Joshua Borths – Wagner’s Artistic Foundations

Joshua Borths is Director of Opera Theatre at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, VA and the Company Dramaturg of the internationally acclaimed Des Moines Metro Opera. As an opera professional, Borths has served as a stage director, educator, dramaturg, and writer across the United States. During the 2024/25 season, Borths directed new productions of The Flying Dutchman, Hansel & Gretel, Idomeneo, and The Little Prince. In 2025/26, Borths will direct new productions of Three Decembers, Dialogues of the Carmelites, La traviata, and Tosca. Borths’s productions have been rapturously received, including an “uproariously funny new production” (Arizona Daily Star) of The Barber of Seville at Arizona Opera and a “beautiful, even poetic” (Opera Today) new production of The Falling and the Rising. As educator, Borths was the Resident Scholar at Virginia Opera, served on the faculty of Capital University, and taught at SUNY Potsdam-Crane School of Music, The University of Richmond, Shenandoah University, and University of Maryland. He has given over five hundred opera presentations, and his work has been featured in Opera News, TED Ed, Virginia Public Media, and more. As a dramaturg and surtitle creator, he has created numerous original translations including The Valkyrie and Siegfried, and he is the official surtitlist for the Carlisle Floyd Cenntenial. He has previously spoken for the Triangle Wagner Society and Wagner Society Manchester. More information can be found on JoshuaBorths.com, and his children’s operas can be licensed on OperaClassroom.com.

Richard Wagner provocatively changed the course of music, drama, and art throughout the twentieth century, and his work continues to influence artists well into our own time. Since Wagner’s death in 1883, much of the discourse surrounding him has focused on his artistic legacy. However, Wagner was a man of the nineteenth century, firmly rooted to a specific time and place. Although tracking the ebb and flow of an artist’s influences and innovations brings great aesthetic enjoyment, focus on what influenced Wagner has largely been absent from the conversation surrounding him. Using Wagner’s enigmatic autobiography, Mein Leben, as a starting point, Joshua Borths will explore the artistic influences on Wagner, emphasizing his art as a conversation between the old and new and discovering the foundations of his greatest music dramas.