Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival.
Wagner divides opinion. Even amongst opera lovers there are those who cannot abide his works, whilst others elevate him to almost God-like status. What cannot be denied is that Wagner totally reinvented the opera form and helped steer Western classical music into completely new territory. Belonging firmly in the Romantic tradition of the mid-nineteenth century Wagner, along with other figures such as Liszt, imagined a new ‘total’ art form which shunned all the old conventions. Without Wagner it is hard to imagine the later development of, for example, Mahler and Schoenberg.
He had his detractors from the start. Clara Schumann, who spent her life championing the work of Brahms, went to a performance of Lohengrin and reported, ‘I could see only too well how such an opera succeeds…. The whole thing is full of romanticism and thrilling situations, so much so indeed that even the musician himself at times forgets the horrible music. Nevertheless, on the whole, I like Lohengrin better than I do Tannhaüser, in which Wagner goes through the whole gamut of abominations.’ However Brahms, younger by twenty years and the most classically-orientated composer of the period, was not so vehement, retaining a healthy respect for his rival’s works.
Talk to anyone with a casual acquaintance with Wagner and they might assert that the works are long and ‘heavy’. Long they certainly are, with many of the operas lasting around four hours. But the heaviness epithet applies only in comparison to the opera conventions established by figures such as Mozart, Donizetti and Rossini. In their kind of opera soloists sing solos, duets sing duets and choruses sing choruses, and it is perfectly normal for the action to be halted as the audience breaks into applause for what they have just heard. Often a particular aria is viewed as a showcase for the leading tenor or prima donna soprano. With Wagner the vocal lines are inextricably woven into the overall fabric of the music which never breaks until the end of an act. It is, perhaps, better to think of his works as huge plays embedded within music. Indeed Wagner coined the phrase ‘music-drama’ as a more apt description of what he was trying to achieve.
As for the music, it has the ability to overwhelm the listener with power and emotion. Who has not been swept along by The Ride of the Valkyries? How can you suppress a tear on hearing Tristan and Isolde’s love duet? Listen to the Preludes to The Mastersingers or Tannhaüser and Wagner carries you along in almost cinematic fashion. The young Maurice Ravel, who cannot for a moment be thought of as a Wagnerian composer, was observed by a friend to be trembling convulsively and crying like a child during the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde. He explained, ‘That’s how it always is, every time I hear it.’
Why is the music so different from that which went before? One reason is that Wagner was at the forefront of exploring new sonorities. In his quest to break from established forms he developed a chromatic approach to harmony, using chords that had hitherto been thought unacceptable or inappropriate to create ambiguity and tension. Indeed the so-called ‘Tristan’ chord (described as a modification of a tri-tone substitution for the very, very technical) has been labelled the most epic chord in the history of music.
Wagner also developed the leitmotif, a short distinct phrase of music which is associated with a particular character, object, event or emotion, and which recurs and evolves throughout the drama. ‘Melodic moments of feeling’ is how he described them, and they have a psychological rather than a narrative importance, subtly indicating to the audience each character’s development.
Wagner, in his quest to create ‘total art’, wrote his own librettos and, as time went by, took an increasingly hands-on approach to set and costume design. A megalomaniac? Quite likely, but such is the result of being convinced of your own genius.
What about Wagner the man? He was something of a revolutionary in politics as well as art. He opposed autocracy and any but the most limited kind of monarchy, and supported voting rights for all adults. He was caught up in the May 1849 Uprising in Dresden and was thereby forced into a hasty departure. He was a voracious reader and prolific writer of essays, novelettes and polemics. However, in many respects Wagner was an unsavoury human being. He preferred to run away from his many debts. As the ultimate romantic (romantic love is at the core of most of his works), he was a serial seducer of women, several of whom were the wives of his colleagues and supporters. And the darkest side of his character was that he was a virulent racist and anti-Semite. That was a less unusual trait in the mid-nineteenth century than it is now, but it has forever tarnished his reputation.
The biggest stroke of luck for Wagner was that his music was adored by ‘mad’ King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who came to the throne at the age of only eighteen. From this mid-point in his career Wagner’s debts were settled by the King, who also provided him with a place to live and bankrolled his productions. By this time the composer was slowly coming to believe that no existing theatre was sufficient to mount his works properly. He would have to build his own. And thus we come to Bayreuth.
Bayreuth is an elegant little town in the north-eastern corner of Bavaria. Margravine Wilhelmine, the sister of Frederick the Great, had already, in the previous century, commissioned parks, gardens, fountains and a fabulous opera house for the town. However, this building was in the established, but for Wagner unsuitable, baroque style. So the town council allocated him a plot of land, the ‘Green Hill’, about one mile to the north, and construction began on his new theatre.
