Bayreuth, by gosh (from your correspondent in Bamberg)

[jbuck919]

I almost put this on the concert review board with the title 4'33'' in Bayreuth (meaning of course that I did not get to hear anything there).

Yes, I finally made the 30-mile drive due east and toured both the opera houses there. It took the prompting of a friend to get me to do it. (Then she insisted that we eat at a Mexican restaurant which gave me indigestion for the first time in 20 years.)

They only let you into the Festspielhaus at the times of the guided tours, which are in German (thankfully the tour guide was not from Bavaria). They do take you to the orchestra pit and the stage, which is astonishingly narrow but very deep. Afterward, the very kind tour guide took my friend and me back to the parking garage in her own car.

If I ever want to see anything there, I'm probably going to have to wait until I retire and then buy an expensive tour that includes tickets. Which, of course, I never will do.

[Ralph]

What's the gift shop like? T-shirts with Wagner's caricature? A Wagner boboble head figure?

[karlhenning]

What's the gift shop like?

My grandparents went to Bayreuth, and all I got was this lousy anti-French tract

[Werner]

A Mexican restaurant in Bayreuth? There's globalization for you!

Anyway, I'm glad you made it there - I seem to remember suggesting it to you when you first moved to Bamberg. Did you see anything else thre - such as the beautiful old Markgräfische Opernhaus? Or Richard and Cosima's grave? (Do they let you out of there without seeing that?)

[karlhenning]

Or Richard and Cosima's grave? (Do they let you out of there without seeing that?)

Only after the landscapers have performed the annual smoothing out of the imprint of hobnailed boots ....

Cheers,
~Karl

[Ralph]

I bet they do a Lebensraum Office business in Wagner CDs!

[jbuck919]

To answer two questions, there is no gift shop (I'm not kidding), and yes, we saw the "other" opera house. I checked their concert schedule when I first got here and was quite disappointed. You'd think one the the last remaining 18th century theatres would have all sorts of things going on. (It was also overpriced with admission just to see it with a dubious sound and light show five Euro, compared to two for the Festspielhaus).

On the tour, the guide ran down a list of great conductors who have "done" Bayreuth. She pointed out that the one conductor missing from the list whom everyone would expect to find there was Bernstein, because he demanded too much rehearsal time. She thought this significant enough to repeat later on.

Another interesting fact that I didn't know is that everyone works for Bayreuth on the cheap. They actually still sell some tickets (if you can get them at all) for 25 Euro.

[Ralph]

Did Levine conduct at Bayreuth?

[jbuck919]

Did Levine conduct at Bayreuth?

Oh yeah. He's been a regular for a while now. I vaguely remember hearing that Parsifal is his specialty.

I also discovered that this is a "Ringless" year. It seems that productions of the Ring last five years and then are retired. They then take a year off while the new production is being prepared.

I was also told that Wagner's great-granddaughters, Wolfgang Wagner's daughters (one is 60 and the other is 30!) are being groomed to take over artistic direction. The Festspiel is now a private trust, but there is a clause in its charter that preference will be given to direct descendents of Wagner for as long as possible.

For acoustical reasons, the orchestra sits "backwards" with the violins on the right.