On Bayreuth's 'Green Hill'
Germany's famed Bayreuth opera gala opens this week with the Richard
Wagner festival forced to face up to criticism and pressures for change.
Manfred Praecklein and Stephan Maurer report on this year's programme and
the changes underway at the festival.
A new staging of Der fliegende Hollaender (The Flying Dutchman) to
open the 92nd Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth on 25 July will also usher
in the start of a new era for the world's premiere festival of Wagnerian
opera.
For decades, festival director Wolfgang Wagner had set his stamp on
the Bayreuth opera fest with his stagings. But last year he announced he
would be doing no further productions, and now the Claus Guth staging of
Flying Dutchman starts a series of new directors being brought to Bayreuth.
In 2004, Christoph Schlingensief will stage Parsifal, followed in
2005 by Christoph Marthaler doing Tristan und Isolde. Then comes the Ring
der Nibelungen tetralogy by Lars von Trier in 2006.
"We want to continue the interplay between tradition and innovation,
to preserve the works and to continually renew them," the 83-year-old
Bayreuth Festspiel boss and grandson of Richard Wagner, says about the
line-up of new directors.
Nor is he afraid there will be any uproars such as caused by Patrice
Chereau with his Ring staging in 1976.
"Schlingensief, Marthaler and von Trier are no iconoclasts who want
to destroy Wagner's temple," says festival spokesman Peter Emmerich. "What
is at stake is to find contemporary interpretations which will justify the
uniqueness and necessity of Bayreuth in the future."
The first to try his hand at it will be the 39-year-old Guth, who
hopes his Flying Dutchman will get people to start thinking.
"I will try to bring the spiritual abysses and unconscious desires
to the surface," he told Deutsche Presse Agentur in an interview. He adds
that he is interested in the "interior worlds" of the characters in Wagner's
great romantic opera.
Like Guth, orchestra conductor Marc Albrecht will be making his
debut with Flying Dutchman in Bayreuth. The two worked successfully together
with the world premiere of Peter Ruzicka's Celan at the Dresden opera in
2001, catching the attention of Wolfgang Wagner.
Also making their debuts in the famous opera house on the "Green
Hill" overlooking Bayreuth will be Adrienne Dugger as Senta and Jaakko
Ryhanen as Daland. They will be accompanied by an old hand in Bayreuth, John
Tomlinson as the Dutchman, who in previous years sang the part of Hagen in
Goetterdaemerung (Twilight of the Gods).
Looking beyond Flying Dutchman, opera-goers will be intently
watching to see if director Philippe Arlaud made any changes in his staging
of Tannhaeuser which met with little critical acclaim in its debut last
year. The conductor is Christian Thielemann.
This year will be the fourth summer for Juergen Flimm's Ring
tetralogy, with the conductor to be Adam Fischer. Rounding out the 2003
programme is Lohengrin staged by Keith Warner, with Sir Andrew Davis
conducting.
Wolfgang Wagner, who turns 84 on 30 August, the final day of this
year's festival, need not worry about finding favour with the audience, with
the festival ticket office reporting that demand is 9.9 times the supply of
tickets. And sponsors also wholeheartedly back the festival.
"Bayreuth is something which is rewarding both for firms and
individuals," Emmerich says. "For many it is a matter of image in supporting
the festival."
As usual, the opening days of the festival will see a parade of
prominent personalities from politics, business, society and the arts, but
Bayreuth officials insist that the festival is not merely about being a
showcase for the world's "rich and the beautiful".
At ticket prices ranging from EUR 24.50 high up in the gallery to
EUR 183 euros for the best seats in the house, the festival audience
reflects a cross-section of society as a whole, officials insist.
For those who are unable to get a ticket for one of the 30 operas
this year, there is still plenty of Wagner to be enjoyed in a number of
parallel events in Bayreuth this summer.
From 22 July to 30 August there will be a special exhibition called
Der Mythos des Erloesers (The Myth of the Redeemer), subtitled Wagner's
Dream World and German Society, 1871-1918.
At the Richard Wagner Museum in Haus Wanfried, a photography show
running 16 July to 30 August will focus on Wagner's father-in-law, the
composer Franz Liszt.
(Internet: www.bayreuther-festspiele.de)
DPA
July 2003
C copyright 2003 Expatica Communications BV
Paul Moor
<Texas-Paule@Sigmund-Freud.Org>
Wilhelmsaue 132
D-10715 Berlin
Telefon (4930) 8639-5784
Telefax (4930) 8639-5785
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