# Bayreuth hijacked ?



## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

this http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/a...os-and-dropped-jaws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& is only one of the innumerous sabotage acts carried out at Bayreuth since long ago; but how long will we tolerate such a state of affairs and stay silent?!


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

No one stays silent, there is whining about Bayreuth every season, along with every other venue. Now if it really was hijacked and flown to south america that would be something new.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

quack said:


> Now if it really was hijacked and flown to south america that would be something new.


its flown to nowhere; that is the point.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

These people hate Wagner and everything he stands for, that is the explanation. Now, where the hate comes from, that is another question.


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## expat (Mar 17, 2013)

clearly the director does not understand and did not care to make an effort to understand the works.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

This is the reason I prefer listening to Wagner operas instead of also seeing them.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

this has been going on since 1972 when Wolfgang WAGNER invited Götz Friedrich to Produce Tannhäuser, which caused all kinds of consternation and booing, with accusations of Left wing political influences invading Bayreuth ect. Then we had the Chereau Ring which almost blew the place apart.My memories of that occasion in 1976 (and the radio tapes back it up) was that the reaction was much worse than that which we had last year from that Castorp nonsense.
I'm afraid that the WAGNER family ran out of ideas a long time ago and began to invite many producers from outside with very mixed results. Some productions were preserved on Video/DVD and are now looked upon as "classics" but were scorned and derided at the time. Some have deservedly been vaunted into the classic status.
Bayreuth has not been highjacked by anyone as Bayreuth does not have any fixed philosophy over production style that can be highjacked.
The WAGNER family, who still run the festival, maintain the tradition of Wagner's own demand of always making something new.
Whatever the production, no matter how controversial, it all comes down to the music.
This is the cause of great worry over the past couple of decades, the standards of musical performances are getting worse.
It seems impossible to produce WAGNER singers of quality any more.
It seems a long time since I heard a real bass-baritone of any Stature, the same goes for all the singing categories.
There are exceptions, there always are, but, all too few.
The Castorf production is the worst sung and conducted that I can ever remember at Bayreuth since 1951.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

expat said:


> clearly the director does not understand and did not care to make an effort to understand the works.


clearly the Wagners are held at gunpoint to turn the blind eye on this.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Pip said:


> Bayreuth has not been highjacked by anyone as Bayreuth does not have any fixed philosophy over production style that can be highjacked. The WAGNER family, who still run the festival, maintain the tradition of Wagner's own demand of always making something new.


going by _Die Meistersingers_, Wagner's vision of what is new has nothing in common with what Bayreuth is forced to do these days.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

It is ridiculous, such persons should be banned for life to stage* any *production.

[SUB]Slightly of topic , the Met is going the same direction.
[/SUB]


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

There is a difference between doing something new, possibly controversial _and beautiful_ and doing something whose only value is in being controversial.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

sharik said:


> how long will we tolerate such a state of affairs and stay silent?!


I can't tolerate it at all - I can't afford a ticket anyway


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I visited Bayreuth last year and even went into the orchestra pit of the theater, but until this situation changes, I am not even going to attempt getting tickets.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

At least we can see that it is Siegfried there are stagings were you can´t see what opera it is.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I absolutely love Gloger's production of Der fliegende Holländer and am thrilled that the 2012 performance with Selig, Merbeth, Youn and Thielemann conducting has been released on Blu-ray/DVD.

I haven't had a chance to see the Ring cycle, but I probably read that article about it 15 months ago when it was written.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I absolutely love Gloger's production of Der fliegende Holländer and am thrilled that the 2012 performance with Selig, Merbeth, Youn and Thielemann conducting has been released on Blu-ray/DVD.
> 
> I haven't had a chance to see the Ring cycle, but I probably read that article about it 15 months ago when it was written.


The Flying Dutchman is about Norwegian sailors not about some businessmen.
I would say that production is severely worse than this production.
Gloger can make his own opera if he want to I would gladly see it if it is good.

Some operas I especially do not want to have touched and these are The Flying Dutchman and the Ring Cycle. What of Gloger made a production of La Fanciulla del West and completely changed the setting.
What if they set La Fanciulla del West


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2014)

Art would be more popular if we didn't have to put up with the damned artists. 

Let's face it - this is one of the premiere venues for opera staging. World famous. Legendary. Wagner's own design. 

Any new director is going to want to leave their mark. I don't know operas that well, or this particular director, but I am assuming that he was not an unknown quantity - that the Wagner family had a pretty good idea what they were signing up for. And in the end, they still win. People will still come to Bayreuth, year after year. This might add excitement - people will continue to come, to find out whether the next director will be mild and traditional, or try to one-up the last radical version.

Now the director gets to pat himself on the back as having thumbed his nose at those evil, capitalists and their ill-gotten oil gains - and why can't we all live under the ideology of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

They got publicity. And in such a world as this, there ain't no such thing as bad publicity.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> people will continue to come, to find out whether the next director will be mild and traditional


but there's no chance for such a director to stage at Bayreuth now.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Sloe said:


> The Flying Dutchman is about Norwegian sailors not about some businessmen.


I feel you are confusing the plot and setting of the opera with what it is about.

You are of course free to stick to traditional/literalist productions but not everyone has the preference.

Also I did not realize Gloger was directing a Fanciulla! I will have to keep my eyes out for video/discussion! Thank you.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

sharik said:


> this http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/a...os-and-dropped-jaws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& is only one of the innumerous sabotage acts carried out at Bayreuth since long ago; but how long will we tolerate such a state of affairs and stay silent?!


As long as the lemmings keep walking off the edge of that cliff, buying tickets and attending performances at Beyreuth... if a tradition loses its connection with what it is supposed to honor or celebrate, it has lost its meaning, and is therefore dead, and the only honorable thing is to give it a decent burial, with only the immediate family allowed to attend the funeral.

On the other hand, to those who want a basic replica vs. any fresh take on Wagner, "If it is not growing, it is dying."


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I think with some people it's elitist prestige - they're willing to put up with any trendy, non-germane rubbish at Bayreuth purely so they can name-drop the place when cracking open a bottle of Chateau Margaux '79 back home with their friends.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I feel you are confusing the plot and setting of the opera with what it is about.
> 
> You are of course free to stick to traditional/literalist productions but not everyone has the preference.
> 
> Also I did not realize Gloger was directing a Fanciulla! I will have to keep my eyes out for video/discussion! Thank you.


You can say what ever you want but when it comes to changes of The Flying Dutchman I take it personal.
And does it really make sense when Mary sings Ich spinne fort and she is not spinning. Or when Sigfried sings Nothung Nothung neidlisches Schwert and there is no sword.

I hope Gloger is not directing La Fanciulla.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

sharik said:


> going by _Die Meistersingers_, Wagner's vision of what is new has nothing in common with what Bayreuth is forced to do these days.


This is an excellent observation. Wagner's idea of innovation in art is very clearly set forth in _Meistersinger_, where Sachs guides Walther in disciplining his wilder instincts and producing work which is both bracingly new and respectful of time-honored principles. In life, Wagner himself was always scornful of peculiar or sensational effects for their own sake - "effects without causes" was one way he expressed it - and his own music, even at its most innnovative, is profoundly rooted in common practice principles of form, harmony and voice leading. Wagner wanted to move people, not dazzle or shock them; he hoped to bring them into deeper contact with the spirit and meaning of their own cultural heritage. Newness for its own sake was completely alien to his thought and artistic intentions.

Three hookers on a hydroelectric dam (courtesy of Patrice Chereau) do not give new meaning and "relevance" to Wagner's Rhinemaidens, and they do not honor the cultural heritage from which his vision springs. If we are too ignorant or lazy to comprehend and respect that vision and find, as Wagner would have wished, fresh and eloquent ways to do it justice, we should not perform his works.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> to those who want a basic replica vs. any fresh take on Wagner, "If it is not growing, it is dying."


nobody wants that, on the contrary, everyone wants it to develop and be perfected; the problem is, these 'fresh takes' are unprofessional and amateurish, done either without understanding the subject or with intention to have it damaged in order to troll the society.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's idea of innovation in art is very clearly set forth in _Meistersinger_, where Sachs guides Walther in disciplining his wilder instincts and producing work which is both bracingly new and respectful of time-honored principles.


and *noble* too. Wagner's all about being noble and honourable.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

sharik said:


> and *noble* too. Wagner's all about being noble and honourable.


Yes, but you see, for those stage directors the ideas of nobility and honor are most likely outdated, stuck-up and elitist if not worse.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Pip said:


> ... Then we had the Chereau Ring which almost blew the place apart.My memories of that occasion in 1976 (and the radio tapes back it up) was that the reaction was much worse than that which we had last year from that Castorp nonsense.
> ....
> Some productions were preserved on Video/DVD and are now looked upon as "classics" but were scorned and derided at the time.
> ....


