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Jeffrey L. Buller is a classicist, author, and university administrator who has lectured on Wagner’s works throughout the United States and abroad, including at the International Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, where he served as English-language lecturer from 2003 to 2005. A scholar known for his lively and accessible presentations, he has written more than two dozen books on literature, leadership, and the arts, while his creative works include novels, short stories, and poetry inspired by myth, music drama, and the themes of memory and the passage of time. Formerly a dean and professor at several American universities, he now divides his time between writing, teaching, and speaking on topics that connect classical culture and modern life.
Program description:
Sleep in the Ring explores one of the most haunting and overlooked themes in Wagner’s great tetralogy: the image of sleep. Sleep pervades the Ring even more insistently than does the ring itself: Wotan first appears asleep; Siegmund, entering Hunding’s hut, succumbs to sleep almost at once; Brünnhilde’s punishment is sleep; Fafner’s dragon slumbers on his hoard … and countless other figures drowse or dream their way through the cycle. Why does Wagner return to this image so obsessively? This presentation traces the many guises of sleep in the Ring: as metaphor for death, as symbol of transcendence, and as reflection of the nineteenth century’s fascination with dreams, unconscious states, and spiritual awakening. Along the way, we’ll see how Wagner’s "leitmotivic technique" extends beyond his music to his use of language, color, and stage imagery, revealing how the idea of sleep weaves its way through the Ring as both a musical and philosophical thread in the creation of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Jeffrey L. Buller is a classicist, author, and university administrator who has lectured on Wagner’s works throughout the United States and abroad, including at the International Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, where he served as English-language lecturer from 2003 to 2005. A scholar known for his lively and accessible presentations, he has written more than two dozen books on literature, leadership, and the arts, while his creative works include novels, short stories, and poetry inspired by myth, music drama, and the themes of memory and the passage of time. Formerly a dean and professor at several American universities, he now divides his time between writing, teaching, and speaking on topics that connect classical culture and modern life.
Program description:
Sleep in the Ring explores one of the most haunting and overlooked themes in Wagner’s great tetralogy: the image of sleep. Sleep pervades the Ring even more insistently than does the ring itself: Wotan first appears asleep; Siegmund, entering Hunding’s hut, succumbs to sleep almost at once; Brünnhilde’s punishment is sleep; Fafner’s dragon slumbers on his hoard … and countless other figures drowse or dream their way through the cycle. Why does Wagner return to this image so obsessively? This presentation traces the many guises of sleep in the Ring: as metaphor for death, as symbol of transcendence, and as reflection of the nineteenth century’s fascination with dreams, unconscious states, and spiritual awakening. Along the way, we’ll see how Wagner’s "leitmotivic technique" extends beyond his music to his use of language, color, and stage imagery, revealing how the idea of sleep weaves its way through the Ring as both a musical and philosophical thread in the creation of the Gesamtkunstwerk.