Flying down to Bayreuth
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.
bayreuth
Murder ink
Evgeny Nikitin has withdrawn from the Bayreuth Festival’s new production of Der Fliegende Holländer after a German television program revealed the bass-baritone has a swastika tattoo.
Rodent show
This Hans Neuenfels staging for the Bayreuth Festival caused quite a stir at its 2010 premiere, but now, with time and distance, how radical is the production?
Game changer
“Pathos and the high tone is not his thing,” helpfully explains Google Translate in reference to “Provokateur” Frank Castorf, who has been selected to direct the Ring at Bayreuth in 2013, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth. [Berliner Morgenpost]
Regie, redeemed
Stefan Herheim’s production of Parsifal for Bayreuth is the regie Holy Grail—a production that completely fulfills the promise and purpose of Regietheater.
Sacred and Propane
Fertilization; birth; growth; decay. Eating; digestion; defecation; fermentation; biogas recovery; food production. Wagner’s Tannhäuser is a meditation on the relentless, repetition of cycles that define our existence and man’s insistence on the possibility salvation despite all the biochemical evidence to the contrary.
“Treulosem Rat gab sie ihr Herz dahin!”
La Cieca (not pictured) dons her “early adopter” hat once again as she prepares to watch the live telecast of Lohengrin from the Bayreuth Festival on Sunday. It’s an online pay-per-view event (a ticket is €14.90), though the presenters promise it can alternatively be watched “on demand at a time of your own choice between […]
Ring commitment?
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke is the frontrunner to direct the 2013 Bayreuth Ring, Handelsblatt reports. (If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Haneke was announced to direct Cosi fan tutte at NYCO during the 2012 season projected by Gerard Mortier.) Dark horses for the prestigious Green Hill gig include Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck […]
Cher public to Bayreuth: Calixto or else!
You have spoken, parterrriani, and your message is loud and clear: Calixto Bieito should be tapped to direct the 2013 Bayreuth production of Der Ring des Nibelungen (seen here in artist’s conception.)
Put a Ring on it
And so Wim Wenders will not be directing the bicentennial Bayreuth Ring cycle in 2013, in 3D or any other kind of D. In that case, who should be chosen to wrap his or her Regie around this massively high-profile project? There’s a poll right after the jump. [Stern]
Day for knight
The premiere of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival (starring, of course, Jonas Kaufmann) has just started. You can listen to the live broadcast here.
Entry of the God into Valhalla
A new CD set of Der Ring des Nibelungen, recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival in 2008, is slim on superstar casting, but basks in the reflected glory of conductor Christian Thielemann, a controversial artist with a passionate following. So how does the music measure up?
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
