazsonyi | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Academic, author, and artistic director |
Academic background | |
Education | B.A., German M.A., German Ph.D., Germanic Langs. |
Alma mater | Indiana University, Bloomington University of California, Los Angeles |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Clemson University Vanderbilt University University of South Carolina (UofSC) |
Nicholas Vazsonyi is an American academic,author,and artistic director. Since 2020,he is Dean of the College of Architecture,Arts and Humanities at Clemson University. [1]
Vazsonyi has authored articles on German national identity,German literature and culture of the 18th through the 20th centuries,and cultural intersections of music,literature and film. His research interests include composer Richard Wagner and literary figure Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He is the author of two books Lukács Reads Goethe:From Aestheticism to Stalinism,and Richard Wagner:Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand,translated into German as Richard Wagner:Die Entstehung einer Marke,and has conceived and edited several volumes,including The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia [2] and the Cambridge Companion to Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. He is also the Writer and Director of the 4-part Video/DVD film series,titled Klassix-13:Mozart –Beethoven –Schubert –Brahms. [3]
He is the Co-Editor of WagnerSpectrum,and serves on the advisory board of the Wagner Society of New York and the journal Leitmotive. [4]
Vazsonyi was born May 31,1963,in Traverse City,Michigan. His father was Balint Vazsonyi. The family moved to London in 1964. He received his early education at Westminster Under School and,later,at Westminster School in London. In 1978,the family moved to Bloomington,Indiana,and he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in German from Indiana University in 1982. He later enrolled at University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA),and earned his M.A. and a Ph.D. degree in Germanic Languages in 1988 and 1993,respectively. [5]
While at Indiana University,Vazsonyi trained to become an opera stage director,and worked behind the scenes at its opera theater. He also attended Tito Gobbi’s opera workshop at the Villa Schifanoia in Fiesole (1981),and worked under the director Hans Neugebauer as an apprentice at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1981) and under Götz Friedrich at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (1982). [5]
Vazsonyi started his career in 1982 as a legal assistant at Barnes &Thornburg,at that time based solely in Indianapolis. In 1984,he left to join his father and become artistic director of Telemusic,Incorporated,a company formed to make a series of four 1-hour documentaries about classical composers. From 1994 till 1997,he was a Visiting assistant professor of German at Vanderbilt University,and subsequently joined the University of South Carolina (UofSC),Columbia as an assistant professor of German. He was promoted to associate professor in 2001, [6] to Professor in 2010,and became Jesse Chapman Alcorn Memorial Professor of Foreign Languages in 2011. In 2020,he left UofSC for Clemson University to become Dean of the College of Architecture,Arts &Humanities. [7]
Vazsonyi also held administrative appointments in his career. He became Director of the German Studies Program at UofSC in 2002,and Graduate Director of the Department of Languages,Literatures and Cultures in 2004. From 2013 till 2020,he served as Chair of the Department of Languages,Literatures &Cultures at the University of South Carolina. [1]
Vazsonyi's first book examined Hungarian Marxist philosopher Georg Lukács,arguing that,despite his radical turn from modernist aesthete to committed communist,accompanied by a wholesale reassessment of his literary preferences,he managed to retain his favorite author,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,by consistently reinterpreting his works to align with the current political climate. [8] Vazsonyi next turned his attention to German national identity formation between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries. His edited volume,Searching for Common Ground,along with a set of journal articles,argued that the beginning of the national project could be traced to the mid-18th century,a good half century earlier than historians had previously considered. [9]
After receiving tenure in 2001,Vazsonyi returned to his earlier interest in music and opera,and combined it with his ongoing research on German culture and national identity formation by focusing on the composer Richard Wagner. This became his main area of scholarship for the next two decades. His first major publication was a volume on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ,which brought together essays by both scholars as well as active performers,including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,the stage director Harry Kupfer and the conductor Peter Schneider. [10]
In 2010,Cambridge University Press published Vazsonyi's major monograph Richard Wagner:Self-Promotion and the Making of a Brand which argued that Wagner used techniques that would only become standard many decades later to fashion himself and his approach to composing as a brand. The book received wide critical acclaim,including a review from the Wall Street Journal that said "...written with panache and elan,conveying with refreshing brevity a palpable sense of Wagner's indefatigable industry...the first scholarly text to take seriously Wagner's incessant self-promotional activity,Mr. Vazsonyi's book assumes considerable importance not only in musicology but also in the history of marketing." [11]
Following the success of Vazsonyi's book,Cambridge UP invited him to conceive and produce the Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia (2013) and,most recently,the Cambridge Companion to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen which he co-produced with London-based music historian Mark Berry. [12]
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer,theatre director,polemicist,and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers,Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer,Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk,by which he sought to synthesise the poetic,visual,musical and dramatic arts,with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
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Theo Adam was a German operatic bass-baritone and bass singer who had an international career in opera,concert and recital from 1949. He was a member of the Staatsoper Dresden for his entire career,and sang at the Bayreuth Festival from 1952 to 1980. He particularly excelled in portraying roles by Richard Wagner,especially Wotan in Der Ring des Nibelungen,which he also performed at the Metropolitan Opera,among others. In concert,he was a much admired Bach singer and also drew acclaim for his interpretation of the title character of Mendelssohn's Elijah. He was a voice teacher at the Musikhochschule Dresden.
