Why Germany cannot survive without Wagner
OperaLast night’s late-breaking news that Katharina Wagner had been renewed for five more years as artistic director of the Bayreuth allowed millions of Germans to sleep soundly in their beds.
Katharina, 45, is the great-grandchild of the composer. She has no other qualifications for the job, having failed in her few attempts to direct opera elsewhere in the country. However, she is a Wagner by DNA and destiny. In the family tradition, she elbowed half-siblings and cousins aside to obtain the job and she clings to it as of right.
Like the monarchy in Britain, croissants in France and yellow cabs in the US, she is perceived in political circles as a symbol of national continuity. Bayreuth without a Wagner in command? Unthinkable. Germany might fall.
Angela Merkel might have more to say in her forthcoming memoirs.
pictured: Barbie at Bayreuth
She may be a Wagner, and undoubtedly adept at steering the Bayreuth ship, but her directorial efforts have been amongst the ugliest to stain the stage there. And that’s saying something, with the likes of Castorf and Kosky in the rancid mix.
Totally agree about Castorf. In 2013, we got his ludicrous’Ring’, we had a grotesque ‘Tannhauser’, a laughable ‘Lohengrin’, and a pathetic ‘Dutchman’. So, Ms Katerina, great job. The manager at the Bayerische Hof told us the city fathers were worried about the loss of sales, as a result of Katerina’s rule, and the damage to the town economy. We had a drink with Siegmund after he had died at the end of Walkure Act 2, and he told us, and I quote, ‘It’s all down hill from here’….
Not confined to opera in Germany by any means. Look at the number of dynasties in Hollywood, for instance.
Who would those dynasties be?
There are a plethora of Hollywood stars who have children “in the biz” but they’re not snagging Bayreuth Director-level posts on their name.
“Will you make us money?” is still the more important question in Hollywood.
The short list I can think of (the Barrymores, the Coppolas, the Sheen-Estevezes…?) attained their “dynasty” status on genuine accomplishment by their members yet it still seems premature as they are mostly just one generation deep.
No shortage, even looking at three generations. Being Hollywood there’s plenty of information online so I’m not going to reproduce it here.
So far as “genuine accomplishment” is concerned, a matter of opinion.
Pesaro is doing quite well without Gioachino’s DNA running around. I saw the best “Guillaum Tell” there.
The problem has deep roots: Bayreuth has been a private enterprise from the beginning, when no government authority was willing or interested to take-over the theatre and structurally fund it (the first festival resulted in a devastating financial disaster). It was a form of opera as an alternative to the usual operatic practice which was, to a great extent, entertainment and treated as a business. Wagner wanted a theatre be a half-religious community experience, bringing religion back to the masses, religion mixed with human drama, like the great plays of the ancient Greeks which were performed in front of large statues of Apollo and Dionysos. Wagner did not trust any government authority except the support of King Ludwig of Bavaria, but that was a private thing and against the opinion of the Bavarian government. The private nature of Bayreuth has thus been embedded in its DNA.
In his late years, Wagner worried who could take-over the leadership after his death, his son being much too young, and he never considered his wife be capable. The plan had been to train his son in such a way that he could continue Wagner’s legacy exactly in the way Wagner wanted. (That his son was also a person in his own right, seems to never have crossed the mind of his parents.)
In the 19th century, almost no other theatre than Bayreuth was capable of performing Wagner’s ‘music dramas’ satisfactorily. Bayreuth became an exceptional theatre as an ‘example’ of how it should be done, and hence a ‘place of pilgrimage’. Nowadays, when theatres are quite well equiped to stage the operas, Bayreuth has lost its specialist status, so it struggles to offer something that is not seen and heard anywhere else. Hence the attempts to outdo the Regietheater productions which have become convention everywhere, and the controversies arising from such approach.
Bayreuth’s special status still lay in its acoustics. No other theater can balance a rich Wagnerian orchestral sound that doesn’t overpower the singers.
And seats that would be an insult in a 1950s cinema.
Wagner wanted audience members not feeling comfortable but, as in a school class, be very alert of what was offered to them. But he forgot that school classes were not as long as his operas.
Yes, but that is the only real speciality Bayreuth still has to offer.
It is remarkable that later opera theater architects have never adopted the sunken pit idea.
The one in Metz is quite similar, actually.
I did not know that, interesting.
By “sunken” Mr Borstlap is referring to the fact that the Bayreuth orchestra pit is sunk out of the view of the audience, which – from the photos I have seen – is not the case in Metz where the pit is, well, just sunk, albeit quite deeply!
I have heard that conductors hate the idea of sunken pits as they need the flattery of being seen more than the appreciation of being head!
Michael wrote “conductors hate the idea of sunken pits as they need the flattery of being seen”.
The pit at Bayreuth is covered by a Schalldeckel, which famously, and fabulously, (a) allows the orchestral sound to blend with that of the singers, and (b) prevents the audience from being distracted by movement and lighting in the pit.
I read that Herbert von Karajan asked for the central portion of the Schalldeckel to be removed so that the audience could see him. His request was denied by Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner.
Actually (as I discovered in 2022, at what may turn out to be Christian Thielemann’s final appearance at the festival) it IS possible to see the orchestra and the conductor, but only if you are lucky enough to have seat A1 in the Parkett, or its counterpart on the opposite side of the auditorium.
re: sunken pits
Modern technology allows orchestra pits to be lowered for the performance and raised for the curtain calls.
I’m sure some similar technology could be called on to deploy and retract a Bayreuth-style canopy at the appropriate times.
Or… perhaps it could be transparent? Giant slabs of Lucite cantilevered over the pit!
Having attended the Horst Stein Ring in 1971, I still have memories of the amazing acoustic of the theatre. But surely it is not just the fact that most of the pit is sunk under the stage. Of equal importance, the front row of the audience is considerably higher than the height of the front of the stage, this being made essential in large part by the presence of the canopy. This fact alone would make it more difficult for other houses to adopt such a downward sloping pit. I also wonder how, say, the chamber orchestra for a Mozart opera or even a baroque orchestra for earlier operas would adapt to a Bayreuth style pit. Not too well, I think.
Attend a Wagner performance at the Passionsspielhaus in Erl, if you can. Just the perfect acoustic.
“Not seen anywhere else…” they can put real trees and rocks and animals on stage. Now there’s a novel idea.
What’s a “yellow cab”? I live in New York, in “America,” such as it is….
Really???? You’re an American (I assume) and a New Yorker and you don’t recognize “yellow cab”? Ubiqitous as bagels and slices of pizza (Ray’s….) and Gray’s Papaya. Careful, or they’ll revoke your membership card.
It’s a cabernet sauvignon made using minimal contact with the grape skins. 😉