ENDACOTT
SOCIETY March
2004
Retired
Faculty and Staff of the University of Kansas
www.ukans.edu/~emeritus
All activities meet at the Adams Alumni
Center unless otherwise noted.
SNOW POLICY REMINDER—There will be no meeting on Wednesday morning if the
Lawrence Public Schools are closed due to bad weather. This will directly
affect the Computer Study Group, Gardening Seminar, Ten O'clock Scholars, and
the Music Group. KANU, KLWN and Channel 6 as well as the Alumni Center office
will be informed. All other interest groups should develop their own policies.
The Executive Committee
*The Adams Alumni Center will be closed during Spring Break, March
22-28th.
Card
& Game Theory—Edna
& Karmie Galle
(galle@ku.edu & 843-2950)
Thursday,
March 18 at 2:00—The sign-up sheet will be available during the Ten-O’clock
Scholars Coffee hour on Wednesday mornings. Any questions should be referred to
Karmie or Edna Galle.
Cinema
Studies—
Grant Goodman
(plim@ku.edu & 841-1066) and Fred Madaus (fmadaus@ku.edu &
841-4939)
Tuesday, March 16 at 2:00—Film title
TBA.
March 3 at 9:00—Louise
Hanson from the Lawrence Public Library.
She will
provide
a program on Internet Resources at the Lawrence Public Library.
March 10 at 9:00—Mickey
Waxman (ACS) will speak on "Sophos --installation, use, how it works” and
if there's time, swing into the current state of affairs in the
virus/hacker/scam & spam world.
March 17 at 9:00 —Dale Rummer—WordPerfect
March 31 at 9:00—"What's New" in Windows XP. Jeff Lewis, ACS.
Monday, March 1 at 3:30—Discussion
of Water Problems in Western
Kansas.
Discussion leader is Susan Stover, Kansas Water Office.
Drama
Study Group—Arnold
Weiss (ahweiss@ku.edu & 842-5502)
Now able to look back on John Osborne's Look Back
in Anger, Drama Study Group undertakes its next vehicle on Friday, March
12, at 1:30. in the Music Room. Said vehicle will be The Visit, by
the contemporary Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt. Sufficient copies
should be available by the time the Group meets. (And veterans of close
encounters with multiple translations of some Russian dramas traversed by the
Group in the recent past need have no fear: all copies will contain the
identical English
version of the original German.) As always,
queries, comments and suggestions of new plays to be read at future meetings
may be addressed to Arnold Weiss via phone or e-mail or in person at Ten
O'Clock Scholars gatherings.
Monday, March 8 at
3:30—Gordon
Wiseman and Jim Drury will lead a
discussion on:" Weapons of Mass Destruction: What now after
9/11?" Join us for a lively discussion.
Gardening—Arno Knapper (knapper@ku.edu
& 312-9422) and Dick Shiefelbusch (843
5869)
March 3, 10, 17, and 31 at 9:00 A.M.
Wednesday,
March 10 at 1:30—Art Lamb will lead the discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor.
Metropolitan
Opera Radio—Al Sellen (jnalsellen@aol.com & 841-7432) and Jim Seaver (843-4081 &
jseaver@ku.edu)
We meet at the home of Vic
Wallace, 1509 Massachusetts, for operas beginning at 12:30 P.M. each
Saturday. Come for both music and goodies.
March
6 La
Traviata
Verdi
March
11 Don
Giovanni
Mozart
March
20 Das
Rheingold (1:00) Wagner
March
27 Salome
(1:00) R. Strauss
Music—Arno Knapper (knapper@ku.edu
& 312-9422)
March 3, 10, 17, and 31 —Wednesdays—immediately
following Ten O’clock Scholars, Music Room.
Leave
Lawrence at 9:30—Hillcrest Shopping Center, Southwest Section
Lecture
at 11:00—George Horse Capture, Counselor to Director, National Museum of the
American Indian
Lunch
at noon in the Roselle Court
1:30—Tour
of George Catlin Paintings—more than 120 portraits and landscapes from the
Smithsonian’s American Indian Collection
Leave
Nelson-Atkins Museum by 3:30-4:00
Reservations
are due no later than March 3. You can
sign up at Wednesday Coffee or contact Ev Swartz, 841-4065 or Evswartz@Ku.Edu.
Cost: $17 per person, not including lunch. Make checks payable to Endacott Society.
Another trip is being
planned to Lexington, MO on Friday, April 16.
Details will be available later online and at Wednesday coffee.
Pre-Concert
Dinner—Friday, March 5 at 5:00--Sign-up for
this pre-concert dinner will be available at the Ten O'clock Scholars meetings
on Wednesdays or you may call Grant Goodman at 841-1066. All dinners are $10.00
per person and will be held at the Smith Center, Brandon Woods.
