Back to Wagner

I haven't had a reason to write about Wagner since seeing the Ring Cycle a couple of years ago, but here's an article on the annual Bayreuth Festival in Germany that has appeared in the New York Times.

Some interesting bits and pieces:

It started in the years leading up to 1876, when the composer Richard Wagner was seeking an appropriate venue for the performance of his monumental, four-opera “Ring” cycle.

Think about the first scene of the film “The Age of Innocence,” set in the early 1870s — how Newland Archer, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, wanders into a New York opera house and takes his seat in a box partway through an act. The audience is lit almost as brightly as the stage. He can pay attention to one or two arias while still flirting shamelessly with a countess in the box opposite. The theater is a social setting to see and be seen, where the goings-on onstage are only a part of the experience.

Wagner was opposed to this. He wanted to create “music drama” that was audience’s sole focus.

The Festspielhaus has no boxes. Its seats rise in an amphitheater-shaped fan, its walls and proscenium focus attention on the stage. The pit is covered, so the orchestra’s sound rises as if from the building itself. The cover also ensures that no light leaks out of the pit to remind audiences that they’re watching a staged show.

It was designed as a singular place to interpret and contemplate Wagner’s works: more religious temple than standard-issue opera house. As Wagner wrote, the theater aimed to transport viewers into an “ecstatic state of clairvoyance in which the scenic image” becomes “a true reflection of life itself.” 

 Also - it has no airconditioning, and the seats are really hard.   Still, suits the stoicism of the Germans, I guess.  

Attendees might still end up going to the toilet in a Portaloo during intermission:

Despite the elegance of its audiences and the price of its drinks and tickets, the Festspielhaus has a rustic vibe. The grounds are dotted with portable toilets. There are barely any indoor lobbies; before the performance and during the luxurious, hourlong intervals, audience members stroll across plazas and parks outside and munch on sausages.

The end of the intermissions (Wagner operas usually have two) are announced not by bells but by brass fanfares, arranged by the composer himself from the music of the upcoming act, which ring out from a balcony at the front of the theater.

The festival is still a family business, run now by 48 year old Katharina Wagner, the great granddaughter of Richard.  Some businesses really have legs!

And while I knew Hitler had visited and been a fan, I didn't know about this:

The 2026 opener, “Rienzi,” is a youthful Wagner effort about a populist Roman leader. Hitler loved it so much that he owned Wagner’s original score, which is now lost and presumed to have been in Hitler’s bunker when it was destroyed after the dictator’s suicide. 

I might go looking for a recording of that on Youtube.  Let's see - there is an avante garde looking modern dress version which only runs for - 3 hours 50 minutes!   (And looks like no English subtitles.) 

Even videos of just the overture go for 13 minutes. 

Oh well, something to catch up with on retirement, perhaps!