As always Wagner had very firm ideas of what he wanted. He had studied acoustics and determined that the principal material of construction would be wood. Unlike the conventional horseshoe arrangement the seating was to be in a steeply-raked wedge, each row offset by half a seat so that everybody would get a good view. Most radically of all, Wagner wanted to hide the conductor and orchestra from view so that the audience’s attention was totally concentrated on the stage. The pit was constructed partly under the auditorium, partly under the stage. The result is that the sound rises through a gap between the two and there is a perfect balance between the orchestra and singers. After four years of construction the theatre opened in 1876 for performances of the complete Ring cycle. The Bayreuth Festival was born.
In the early years the festival struggled financially. Following Wagner’s death in 1883 his widow Cosima, and various of his offspring, continued to run it. Unfortunately, fired by the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, they continued to voice, even amplify, Wagner’s anti-Semitic views. The festival became the reactionary stronghold of German culture and it was almost inevitable that Hitler and other Nazis would be drawn to attend. Hitler first came in 1923, ten years before becoming Chancellor, and many times afterwards. These associations have now been addressed with honesty. There is a large display in the grounds adjoining the theatre of vertical gray panels containing portraits and biographies of the many Jewish musicians who had contributed to the festival and who later perished in the holocaust.
Cosima Wagner clung to a very traditional approach of presenting her husband’s works, and so did their son, Siegfried. But things changed. From 1976 Wolfgang Wagner, the composer’s grandson, was happy to ruffle the feathers of the old guard and established a programme of inviting a range of directors to experiment with new methods of presenting the works. This certainly helps the festival renew itself, but the results vary from very effective to embarrassingly bad. In one production of Siegfried the stage was dominated by a massive depiction of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The audience booed for ten minutes. In the current production of The Flying Dutchman there aren’t any ships, and the current Tannhaüser has the protagonist dressed as a clown, driving round the countryside with Venus, a black drag queen and a dwarf, and they amuse themselves by robbing Burger King and running over a policeman. It is almost as if the sins of the past are being expunged by ever-leftward approaches to production. Still, the singing, conducting and playing are usually magnificent and Wagner’s beautiful music carries all before it.
As is clear, the Bayreuth Festival has always been a family business. The current director is Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great grand-daughter. Until fairly recently it was nigh-on impossible for the average punter to attend Bayreuth. In a 2010 documentary for the BBC Stephen Fry referred to his ticket as ‘one of the most valuable pieces of paper in the world of culture’. Ordinary customers could spend eight to ten years slowly ascending the waiting list. That has changed with the internet and on-line sales have made the festival much more accessible, although to secure a seat one has to be prepared to pay around three hundred Euros. Add the fact that Bayreuth hotels at least double their prices during the season and it is no small undertaking.
So, what is attending the festival like? It takes place every year over five weeks in July and August. If the weather is very hot it can be unpleasant – the theatre does not have air conditioning. Dress code is reasonably relaxed. A good proportion of attendees turn up in elegant evening wear but smart casual is perfectly acceptable. In the theatre the floors are wooden and the seats are hard but a cushion can be obtained from the cloakroom. Security is very strict: without a photo ID matching the name on the ticket entry is refused. The audience is summoned inside just fifteen minutes before each act and it is good form, if your seat is near the middle, to make your way in early so as not to upset other attendees. Then the doors are locked. Yes, you are in the world’s poshest prison. The lights go down very slowly and the first strains of the work’s prelude rise into the auditorium. There is rapt attention. Whatever unfolds over the next few hours is likely to have you firmly in its grip. Generally the audiences are highly respectful and keep coughing to the absolute minimum.
On account of their length most of the operas start at 4pm. There are generous intervals between acts lasting an hour. That gives plenty of time for drinks (not too expensive), food and enjoying the beautiful grounds. A typical finish might be 9.30 to 10pm.
If you are not familiar with Wagner but this article has whetted your appetite, a good way into his art is firstly to listen to The Mastersingers. It’s about a singing competition, a medieval X-Factor if you like, and at its heart it is a comedy with good pokes at stuffiness and hypocrisy. Of course there is a love story as well, and it is crammed full of good tunes. Then try an earlier work like Lohengrin or Tannhaüser, and if by now you are an aficionado, take on Tristan und Isolde and the entire Ring cycle. They are magnificent.
© Graham Buchan 2024.
Wagner and the Bayreuth Festival.
