Who has conducted most at Bayreuth?
UncategorizedMe, says Christian Thielemann, with 179 performances and counting.
Next comes Daniel Barenboim, 161.
Peter Schneider, 150
Horst Stein, 140
Then a long drop to … James Levine. Below 100.
Comments
MOST READ TODAY:
-
RIP
Russian ballet star, 39, ‘died in balcony fall’
The press service of the Mariinsky Theater has…
-
Opera
Peter Gelb: How I, I, I saved the Met
From the general manager’s self-admiring Sunday sermon in…
-
Orchestras
This maestro likes to give massages, young students say
From the French magazine le canard enchainé, under…
-
RIP
Death of Boston Symphony principal who was also a NASA scientist
The death has been announced, aged 94, of…
Hans Knappertsbusch? He had been scheduled to conduct his 100th Bayreuth performance of Parsifal in 1965. The the Ring (is that 1 or 4?) several years, Meistersinger and Hollander
What about Boulez ?
96
How many times did Boulez conduct there ?
Boulez did Wieland’s last Parsifal 1966-70, the Chereau-Ring 1976-80 and yet a comeback around 2002 for Schlingenschief’s Parsifal. Not as many shows as you might think.
Thielemann has done the entire Bayreuth Canon, from the Dutchmann to Parsifal throughout 19 festivals. Only one of the oldies from the early festival days did the same.
Boulez also conducted the Bayreuth forces in Osaka in 1970. That was Tristan, a work he didn’t touch at the Hill.
Eighty-five times, I think: Parsifal 1966-70, The Ring 1976 – 1980 and Parsifal 2004-5.
Chris: Karl Muck lead all Parsifal performances between 1901 and 1930. Surely, he should be on the list…
muck conducted Parsifal at every festival between 1901 and s930 but all performances at these festivals; other conductors of the opera during this period include Siegfried wagner, franz beidler, Michael balling and Willibald kaehler; in addition to the Parsifal performances, muck conducted a single lohengrin at the 1909 festival and all the Meistersingers at the 1925 festival
Chris: Kna died in October 1965, and his last Bayreuth service was the Parsifal in 1964 with Vickers.
André Cluytens conducted the 1965 Parsifal.
And Boulez took over in 1966-70.
What’s remarkable about Peter Schneider is that he was never given his own production on the Green Hill. His extraordinary total is comprised of having taken over from designated music directors when these either threw in the towel or were not invited back. A wonderful man and conductor, utterly devoid of ego yet unstintingly generous to his colleagues. Far, far more than just a universally-recognised ‘safe pair of hands’.
I heard he had some type of break down recently? Got tired ,stopped loving music, and quit. Canceled what was supposed to be his farewell performances at the Vienna Staatsoper.
I hope he’s alright. I found the Bayreuth tribute to him after his last Tristan in 2012 rather underwhelming; I felt the Leitung could have made more of an effort, to say the least.
I believe that the 1987 lohengrin (werner Herzog directing) was conducted by Schneider from the first season to its last outing several years later
You’re right; my mistake.
Correct
https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/fsdb/productions/lohengrin/1987/5868/
Hear, hear, couldn’t agree more!
John Rook: The Herzog Lohengrin from 1987 was premiered by Schneider, as far as I know.
Question ought to be: Who has conducted best at Bayreuth?
For starters I nominate Knappertsbusch, Keilberth and Schneider.
Sure, but no post-war Bayreuth conductor shortlist would be complete without at least Clemens Krauss and Carlos Kleiber.
Absolutely agree. Good on you, Petros.
Define “conducted best.”
What are the criteria?
It’s almost impossible to judge this. The outcome depends on too many factors, the conductor being a crucial one, but not the only decisive one. That’s even more so in Bayreuth than anywhere else.
And wasn’t Kna dragging like a dead horse in front of the carriage at times, uncomfortable tempi for the singers?
one man’s dragging is another man’s monumental; interestingly enough, the timings for kna’s Parsifal in the 1950s were slower than they became during the 1961 to 1964 period; so much for the old saw about conductors slowing down as they approach the finish line
That’s true. We asked Boulez in 2004 if he was going to be as fast as he was the last time he conducted Parsifal in Bayreuth. He replied ‘Oh, you know, I’m much older, now’. He then went and actually knocked a few minutes off his record time.
