© Bayreuther Festspiele, Meistersinger 2018

News from the Members

28.12.2018
Some news from the WS Singapore
From sending their second Scholar to Bayreuth this year, to musical evenings and lively discussions, the WS Singapore have had a busy few months
In the second half of 2018, the Richard Wagner Association (Singapore) sustained a steady level of activity.
Four of our members went to the Bayreuth Festival and we sponsored one local participant in the stipendium programme. She was young soprano, Felicia Teo, who sang at two events associated with RWA(S) later in the year.

The first was a couple of evenings (25-26 August) of selections from German operas, co-presented with OperaViva Ltd, which included pieces from "Tannhäuser" and "Parsifal", held at Singapore's The Art House venue. 

The second was the society's Christmas party, on 4th December. Members and friends had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with plenty to eat and drink. Felicia sang two songs, including one of the "Wesendonck Lieder" and spoke about her experience on the Stipendium programme. Her observations on the productions she saw, including the acoustics of the Festspielhaus, were illuminating, proceeding as they did from her perspective as a singer. The evening drew to an end with her singing The first verse of "Stille Nacht/Silent Night", first in German, then in English.

Between these events, on 2 September, the association presented a recital by David Lim of Liszt’s piano transcriptions of two Wagner compositions,  the overture to "Tannhauser" and  ‘Song to the Evening Star’. Lim is a district judge by profession, but outside his working hours, he is also a keen pianist who has given numerous solo performances and appeared with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

The first event of 2019, on 19 January, will be a screening for members of a recording of Act Three of "Die Meistersinger", followed by discussion.

You can also find impressions of their visit to Bayreuth in 2018 by several members of the Singapore Society on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/RichardWagnerAssociationSingapore/info.