Wagner divides opinion. Even amongst opera lovers there are those who cannot abide his works, whilst others elevate him to almost God-like status. What cannot be denied is that Wagner totally reinvented the opera form and helped steer Western classical music into completely new territory. Belonging firmly in the Romantic tradition of the mid-nineteenth century Wagner, along with other figures such as Liszt, imagined a new ‘total’ art form which shunned all the old conventions. Without Wagner it is hard to imagine the later development of, for example, Mahler and Schoenberg.
He had his detractors from the start. Clara Schumann, who spent her life championing the work of Brahms, went to a performance of Lohengrin and reported, ‘I could see only too well how such an opera succeeds…. The whole thing is full of romanticism and thrilling situations, so much so indeed that even the musician himself at times forgets the horrible music. Nevertheless, on the whole, I like Lohengrin better than I do Tannhaüser, in which Wagner goes through the whole gamut of abominations.’ However Brahms, younger by twenty years and the most classically-orientated composer of the period, was not so vehement, retaining a healthy respect for his rival’s works.
Talk to anyone with a casual acquaintance with Wagner and they might assert that the works are long and ‘heavy’. Long they certainly are, with many of the operas lasting around four hours. But the heaviness epithet applies only in comparison to the opera conventions established by figures such as Mozart, Donizetti and Rossini. In their kind of opera soloists sing solos, duets sing duets and choruses sing choruses, and it is perfectly normal for the action to be halted as the audience breaks into applause for what they have just heard. Often a particular aria is viewed as a showcase for the leading tenor or prima donna soprano. With Wagner the vocal lines are inextricably woven into the overall fabric of the music which never breaks until the end of an act. It is, perhaps, better to think of his works as huge plays embedded within music. Indeed Wagner coined the phrase ‘music-drama’ as a more apt description of what he was trying to achieve.
As for the music, it has the ability to overwhelm the listener with power and emotion. Who has not been swept along by The Ride of the Valkyries? How can you suppress a tear on hearing Tristan and Isolde’s love duet? Listen to the Preludes to The Mastersingers or Tannhaüser and Wagner carries you along in almost cinematic fashion. The young Maurice Ravel, who cannot for a moment be thought of as a Wagnerian composer, was observed by a friend to be trembling convulsively and crying like a child during the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde. He explained, ‘That’s how it always is, every time I hear it.’
Why is the music so different from that which went before? One reason is that Wagner was at the forefront of exploring new sonorities. In his quest to break from established forms he developed a chromatic approach to harmony, using chords that had hitherto been thought unacceptable or inappropriate to create ambiguity and tension. Indeed the so-called ‘Tristan’ chord (described as a modification of a tri-tone substitution for the very, very technical) has been labelled the most epic chord in the history of music.
Wagner also developed the leitmotif, a short distinct phrase of music which is associated with a particular character, object, event or emotion, and which recurs and evolves throughout the drama. ‘Melodic moments of feeling’ is how he described them, and they have a psychological rather than a narrative importance, subtly indicating to the audience each character’s development.
Wagner, in his quest to create ‘total art’, wrote his own librettos and, as time went by, took an increasingly hands-on approach to set and costume design. A megalomaniac? Quite likely, but such is the result of being convinced of your own genius.
What about Wagner the man? He was something of a revolutionary in politics as well as art. He opposed autocracy and any but the most limited kind of monarchy, and supported voting rights for all adults. He was caught up in the May 1849 Uprising in Dresden and was thereby forced into a hasty departure. He was a voracious reader and prolific writer of essays, novelettes and polemics. However, in many respects Wagner was an unsavoury human being. He preferred to run away from his many debts. As the ultimate romantic (romantic love is at the core of most of his works), he was a serial seducer of women, several of whom were the wives of his colleagues and supporters. And the darkest side of his character was that he was a virulent racist and anti-Semite. That was a less unusual trait in the mid-nineteenth century than it is now, but it has forever tarnished his reputation.
The biggest stroke of luck for Wagner was that his music was adored by ‘mad’ King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who came to the throne at the age of only eighteen. From this mid-point in his career Wagner’s debts were settled by the King, who also provided him with a place to live and bankrolled his productions. By this time the composer was slowly coming to believe that no existing theatre was sufficient to mount his works properly. He would have to build his own. And thus we come to Bayreuth.
Bayreuth is an elegant little town in the north-eastern corner of Bavaria. Margravine Wilhelmine, the sister of Frederick the Great, had already, in the previous century, commissioned parks, gardens, fountains and a fabulous opera house for the town. However, this building was in the established, but for Wagner unsuitable, baroque style. So the town council allocated him a plot of land, the ‘Green Hill’, about one mile to the north, and construction began on his new theatre.