And the Chereau Ring is one of the "classics" now, imo much better and much much much more interesting than other "traditionally staged" Ring productions such as the Otto Schenk/Met one (which received triumphal reactions when it came out)

I know very little of the Castorf one, but I have read that K. Petrenko at least did a very good job.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

DrMike said:


> Art would be more popular if we didn't have to put up with the damned artists.
> 
> Let's face it - this is one of the premiere venues for opera staging. World famous. Legendary. Wagner's own design.
> 
> ...


According to an article in one of the German opera magazines I read, Castorf was not the Wagner sisters' first choice of a director for this _Ring_; they were pretty much stuck with him after two other directors turned them down. But it certainly does seem that many opera houses have been operating on the concept of "no such thing as bad publicity" for many years now, and it seldom appears to backfire on them. The one exception in recent memory that I can think of was the Tannhäuser-as-Nazi production in Düsseldorf that had such vivid Holocaust imagery that it sent some members of the audience to the hospital -- and resulted in all subsequent performances of the opera there being presented only in concert format.
Like Burkhard Kosminski, the director behind the Düsseldorf _Tannhäuser_, Castorf was a complete opera novice when he came to Bayreuth last year -- and that may be part of the problem.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

GioCar said:


> the Chereau Ring is one of the "classics" now, imo much better and much much much more interesting than other "traditionally staged" Ring productions such as the Otto Schenk/Met one


i wouldn't say so. Schenk's Ring at the Met is the only decent video production of the opera available, despite all its shortcomings. Chereau is largely overrated as a stage director.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

MAuer said:


> and resulted in all subsequent performances of the opera there being presented only in concert format.
> .


To bad other performances of Wagner´s operas are not in concert format.

Then you would not have to see crocodiles swallowing the forest bird, Daland and Der Steuerman as stiff businessmen standing looking stupid in a dingy or naked people being gassed during the overture to Tannhäuser and the opera houses would save a lot of money.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

sharik said:


> i wouldn't say so. Schenk's Ring at the Met is the only decent video production of the opera available, despite all its shortcomings. Chereau is largely overrated as a stage director.


Compared to what we have today I would say Chereaus Ring is rather decent. But there are few opera productions were they are proper dressed nowadays.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Sloe said:


> Compared to what we have today I would say Chereaus Ring is rather decent.


well yes, if compared with today's, it is.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

As I have commented before the only way to stop these bum directors exploiting the public is for people to demand their money back on the grounds that they are not seeing the work as Wagner intended.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DavidA said:


> As I have commented before the only way to stop these bum directors exploiting the public is for people to demand their money back on the grounds that they are not seeing the work as Wagner intended.


that is a viable scenario, it only takes some political will and organisation.


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

I went to Bayreuth and saw the Castof Ring this year, and the Flying Dutchman. The Ring was challenging and self-indulgent, but there were moments when he found an interesting take on matters. These were however very thin on the ground and couldn't justify most of the nonsense going on on stage. Much of the time the production completely undermined what is there in the words and music. The beginning of Act III of Siegfried as Erda got herself dolled up as a Berlin hooker circa 1980 for a shabby Italian meal with Wotan was one of the best little vignettes. And the set pictured, when you see it in the theatre is actually extremely impressive, even if the meaning for it is a complete loads of codswallop. The whole thing was played through at such crazy fast tempi that at least it cut the hanging about time down by a good few minutes. 

What kept striking me was how beautifully measured and crafted Barenboim's performances of the Ring at the Proms last year were. I was kept spellbound by Barenboim and the Staatskapelle the entire time in the dreadful acoustic of the RAH, whereas there were many times at Bayreuth I was just praying for the scene to end. That's a sad indictment of a production. 

But, and this is total heresy, that wonderful theatre needs rescuing from itself - it needs to put on something other than endless Wagner, Wagner, Wagner. Now that the Bavarian government has stepped in to rescue the place, you can finally buy some tickets online without the daft waiting period, and hopefully the shift in ownership and control away from Wagner family will mean that the time will come when other composers' music can be heard there. The acoustic is quite marvellous - the music pours over you in waves as I've never experienced in any other theatre or opera house. I noticed that the NYT opera critic in his reviews of the Ring last year came to the same conclusion - if they want it to carry on being relevant in this century they are going to have to broaden the scope of what is performed there. (Let's face it, they don't ever perform the early pre-Dutchman Wagner operas such as Rienzi - so it isn't even as if Wagner's entire canon can be heard there).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bayreuth should be, of all places on earth, the place to experience the real Wagner. The notion that fresh, strong, interesting productions of his operas must entail "reinterpreting" them is nothing but a confession of incompetence. It is just not believable that there are no scenic artists and directors in the world capable of using the most modern theatrical resources to bring us excitingly new but inherently faithful recreations of Wagner's mythical worlds. His visions were broad and suggestive enough, and his music more than eloquent enough, to inspire hundreds of different but fascinating and powerful visual realizations. If Bayreuth can't honor it's own creator but insists on trivializing his artistic achievement, it should openly abandon his idea for his theater and perform all of the operatic repertoire suited to its physical characteristics - _except_ those of Wagner - for a few decades. Perhaps the hiatus would allow some needed time for reflection, repentance, and a renaissance of artistic responsibility.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Bayreuth should be, of all places on earth, the place to experience the real Wagner. The notion that fresh, strong, interesting production of his operas must entail "reinterpreting" them is nothing but a confession of incompetence. It is just not believable that there are no scenic artists and directors in the world capable of using the most modern theatrical resources to bring us excitingly new but inherently faithful recreations of Wagner's mythical worlds. His visions were broad and suggestive enough, and his music more than eloquent enough, to inspire hundreds of different but fascinating and powerful visual realizations. If Bayreuth can't honor it's own creator but insists on trivializing his artistic achievement, it should openly abandon his idea for his theater and perform all of the operatic repertoire suited to its physical characteristics - _except_ those of Wagner - for a few decades. Perhaps the hiatus would allow some needed time for reflection, repentance, and a renaissance of artistic responsibility.


Bayreuth can bring itself back to decency as it were by hiring _Lord of the Rings_ movie director Peter Jackson and artistic consultant John Howe to design a _Ring _cycle.

Valhalla as it should and ought to be.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Bayreuth can bring itself back to decency as it were by hiring _Lord of the Rings_ movie director Peter Jackson


no more movie directors, please.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

I'd prefer a minimalist production myself. A good director could achieve more with modest means than these hacks ever could with their overblown budgets.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

by the way, i'd like to make clear, i personally don't mind The Ring staged in spacesuits or Aida in Nazi uniforms, as long as the productions put across the initial massage and stay true to the idea that everything on stage must look *beautiful*, as this is what theatrical art is meant for.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

For those interested, I'd strongly recommend this essay:










Frederic Spotts - Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival - Yale Univ Pr

All festival's performances and productons till the early '90 are described in details, as well as a very interesting insight on Wagner family and their relationships with History.

Btw, one of my favorite productions of the Ring is the one on the book cover (Kupfer/Barenboim)


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

sharik said:


> by the way, i'd like to make clear, i personally don't mind The Ring staged in spacesuits or Aida in Nazi uniforms, as long as the productions put across the initial massage and stay true to the idea that everything on stage must look *beautiful*, as this is what theatrical art is meant for.


What I think is most important is that what is present on stage and what is happening visually reflects with the music and what is being sung.
Therefore Brünnhilde looking like a space tomato is acceptable as long she is a valkyrie. That I would not prefer it is another thing.
Notung as an automatic rifle is not acceptable.

I can say there are things in the Ring cycle I would like to be different but I know I can´t change these things.
It would not reflect the music and it would not reflect the libretto.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Sloe said:


> What I think is most important is that what is present on stage and what is happening visually reflects with the music and what is being sung.


so true.



Sloe said:


> Nothung as an automatic rifle is not acceptable.


it would have rather been a lazer sword in that case.


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

Castof for all his faults wanted to be completely radical and chop up the music and text, cut chunks, insert bits of other works (not sure whether by Wagner or others). Of course the sisters weren't having any of it, so he basically had a strop and that's why for great long scenes he subverts everything in the text and music, with action on stage going on apart from where the main singers are, or projections, or funny lighting effects (the mount rushmore heads are light by ultraviolet and have fluorescent strips on them for huge amounts of the frankly endless Act III of Siegfried. It would have been interesting to have seen his conception, because it would have probably made far more sense of the spin he put on the story (the Nibelung/Hagen are the hard working downtrodden heroes, being thwarted by the power/oil crazy Gods and their offspring). But it was a step too far for Bayreauth. It couldn't have been worse than the actual production - or could it? 

