Culture minister to Bayreuth: Play something that’s not Wagner
OperaGermany’s federal minister for culture Claudia Roth has fired a shot across the Green Hill of Bayreuth, urging the Wagner regime to put on operas that are not by Wagner.
She suggests Hansel and Gretel for starters – an opera conceived by Wagner acolyte Engelbert Humperdinck.
But who knows where that might lead?
Roth said: ‘Bayreuth should become more diverse, more colourful and more youthful overall.’
Maybe some opera by Meyerbeer?
This! You win the internet today… Please go celebrate with a coupe of champagne and some cake.
I understand that Wagnerites (like you?) can take offense of my comment, but a Meyerbeer opera in Bayreuth would be a most fine ‘poetic justice’. Giacomo Meyerbeer was the most famous opera composer in his lifetime only to be bullied and nearly ‘cancelled’ by Wagner and his artistic sect. Let us see ‘Robert le diable’ performed in Bayreuth.
You presume wrong my friend… I am a staunch “Meyerberite” and have virtually no interest in Wagner. I guess my comment was misunderstood… I definitely agree with you.
I’m voting for Les Huguenots or La Juive. Or both. We’ve already had enough Brunnhildes to last us for another century. Maybe a nice Die Frau ohne Schatten.
Only if you want to bore the audience to death
An audience that survives Wagner (deadly recitatives and no more than 15 minutes of good music in every opera after Tannhäuser) can take it.
The problem is more the mise en scène than the operas and who you hire for that. Stupid to say that.
If you’re hiring Germans regisseurs, what other option is there? Otto Schenk is gone.
Otto Schenk is 94 and – according to Wikipedia – still active.
Herr Schenk is still among us. Would that he were still directing opera productions.
He is Austrian
The US Army staged musical comedies there after the war. Why not bring back “Oklahoma” to Bayreuth? “…where the corn is as high as an elephant’s ear.” There is no better line in Wagner.
“an elephant’s EYE”! when I sang it…
Actually it’s ‘elephant’s eye’.
“Elephant’s eye.”
“High”
“Eye”
Get it?
Sorry…my first mistake of the year! Yet an elephant’s ear is more distinctive than his eye. And then, …there’s an ear of corn. Well anyway, as Frank Sinatra sang: Everyone has the right to be wrong.”
Isn’t the elephant the logo of the Republican Party?
That is, I’m sure, the elephant’s nether eye
elephant’s eye
There are good lines in Wagner? What did I miss?
“I’ve come to penetrate your tiny bushes” (Parsifal)
,Das ist kein Mann!’.
Possibly 🙂
I always like “Siegfried’s wedding ring? Are you crazy”? – Brünnhilde to Waltraute
0h, boy! That is hilarious! Thanks for that!. And I vote for “The Sound of Music” in the Austrian Alps.
Whenever I see incompetent no-names invoke ‘diversity’ I’m very tempted to stop listening.
That is a biological defence mechanism developed over ages of evolution to prevent mental decline. Keep it that way!
Incompetent no names????? That is a bad joke.
https://www.kulturstaatsministerin.de/DE/staatsministerin-und-ihr-amt/lebenslauf/lebenslauf.html
And yes, Bayreuth should stage other operas.
@PeterX: Just read the bio and, yes, a no-name. A few years as Regieassistentin in Dortmund followed by a political career with the Greens where everyone and his dog was ensured success. She has no clue about the significance of Bayreuth and should be quiet.
But she could play the witch just as she is.
(Just as well no one heeds her “ideas”).
You may not like her, you may not agree with her on many things or specifically on what she’s proposing here (I don’t either – even if you are in favour of more diversity in Bayreuth I don’t think H&G is what you should consider!), but I’d be cautious calling her a no name, just because you’re not that familiar with the scene of the country we’re talking about here. She’s been a very high profile politician in Germany for decades, who has been an advocate for the arts.
I’m extremely familiar with Germany, having lived there on and off for nearly forty years. I’m working there at the moment, as it happens. CR may have studied and held political positions but coming out with such vacuous, provocative hogwash demeans whatever else she is supposed to have achieved.
she is nothing less than awful and it’s only in a short time such woke idiots will be forgotten
Such a brave culture warrior
Or, in the words, roughly translated and flipped, of Hans Johsst, occasionally attributed (apparently wrongly in fact though probably rightly in spirit) to Göring, “Whenever I hear the word ‘diversity’ in relation to culture, I reach for my revolver.”
Claudia Roth–that’s a name, and likely doesn’t have any pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic associations. Unlike Bayreuth’s Festspielhaus.
