Just wanted to share some impressions of my visit to the Bayreuth Festival this year. This was my fourth visit to the Green Hill, after 1979 (when I was in my mid-teens)—the
Boulez/
Chéreau Ring,
Parsifal, the
Dutchman and
Lohengrin—, 2012—the
Stefan Herheim production of
Parsifal—, and 2014—the
K. Petrenko/
Castorf Ring—.
This visit confirmed my view of the Festival: it strives for artistic excellence, and both the chorus (led now by
Eberhard Friedrich) and orchestra are of the highest level. Many (usually those who’ve never been to it) criticise (or ridicule) what they perceive is thought of as a “Wagnerian pilgrimage” of sorts, for either “insiders” or (mainly German) members of the jet-set. Not at all: IMHO, what makes Bayreuth so special—apart from the unique features of the Festspielhaus itself and the aforementioned highest artistic standards—is the felicitous conjunction of two concepts: i) the festival as a place dedicated to “the
festive performance of the works of
Richard Wagner” (as stated in
Siegfried Wagner’s testament), and ii) the festival as a workshop or laboratory (“
Werkstatt Bayreuth” was
Wolfgang and
Wieland Wagner’s phrase).
It would be too long (and test the reader’s patience) to review all four performances I attended in detail. My two children and I saw
Parsifal,
Tristan and
Meistersinger, and were then joined by my partner for the
Dutchman on the last evening.
Uwe-Eric Laufenberg’s production of
Parsifal works much better seen live than on DVD. It has a strong and well developed
Konzept, underpinned at moments by striking images, but also is over-cluttered at times. The Good Friday scene was slightly cliché-ridden, and yet very touching.
Semyon Bychkov led quite wonderfully (I had already seen him conduct
Parsifal here in Madrid, but this was vastly superior), and the cast was uniformly strong (with
Günther Groissböck’s noble Gurnemanz standing out).
Tristan was less appealing to me.
Katharina Wagner’s production is—as my son pointed out—very faithful to the ideas underlying the work, or rather, it develops some of them to the extreme. Possibly the third act is the most successful.
Christian Thielemann, of course, knows the work and the unique acoustics of the venue backwards, and delivers a strong, very strong performance. Yet, I really do not admire his approach: a
Luftpause here (that lasts a couple of seconds more than it should), an accelerando or ritardando there, appear to me relatively facile resources that at times distort the music’s form and natural flow. Vocally, things were again strong, even if both leads were a bit unsubtle (particularly
Stephen Gould in his—admittedly fiendishly difficult—role).
Meistersinger was a performance to savour, and one which i am sure I’ll remember for a long time to come.
Barrie Kosky’s production is thought-provoking, beautiful to watch, and
great fun. Yes, it requires good previous knowledge of the piece and about
Wagner and his entourage, it can be slightly over-the-top at times (Sachs, Walther and David are all
Wagner lookalikes—and there’s other extras dressed as
Wagner onstage as well), but it tackles quite cleverly and elegantly issues that are worth addressing, and is technically superb.
Philippe Jordan did an excellent job, keeping things moving forward with panache at all moments (this longest of operas went by like a breeze) and brought out all the riches of this contrapuntal feast beautifully.
Michael Volle’s Sachs and
Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Beckmesser are both portrayals for the ages (vocally and scenically), Walther von Stolzing suits
Klaus-Florián Vogt’s unique and considerable talent like a glove, and the Pogner, David, Magdalena and the mastersingers were all first-rate. Only
Emily Magee’s Eva (she had already sung the role on the Green Hill under
Barenboim as far back as 1997) was not quite in the same league.
A scene from Act I (set in Wahnfried—notice the three
Wagner figures onstage
):
Our final performance was the
Dutchman in the
Jan-Philipp Gloger production (in its last outing), ably conducted by
Axel Kober. Of course, the
Dutchman is a bit of a step backwards after the three “big” work’s on the previous evenings, but this was enjoyable as well (but not
that memorable).
And then, in perfect summer weather, walking up from the town to the theatre, the fanfares on the front balcony before each act, the 1-hour long intermissions (where you can walk the gardens and dine on a Franconian Bratwurst from the sausage kiosk), the very special configuration of the theatre (uncomfortable festures notwithstanding), and the walk back down at the end, all make this an experience like few others,
Next year there’s a new
Tannhäuser (conducted by
Gergiev and staged by
Tobias Kratzer). It’ll presumably run for five years. Let see if I apply (and am awarded) tickets sometime and so will have seen all 10 works of the “Bayreuth canon” at the Festspielhaus.
Well, even this came out too long
. If you’ve made it to here, thanks for reading!
