Breaking: Bayreuth drops 4 operas from anniversary year
OperaA blunt email from the festival said today that rising costs were imposing economies on the festival in its 150th anniversary year.
Here’s the official line:
The current cost developments pose major challenges for the Bayreuth Festival. …Due to the very high proportion of personnel costs in the overall budget, the Bayreuth Festival will not be able to generate the additional financial resources required for this from its own resources in the long term, despite a very high level of self-financing of more than 55%. On the other hand, the general economic situation does not currently allow the shareholders to provide significantly higher funds to offset the deficits.
In view of these developments, it is necessary to adapt the original planning for the anniversary season in order to secure the season planning for the following years and at the same time to present a program for the 150th anniversary that reflects the breadth of the canon of works that Richard Wagner intended for Bayreuth.
“The Flying Dutchman”, which Richard Wagner considered worthy of being performed in the Bayreuth Festival Hall as his first opera, the tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelung”, with which the Festival Hall was ceremoniously opened in 1876, and the stage consecration festival play “Parsifal”, which was composed especially for this venue, will be performed. In addition, for the first time and only in the anniversary season, there will be a new production of Rienzi in the Festival Hall. The 150th Bayreuth Festival will open with Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which Richard Wagner himself conducted on May 22, 1872 in the Margravial Opera House.”
It seems clear that Tristan and Isolde, Meistersinger, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser have been dropped. The festival will be showing 7 Wagner operas instead of a full hand of 11.
You would have thought devout Wagnerians in the German elite might have chipped in to celebrate the sacred 1876 anniversary, but the German economy is nervous and no-one is flashing the cash. Where’s King Ludwig when the Master really needs him?
Yup, seems like it. Still, Bayreuth generally produces around seven works a year, so this is a familiar line-up while performing everything EXCEPT Dutchman and Tannhäuser might have seemed excessively ambitious. Germany’s not in a good way at the moment, no matter how much received wisdom might suggest the contrary.
Sad news, but not unexpected. The previous plan was to celebrate the sesquicentenary of the Festival by presenting all ten operas in the “mature” canon plus – exceptionally – Rienzi. It’s now clear that that was over-ambitious, even though it was announced that the Ring would be presented in concert performances.
Do we now understand that Schwarz’s execrable Ring will be staged for a fifth season in 2026? If so, the Festival will continue to struggle to sell all the tickets. As I write, only one of the eight operas being staged in 2025 is sold out.
For me, the saddest aspect of this announcement is that Kratzer’s dazzling and insightful production of Tannhäuser will probably never be seen again.
Agree. I still miss Herheim’s Parsifal. It was awful seeing it loaded out and scrapped.
The special Ring 2026 will be semi staged with some digital animation and conducted by Christian Thielemann.
Kratzer Tannhäuser has been postponed to 2027.
Thanks Rosina, that’s great news on both counts. Thielemann’s Wagner is way better than most of his symphonic work, and since it’s semi-staged we can hope that the ticket prices will be lower.
The announcement includes this:
“for the first time and only in the anniversary season, there will be a new production of Rienzi”.
Does that imply that Rienzi will be seen ONLY in the 2026 season, and will not be revived in subsequent seasons? If so, will that not add to the Festival’s financial problems? In recent decades, most productions at Bayreuth have been seen in four, five or six seasons, which surely (a) assists the recouping of the non-recurring production costs, and (b) reduces the rehearsal costs in years 2, 3, 4 etc?
Moreover, is it not likely that many more Wagnerians will want to see Rienzi on the Green Hill than can be accommodated in just one season?
Having heard RIENZI recordings, I’d venture that “Wagnerians” are the only musical subgroup that might enjoy sitting through a performance of it.
I think it’s a great score it’s the only one I havnt heard live
Nathalie Stutzmann will conduct one run of a staged Rienzi only in 2026 for the jubilee.
What a pity
As Beckmesser might observe, the headline states 3 operas but the article ends by listing 4.
The first thing to be cut from the plan should have been Rienzi–its inclusion was misguided from day one.
No Meistersinger!?
I’m not going.
I don’t understand why Bayreuth doesn’t have a longer Festival it is complete nonsense, just imagine the Royal Shakespeare Company only putting on 6 weeks of Productions. Bayreuth
should have a proper established opera house and permanent Orchestra and chorus otherwise Bayreuth will will die in the long run. Great difficulty getting tickets at a high price and pandering to the elite of the Opera world is completely in contradiction to what should be public art. Bayreuth is for the rich and powerful and very often people who haven’t got a clue what opera is about. Bayreuth should come into the 21st century.
As I understand it (well, at least this is what they tell you when you take the tour), it is not year-round because all participants (musicians, yes, but also stagehands, crew, all the people behind the scenes) have full-time season jobs elsewhere and just come for the festival. I imagine internal resistance to a season-long model might come from people who would say “but it’s always been x way” or those who think that would cheapen the ‘high status’ appeal of the annual ‘event’ (the people who want ‘to be seen’ going to Bayreuth).
I also imagine the hospitality sector might lobby against it – again, because of the high prices/revenue that hotel scarcity around the festival dates generates. One could counter that they’d be getting more customers year-round but there’s also the Baroque Opera festival and other events that make up for it.