Bayreuth is one of the most modern opera companies in the world. They are involved in youth work (children’s opera), they stage open-air concerts, and with the augmented reality Parsifal they have broken new ground in terms of production technology. The orchestra is made up of musicians who voluntarily spend half the summer in the blazing hot orchestra pit for the love of music, for little pay. There are currently more women than men conducting. The world’s greatest singers perform on stage. The house takes a critical look at its historical past. But no, none of this is enough for the brainwashed and ideology-ridden minister, who doesn’t even have a degree to show for it.
The point is, to show how virtuous one is.
Achim – something tells me that if someone instead suggested to bring back the old decor and flags from the late 30’s and early 40’s, you would be less appalled.
To have a theater, with public funds, only dedicated to the works of one composer is not a good use of money. Ask Ludwig II 😛
Bravo.
“Hänsel und Gretel” – that opera about a pedophile who kills children?
Oh, FCS — don’t start getting “woke” about fairy tales.
I am not, but couldn’t help thinking of this, when I saw the post 🙂
Again the obvious, superficial mistake. Crazy idea to make the place adapting to the needs of outsiders, it should be the other way around: make outsiders understand what the theatre has to offer.
So you are advocating education? Pish-tosh.
There is only one single way to understand whatever art: education.
I was being facetious…next time I’ll bring a sledge-hammer.
Pish Tosh! Gilbert and Sullivan at Bayreuth, now that WOULD be amazing!
Comments like these are why any attempt to push the arts through education has failed for 70+ years and will continue to fail for 1000’s more.
EVERYTHING in life is adapted to the users journey. Its ALWAYS product-market-fit. From Apple, to Amazon, to Tesla, to the very internet. This website, exists, not because some enlightened techie decided what’s best, but was able to find an equilibrium between what people need and what the service can offer.
Enter classical music: If you don’t like this boring stuff, you’re dumb – you need more ‘education’.
No wonder not even the royal family now gives a crap about this regurgitated artform with 0 innovation for 100 years.
Hope they defund it all and use the buildings for something useful.
We pick-up this comment with pincers and open the windo to let the smell out. A fart from under the rock of modernism.
It is this kind of nihilist ‘thinking’ that erodes everything that may be important for human life.
Sorry, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of your comment.
The internet exists because a brilliant scientist conceived it, not some prettyboy “influencer”.
Contemporary discourse is being reduced to vacuous 140 character TikTok soundbites, devoid of depth and complexity, and manifesting a contempt for higher education, of the kind that enabled Trump to become the Leader of the Free World.
Science, Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, History, Geography – even Art and Music are all “boring” to somebody, especially to school children on a Friday afternoon – so do we follow your recommendation and turn schools teaching these subjects into “something more useful”?
The markets can be driven by dumbed-down desires of the masses, or they can lead with redemptive, aspirational messages. There is no need to turn the Festspielhaus into a housing development or factory, but there is a compelling need make to its message relatable to younger audiences.
Teenagers already love Wagner, they just don’t realise it. His works have been performed in the most famous opera houses and theatres across the globe – but audiences are as likely to have heard them through the silver screen, on TV or at a computer, as his compositions have been used in countless films, in cartoons (search YouTube for ‘ Looney Tunes | Be Vewy Quiet, I’m Hunting Wabbits!), in adverts and even as a tinny ringtone in the early days of mass-produced mobile phones. Perhaps the most famous of these was the use of ‘Ride of The Valkyries’ from Die Walküre, used in several film scores including Apocalypse Now (Search YouTube for ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ | Apocalypse Now).
In twenty years I guess we won’t have such Wagner summers with more than 30 shows in Bayreuth than we do now. Who of the younger generation (-50 now) – who all are branded by the velocity of storytelling by Tiktok, Instagram, Netflix etc. – enjoys listening to 4-6 hour operas?
I don’t think that Claudia Roth’s idea is bad in terms of maintaining the Bayreuth summer opera festival and the opportunity to still play Wagner’s great operas – maybe in the future only about 10 Wagner shows (which are “paid” by the profit of playing more popular operas or today relevant plots). But that change shouldn’t be dictated by politicians, but be created by creative ideas of the Bayreuth Management.
We all know that changes are hard – who could have imagined that operas composed by “not Wagner” should be played in Bayreuth? But change always has been the subject of the Arts, so noone should be afraid of – as long there’s the genuine attempt to maintain highest quality.
I do know quite a few young people aged under 25 yrs who enjoy listening to Wagner operas.
Don’t be so pessimistic!
The point is of course, that Wagner devised the theatre as a shrine to HIS works. Let all other opera theatres present any other opera, but why violate the passionate wish of the composer? Why not give him the benefit of being the exception? It really has something totalitarian about it, as if the whole world has to fall under the woke axe.
Wagner also wanted the theatre to be a temporary wooden structure that would be dismantled at the end of each festival, and for tickets to be free. He was also unhappy at being forced to première some of the /Ring/ at Prince Ludwig’s court.