Ten
O’clock Scholars AKA Wednesday Coffee/Business Meeting—Margery Lamb
(marjlamb@earthlink.net & 749-4647)
March 3, 10, 17, and 31 —Wednesdays at 10:00 A.M.
F
Y I:
*To
subscribe to our listserve, send an email to: listproc@ku.edu
Subscribe emerit-l your-name
Questions? Contact rjsmith@ku.edu
*Endacott Society Newsletter online? Late breaking
Endacott Society news? Check www.ukans.edu/~emeritus.
L O O K I N G F O R W A R D…
*Evening Lecture Series—Thursday, April 1—Speaker:
Charles Gusewelle of the KC Star.
*Opera
Study
(jseaver@ku.edu & 843-4081) and Al Sellen (jnalsellen@aol.com &
841-7432).
Our
2003/4 study of Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung will conclude with a
video of Die Götterdämmerung on Friday 2 April 2004 at 12:30 P.M. This music drama is the longest of the Ring,
lasting four hours and forty-five minutes. It should be over about 6:00 P.M.
In
Die Götterdämmerung the orchestra plays a larger part than in any of the
other segments of the Ring. There are three long orchestral interludes,
which are often performed in purely orchestral concerts: "The Dawn
Music," "Siegfried's Rhine Journey," and "Siegfried's
Funeral March." The other great difference between Götterdämmerung and
the other music dramas of the Ring is that most of its scenes take place
in the world of mortals who live along the Rhine River, not at Valhalla, or the
Valkyries' Rock. In Die Götterdämmerung the immortals all perish along
with Siegfried and Brunnhilde. The destiny of the world is left to mortals and
to human love.
The
first scene of Die Götterdämmerung takes place on the Valkyries' Rock,
where we left Brunnhilde and Siegfried in one another's arms at the end of Siegfried.
Here in the grey pre-dawn the Norns are weaving the skein of life; but the
skein suddenly breaks, foretelling the catastrophe to come. Then dawn breaks
and Siegfried and Brunnhilde come forth from their cavern home. After a
rapturous duet, Siegfried gives the fatal ring to Brunnhilde and then departs
to seek further adventures among those who live along the Rhine. The orchestra
depicts his craft's journey down the Rhine to the Castle of the Gibichungs.
In
the hall of the Gibichungs' castle Hagen, son of Alberich, gives Siegfried a
potion that makes him forget his association with Brunnhilde. Gunther, Hagen's
half-brother, wishes to marry the maiden who is on the mountain surrounded by
magic fire. Siegfried and Gunther swear blood brotherhood, and by means of the
Tarnhelm--and to Brunnhilde's dismay--Siegfried captures Brunnhilde and gives
her to Gunther.
During
Act II, Brunnhilde cannot understand why Siegfried does not remember their
love. Furious, she agrees with Gunther and Hagen that Siegfried must die for
his breach of faith to them and to her.
In
the great final act, Hagen, Gunther, and Siegfried go hunting. Siegfried is
charmed by the Rhinemaidens, but he loses his last chance to get rid of the
fatal ring when he refuses to return the ring to them. When the other hunters
meet with him, Hagen, as they rest, suggests that Siegfried tell about how he killed
Mime and the Dragon. In the midst of this superb narrative, Hagen gives
Siegfried another drink, which causes him to regain his memory of Brunnhilde
and their love. When Siegfried reveals this, Hagen stabs him fatally in the
back with his spear. After the hero's death, his body is carried back to the
Gibichungs' castle in the funeral march, which recalls most of the motifs of
the entire Ring, punctuated by the two stabbing motif of Hagen. Once
Siegfried's body is back at the palace, Hagen kills Gunther, and Brunnhilde has
a huge pyre of logs set up on the bank of the Rhine. In the famous
"Immolation Scene," one of the most taxing and magnificent numbers in
opera for the female voice, Brunnhilde mounts her horse Grane and together they
plunge into the flames. The fire spreads to consume the palace of the
Gibichungs and even Valhalla. Hagen attempts to grab the ring from Siegfried's
dead hand, but the Rhinemaiderns, as the Rhine overflows, drag him down to his
death. The old realm of the Gods is ended, and the music proclaims that the era
of human love has begun.
Our
video will star soprano Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde, tenor Siegfried
Jerusalem as Siegfried, bass Matti Salminen as Hagen, mezzo-soprano Christa
Ludwig as Waltraute, and baritone Anthony Raffell as Gunther. The Metropolitan
Opera Orchestra and Chorus will be conducted by James Levine in this production
of 1990. We will have short intermissions after Act I and Act II, during which
tea, coffee, and cookies will be served.