The best suggestion I've seen on this thread is to put temporary hiatus on Wagner being performed there (although there should perhaps be a special exception for Parsifal, which after all was composed very specifically for the hall and its acoustic). Then let a fresh performing/directing tradition emerge.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Pimlicopiano said:


> Castof for all his faults wanted to be completely radical and chop up the music and text, cut chunks, insert bits of other works (not sure whether by Wagner or others). Of course the sisters weren't having any of it, so he basically had a strop and that's why for great long scenes he subverts everything in the text and music, with action on stage going on apart from where the main singers are, or projections, or funny lighting effects (the mount rushmore heads are light by ultraviolet and have fluorescent strips on them for huge amounts of the frankly endless Act III of Siegfried. It would have been interesting to have seen his conception, because it would have probably made far more sense of the spin he put on the story (the Nibelung/Hagen are the hard working downtrodden heroes, being thwarted by the power/oil crazy Gods and their offspring). But it was a step too far for Bayreauth. It couldn't have been worse than the actual production - or could it?
> 
> The best suggestion I've seen on this thread is to put temporary hiatus on Wagner being performed there (although there should perhaps be a special exception for Parsifal, which after all was composed very specifically for the hall and its acoustic). Then let a fresh performing/directing tradition emerge.


Given what they did to _Parsifal_ in 2012, I say away with it too. :scold:


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I can understand the Wagner sisters' opposition to Castorf's initial plans. The result of such a concept would not have been Wagner's _Ring_, but rather a pasticcio by Frank Castorf based on Wagner's _Ring_.


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

MAuer said:


> I can understand the Wagner sisters' opposition to Castorf's initial plans. The result of such a concept would not have been Wagner's _Ring_, but rather a pasticcio by Frank Castorf based on Wagner's _Ring_.


But in 2013 when it was first performed, why not? It could have been a stroke of genius or perhaps not. Why is every bar and note of Wagner sacred, when people happily cut into Baroque opera. Eugene Onegin gets cut quite often, and quite a lot of French grand opera. It would have provoked a few cases of apoplexy amongst some of the die-hard Wagnerians I'm sure, but might have been the kick up the backside that Bayreuth needed. Personally I suspect it would have been downright awful, as Castof himself has little love for or respect for the music. It would need someone with far more empathy for the music to do something that radical.

Half the problem with the Ring really is the clunky pseudo-archaic German in which it is written. It's jammed packed full of made up words, or words rescued from the dawn of time. It might all rhyme and sound nice enough, but really, why does Sieglinde sing "You are the Lententide" when she's trying to say "You are the Spring". It is almost like someone writing an English opera today but peppering the language with Chaucerian English. You might just about get the gist of it, but it would be too damn "arch" for its own good.


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Given what they did to _Parsifal_ in 2012, I say away with it too. :scold:


Ha - I thought the Parsifal of 2012 was completely marvellous! It sent out a very strong message about the involvement of Bayreuth in fostering and pandering to the anti-Semitism of the Nazis - and as Klingsor's castle falls at the end of Act II, the Nazi symbols crash to the fall, the swastikas fall and the eagle smashes to bits on the floor. It was like a cleansing ritual for that stage - which is close to what Wagner named it - a stage dedication play.

An important part of Bayreuth now is cleansing itself of the curse of the awful early Wagner family members. There is a permanent exhibition in the grounds of the Festpielhaus which details the anti-Semitism of Wagner, and particularly the virulent anti-Semitism of his wife Cosima, and later Winifred, along with plaques for many of the singers and musicians who were Jewish, or married to Jews and who were removed from performing at Bayreuth. Many of the plaques read of lives lived out in America, or Britain or elsewhere, but far too many have the chilling message - They were murdered by the Nazis in one of the concentration camps.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Wagner is never conservative, Wagner is always destructive and radical, Wagner is always looking to the future. These are facts, and they may have mislead stage directors to put out their weirdest fantasies on stage in a Wagner production. Problem is, this does not mean that Wagner means "anything goes". Quite the contrary. For Wagner, anarchism is a tool, not an end in itself. 

Put another way, Wagner is not Regietheater and Wagner is not Lord of the Rings.


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## echo (Aug 15, 2014)

i'd love to go to Bayreuth


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Pimlicopiano said:


> Why is every bar and note of Wagner sacred, when people happily cut into Baroque opera.


because Baroque opera can be cut whereas Wagner's cannot.



Pimlicopiano said:


> Half the problem with the Ring really is the clunky pseudo-archaic German in which it is written. It's jammed packed full of made up words, or words rescued from the dawn of time. It might all rhyme and sound nice enough, but really, why does Sieglinde sing "You are the Lententide" when she's trying to say "You are the Spring". It is almost like someone writing an English opera today but peppering the language with Chaucerian English.


Wagner operas weren't written today.



Pimlicopiano said:


> Ha - I thought the Parsifal of 2012 was completely marvellous! It sent out a very strong message about the involvement of Bayreuth in fostering and pandering to the anti-Semitism of the Nazis


when Parsifal was written, there was no Nazis, so it has nothing to do with them.



Pimlicopiano said:


> An important part of Bayreuth now is cleansing itself of the curse of the awful early Wagner family members.


okay, let it cleanse, but leave the operas out of it, their in the clear completely.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Pimlicopiano said:


> Ha - I thought the Parsifal of 2012 was completely marvellous! It sent out a very strong message about the involvement of Bayreuth in fostering and pandering to the anti-Semitism of the Nazis - and as Klingsor's castle falls at the end of Act II, the Nazi symbols crash to the fall, the swastikas fall and the eagle smashes to bits on the floor. It was like a cleansing ritual for that stage - which is close to what Wagner named it - a stage dedication play.
> 
> An important part of Bayreuth now is cleansing itself of the curse of the awful early Wagner family members. There is a permanent exhibition in the grounds of the Festpielhaus which details the anti-Semitism of Wagner, and particularly the virulent anti-Semitism of his wife Cosima, and later Winifred, along with plaques for many of the singers and musicians who were Jewish, or married to Jews and who were removed from performing at Bayreuth. Many of the plaques read of lives lived out in America, or Britain or elsewhere, but far too many have the chilling message - They were murdered by the Nazis in one of the concentration camps.


Oh, God help us, not this Nazi stuff again.

_Parsifal_ is not about Nazism. It is not about sending out any "strong message" about Hitler, about Jews, about Richard and Cosima, about the history of Bayreuth, or about cleansing any stage of anything. It is about human ignorance, error, willfulness, guilt, sanctimoniousness, depravity - and insight, courage, humility, compassion, struggle, and redemption. All this is expressed with extraordinary economy in the simplest, most archetypal symbols - so simple that they resonate with the greatest complexity in the soul of a listener who has not closed off his own primal emotions.

To reduce this concentrated symbolic depiction of the growth of the human soul - the ignorant Everyboy coming to understand his fundamental options and learning how to move forward to maturity - to a "strong message" about "Bayreuth pandering to Nazis" is about as ludicrous and revolting a trivialization of a profound work of art and its astonishing creator as I can imagine.

_Parsifal_ belongs to Wagner who, strangely enough, knew what he meant by it and what he achieved in it.


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## expat (Mar 17, 2013)

But half the beauty of the Ring come from the overly pompous language. One of my favourites from Siegfried:"Des ist deine Wildheit schuld, die du, Böser, bänd'gen sollst".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Imho, Bayreuth was hijacked from the get go when it was designated a "Wagner Only Zone." 
(*WOZ -- sounds like was.*)


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Imho, Bayreuth was hijacked from the get go when it was designated a "Wagner Only Zone."
> (*WOZ -- sounds like was.*)


Wagner had the theatre built to his own designs and specifications for the performances of his own works. No one Hi-jacked it!


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I wonder if the thought that some of us like The Ring Cycle because it is based on Norse mythology have ever occured among these directors. Do they ever realize that they rather scare people away from the operas by Richard Wagner with their strange settings than attract people to them.
I am not that strange to the thought that they hate Wagner.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Pip said:


> Wagner had the theatre built to his own designs and specifications for the performances of his own works. No one Hi-jacked it!


Facts are stubborn things, not stupid things.

They're not even 'optional' things.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Pimlicopiano said:


> But in 2013 when it was first performed, why not? It could have been a stroke of genius or perhaps not. Why is every bar and note of Wagner sacred, when people happily cut into Baroque opera. Eugene Onegin gets cut quite often, and quite a lot of French grand opera. It would have provoked a few cases of apoplexy amongst some of the die-hard Wagnerians I'm sure, but might have been the kick up the backside that Bayreuth needed. Personally I suspect it would have been downright awful, as Castof himself has little love for or respect for the music. It would need someone with far more empathy for the music to do something that radical.


