I grant you that the ‘Nibelungen Ring’ is funny, although mythical,
but it is not a patch on the story of the coming into being of the
Sydney Opera House.
—
Anna Russell
I have been told that Wagner's
music is better than it sounds.
—
Bill Nye
‘Lohengrin’ to us
ordinary mortals seemed something like the whistling of the wind through
the keyholes of a cathedral, which has a dreamy charm for a little while,
but by and by you long for the sound even of a street organ to rush in and
break the monotony.
—
George Eliot
The leitmotiv system
of the ‘Ring’ strikes me as a sort of vast musical city directory.
—
Claude Debussy
You say I don’t know
the rhythmical changes in it, madam? There are no rhythmical changes in
‘Götterdämmering’ . . . It goes on and on from half-past five till
midnight like a damned old cart-horse.
—
Sir Thomas Beecham
Hans Sachs was a
master singer and a good cobbler to boot.
—
Anonymous
‘Tannhäuser’ is a
music one must hear several times. I am not going again.
—
Gioacchino Rossini
I like Wagner's music
better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole
time without people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage.
—
Oscar Wilde
The principle of the
endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any
reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.
—
Igor Stravinsky
Wagner, thank the
fates, is no hypocrite. He says out what he means, and he usually means
something nasty.
—
James Huneker
Wagner's aunt was so
musical that when she came to a five-barred gate, she stopped and sang the
spots on her veil.
—
Beachcomber
The frog is a diligent
songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite
opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective — ‘brekekex-koax’;
the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner.
—
Ambrose Bierce
‘Parsifal’ is the
kind of opera that starts at six o’clock. After it has been going three
hours, you look at your watch and it says 6.20.
—
David Randolph
Wagner used to read
the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.
—
Ralph Vaughan Williams
What were Woglande,
Wellgunde and Flosshilde doing in the water? They were performing Gene
Kelly's ‘I'm Singing in the Rhine’.
—
Frank Muir
Herr Wagner is a
composer who has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours.
—
Gioacchino Rossini
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