We are thrilled to welcome conductor and musicologist Michael Downes to lecture on his 2025 book release, Wagner and the Creation of the Ring.
This will be a private event for members only, graciously hosted by one of our members at their home in the beautiful Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. RSVP soon - we will have a limit of 50 attendees. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase a signed copy and get to know Michael one-on-one.
Friday, November 21, 2025; 6:30-8PM.
Members interested in attending must RSVP via email: info@bostonwagnersociety.org
Michael Downes is a conductor, writer, and lecturer on music with particular interests in opera and music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2008, following two years as Director of Music at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, he was appointed to the same position at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he leads a busy and varied music programme for students, staff and the local community and directs many of the University ensembles.
Michael’s new book, Wagner and the Creation of the Ring, was published to great acclaim in the UK in 2024 by Faber and in the US in 2025 by Pegasus. His previous publications include books written both with and about British composer Jonathan Harvey and a collaboration with Nike Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard, on the English version of her book about her family’s history, The Wagners: Dramas of a Musical Dynasty. He is currently working on a new biography of Elgar for Oxford University Press. michaeldownes.com
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Wagner and the Creation of the Ring tells the story of how Wagner’s tetralogy came into being, charting the evolution of his thinking from his days as a Kapellmeister and revolutionary in Dresden to his time as the patriarch of Bayreuth. Successive chapters explore Wagner’s adaptation of his Germanic and Scandinavian source material, the development of the libretto, the unique musical techniques he developed for the cycle, and how he funded the Festspielhaus and staged the first production. A final chapter explores five important productions from the US premiere at the newly built Metropolitan Opera House to Stefan Herheim’s recent production for Berlin’s Deutsche Oper. The book has been praised for its lively prose style and detailed but accessible exploration of the music. It was named as one of the five best music books of the year in the UK’s Presto Music Awards and described by Gramophone magazine as ’the best introduction to The Ring out there.’