Wagner everywhere but New York

Wagner's two-hundredth birthday arrives on Wednesday, and most of the world's major music cities will mark the occasion in some way. In Leipzig, Wagner's birthplace, there will be a celebratory concert, a staging of Götterdämmerung, and an afternoon coffee party; in Venice, where he died, La Fenice has a day of music and lectures. In London, as part of Wagner 200, there's a special concert at Royal Festival Hall, with Andrew Davis conducting the Philharmonia and Susan Bullock singing. In Berlin, you can see The Flying Dutchman; in Milan and Vienna, Götterdämmerung; in Copenhagen, Tannhäuser; in Santiago, Parsifal. In Barcelona, a great Wagner city, there's a concert at L'Auditori. Dresden will have a flurry of events next week, including a Thielemann / Jonas Kaufmann affair on May 21. In Paris, you can attend Götterdämmerung on the same night, and sing happy birthday to the old wizard at midnight. And Thielemann will conduct at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth on the birthday itself, with a no doubt wild street party to follow.

Curiously, though, almost nothing is happening here in New York. Igor Stravinsky, a professed Wagner-hater, would have been delighted to know that Lincoln Center will be presenting, on the day of the bicentennial, a Bard College concert entitled Stravinsky and His World. Juilliard is holding an Elliott Carter memorial, which makes me think that when Carter was born Wagner had been dead for only twenty-five years. The only live Wagner event I can find is a vocal recital at the German Consulate, sponsored by the Wagner Society of New York; it is sold out. Also, WKCR, the Columbia radio station, is hosting a Wagner marathon, beginning at midnight on the 22nd. But the most Wagnerian thing you could do in the city next Wednesday, aside from listening to the confused Parsifal bells at Riverside, would be to go see the Missy Mazzoli concert at (Le) Poisson Rouge, in the spirit of Wagner's famous slogan "Kinder! macht Neues!" ("Children, make something new").  I will be spending most of the day on Amtrak — so it goes.