Founded in 1876 by Richard Wagner, the annual Bayreuth Festival continues to attract to the “green hill” (“sacred” for the most devoted) the passionate and sometimes even fanatical fans of Wagner—the wait for a spot is a global average of ten years! The composer’s ten “mature” operas are performed every summer in Bayreuth’s Festspielhaus in Bavaria, a theater designed by Wagner himself for the performance of his Gesamtkunstwerke (“total works of art”). Neither the long wait or the repetitiveness of the repertoire could scare away Wagnerophiles. Au contraire, the music’s complexity and the librettos’ philosophical richness never cease to inspire the creativity of stage directors of the first rank like Katharina Wagner, the great-granddaughter of the composer and director of the Festival since 2015.
In this playlist, Wagnerian marvels at the Festspielhaus are close at hand! Experience some of the most innovative and anticipated productions of the festival’s operas: Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Parsifal, as well as interviews with important musicians like the great conductor Daniel Barenboim and the composers’ grandsons, Wieland Wagner and Wolfgang Wagner, two former Festival directors.