Indeed. His ideal was the type of community celebrations of ancient Greece, half play half religious experience. But that was not possible in 19C real conditions, as it still is impossible.
The season is sold out every year. Many come to classical music later in life. We shouldn’t continually be panicked about getting the Tiktok brigade on board.
People tend to forget that there is an actual opera house (as opposed to seasonal Festspielhaus) in Bayreuth, in the Stadtzentrum: the Margravial Opera House. That might be a more proper venue for other – albeit smaller-scale – operas.
Smaller-scale operas — that is, from the Baroque era — are already being staged in that opera house.
Well… how do we come to the situation that a politician dictates what an art festival should or should not be? Moreover, not an ordinary festival but one with the history started long before she was even born. Bayreuth attracts a considerable amount of people (=money) and cultural prestige precisely because of its ‘non-diversed’ Wagnerian identity. And really, why care for a Humperdinck? Why not Monteverdi or a Broadway show? It’ll help rediscover relevance.
Bayreuth was the first music festival in the world and has, therefore, spawned the entire genre. A little respect, Frau Roth.
Well, there’s already an opera house in Bayreuth that’s perfect for Monteverdi …
I agree, at this point in its sonic history, there’s nothing left, except for diminishing returns, to be proven or revealed by playing Wagner at Bayreuth, we have an extensive record of that success, on the other hand it would be truly revelatory to hear and see how other operas do in the acoustic and theatric unique space that is Bayreuth.
Wagner would not mind the experimentation, even if we find out at the end that only Wagner’s music works best in his space, it is knowledge worth gaining. But I suspect we will discover all sorts of beautiful surprises.
Claudia Roth puts her foot in her mouth again.
No! Plenty of all manner of diversity already wherever one cares to look. Problem at Bayreuth today is the deplorable quality of the singing and the equally deplorable quality of productions. The latter could potentially be easily overcome. The former, not so much.
As long as diversity doesn’t equate to mediocrity
Show me the times when it hasn’t.
I am inquisitive: has she ever been there? Does she know what she is talking about? Does she know the history and the meaning of that place?
She was there in 2022 and 2023, at least. If you are so inquisitive, why don’t you try a minimal amount of googling?
Why are you so aggressive? I just asked legitimate questions. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. Her suggestion is a sign of superficiality, and we should expect more from a politician than that. Culture is not information (yes, googling is just superficial information).
Agreed, culture is not information, and google is superficial. I have no idea how much Claudia Roth knows about Bayreuth, and neither do you. Whether she was there is something that can easily be found out. Are her suggestions superficial? On the basis of the SD snippet, perhaps.
Here is what the German press reported her as saying (Google translate!): “I’m thinking of something like Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’. It’s an opera that comes from the Wagner tradition. There are a number of such works,” Roth told the newspapers of the Bavarian Media Group. “However, we must not forget that up to now the Festspielhaus has only been allowed to be used for the performance of works by Richard Wagner.” So yes, she does know something about its history.
The Bayreuth foundation charter is dated 1929, 46 years after Wagner’s death. One of its aims is “to promote understanding of the works of Richard Wagner, especially among young people and
among young artists.” Could performing works “from the Wagner tradition” serve that purpose? Maybe.
WHY!? It is a unique place with a unique repertoire. Germany doesn’t need another place doing the broader repertoire. Even doing Rienzi, as is proposed, is a terrible idea, in my opinion.
I agree Bayreuth is a unique place but l think they should perform Rienzi, De feen and Das Liebersverbot and maybe his Symphony, Wesendonk lieder. etc
Main question – why?
Wagner operas are sold out, every show, every year since decades – it is Wagner which keeps this festival sold out.
Just look at the silly poor MET trying to bring “DivErsItY”, and their house is barely filling 60% capacity hahahaha
Go take your “diVerSitY” somewhere else, Claudia.
It is disheartening how invoking “the Met” has become a measure of ineptitude in the world of opera. It’s one way to remain relevant.
Indeed.. It took me 13 years of applying to get my tickets….. Just a shame that they were for that rubbishy Casdorf Ring…
The Wagner Festspiel should undoubtedly continue… But needs to consider other ways of exploring the Wagner canon than via ever more outre regie productions..
And beyond the Festspiel itself use of the house for other purposes would seem a worthwhile possibility if only for economic reasons?
“Wagner’s works should be shortened. They could also be re-scored with electronic instruments and more beats per minute. To sound more upbeat, diverse, and youthful.
Bayreuth needs to be more relevant. And the updated stagings aren’t sufficient by themselves. It’s the music, too, that’s the problem.”
Maybe if they remove the music and shorten the stories you get a much more attractive night out.
Once I had to attend a performance, due to my job description, and I think I had to be carried-out on a stretcher deep into the night, getting depressed and falling asleep when silly people were having mass on stage and later with dancing girls.