It's rather a question of truth in advertising. Audience members had paid (and not an inconsiderable amount) to see the _Ring_, not what amounted to a pasticcio.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Sloe said:


> Do they ever realize that they rather scare people away from the operas by Richard Wagner


seems like they do and their main aim is to avert people from Wagner.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Sloe said:


> I wonder if the thought that some of us like The Ring Cycle because it is based on Norse mythology have ever occured among these directors. Do they ever realize that they rather scare people away from the operas by Richard Wagner with their strange settings than attract people to them.
> *I am not that strange to the thought that they hate Wagner.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> YUP


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Pimlicopiano said:


> Half the problem with the Ring really is the clunky pseudo-archaic German in which it is written. It's jammed packed full of made up words, or words rescued from the dawn of time. It might all rhyme and sound nice enough, but really, why does Sieglinde sing "You are the Lententide" when she's trying to say "You are the Spring". It is almost like someone writing an English opera today but peppering the language with Chaucerian English. You might just about get the gist of it, but it would be too damn "arch" for its own good.


Nonsense. Now, I am not a native speaker of German, but as far as I know, "der Lenz" was a legitimate name for spring not so long ago (as opposed to the modern "Frühling"). It is not made up, and it is not from the dawn of time. The Ring was written in the 1800s and deals with things that happened in the mythical prehistorical times, so tell me how can it _not_ be archaic? And German does allow great freedom for making new words, so even if some of Wagner's words are of his own making, it is perfectly in order.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Sloe said:


> I wonder if the thought that some of us like The Ring Cycle because it is based on Norse mythology have ever occured among these directors. Do they ever realize that they rather scare people away from the operas by Richard Wagner with their strange settings than attract people to them.
> I am not that strange to the thought that they hate Wagner.


I have a suspicion their hatred of Wagner comes from a broader disdain of German(ic) culture and all that belongs to it. Wagner wanted Germans to rediscover their ancient literary heritage, these people abhor the very thought of such rediscovery. Hence the "Nazification" of Wagner. If they had been denied access to Bayreuth, these pathetic individuals would be raping Beethoven or Goethe or someone else.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

I don't see any issue with using archaic language in the Ring - it adds to the feel of the period in which the story takes place. And linked to that, how can we possibly criticize the man for inventing words? One of the greatest figures in English literature was William Shakespeare, and according to this website, no less than 1700 words can trace their creation to his plays. And English speakers can still appreciate his plays, to this day, spoken in the more archaic language of his period.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Bayreuth... the place is altogether tortured and very weird. I never did quite get over the weirdness of sitting in the same brutally uncomfortable wooden seats as Hitler and his fellow Nazi thugs. I can understand why they felt the need to take opera in a new direction to break from the past of the place but that has only made it even more tortured and weird. Now you have an overly serious place where people go only to be made disappointed and angry.

To attempt to analyze and discuss Castorf's Ring during intermission would be about as illuminating as discussing the aesthetics of human feces. "What was the meaning of Siegfried rescuing the wood-bird from the crocodile and kissing her in front of Brunnhilde?" Legitimizing such stupidity through literary overanalysis is beyond the talents of even the world's greatest bullshiters. 

And so aside from hushed complaining, people stand in mostly silence eating their bratwurst and sipping their wine, or perhaps reading the plaques of the "Silenced Voices" exhibit where one can read any number of depressing stories about mistreatment and eventual murder of Jewish performers in case the gloomy clouds hanging over the place are not quite grey enough already.

If you are a supremely introverted masochist, you might have a good time here. I would recommend all other Wagnerians to avoid the place otherwise.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

No doubt many of you will have read it but can I recommend 'The Wagner Clan' by Jonanthan Carr. Great story of the whole soap opera of the ghastly lot of them!


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I recommend 'The Wagner Clan' by Jonanthan Carr.


no, thanks, fed up already with book titles like that.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

I suspect they could stage the Ring with the cast of Sesame Street and they will still sell out Bayreuth. Do these atrocities cheapen the experience? I don't know. I don't like to revere such things. I've never been there - likely will never go. Not a high enough priority. But I'm not much of one for pilgrimages to shrines - which seems to be what going to Bayreuth is for many. The Wagnerian Mecca, where people can circle the Festspielhaus for 7 days and then pronounce themselves holy for the rest of their lives. I imagine I would react in a similar way to Couchie - knowing my butt was going numb exactly where some Nazi thug's butt went numb.

I think those running the show know exactly what they are doing by inviting controversial people to stage the Ring - controversy leads to media attention leads to butts in seats and money in coffers.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

sharik said:


> no, thanks, fed up already with book titles like that.


You can still like the music while admitting that it was one screwed up family. Maybe Richard himself wasn't a Nazi, but his descendants certainly were. No point in whitewashing that.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DrMike said:


> You can still like the music while admitting that it was one screwed up family. Maybe Richard himself wasn't a Nazi, but his descendants certainly were. No point in whitewashing that.


Guilt-by-Association fallacy, writ large on the marquee.

Is there "no point in whitewashing" the fact that Mark Chapman was a 'born again Christian,' who said that he shot John Lenin as a favor to Jesus Christ?

Jesus Christ answering for Mark Chapman is less fatuous than Wagner having to answer for other people's fanatical hatred.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> it was one screwed up family.


and how do we know?.. it takes personal acquaintance with one of them to see what's what.



DrMike said:


> Maybe Richard himself wasn't a Nazi, but his descendants certainly were. No point in whitewashing that.


but who are the judges?.. those who now do brainwashing in order to avoid 'whitewashing' hmm? Nazis are long gone, so why carry on with the witchhunt?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Guilt-by-Association fallacy, writ large on the marquee.
> 
> Is there "no point in whitewashing" the fact that Mark Chapman was a 'born again Christian,' who said that he shot John Lenin as a favor to Jesus Christ?
> 
> Jesus Christ answering for Mark Chapman is less fatuous than Wagner having to answer for other people's behavior.


I sure wish he had shot Lenin instead of John Lennon.

I guess it is about the freedom to enjoy Wagner without reservations vs. enjoying Wagner while all the time feeling guity about it: "Ah, I know he was a bad guy, but... but.. the music is too good, so I can listen to it once in a while... as long as I don't enjoy it _too_ much, can't I? " I say to hell with the guilt.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I sure wish he had shot Lenin instead of John Lennon.
> 
> I guess it is about the freedom to enjoy Wagner without reservations vs. enjoying Wagner while all the time feeling guity about it: "Ah, I know he was a bad guy, but... but.. the music is too good, so I can listen to it once in a while... as long as I don't enjoy it _too_ much, can't I? " I say to hell with the guilt.


My elbow is poised and my glass is raised to that one.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Guilt-by-Association fallacy, writ large on the marquee.
> 
> Is there "no point in whitewashing" the fact that Mark Chapman was a 'born again Christian,' who said that he shot John Lenin as a favor to Jesus Christ?
> 
> Jesus Christ answering for Mark Chapman is less fatuous than Wagner having to answer for other people's behavior.


Wow - you really put words in my mouth there. I never said Richard Wagner had to answer for other people's behavior. His family was what it was. No doubt it was flattering for those in his family to have so much attention heaped on them by someone as important as Adolf Hitler himself. In his day, Richard certainly enjoyed the patronage of Ludwig II. I'm sure that Wagner's anti-semitic writings impacted his family, and read that Cosima herself was also quite anti-semitic. I'm not saying that this triggered the Nazi movement - Lord knows there was already anti-semitism throughout Europe. But it certainly put the family in the right frame of mind to be persuaded by the type of racial purity language put out of Hitler and his ilk.

No, Richard Wagner doesn't have to answer for Hitler, or the Nazis. But to suggest that he bears no responsibility for his own family is rubbish. As a father, it matters a lot what I teach my children, and if they learn hate from me at an early stage, should I not bear some of the blame for their own hate later on?


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I sure wish he had shot Lenin instead of John Lennon.
> 
> I guess it is about the freedom to enjoy Wagner without reservations vs. enjoying Wagner while all the time feeling guity about it: "Ah, I know he was a bad guy, but... but.. the music is too good, so I can listen to it once in a while... as long as I don't enjoy it _too_ much, can't I? " I say to hell with the guilt.


You don't have to torment yourself for liking his music. His music wasn't what was bad. There is nothing that says that, if you like the music, you must love the composer. If anything, I enjoy Wagner's music in spite of Wagner - his personal life was horrific. But he wrote damn good music. I can separate the two. There is no reason anybody else shouldn't be able to. I don't know where we came up with this romantic notion that beautiful music could only be written by absolutely stellar people. Composers are still human, and subject to all the human failings.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I sure wish he had shot Lenin instead of John Lennon.


