Just in: Bayreuth’s Parsifal is stopped by security
mainThere have been mutterings from singers about tighter security measures at Bayreuth ahead of an Islam-themed Parsifal, but no-one has been seriously affected – until today.
It appears that Klaus Florian Vogt, dressed in the role of Parsifal in a soldier’s uniform, was stopped by security and taken out for questioning. It was later said that he failed to wear his identity badge and the security guys failed to recognise Germany’s second most-popular tenor.
Singers have been warned again to wear their badges at all times.
We are reminded of comparable security alerts at the first cycle production in 1876 with the horses entering the building unattended, and Wotan being stopped by the usher because of the spear.
A few years ago, an Iraki security agent stopped Placido Domingo from entering the Ostpforte as he didn’t have any ID: ‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t know you’. At the great man’s request he phoned Wolfgang Wagner, and the issue was quickly resolved. The story also made it into the Nordbayerischer Kurier. It’s only in recent years that management has upped security and insisted on official festival identification cards to be visible at all times. One high profile member of the management team actually banned Donald Macintyre from coming and going freely, as had been his wont for decades and allowed him access only to the canteen, and that accompanied. Things have changed on the Green Hill.
FYI: Klaus was also denied access to the auditorium for similar reasons to his latest brush for a dress rehearsal a few years ago while he was the festival’s Lohengrin. It didn’t bother him at all. Not everyone who works front of house in Bayreuth knows all the singers…
Sorry, should have been ‘Iraqi’.
There are security guards at the opera house…
Gee.
Must be a slow news day.
The actual line from the Bogart/Huston Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”
(somebody had to…)
Well, I was going to… .
All jokes aside, good to see that the security folk are being careful.
He should have burst into song ……
What are the Grail Knights going to be dressed up like ISIS? Is Klinsor going to be an Obama figure?