- A Wagner Matinee
A Wagner Matinee is a short story by
Willa Cather . It was first published in "Everybody's Magazine " in February 1904 [Willa Cather's Collected Short Fiction, University of Nebraska Press; Rev Ed edition, 1 Nov 1970, page 242] .Plot summary
Clark receives a letter from his uncle who lives in
Red Willow County, Nebraska , saying his wife is coming toBoston to sort out some inheritance papers. Whilst there, Clark takes her to the opera, to see aRichard Wagner performance. She is on the verge of tears. The "Prize Song" reminds her of a German man she once knew. After the performance, she does not want to budge and starts sobbing. Clark understands; she will have to get back to the drudge of humdrum farm life.Characters
*Clark, the narrator. He lives in
Boston, Massachusetts .
*Howard Carpenter, the narrator's uncle.
*Aunt Georgiana. She worked as a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory in the 1860s, until she met Howard and decided to move toNebraska with him.
*Mrs Springer, the narrator's landlady.
*Maggie, Aunt Georgiana's daughter.
*A German peasant fromBayreuth .Allusions to other works
*Through Aunt Georgiana, allusions made are to
William Shakespeare ,Carl Maria von Weber 's "Euryanthe ",Richard Wagner 's "The Flying Dutchman", "Tannhauser", "Tristan und Isolde ", "Der Ring des Nibelungen " and "Siegfried",Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ,Giacomo Meyerbeer ,Giuseppe Verdi 's "Il trovatore ".References
External links
* [http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/examples/servlet/transform/tamino/Library/cather?&_xmlsrc=http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/cather/writings/cat.ss011/cat.ss011.xml&_xslsrc=http://libtextcenter.unl.edu/cather/xslt/cather_ss.xsl Full text]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.