Adolphe Appia, Les maîtres chanteurs de Nuremberg: An Introduction and Translation

Abstract

The Swiss scenery artist Adolphe Appia, born in Geneva in 1862, is thought by many in the theatrical community to be a forefather of modern theater, particularly for his radical ideas concerning stage lighting. His artistic in-terest in stage production was motivated and inspired early on by his pas-sion for Wagner's music dramas; evidence for this is apparent in his first published writing, La mise en scène du drame wagnérien of 1895, which in-cludes notes for a hypothetical production of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen. Around the same time, Appia wrote scenarios for productions of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and Parsifal.