Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth Festival, also called the Richard Wagner Festival, annual season of performances of Wagner's works, held in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth. In about 1851, Wagner began to visualize a festival theater that would be devoted to the performance of great German works for the theater. In 1876 the Wagner Festival Theatre (the Festspielhaus) was completed at Bayreuth, and the first festival took place. Planned by Wagner himself, the Festspielhaus is an amphitheater with many notable features, including a sunken, covered orchestra pit and unusually fine acoustics. Despite the composer's original intention, the Bayreuth Festival presents performances only of Wagner's works, usually Parsifal, the "Ring" cycle, and one other work. The festivals were interrupted for seven years after World War II but resumed in 1951.

Bibliography

See study by F. Spotts (1996).

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Bayreuth Festival

Late July through end of August

An internationally famous month-long festival in Bayreuth (pronounced buy-ROIT), Bavaria, Germany, celebrating the music of Richard Wagner. It features six to eight Wagner operas and is usually sold out a year in advance. Performances are in the Festspielhaus (Festival Theater) designed by Wagner himself specifically for the presentation of his works. The festival was launched with the first complete performance of the four-opera Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), triumphantly presented in the new Festspielhaus on Aug. 13, 14, 16, and 17, 1876. Except for wartime interruptions, the festival has been staged every year since then. Wagner had moved to Bayreuth in 1874, and lived in the house he called Wahnfried (Peace from Delusion) until his death in 1883. During those years, he composed his last work, the sacred festival drama Parsifal, and it was produced at Bayreuth in 1882. The festival was directed after Wagner's death by his wife Cosima; their son Seigfried took over as director in 1930, and grandsons Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner revived it after World War II, in 1951.

CONTACTS:
Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH
Festival Hill 1-2
Bayreuth, 95445 Germany
49-921-787-80
www.bayreuther-festspiele.de

SOURCES:
GdWrldFest-1985, p. 83
MusFestEurBrit-1980, p. 97
MusFestWrld-1963, p. 47