Harry Alfred Robert Kupfer was a German opera director and academic. A long-time director at the Komische Oper Berlin,he worked at major opera houses and at festivals internationally. Trained by Walter Felsenstein,he worked in the tradition of realistic directing. At the Bayreuth Festival,he staged Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer in 1978 and Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1988. At the Salzburg Festival,he directed the premiere of Penderecki's Die schwarze Maske in 1986 and Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss in 2014.
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Balint Vázsonyi was a Hungarian-born naturalized American pianist,educator,international recitalist/soloist with leading orchestras,and political activist and journalist. He made performance history in playing chronological cycles of all 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven over two days in New York,Boston,and London. During the last six years of his life,he became a commentator in Washington,D.C.,on the state of American politics.
Agnes Mathilde Wesendonck was a German poet and author. The words of five of her verses were the basis of Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder;the composer was infatuated with her,and his wife Minna blamed Mathilde for the break-up of their marriage.
Jonas Alber is a German conductor and violinist based in Berlin. He was appointed general music director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig in 1998,becoming Germany’s youngest conductor to hold such a position at the time.
Theodor Uhlig was a German violin-player,composer and music critic. He was the illegitimate son of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony.
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Klaus Zehelein is a German dramaturge. He was president of the Munich Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding. Zehelein is also president of the association of German theatres,Deutscher Bühnenverein. For fifteen years,from 1991 until 2006,Zehelein was artistic director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Critic Gerhard Rohde,summing up Zehelein's theatre work at the Stuttgart opera,says "Zehelein does not view opera as a culinary phenomenon. For him opera is an extremely complex matter,where all arts –as well as social,philosophical,historic,utopic and other aspects –unite. This complexity of opera merits being perceived,being seen,being experienced;thus all works that end up performed on stage,are rigorously analyzed beforehand. He who says this results in thinned-out,merely sophisticated opera performances,missed out substantially in the Zehelein-Era in Stuttgart."
Marga Schiml is a German opera singer who sings mezzo-soprano and alto. She has appeared at major European opera houses and festivals,such as the Vienna State Opera,the Deutsche Oper Berlin,the Hamburg State Opera and La Scala,at the Salzburg Festival and the Bayreuth Festival. She is also an academic voice teacher.
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Uwe Eric Laufenberg is a German actor,stage director for play and opera,and theatre manager who has directed at international opera houses and festivals,such as Elektra at the Vienna State Opera and Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival.
Ingrid Haubold is a German operatic soprano. After beginning her career in Munich and continuing with German companies,she moved on to major international opera houses,appearing as Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Teatro Real in Madrid in 1986,as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer at the Savonlinna Opera Festival,and in the title role of Beethoven's Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Günter Krämer is a German stage director,especially for opera,and a theatre manager who has staged internationally.
William Wernigk was an Austrian operatic tenor,who was a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera for 44 years,in roles such as Pedrillo in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte,Cassio in Verdi's Otello and Goro in Puccini's Madama Butterfly,as well as many comprimario roles. He appeared as a guest around Europe and performed at the Salzburg Festival both in concert and on stage,taking part in the world premiere of Gottfried von Einem's Dantons Tod there in 1947. He performed in early complete opera recordings such as Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss with Robert Heger in 1933,and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with Arturo Toscanini in 1937.
William Ashton Ellis was an English doctor and theosophist. He is remembered for translating the complete prose works of Richard Wagner.