The production by Sebastian Baumgarten is the type of regietheater that’s not a rethinking or reconstruction, but just a hot mess.
There is no snow in Bayreuth. There is no rain in Oberfranken.
In an unprecedented move, the Bayreuth Festival has named conductor Christian Thielemann official “Music Director.”
The Bayreuth Festival has decided to walk away from a new Parsifal production directed by Jonathan Meese for 2016 because the budget has spiraled out of control. Andris Nelsons is still on board to conduct.
Maestro Christian Thielemann has made his choice for Lohengrin casting in Dresden and, later, Bayreuth: “Anna Netrebko als Elsa und Piotr Beczala in der Titelpartie.”
Meet Tobias Kratzer (left) who is scheduled to direct Tannhäuser for Bayreuth in 2019.
Oddly enough, Eva Marton‘s interpretation of the Kostelnicka (pictured) goes unmentioned in Issue #38.
Our Own JJ has been thinking about Bayreuth some more, this time in the pages of Musical America.
If Frank Castorf‘s work on Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth accomplishes nothing else, it should serve as a sort of loud disorganized reminder of the dangers of indulging in the intentional fallacy.
Mark your calendars and set your alarm clocks, cher public, for 13 October 2013 at 18:00 CEST (that is, 2:00 PM in New York City) when individual tickets for the 2014 Bayreuth Festival will go on sale online.
All right, I admit it; I finally broke down and read the program notes for the Ring in the Bayreuth program book.
I’m told that the public were, if hardly enthusiastic, at least ambivalent toward the Frank Castorf Ring up until the first performance of Siegfried, at which point things got really ugly and the booing started in earnest.
First things first: working from the limited evidence of half or less than half of Frank Castorf’s production of the Ring, I don’t see any evidence of contempt for the audience or whatever you want to call it.
There are some productions that “introduce” themselves quite clearly early on: for example, the Patrice Chereau Ring puts it cards on the table very frankly with the image of the hydroelectric dam populated by grisette Rhinedaughters.
Our Own JJ (right) reports he is ready and relatively un-jetlagged for Das Rheingold tonight at Bayreuth. He'll have comments afterward.
If the Frank Castorf production of the Ring at Bayreuth accomplished nothing else, it will be the popularization in classical music circles of the term “boovation.”
Opening the 2013 Bayreuth Festival today, Der Fliegende Holländer conducted by Christian Thielemann (not pictured).
Revealed: first images of Frank Castorf‘s production of the Ring, launching Friday at Bayreuth.
The complete recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Christian Thielemann at the Bayreuth Festival is now on sale
for only $5.99. And, no, I am not making this up.
Our JJ’s recent reminiscences over at WQXR about the whopping cost of a Ring recording back in the Mad Men era seemed all the more startling to La Cieca when she took a gander at a “new” live Ring offered by our friends at Opera Depot.
Our Own JJ (not pictured) just came running into the parterre offices wild-eyed with excitement.
The Bayreuth Festival is trying something new and outreachy this season.
Zachary Woolfe (not pictured) makes his way to Bayreuth to try to unravel the Evgeny Nikitin mystery.
The opening performance of the already-notorious 2012 Bayreuth Festival, Der Fliegende Holländer, begins at noon today EDT and is relayed on a number of web-available radio stations.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
