The Stage Gesture of the Wagner Era

Sarah Bernhardt’s declamation of Phèdre’s monologue (1903).

Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient as Senta in Illustrirte Zeitung October 7 1843; this drawing does not depict reality. Neither her embodiment – as Devrient writes – nor her appeareance on stage match with this illustration.

Rienzi end of act 4 in: Illustrirte Zeitung August 12 1843.

The death of King John from Shakespeare’s eponymous play interpreted by Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1899).

The Tempest, directed by Percy Stow (1908).

Richard Wagner, directed by Carl Frölich (1913), sequence from Siegfried.

David Garrick as Hamlet, in the moment when the ghost of his dead father approaches him, painted by Benjamin Wilson (1754).

Richard Wagner, directed by Carl Frölich (1913), sequence from Parsifal.

VIDEO 8

From Ferdinand Heine’s mise-en-scène of the world première of Tannhäuser in Dresden (1845); position sketch act 2, scene 3 acc. to Darmstadt Ms, 7v; taken from Steinbeck 1968

Gotha première of Tannhäuser 1855 act 2, scene 3 in: Illustrirte Zeitung 1855, p. 172.

Tannhäuser, directed by Lucius J. Henderson (1913)