As always Wagner had very firm ideas of what he wanted. He had studied acoustics and determined that the principal material of construction would be wood. Unlike the conventional horseshoe arrangement the seating was to be in a steeply-raked wedge, each row offset by half a seat so that everybody would get a good view. Most radically of all, Wagner wanted to hide the conductor and orchestra from view so that the audience’s attention was totally concentrated on the stage. The pit was constructed partly under the auditorium, partly under the stage. The result is that the sound rises through a gap between the two and there is a perfect balance between the orchestra and singers. After four years of construction the theatre opened in 1876 for performances of the complete Ring cycle. The Bayreuth Festival was born.
In the early years the festival struggled financially. Following Wagner’s death in 1883 his widow Cosima, and various of his offspring, continued to run it. Unfortunately, fired by the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, they continued to voice, even amplify, Wagner’s anti-Semitic views. The festival became the reactionary stronghold of German culture and it was almost inevitable that Hitler and other Nazis would be drawn to attend. Hitler first came in 1923, ten years before becoming Chancellor, and many times afterwards. These associations have now been addressed with honesty. There is a large display in the grounds adjoining the theatre of vertical gray panels containing portraits and biographies of the many Jewish musicians who had contributed to the festival and who later perished in the holocaust.
Cosima Wagner clung to a very traditional approach of presenting her husband’s works, and so did their son, Siegfried. But things changed. From 1976 Wolfgang Wagner, the composer’s grandson, was happy to ruffle the feathers of the old guard and established a programme of inviting a range of directors to experiment with new methods of presenting the works. This certainly helps the festival renew itself, but the results vary from very effective to embarrassingly bad. In one production of Siegfried the stage was dominated by a massive depiction of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The audience booed for ten minutes. In the current production of The Flying Dutchman there aren’t any ships, and the current Tannhaüser has the protagonist dressed as a clown, driving round the countryside with Venus, a black drag queen and a dwarf, and they amuse themselves by robbing Burger King and running over a policeman. It is almost as if the sins of the past are being expunged by ever-leftward approaches to production. Still, the singing, conducting and playing are usually magnificent and Wagner’s beautiful music carries all before it.
As is clear, the Bayreuth Festival has always been a family business. The current director is Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great grand-daughter. Until fairly recently it was nigh-on impossible for the average punter to attend Bayreuth. In a 2010 documentary for the BBC Stephen Fry referred to his ticket as ‘one of the most valuable pieces of paper in the world of culture’. Ordinary customers could spend eight to ten years slowly ascending the waiting list. That has changed with the internet and on-line sales have made the festival much more accessible, although to secure a seat one has to be prepared to pay around three hundred Euros. Add the fact that Bayreuth hotels at least double their prices during the season and it is no small undertaking.
So, what is attending the festival like? It takes place every year over five weeks in July and August. If the weather is very hot it can be unpleasant – the theatre does not have air conditioning. Dress code is reasonably relaxed. A good proportion of attendees turn up in elegant evening wear but smart casual is perfectly acceptable. In the theatre the floors are wooden and the seats are hard but a cushion can be obtained from the cloakroom. Security is very strict: without a photo ID matching the name on the ticket entry is refused. The audience is summoned inside just fifteen minutes before each act and it is good form, if your seat is near the middle, to make your way in early so as not to upset other attendees. Then the doors are locked. Yes, you are in the world’s poshest prison. The lights go down very slowly and the first strains of the work’s prelude rise into the auditorium. There is rapt attention. Whatever unfolds over the next few hours is likely to have you firmly in its grip. Generally the audiences are highly respectful and keep coughing to the absolute minimum.
On account of their length most of the operas start at 4pm. There are generous intervals between acts lasting an hour. That gives plenty of time for drinks (not too expensive), food and enjoying the beautiful grounds. A typical finish might be 9.30 to 10pm.
If you are not familiar with Wagner but this article has whetted your appetite, a good way into his art is firstly to listen to The Mastersingers. It’s about a singing competition, a medieval X-Factor if you like, and at its heart it is a comedy with good pokes at stuffiness and hypocrisy. Of course there is a love story as well, and it is crammed full of good tunes. Then try an earlier work like Lohengrin or Tannhaüser, and if by now you are an aficionado, take on Tristan und Isolde and the entire Ring cycle. They are magnificent.
© Graham Buchan 2024.
By Graham Buchan • music, opera, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Graham Buchan, music, opera, theatre