Yes I couldn’t agree more. It’s utterly absurd that that wonderful building isn’t used for performances year-round because of the opinion of one man who died nearly 150 years ago, however highly (or not) anyone thinks of his music. (Bayreuth does have an opera house already though – the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, a UNESCO world heritage site and recently restored to full glory.)
I am not rich, nor powerful. A four-decade Wagnerian, I finally arrived at Bayreuth this past August and found myself part of the most knowledgeable opera audience you will find anywhere. The festival is not for the elite, but the aficionados. We boo you.
I was at the 1975 and 1976 Festivals, where there was a huge range of prices, beginning with 3 Marks for a seat with no view, 5 Marks for a partial view, and from there prices increased about three rows at a time, a few Marks at a time, down to the front of the hall where the prices were indeed eye-watering. Of course everyone had that wonderful sound. So unless the pricing model has radically changed, the festival is not at all just for the wealthy.
The Associated Press article on this said “The 2026 Ring Cycle will be a special production and not the Valentin Schwarz staging that debuted in 2022 and is to be staged for the final time in 2025”. Does anyone know what this means? I thought they had a new one slated for 2028.
As Rosina has pointed out, the sesquicentennial Ring will be semi-staged. It will not be the Schwarz production, which will have its fourth and final outing in 2025. THAT staging will therefore join a small band of productions, including Baumgarten’s “Erdgas” Tannhäuser, that are evidently deemed so awful that they need to be humanely destroyed before they reach their fifth year.
By contrast, a similarly select band of productions, such as Neuenfels’s entrancing Lohengrin-with-rats, are rightly given a bonus sixth year. If we are to believe Rosina, Kratzer’s wonderful Tannhäuser will join THAT club in 2027 – I can scarcely wait for that!
Returning to the Ring, it’s usual for there to be at least one Ring-less year before a new Ring, so it’s quite likely that there WILL be a new Ring in 2028.
Good. Bayreuth “eurotrash” stagings, like the infamous production of “Parsifal” with augmented reality glasses or the chaotic reinterpretations of the “Ring” cycle, have moved away from the narrative and musical integrity Wagner intended. Instead of enhancing the operas, they detract from their emotional and dramatic depth, turning them into spectacles that prioritize visual novelty over the music’s profound storytelling.
Maybe money shortage will make them to return to normalcy.
“Eurotrash” is a familiar and convenient epithet, but I think the truth is more nuanced.
Since WW2, the Wagner family has consistently obeyed Wagner’s exhortation “Kinder, schafft Neues!” (“Children, make something new!”). In the 50s and 60s, Wieland’s innovative productions would have outraged Cosima, and often outraged their audiences, at least on their first appearance.
In the 70s, 80s and 90s, Wolfgang, possibly aware that his own productions weren’t on that level, bravely engaged directors like Friedrich, Kupfer, Ponnelle and Chéreau, many of whose productions were not rapturously received.
Since she took over, Katharina has continued to take risks. Some of those have indeed led to really bad productions: I won’t object if those by Baumgarten, Castorf, Schwarz and Scheib are dismissed as Eurotrash. But without her risk-taking we might never have seen imaginative and stimulating productions, faithful to the spirit if not to the letter of the scores, by Kosky, Neuenfels, Tcherniakov and Kratzer.
Wexford traditionally presents three unknown operas each year. I’m happy when there’s a hit, a miss and one that’s OK but not outstanding. I think Bayreuth is currently achieving a similar pattern of success, ie 33%.
Keep kissing those frogs, Katharina!
Well, it’s just ridiculous and not sustainable when Schwartz completely incoherent rendition of The Ring performed in Bayreuth four years in a row.
“Completely incoherent” – yes!
BUT, what would really be “not sustainable” would be to dump the production after one or two years. That would imply a need to mount another new production sooner than planned, which would be impossible for financial reasons.
As I’ve said before, surely the answer is for Bayreuth to abandon the principle that all four parts of a new Ring must be launched simultaneously. That way, the financial exposure would be reduced by 75%. If Das Rheingold is awful, the Ring is abandoned and a new one can be commissioned. That’s what happened at Covent Garden after Yuri Lyubimov’s Rheingold in 1988.
By the way, it’s sad that the principle of “Werkstatt Bayreuth” seems to be moribund. 50 years ago, Chéreau returned each year to develop his Ring cycle. In year 1 it was booed, in year 5 it was cheered to the rafters. I’ve heard no suggestion that Valentin Schwarz has done anything similar in years 2 and 3 of his Ring.
The problem is that any sane person with just a hint of artistic taste should reject Schwartz’s version at the earlier stages of preproduction
Just because that phrase is so often trotted out without context: Wagner said it to advocate composing new operas instead of revising old ones. What he would think of his operas becoming background soundtracks for whatever the latest staging fads toss up is an unanswerable question. Maybe he would have loved it….
But Michael, they can’t even fill the house for the current 6 weeks shows. I just checked last night, Siegfried is still about 1/3 of empty seats for you to choose. The problem is not the duration, it is those ridiculous modern production that kills all the traditional operas. Hack, if they put on the production like the 1990 Met Ring, I will go to see it!
Only 7 Wagner operas?! Nooooooo!!!