Every day, Ricardo from Italy stands in front of the Bayreuth Opera House and holds a cardboard sign in his hands that reads: “Looking for a ticket”. And in most cases he’s lucky, he says: he even got a ticket to the premiere of “Valkyrie” – however, no stage view, but that doesn’t matter to him. “The music is fantastic and I don’t need a stage”, says Ricardo. Furthermore, according to him, he still does not understand what is happening on stage in the new productions of the cycle Anel do Nibelungo, of which Valquíria is a part.

Around 60,000 people annually make the pilgrimage to Green Hill in Bayreuth, where in 1876 the Bayreuther Festspiele, founded by Richard Wagner exclusively for the presentation of his own operas, took place for the first time. A third of this year’s guests came from abroad, mostly from the US and Japan. Those who want to buy a ticket here officially often have to wait in line for years. Not to mention the tickets are not cheap.

Approaching a new audience

Ricardo has come from Italy to Bayreuth every year for 30 years in a row: he is a big fan of Wagner. Meanwhile, Sven Friedrich, director of the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth, notes that today the festival attracts more and more new fans. Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many tickets were returned to the box office, mainly from abroad. So the festival director organized the sale of these tickets over the internet, and many lucky ones managed to buy the coveted one. The opportunity to buy “hot tickets” for the operas included in the Bayreuth Festival program via the Internet is also offered this year.

To reach a new audience, the Bayreuth Festival will also experiment with new formats this year. So, during this musical holiday, two free open-air concerts are organized – with the participation of the festival’s orchestra and famous opera singers. Everyone can go to the spacious park lawn near the opera house – you just need to take a blanket or a folding chair with you.

“We have all lived through two terrible years: first the coronavirus pandemic broke out and now there is this terrible war,” says Katharina Wagner, director of the Bayreuth Festival, in her welcome speech before the start of the show.

Not just for the elite

The fact that the Wagnerian festivals in Bayreuth were originally intended not only for the “good and rich” but also for the common people was forgotten with time. Meanwhile, Richard Wagner was interested in having the doors of his new opera house open to the general public. To attract the public, the composer used the most unusual means, as can be seen in the exhibition “VolksWagner” (“The People’s Wagner”) at the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel came every year to the Bayreuth Festival (file photo)

Wagner even presented the “Valkyrie” from the “Ring of the Nibelungs” in the circus ring. The performance involved circus acrobats and even animals. Richard Wagner is said to have enjoyed this production. The composer also turned his attention to spectators in other countries – he personally ensured that cheap booklets for his operas were sold at railway stations and on passenger ships.

Wagner’s music in the politics of the National Socialists

Bayreuth’s exhibition “VolksWagner” (an allusion to the Volkswagen car brand) tells, on the one hand, how Wagner secured his popularity and, on the other hand, how politics and publicity used his music and works for their own ends. Wagner wrote many theoretical works on music, but he also did not leave politics aside. What are your political speeches that caused a lot of controversy, in which many saw an anti-Semitic orientation.

The sound of music from Ride of the Valkyries, the prelude to Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, accompanied Nazi news footage of the landing of German paratroopers on Crete during World War II, after which the music of Wagner began to be perceived as warlike throughout. the world is aggressive.

All roads lead to Bayreuth

But there are other associations with Wagner. Thus, millions of couples around the world, from the mid-19th century to the present day, have married Wagner’s march “Treulich geführt” (“Bridal Chorus”) from the third act of the opera Lohengrin. It begins to be performed when the bride enters the festive hall.

In 2021, Jay Scheib presented a virtual version of Siegfried at the Bayreuth Festival

In 1977, American rocker Meat Loaf, influenced by the music of Richard Wagner, released his first studio album Bat out of Hell (“Bat from Hell”), on the cover and in the compositions that allude to the symbols and music of Richard Wagner. It became one of the best-selling albums in the world.

Since 2017, the musical The Bat from Hell directed by the American Jay Scheib has been successfully staged in Oberhausen – the same that will take on a new version translated into virtual reality of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival in 2023. Thus, the festival director, Katharina Wagner , wants to create yet another magnet to attract new young people to the Bayreuth Festival. All roads lead… to Bayreuth.