Fanya Kaplan beat him to that - but she wasn't quite successful.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2014)

sharik said:


> and how do we know?.. it takes personal acquaintance with one of them to see what's what.
> 
> but who are the judges?.. those who now do brainwashing in order to avoid 'whitewashing' hmm? Nazis are long gone, so why carry on with the witchhunt?


What do you mean who are the judges? Are you saying they weren't Nazis? That they didn't embrace Hitler and call him Uncle Wolf? That seems to be a part of the historical record. We aren't carrying on any kind of witch hunt - it is simply stating what happened. Obviously things have moved on if the family has been able to successfully revive Bayreuth and continuously sell out performances. Clearly they aren't really suffering from the sins of the past - so declaring some kind of witch hunt seems a bit absurd.

But if one were to write a history of Wagner's family, it seems rather ridiculous to leave out such a significant thing as the connections his descendants had with Adolf Hitler, one of the most, if not the most, infamous person of the 20th century. If my family had connections with Hitler, no doubt that would be known. That is a significant thing.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> No doubt it was flattering for those in his family to have so much attention heaped on them by someone as important as Adolf Hitler himself.


they just had no choice.



DrMike said:


> I'm sure that Wagner's anti-semitic writings impacted his family, and read that Cosima herself was also quite anti-semitic.


pretty much everyone was anti-semitic back in those days.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> What do you mean who are the judges? Are you saying they weren't Nazis? That they didn't embrace Hitler and call him Uncle Wolf?


right, like i said, a witchhunt...


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Imagine seeing a Wagner opera in Bayreuth and upon entering the venue being given a simple piece of card with just one question and three boxes printed on it:

Would you, the opera lover, prefer to see Wagner's operas staged:

traditionally, faithfully reproducing the mythological imagery of Wagner's original creations.

non-traditionally, to show that the plots can be adapted to more contemporary times.

no preference.

Please tick your chosen option and leave your cards in the ballot boxes near the exits.


If the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of a return to traditional staging would we actually see the venue's custodians responding to public opinion? Well, we can dream...


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

DrMike said:


> You don't have to torment yourself for liking his music.


Oh, but I don't.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Guilt-by-Association fallacy, writ large on the marquee.
> 
> Is there "no point in whitewashing" the fact that Mark Chapman was a 'born again Christian,' who said that he shot John Lenin as a favor to Jesus Christ?
> 
> Jesus Christ answering for Mark Chapman is less fatuous than Wagner having to answer for other people's fanatical hatred.


Yes, guilt by association! With Hitler himself!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

sharik said:


> they just had no choice.
> 
> pretty much everyone was anti-semitic back in those days.


of coursed they had a choice - like Bonhoeffer did!


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Oh, God help us, not this Nazi stuff again.
> 
> _Parsifal_ is not about Nazism. It is not about sending out any "strong message" about Hitler, about Jews, about Richard and Cosima, about the history of Bayreuth, or about cleansing any stage of anything. It is about human ignorance, error, willfulness, guilt, sanctimoniousness, depravity - and insight, courage, humility, compassion, struggle, and redemption. All this is expressed with extraordinary economy in the simplest, most archetypal symbols - so simple that they resonate with the greatest complexity in the soul of a listener who has not closed off his own primal emotions.
> 
> ...


Parsifal has nothing to do with Nazism - I didn't say that. The production included an attempt to try to detoxify Bayreuth - Bayreuth, the Festspielhaus, Wahnfried villa - that's part of the reason why the set was a representation of Wahnfried (both in the interior and exterior), and also the original Grail temple set of Parsifal, and for Act 3, the stage itself, by having the set be framed by a smaller version of the false proscenium arches that sit in the auditorium, as if you could see the view from on stage itself.

But that production also operated on a numerous other levels - I have mentioned one, but that was just one of many themes running through an extremely thought provoking, complex and clever production, and many of which you have mentioned.


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## Pimlicopiano (Oct 23, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Bayreuth... the place is altogether tortured and very weird. I never did quite get over the weirdness of sitting in the same brutally uncomfortable wooden seats as Hitler and his fellow Nazi thugs. I can understand why they felt the need to take opera in a new direction to break from the past of the place but that has only made it even more tortured and weird. Now you have an overly serious place where people go only to be made disappointed and angry.
> 
> To attempt to analyze and discuss Castorf's Ring during intermission would be about as illuminating as discussing the aesthetics of human feces. "What was the meaning of Siegfried rescuing the wood-bird from the crocodile and kissing her in front of Brunnhilde?" Legitimizing such stupidity through literary overanalysis is beyond the talents of even the world's greatest bullshiters.
> 
> ...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Does all of Europe have something against air conditioning, nice cold glasses of ice water, and basic human comfort in general, or is that just a German thing?

"Im hot, tired, and thirsty"
"Here's a 200 mL bottle of lukewarm water. Enjoy it over by the nice cool air of the A/C unit that doesn't exist".


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

^ I don't know about all of Europe, but Germans only get hot temperatures for a month or two a year, if at all, so they hardly need an A/C. Plus, they take sparing energy more seriously than North Americans.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Agreed.
> 
> So why does one feel impelled to it up in a music thread?


Same reason as you feel impelled to comment!


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Does all of Europe have something against air conditioning, nice cold glasses of ice water, and basic human comfort in general, or is that just a German thing?
> 
> "Im hot, tired, and thirsty"
> "Here's a 200 mL bottle of lukewarm water. Enjoy it over by the nice cool air of the A/C unit that doesn't exist".


That is so true. I lived in Southern Germany (Loerrach, Weingarten) for 6 months, including in the dead of summer. It got briefly into the upper 90's, low 100's for about a week. I lived in an apartment building on the ground floor, with one window, and when our washing machine was running, it got really hot. We would open the window and prop open our door to try and get some kind of a cross breeze. A little old lady came down and asked us to close the door - we were causing a draft in her apartment (Es zieht!) and causing her to have to turn on the heater!!!!!

I was also told by a German once that the best thing to do if you were hot was to drink some hot tea. That would cause me to sweat, and sweating was the body's natural mechanism to cool itself off.

Combine that with a general lack of armpit shaving and aversion to deodorant, and it isn't a pleasant place to visit in the summer.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Agreed.
> 
> So why does one feel impelled to it up in a music thread?


We are talking about Bayreuth, and the Wagner family, as well as the Nazi party, are fairly strongly linked to Bayreuth. Let's face it - it isn't like the latest absurd stagings of the Ring are the darkest marks on the history of that place. Still - it persists. That is a testament to how his music is able to transcend the composer.

I don't get the need to defend Wagner. It's not like anybody here has a personal connection to him. Why is it necessary to try and whitewash his history? He was a fairly despicable man who wrote some incredible music. Get over it and move on.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DrMike said:


> We are talking about Bayreuth, and the Wagner family, as well as the Nazi party, are fairly strongly linked to Bayreuth. Let's face it - it isn't like the latest absurd stagings of the Ring are the darkest marks on the history of that place. Still - it persists. That is a testament to how his music is able to transcend the composer.
> 
> I don't get the need to defend Wagner. It's not like anybody here has a personal connection to him. Why is it necessary to try and whitewash his history? He was a fairly despicable man who wrote some incredible music. Get over it and move on.


May I refer you to the extensive backlog of excellent Woodduck posts debunking the lies, legends, and cherished myths of Richard Wagner?

He answers _in extenso_.

Wagner had some repulsive anti-Semitic personal views (_aside_ and_ apart _from his operas), but nothing like Martin Luther.

Funny insn't it?-- how Luther isn't subject to the same critical scrutiny.

"I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later-once we hold power-Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible; and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing."

- Adolf Hitler, _Hitler's Speeches_, N. H. Baynes, ed., Oxford, 1942, p. 369.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

DrMike said:


> I don't get the need to defend Wagner. It's not like anybody here has a personal connection to him. Why is it necessary to try and whitewash his history? He was a fairly despicable man who wrote some incredible music. Get over it and move on.