Sally
“Monsieur Wagner has good moments, but awful quarters of an hour!” (Rossini).
Question…do they need to change…or are the seats full?
Good point, Michael. I just checked, four days before the opening, and all performances are sold out except for one “Parsifal” for which only a few 300+ € seats are available.
Wow, she has not a clue, does she?
Wagner’s original vision was that his opera house should also present “the best of new opera” in addition to his own works, so there really shouldn’t be a problem. Until you try following Wagner with practically anything else.
My vote goes to “From the House of the Dead” – see if the Germans recognise any irony in that.
Can you point out where Wagner specifically stated his desire to present at Bayreuth “the best of new opera” in addition to his chosen canon of ten of his own works? I would be interested…
One could interpret ‘Kinder, schafft Neues’ as implying that, but I imagine he had stagings of his own works in mind.
That quote is one of the most abused. In a letter to Franz Liszt, Wagner wrote that in reference to Berlioz, who, Wagner thought, should get on to writing something new, rather than spending more time revising Benvenuto Cellini.
Only Parsifal and The Ring saw the stage at Bayreuth in his lifetime. The canon was really of Cosima’s doing. That being said, let me be clear: in my opinion, works outside the canon do not belong as part of the Bayreuth Festival.
Again, can you cite original sources (not interpretations) to substantiate your claim?
Bayreuth is Wagners “church” and don not try to change it!
I know. Replace Parsifal with Jesus Christ, Superstar
Now THAT would bring in the $$$$
Modern(ish) American musicals don’t play that well in Germany. It ain’t the West End.
Does the festspielplatzhaus sit idle for the rest of the year?
How about “Christmas in Bayreuth”?
Uh … heating? Rather cold in Bayern in December.
I would suggest that they recruit Bierkeller-Madl to bring in brautwurst, sauerkraut and frothy steins of pilsner during the performances. They should also serve fish and chips to attract more British people to Bayreuth. They should project coloured lights in the auditorium and offer the hiring of mobile phones to all in order that they could watch films during the more boring moments.
If they are interested, I could suggest an ideal candidate to make all this happen…
Well, Herbie, at least part of your suggestion here is well implemented already: Plenty of frothy steins of both Pils and Lager, and fine wursts of all sorts available at every interval. It’s actually a hoot to observe all the high-society Germans in gowns and black tie throwing back beer and sausage like there’s no tomorrow.
Tell that idiot to read history and the purpose of Bayreuth.
I am OK with Wagner-only works at Bayreuth, but with a diverse cast and creative teams.
Every cast is diverse. You have sopranos, mezzos, altos, tenors, baritones and basses.
Not only that…. there are dwarfs, giants, rhine maidens, horse-riding maidens flying through the sky, orks, and even an angry housewife.
And, of course, Klingsor: a self-castrated villain. Perhaps he should be sung by a countertenor?
Idiot suggestion. It would be better to substitute a talentless Taylor Swift concert with Lohengrin..
Whether you like her or not, she has a talent (like a billionaire) for making money.
Phyllis Stine. Surely this is the same as asking Wimbledon to do something else other than host Tennis or Lord’s Cricket!
Opera in general does not attract too many young people, and I doubt that putting on some non-Wagner would change this. To my knowledge, the Festspiele are well booked and selling expensive tickets like hot cakes. The desire to open it up to younger audiences is laudable and shared by most artists, many of them young themselves but Wagner is probably not the problem.
Not everyone may have come across it, but lurking in Lotte Lehmann’s autobiography is a conversation she had with Wagner, in which he expresses the wish that Bayreuth become a shrine to the greatest of opera…. including “Don Giovanni”, “Fidelio” and so on. Without the book to hand I cannot recall whether he included work other than German but I do have a hankering vague recollection that he included “Norma”!
I think your reference is actually to Lilli Lehmann… unless Lotte spoke to RW during a seance.
It could very well have been “Norma”. Have you ever had the opportunity to browse the bookshelves in the main salon at Haus Wahnfried? Amazing to see which scores are there, as those which are not.
there is so much bull shit coming out of Germany these days this woman is an embarrassment overall – she only should fire herself and Katharina Wagner who btw looks like her ‘Zwillingsschwester’
Bayreuth has been run down by all those Germans
How about staging Wagner that looks like Wagner?
I for one would like to see Porgy and Bess staged with everyone in winged helmets.
Lots of music festivals all over Germany and Austria. Over the decades and centuries, there have been Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart Festivals. Guess what, that’s all that was performed there. Bayreuth has always been Wagner in his own theatre. The one he designed for his acoustics in his works. There is the baroque Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreuth where a wide number of compers are heard, both in opera and orchestral performance. Wagner famously conducted a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in that hall.
I don’t care either way but it does seem like a waste of resources to have a fully equipped opera house that only plays one composer.