Music
Wagner and Bayreuth: truths and myths
“You go to the Bayreuth festival?!” The one or the other assertion follows. Here are the nine most common. Fact and prejudice: We will clarify.
1. While mere mortals must wait years for an expensive card, get paid to the Chancellor and other celebrities their simply by the festival management.
No. The city of Bayreuth receives a card quota and invites guests with a certain degree of popularity. Finally, it must be at the ramp on opening day – this year because of the amok run in Munich but without the red Teppch and state reception – a bit of sparkle. The quota is a consideration for financial support – city, district, state and Federal government, a significant proportion of the annual festival budget: from EUR 16 million pins almost half.
2. The only operas of Richard Wagner game house ever at the Bayreuth festival.
Not true. Immediately after the Second world war, Bayreuth was under U.S. occupation, troops and support there, also Musicals were played. The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven a composer, and the Wagner ladies – was played again and again in the Festspielhaus. For example, after the Second world war to the re-opening of the festival in 1951. Otherwise, the game story was in 139 years, all Wagner, Yes.
3. The tickets go away at exorbitant prices.
Depends on what you mean by “exorbitant prices”. From 190 Euro, there are seats in the middle position. That’s not chicken feed, but in moderation in the context of
comparable Festivals. Places with limited visibility, there is even for 25 Euro. We are not talking here, but from the black market. Since the prices can be four digits.
4. The
a Hort are more conservative interpretations, and a reverence to the Altwagnerianer.
Absolutely not. Already in the 1920s, the game Director Siegfried Wagner, son of the composer broke, be careful with encrusted directed by conventions – to the indignation of the faithful group that just wanted to see a directing style, as well as Richard Wagner had wished for. Siegfried’s widow and successor, Winifred, has led the renewal.
Beginning in 1951, the grandson Wieland Wagner brought, in turn, conservative Wagnerian. Wieland’s brother Wolfgang pluralistic worked Under his long Leadership, as a solid game Manager styles and interpretations, were conservative to radical, the subtle to the provocative. In the Era of Wolfgang’s daughter, Katharina Wagner, there is a lot of Director’s theatre on the Green hill: Directors that Wagner’s actions suggest individually and freedoms – in the case of scene and persons the Director understands, not the music. The Altwagnerianer are extinct now.
5. The cards: The way to go, if at all, under the Hand and it is always the same, the courts have.
Not really. Previously, cards were given to travel agencies and Wagner associations – and there were two closed screenings for Union members. But that is past. This year will be sold according to the festival’s three-quarters of 60,000 cards. For all performances tickets can be purchased online. Each customer can buy up to six Tickets. For a long time it was also part of the myth of the Richard Wagner festival that you had to wait for years on cards. As a part of the cards, but to interested parties with a written order – the more you ordered, this process is already in vain, the higher the Chance of a ticket.
The protagonists wear no bull horns or bear-skins.
6. The festival is owned by the Wagner family.
Wrong again. Carrier, the Richard Wagner Foundation in 1973, to descendants of Richard Wagner, along with various public bodies and foundations. Fixed-head or head of a(e) Wagner was, however, always, either with Richard Wagner related by blood or by marriage.
7. Richard Wagner was a Nazi.
Historically impossible. He died in 1883. He was one of the pioneers of the national socialism? It is true that Wagner’s anti-Semite and German nationalist. He was an Anarchist, left-revolutionary, European, cosmopolitan, theorists, practitioners and a few other things. His writings are full of polarizing, even contradictory positions. The unspeakable hatred pamphlet “Judaism in music”. After his death, it was then in “the master’s name” Nazi Braun in Bayreuth, Germany: were the Nazis of the first hour, his daughter-in-law Winifred (Richard Wagner did not know) and his son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Adolf Hitler was a welcome guest in Bayreuth – long, and even after the seizure of power. There are, however, not national socialist ideological approaches to Wagner’s music dramas? It is argued, demonstrate the.
8. Bayreuth is the centre of German culture.
No, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, a theatre, and the festival is a seasonal operation. German culture is organized at a Federal level. However, the most important Wagner archive in the world is there – in the “Haus wahnfried”, the former residence of Richard Wagner. The Museum is located, since 1976, there has been, after extensive restoration and extension on the 26. July 2015 re-opened. Outside of the festival season there is also a culture in Bayreuth – but it is not the same as a typical large German city comparable.
In the end he is still the Director here.
9. Wagner’s music is loud and long with old-fashioned hero stories.
That would be something seen in an undifferentiated manner. Those who sit for five hours in “Tristan und Isolde”, “Parsifal” or “twilight of the gods”, seen also beautiful, delicate, tender moments. Wagner’s Stories are from the Germanic mythology, the middle ages or from fairy tales. Nevertheless, the hardships in which the God or mythical creatures are all too human. It’s about inner and outer conflicts, love and hatred, Loyalty and betrayal. Fairly modern and understandable. Who makes the music to sink in, learns the most part, what is meant by Wagner with the “emotional understanding” of his works. But Be Careful: Risk Of Addiction!