People defend that which they love, it is only natural and normal. Personal connection? I sure do not have a blood relation to Wagner, but he and the things he stands for, have over the years pretty much become a part of me. I could not imagine my life without these things now. And how about those who show up in every single Wagner thread and turn it into a Nazi fest, get over it and move on first? Obviously they are not about to do it. Now, imagine a situation where a classical newbie who knows very little about music, comes to TC wanting to learn more. After some browsing he comes across the name Wagner... and sees page after page after page (some threads have grown to dozens of pages) about what a despicable person he was, how he cheated on his wife and his kids made friends with the Nazis - and all that without any opposition. What are the chances this imaginary classical newbie of ours will actually want to discover the entire glory of Wagner's music?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> People defend that which they love, it is only natural and normal. Personal connection? I sure do not have a blood relation to Wagner, but he and the things he stands for, have over the years pretty much become a part of me. I could not imagine my life without these things now. And how about those who show up in every single Wagner thread and turn it into a Nazi fest, get over it and move on first? Obviously they are not about to do it. Now, imagine a situation where a classical newbie who knows very little about music, comes to TC wanting to learn more. After some browsing he comes across the name Wagner... and sees page after page after page (some threads have grown to dozens of pages) about what a despicable person he was, how he cheated on his wife and his kids made friends with the Nazis - and all that without any opposition. What are the chances this imaginary classical newbie of ours will actually want to discover the entire glory of Wagner's music?


You're being sentimental. Beethoven behaved like a toe rag as well, Chopin was a virulent anti-semite. They just happen to write rater good music. One problem with Wagnerians is that they see Wagner as a great philosopher and his operas as somehow holding the secrets of life. They are nothing of the sort. They just contain some sublime music, written by a particularly nays little man who was a lousy philosopher and who often wrote stuff which veered from nonsense to downright objectionable. His family have been little better over the years so if you look on Bayreuth as some sort of shrine there will be a cataclysmic moral shortfall. If, however, you look on the operas as entertainment and the theatre as a theatre, you don't have to protest so much!


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> People defend that which they love, it is only natural and normal. Personal connection? I sure do not have a blood relation to Wagner, but he and the things he stands for, have over the years pretty much become a part of me. I could not imagine my life without these things now. And how about those who show up in every single Wagner thread and turn it into a Nazi fest, get over it and move on first? Obviously they are not about to do it. Now, imagine a situation where a classical newbie who knows very little about music, comes to TC wanting to learn more. After some browsing he comes across the name Wagner... and sees page after page after page (some threads have grown to dozens of pages) about what a despicable person he was, how he cheated on his wife and his kids made friends with the Nazis - and all that without any opposition. What are the chances this imaginary classical newbie of ours will actually want to discover the entire glory of Wagner's music?


Honestly, I don't think you need to worry about a dearth of interest in Wagner's works. A newbie is more than likely to be turned off of Wagner's works for many more reasons than simply his anti-semitism. I think the guy was a wretch, and read all the stuff about Nazis long before I purchased any music of his. Now I own the Ring, Parsifal, Lohengrin, Meistersinger, Tannhauser, and Tristan.

The problem here is making him into something he isn't. He is no great moralist or philosopher. He was a composer. He took the Nibelungenlied and turned it into something not very recognizable when comparing it to the original legend. He wrote some wonderful music. He wrote some stupid things about Jews. He slept with another man's wife. He ran up debts and then ran out on them. He revolutionized opera. He convinced a King to help build his dream opera house in which his operas could be performed in perpetuity, which is repeatedly sold out even when the performances are mediocre. His children and grandchildren seemed to have inherited some of his biases against Jews. Some of them became very friendly with Adolf Hitler, and survived through WWII through that connection and the support of the Nazi party. Jews that worked at Bayreuth were treated harshly - but in this they are no more or less guilty than the rest of Germany. Since then, the family managed to get Bayreuth back up and running and it is still a shrine to lover's of Wagner's operas.

Wagner was not Nietzsche's superman. He was a deeply flawed, extremely brilliant composer. Pretending he was more than that requires a near religious infatuation with the man. When you elevate someone to that high of a pedestal, it is natural that the flaws become all the more glaring.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DrMike said:


> He was a composer. He took the Nibelungenlied and turned it into something not very recognizable when comparing it to the original legend. He wrote some wonderful music..


The Ring Cycle is based on The Edda, The Völsungasaga and Nibelungenlied.
Regarding similarities I would say Sigfried and Götterdämmerung are most similar to the Edda with some differences. While Das Rheingold and Die Walküre are not that similar.

I can say that I don´t like Wagner's changes but at least he made the legends come to life in a way that no other have done.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

DrMike said:


> Wagner was not Nietzsche's superman. He was a deeply flawed, extremely brilliant composer. Pretending he was more than that requires a near religious infatuation with the man. When you elevate someone to that high of a pedestal, it is natural that the flaws become all the more glaring.


I know he was flawed, everybody is, but the flaws have never kept me from appreciating the greatness. As for infatuation... I would surely love to meet the man if that was possible. We would find a lot of things to talk about. I am going to Bavaria soon, to Neuschwanstein and Nürnberg and the Alps... who knows, maybe I will get to see his ghost walking among the mountains 

By the way, I had read about him having some sort of connection to the Nazis before I ever heard his music. Except that by the time I came to love it I knew that not everybody who for some reason gets called a Nazi is actually one.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> The problem here is making him into something he isn't. He is no great moralist or philosopher. He was a composer.


had he been only a composer, he would have gotten whitewashed like, say, Shostakovitch; but Wagner was also a visionary, philosopher and ideologists, going way beyond music borders.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

sharik said:


> had he been only a composer, he would have gotten whitewashed like, say, Shostakovitch; but Wagner was also a visionary, philosopher and ideologists, going way beyond music borders.


I would say it differently. Had he published diatribes against some other nation or ethnic group instead of the Jews, that fact would have been pretty much forgotten by now. He crossed the wrong people.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I think some people are in awe of him because his works seem superhuman.
At least they do to me. And so beautiful and creative.
Every time I listen to the Ring, I hear something new and extraordinary.
Musically and psychologically.
From Dutchman to Parsifal, what he did fills me with awe.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I would say it differently. Had he published diatribes against some other nation or ethnic group instead of the Jews, that fact would have been pretty much forgotten by now. He crossed the wrong people.


So who were the 'right' people for him to cross?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

sharik said:


> had he been only a composer, he would have gotten whitewashed like, say, Shostakovitch; but Wagner was also a visionary, philosopher and ideologists, going way beyond music borders.


Oh come off it! You have been deceived by the power of the music. As a philosopher he was a non-starter!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

sharik said:


> because Wagner was indeed a prophet. Der Ring tells us about technoloigies of the Apocalypse; among other things, it predicts the events of the 20th century, like, destruction of empires, for example.


Wagner just observed what goes on in any era. He was not a prophet - he just adapted stories that were already about.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Oh come off it! You have been deceived by the power of the music. As a philosopher he was a non-starter!


I think there's more going on psychologically in his works, by far, than any other.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

sharik said:


> okay, let the Jews sort him out. Wagner is banned from Israel; isn't that enough?.. why the rest of the world should be a hostage of the enmity between Jews and Wagner?
> .


No-one is saying that. Just that this crazed worship of Wagner the man is incomprehensible!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> I think there's more going on psychologically in his works, by far, than any other.


I just don't see this. I see far more in (e.g.) Verdi and Mozart. Both leave Wagner at the starting gate!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> I just don't see this. I see far more in (e.g.) Verdi and Mozart. Both leave Wagner at the starting gate!


I know you don't. that's cool.
but who's works have the books been written about?


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

Itullian said:


> I know you don't. that's cool.
> but who's works have the books been written about?


Mahler - the greatest of the greats!!! All hail Mahler. He needed no specific music hall to monopolistically champion his works. His music incorporated the world, and it is to him all must bend the knee!


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DavidA said:


> this crazed worship of Wagner the man is incomprehensible!


i for one do not worship him as a person, i only worship his works.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Itullian said:


> hmmm,
> the Wagner haters and Christian haters are out I see. :tiphat:


How does one hate something that is both imaginary and mythical? -- Wagner aside, that is.

Speaking for myself, I see more than a few people that have a problem with reason and reality.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> That was 1923, 10 years before Hitler became Chancellor.


yep, ten years before the Nazis have committed any crime; later the Wagners might have changed their minds, but it was already too late.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

sharik said:


> yep, ten years before the Nazis have committed any crime; later the Wagners might have changed their minds, but it was already too late.


Really? You have evidence of this? What about the 1924 Bayreuth Festival, which was a big Nazi party? Which took place AFTER the Beerhall Putsch? After evidence of Nazi criminality?

Yes, they changed their minds after the Nazis lost. Better late than never, I suppose.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I have been on this forum long enough to have participated in a number of discussions and debates about Wagner, his works, and his personal behavior and character. Impatient with the stereotypes and generalizations which depict him as a cardboard cutout and caricature, I would like to say here that Wagner was a human being of incredible genius whose emotional makeup was intense and volatile, whose mind was in a constant state of productive turmoil, who imagined unimaginable things unceasingly throughout a lifetime of seventy years, who never allowed even the most difficult of circumstances to stop him in his efforts to realize his visions, and who was able to establish himself as a musical and cultural force second to none by dint of an expenditure of energy that would have exhausted most people by the age of thirty. By all reports he was also - not surprisingly - a fascinating person to know, spend time with, and converse with, in addition to being fond of laughing loudly, standing on his head, and climbing trees when the spirit moved him.