@ Olivia
Count me in the “monumental” crowd. Momentum is generally more important than tempo, and it makes a tremendous difference in Parsifal and in Bruckner Symphonies. Kna’s ability to keep slow tempos lively still has few equals and no superiors.
@ Olivia, @John
At 4h 33′, Kna’s 1951 Bayreuth Parsifal was as slow as James Levine’s 1990 Bayreuth Parsifal. The slowest known Parsifal was Toscanini’s: 4′ 42″, Bayreuth 1931.
https://www.wagnersf.org/wsfblogentry/parsifal-too-long
Knappertsbusch was 63 years old in 1941, Levine was 47 in 1990, Toscanini 54 in 1931: nice anecdotal evidence against the perceived association between slower tempi and old conductors.
Petros: Knappertsbusch was 63 in 1951.
Caravaggio: I’d say Muck, Toscanini, Elmendorff, Karajan, Knappertsbusch, Krauss, Keilberth, Cluytens, Carlos Kleiber, Horst Stein, Schneider and now Thielemann, who actually owns the place (talking about quality !)
Continue to conduct
You have no superior
I would have never guessed James Levine in 5th place.
Who knew he had such an association with Bayreuth?
There’s a story out there (probably apocryphal) that when Karajan wanted to engage Levine for the first time (for somewhere), he’d forgotten his name, so he just said “the Jewish guy” (or to that effect).
I’ve heard a story of Karajan asking “Wie heißt der Amerikaner”? in reference to Levine, for Salzburg.
HvK and Ronald Wilford were way too close for this to have been remotely possible (unless the Maestro had early onset dementia in 1975. And we know his memory — if also the prejudices — was spectacularly intact at that point.) Apocryphal.
The story about Karajan not remembering Levine’s name and referring to him as “the American” may or may not be true, but I nothing wrong with it. Any human being can have a memory lapse, and I don’t think Levine was that well known in Europe in the 1970s.
“Not remembering the name of this and that” was Karajan’s way of endorsing and promoting the young conductors.
“That young Indian…”! “That young American…!” Etc.
more likely referring to Bernstein with that phrase, since Karajan saw him, and only him, as a rival.
Actually, he also saw Mravinsky as a rival (and admired him).
probably…
Thats how people talked before it was assumed such a reference must be insulting.
Certainly apocryphal like many of those
Karajan stories. Karajan never engaged anyone at Bayreuth as he wasn’t there after 1952
I have read somewhere ( Osborne’s book perhaps? I don’t have the book at hand ) that Karajan attended at least one performance in Bayreuth’s pit during the 1980’s. Could anyone confirm this?
There is one mention of him slipping into a performance by Maazel but this would have been in the 1960s.
Thank you for the information.
Pedro: HvK never set foot in Bayreuth’s Festspielhaus after 1952.
Continue to conduct maestro
Thielemann
I will try to attend a performance
The very long and extremely interesting interview is worth reading.
And according to https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/the-festival/statistics/ Barenboim hasn’t conducted there for 20 years. So he really crammed those 160 performances in.
Mark Elder only conducted there once. Chemistry must have been wrong.
Quite a few conductors never went back after their first year. Since CT started conducting there the proportion has risen, it has to be said.
Peter Schneider, the boring conductor these days. I go out of my way to avoid his performances in Vienna, which puts one to sleep.
I have heard all the Wagner works that Thielemann conducted in Bayreuth except Parsifal. I hope to go there in 2022 for it, but I hope he conducts the opera in Dresden before that.
na, und? yeah, so?
I was at The Ring conducted by Horst Stein in 1971. He took it all like an express train. Hugely disappointing.
James Levine, 116. They actually asked him please not to surpass HK’s 56 Parsifals. So there were 53 of those and 53 Ring performances including the extra (required for the union) “geschlossene” Rheingold, Walkuere and Siegfried in 94-5-6. Schneider did the GD in 97.). And they count. When he left, he asked for his conducting chair to use at the Met — first time was “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” of all things, in 2001 — and it has a plaque on the back citing this.
Sorry, 63 Ring performances. 5×12=60+3=63.
Does anyone know of a Web site that keeps this record? Esther’s excellent link to Bayreuth doesn’t seem to cover that one thing.
The Bayreuth database only begins with the 1951 festival.
Karl Muck conducted Parsifal almost every summer from 1901 to 1930. Thielemann probably has a ways to go.
You can’t have quantity if you don’t possess quality.
It is the QUALITY (not quantity) that really counts!
Yes, but CT is pretty damned good in Wagner.