He also disliked the Jewish religion, believed that it prevented Jews from fully understanding and participating in the European cultures in which they lived, recommended that they convert from it, and wrote a famous essay saying these things. He also had an affair with a married woman, who then married him, and wore silk undergarments, which apparently helped him compose. 

These sentences do not exhaust the characteristics of a brilliant, foolish, wise, contemptible, admirable, altogether fascinating man. They don't even come close. And if they don't, how much farther from doing him justice are the usual simplistic epithets with which he is typically dismissed by those with axes to grind? I, for one, get very, very tired of them and the incessant repetition of them.

Perspective. Context. Honesty. Wagner often lacked these things, blinded by the phantoms of his own overactive imagination. We don't have to sacrifice them when we talk about him.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You wait 10 years for tickets to Wagner's holy shrine and the curtain goes up, your heart is racing and...and...

same old Eurotrash, with Wotan dressed like Bugsy Siegel!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> You wait 10 years for tickets to Wagner's holy shrine and the curtain goes up, your heart is racing and...and...
> 
> same old Eurotrash, with Wotan dressed like Bugsy Siegel!


It could be worse: It could be Harvey Fierstein in blue eyeshadow.

-- not that I object to blue eyeshadow.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2014)

hpowders said:


> You wait 10 years for tickets to Wagner's holy shrine and the curtain goes up, your heart is racing and...and...
> 
> same old Eurotrash, with Wotan dressed like Bugsy Siegel!


It is for this reason, above any other, that I would argue they should not veer off into bizarre productions. For those people who wait so long to see a Wagner opera in Bayreuth, give them what they are hoping for.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I see were getting way off track here.
> 
> Hitler didn't call _Parsifal_ or _The Origin of the Species _"his Bible"; he did however call Christian eugenicist and proto-Nazi Madison Grant's book _The Passing of the Great Race_, "his Bible."
> 
> Infer from the facts what you will.


You apply the word Christian in a fashion that defies logic!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Rational people can't be Christians?


The most irrational of all follies is atheism!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Rational people can't be Christians?


Of course not.

Ron Paul's a Christian and supremely rational; but that doesn't mean his faith-based, personal_ religious _views are rational--- any more than, say, Newton's belief in astrology is rational.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Exactly! If Christianity is imaginary then why do atheists spend so much time and energy hating it?


Can you say "projection"?

Go ahead, say it.

What are you a-Freud of?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> It is for this reason, above any other, that I would argue they should not veer off into bizarre productions. For those people who wait so long to see a Wagner opera in Bayreuth, give them what they are hoping for.


That was my point!

Bayreuth should be the sanctuary for traditional productions!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Methinks the lady doth protest too much - here as elsewhere!


"Pay no attention to that Darling Diva with the huge platforms looking behind the curtain!"


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> The most irrational of all follies is atheism!


Next to man being made from dirt.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> You apply the word Christian in a fashion that defies logic!


What logic do you think you_ have_?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

A friendly reminder that religion with no relation to music is not a topic for the forum but rather for the groups. Please discuss Bayreuth, Wagner, and operas here.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Reply deleted in respect for the moderator.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Re. traditional productions, which one is traditional?

This one?








(Wieland Wagner, 1951)

or maybe this one?








(Patrice Chereau, 1976)

Or this one?








(Harry Kupfer 1990)

Possibly this one:








Which is not from Bayreuth...

IMO (and I am not the only one) the Bayreuth productions mentioned above are among the greatest achievements in the opera staging history. Incidentally, they were all booed by the so-called "traditionalists" when staged for the first time....

Personally I am very glad that there are still many "Eurotrash" productions in Bayreuth (some magnificent, some good, some so-and-so, some awful) and that the Green Hill is not a Lord-of-the-Ring/Hollywood set. Hope this could last for a long time...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

GioCar said:


> Re. traditional productions, which one is traditional?
> 
> This one?
> 
> ...


It appears Wieland Wagner realised his grandfather's impossible stage demands could not be met so set the operas where the action is often suggested rather than actually performed. he preferred the static to the dynamic and relied on lighting rather than action. Just what he would have done if modern technology and been available is anyone's guess! Just to say that he was faithful to his grandfather's concept in spirit if not in letter which is more than can be said for some of the daft post-Wieland productions. Just a pity his productions were not filmed in colour. the b&w film we have doesn't really give the full picture.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

I was very lucky to see the last Wieland production at Bayreuth - Parsifal in 1973. His brother Wolfgang slowly eradicated all of the productions by Wieland until by 1974, all were gone. 
Wieland was always considered the production genius of the two, Wolfgang was the administrative powerhouse who was very envious of Wieland's successes. Consequently he demanded to produce also and it has always been considered that his efforts were very derivative of Wieland and poorer by comparison.
All future influence on the Festival has come from only one half of the family - Wolfgang's! Wieland's children have never been allowed to impart any kind of input in the festivals since Wieland died in 1966. In fact his family were virtually thrown out of Wahnfried shortly after his death.
Wolfgang's lack of production ideas (his two Ring cycles 1960 and 1970 were almost identical) led to him bringing in outside producers. This has now become the norm rather than the exception and was carried on by his second wife, and now the daughters. I will tactfully pass over the horrendous Meistersinger production of recent years by Katherina.
The Board/Committee which oversees the festival on behalf of the German National and Bavarian Regional governments had the chance this year to change the leadership and direction of the festival, and botched the job. The present Festival regime will continue so there will not be any noticeable change in Wagnerian production style in the near future.
Eurotrash sells tickets - guarantees at least a scandal which is enough to continue sold out houses. So why should they bother to listen to us.
The only sop to our criticism was the cancellation of Tannhäuser a year earlier than planned. Wow! excuse me for not being overwhelmed.
I wrote to the Festival Administration suggesting that every three years they should revive one of the great productions of the
past with a similarly minded director engaged to direct the actors.
This, of course, brought no reaction at all.
I come back to my original point way back at the beginning of this thread, BEFORE IT WAS HI-JACKED, that until the musical side of the festival is improved, no amount of production skill will help to off-set the imbalance between sight and sound.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

apart from the Wagners there also must be some institution in Germany like the ministry of culture or alike; can't they correct that what is going on at Bayreuth and set things right at last?


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

They tried, but there is no consensus as to who would take over if the two Ladies were ousted. Typical of committees where there are two many disparaging influences. 
The Festival can't make any more money than they are making at the moment, so why change things? 
As I said - a Scandal is a sure fire way of making a new production successful. Everyone wants a ticket! However by the third year of the production when everyone has calmed down a bit, we can see just how pathetic most of these productions are.
The recent Herheim production of Parsifal that was considered such an innovative move forward was spoiled completely by poor casting. 

In 1956 Wieland Wagner produced his then infamous "Die Meistersinger Ohne Nürnberg" - the Mastersingers without Nürnberg - because his then revolutionary set design only hinted at the traditional scenery. It was thoroughly disliked by most of the
audiences and Wieland changed the sets bit by bit over the following 5 years from 1957 to 1961. By which time it had taken on a more conventional form. However everyone of those Meistersinger performances from 1956 to 1961 has cast lists that would
be almost candidates for the Dream Cast Thread.
That is what is missing these days - the audiences can take the crap foisted on them visually, as long as the musical side is up to the standards of performance expected at a festival.
Experimental productions are bad enough, but experimental casts as well, and at Festival prices are just too much for most to bear.
The top Wagnerian singers won't go to Bayreuth because the pay is too little and work too much. 
The Bayreuth audience has changed radically over the last 20 years or so. Mainly taken up with the "We were at Bayreuth and Salzburg of course...." crowd, the old faithfuls have dwindled away to almost nothing.
The Wagnerites who dream of finally getting tickets are so dreadfully disappointed by the experience that they don't return.

I don't see anything much changing there until the direction of the festival is put into different hands.
I certainly won't ever go back.
I listen to every broadcast every year and watch, with disgust mainly, whenever one of the productions is televised, so I am certainly up to par on the musical standards there at present.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Pip said:


> The Festival can't make any more money than they are making at the moment, so why change things?


it is hardly money that the Fest has ever been concerned with; most likely it's never been short in sponsors money; but who and what is behind those sponsors - what interests and what agenda, thats another matter completely...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> It is for this reason, above any other, that I would argue they should not veer off into bizarre productions. For those people who wait so long to see a Wagner opera in Bayreuth, give them what they are hoping for.


Yes. One can easily get one's Eurotrash fix in the "great" opera centers of Paris, Berlin, Vienna and New York. Bayreuth should be above that.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

expat said:


> But half the beauty of the Ring come from the overly pompous language. One of my favourites from Siegfried:"Des ist deine Wildheit schuld, die du, Böser, bänd'gen sollst".


My favorite for all time: Siegfried: "Das ist kein Mann!!"

Cracks me up every time!

If folks in the US heard this done in English, they would be howling with laughter!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

hpowders said:


> My favorite for all time: Siegfried: "Das ist kein Mann!!"
> 
> Cracks me up every time!
> 
> If folks in the US heard this done in English, they would be howling with laughter!


Oh yes! One of the highlights of the Ring. Wonder if Wagner knew it was funny?


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Yes. One can easily get one's Eurotrash fix in the "great" opera centers of Paris, Berlin, Vienna and New York. Bayreuth should be above that.


Why would you expect it to be motivated any differently than anyplace else?

As long as they keep selling out, and requests for tickets continue unabated, there is ZERO motivation for them to diverge at all from present practices.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

hpowders said:


> My favorite for all time: Siegfried: "Das ist kein Mann!!"
> 
> Cracks me up every time!
> 
> If folks in the US heard this done in English, they would be howling with laughter!


The whole scene were Sigfried is waking up Brünnhilde is one of the finest in the whole Ring Cycle and I can´t see anything funny with that scene.
It is also one of the parts of the Ring Cycle that is most similar to The Poetic Edda.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Sloe said:


> The whole scene were Sigfried is waking up Brünnhilde is one of the finest in the whole Ring Cycle and I can´t see anything funny with that scene.


Oh come on! Show a bit of humour! I've even heard an audience titter when the idiot says that!


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Oh come on! Show a bit of humour! I've even heard an audience titter when the idiot says that!


When Siegfried sings "Dass ist kein mann" or "That is no man" usually there is a very well built or endowed soprano lying on stage making it amusing to hear the idiot stating the obvious. It is quite normal to smirk or even titter.
I remember getting a serious dig in the ribs from an elderly lady sitting next to me during a performance of Siegfried at the Dortmund opera house in 1980 at the premiere of the then new Ring cycle - the production was quite normal and traditional until the appearance of the most ridiculous pantomime dragon I have ever seen, when I burst out laughing - It would have graced the Sesame Street TV series very well. The lady was not amused.
Germans have no humour except slapstick or schadenfreude. The sense of the ridiculous is beyond most of them.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Pip said:


> When Siegfried sings "Dass ist kein mann" or "That is no man" usually there is a very well built or endowed soprano lying on stage making it amusing to hear the idiot stating the obvious. It is quite normal to smirk or even titter.


one so easily prone to giggles must be having hard time with life... for instance, you see a rock concert where some grown-up men on stage have to shake them booty in front of the stadium full of teenagers; that's when a laugh can do you in.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GioCar said:


> Personally I am very glad that there are still many "Eurotrash" productions in Bayreuth (some magnificent, some good, some so-and-so, some awful) and that the Green Hill is not a Lord-of-the-Ring/Hollywood set. Hope this could last for a long time...


Leaving aside the question of what a magnificent Eurotrash production could possibly be (doesn't the word "trash" tend to rule out magnificence?), I would say you've exemplified the problem brilliantly: the only alternatives you recognize are Eurotrash and Hollywood. Are those really the only possibilities? I think Wieland Wagner would have had something to say about that. Pity he's no longer around.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Leaving aside the question of what a magnificent Eurotrash production could possibly be (doesn't the word "trash" tend to rule out magnificence?), I would say you've exemplified the problem brilliantly: the only alternatives you recognize are Eurotrash and Hollywood. Are those really the only possibilities? I think Wieland Wagner would have had something to say about that. Pity he's no longer around.


_One Ring to fool them all, One Ring to bind them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness spite them_

I think these Eurotrash and American post-modern-nihilist directors must laugh at the audiences that come to their "productions."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> _One Ring to fool them all, One Ring to bind them,
> One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness spite them_
> 
> I think these Eurotrash and American post-modern-nihilist directors must laugh at the audiences that come to their "productions."


I t hunk they're too busy trying to kid themselves their work is serious,


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I t hunk they're too busy trying to kid themselves their work is serious,


I don't get that feeling at all. I think that they're just nihilists and conmen who get a pathological pleasure in making beautiful things ugly.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Leaving aside the question of what a magnificent Eurotrash production could possibly be (doesn't the word "trash" tend to rule out magnificence?), I would say you've exemplified the problem brilliantly: the only alternatives you recognize are Eurotrash and Hollywood. Are those really the only possibilities? I think Wieland Wagner would have had something to say about that. Pity he's no longer around.


There is a reason why it is called Eurotrash since nearly every operatic production in Europe is in this way and the operas by Richard Wagner are in the worst situation. There is really no other alternative. That is why these productions can sell tickets.


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## Ebab (Mar 9, 2013)

I really must laugh at myself, thinking that of all threads, this one pulls me out of retirement. Aren't there any more beautiful and worthy issues around? But here I go …

Bratwurst supposedly with champagne, missing ice cubes or air conditioning; I think that's just travelers out of their comfort zone, which happens all the time everywhere; no big deal.

Personally, I've experienced Bayreuth (and I was perfectly ready to hate it, and find myself in the _most bizarre_ position now defending it) surprisingly summery-relaxed, in some regards quite the place that it was - at the time innovatively - intended: an improvised theater in the green, but with sensationally perfect acoustics, with a good view from every seat (towards the stage!, not the other booths). A couple of people in the audience may be there to make a show of themselves, particularly on the opening date, but most are there just to experience the performance, and maybe have a nice chat. I find people are effortlessly _enjoying_ themselves at Bayreuth, and I've joined them pragmatically eating food (and yes, guilty, drinking champagne!) out of their cars' trunks in the parking lots. Very down to the point, which is Wagner, with very little pretenses whatsoever.

And since some visitors mentioned it in an unfavorable way: Yes, there's an outdoor exhibition readily accessible, documenting the fates of Bayreuth performers who were banned under the Nazi regime, forced to stop performing, or (particularly those of Jewish origin) forced to go into exile or were put into camps, where they suffered or perished.

How is this exhibition a bad thing? It's there for those who are ready to make contact, but it's easy to ignore for those who chose to ignore it at the particular time (maybe store the fact, and revisit the idea at another time). It's an offer.

There is _Wagner_, and there is a _history of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus_ and the _Wagner family_ which is _doubtlessly_ connected to the Nazi regime. The two are certainly connected. _However, Richard Wagner died in 1883._ Cosima ruled for another 50 years; she had valid artistic opinions, she meant well, was forceful but artistically timid, and her all-too-long regime turned the place from avant-garde into a mediocre house of wax. Furthermore, she allowed her house to be ideologically dominated by one of the most influential racists of the time, her son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain. The eventual wife of her bi- or homosexual son Siegfried, the resourceful Winifred Wagner neé Williams, powerfully and successfully innovated the place, and she was a great admirer of (what she gathered as) the Nazi ideology, and stricken with the person of Adolf Hitler. Her support for Hitler and the Nazis was crucial in the process of their rise; she was successful in opening a lot of doors, especially to financing. By 1940 at the latest though, Winifred's hopes for a connection with "Onkel Wolf" all had been destroyed, and after WWII, she was forced to abdicate her reign over Bayreuth.

So far the history, which I find very interesting and revealing, even a model to learn from. But once again, _Richard Wagner died in 1883_. He was a vile Anti-Semite, even for his own time, on print. Then, he employed artists of Jewish origin even in capacities that were most crucial to his performances.

_What Richard Wagner would have or not have approved of in subsequent developments is entirely speculation._


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

We seem to have strayed very far off the OT, and the thread is being derailed. 

If members wish to directly discuss anti-semetism and the like, kindly do so within a Social Group.

If the thread continues in the current fashion, it will be closed down.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

*DrMike*, I think I owe you an apology, for this and another discussion of ours. I really should not have lashed out like that.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Oh come on! Show a bit of humour! I've even heard an audience titter when the idiot says that!


Yeah. Exactly. Whenever I've seen Götterdämmerung, there are ALWAYS people laughing at that line.

Siegfried needed to get out a bit more, I guess.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Oh come on! Show a bit of humour! I've even heard an audience titter when the idiot says that!


Sorry I don´t think it is funny.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Are any from the Wagner family still in executive positions at Bayreuth or are they all "long gone"? I would find it hard to believe that Wagner's relatives would have any role in staging the Eurotrash productions.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

This thread is closed, as despite the message from Krummhorn above, the off-topic discussion resumed. Off topic comments have been deleted.

Perhaps one day we can discuss Wagner without going off on a tangent into politics. Here's hoping.


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