Crunch time for Bayreuth

[Mr Pee]

It seems that this years Bi-Centennial "Ring" might have finally been the straw that broke the camel's back, after years of slipping standards at Bayreuth:-

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/08/which-festival-made-the-biggest-noise-this-summer-as-always.html

Perhaps it is time- or probably long overdue- for the Wagner clan to relinquish control of the Festival and outside professionals to take over. Each year, when I read the reviews and look at the images of the dreadful productions that seem the norm at the Festspielhaus nowadays I wonder what on earth they are thinking.

It has always been an ambition of mine to visit the Green Hill,Wahnfried etc, and I would love a tour of the theatre, but as for actually attending the festival? I am rather afraid it would be a huge let-down.

Let's hope they get the place back on track, one way or another.

From the New York Times:-

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/arts/music/at-bayreuth-boos-and-dropped-jaws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

And some Ring production photos:-

(Warning: This link contains images that some Wagnerians may find distressing)

http://intermezzo.typepad.com/intermezzo/2013/07/bayreuth-ring.html

[Roehre]

It is generally exactly this type of productions why I have given up visiting opera houses.
I'd like to say (Dalek-wise) "Exterrrrrrminate opera directors" (who don't follow the composer's stage directions").

I am really only and exclusively interested in the composer's intentions, musically and stage wise.
I don't give a d**n for the director's political or other views, and in this time and age of HIP practices, let's get rid of those b****y awful stages and return to something which the composer might have had in mind according to the stage directions in the libretto/score.

[Mr Pee]

It is generally exactly this type of productions why I have given up visiting opera houses.
I'd like to say (Dalek-wise) "Exterrrrrrminate opera directors" (who don't follow the composer's stage directions").

I am really only and exclusively interested in the composer's intentions, musically and stage wise.
I don't give a d**n for the director's political or other views, and in this time and age of HIP practices, let's get rid of those b****y awful stages and return to something which the composer might have had in mind according to the stage directions in the libretto/score.

Lepage's Met Ring was I think I good example of the melding of modern technology with Wagner's original stage directions. And although the previous Ring there was too traditional for some I found it most refeshing to see a production that actually stuck to the composer's intentions.

Bayreuth has completely lost its way at the moment, seemingly coming up with production after production that is just aiming to shock, and moving ever further from the composer's intentions. Castorf, in this Ring, seems to have taken it to the extreme, and his own reaction to the unprecedentedly hostile audience response exempifies that. He wanted to rile the Bayreuth audience and succeeded.

I am sure the Master would despair at this sad state of affairs.

[Alain Maréchal]

It is generally exactly this type of productions why I have given up visiting opera houses.

Same here. I don't mind a setting where the general plot is followed; I was happy to see Der Fliegende Hollander set in a modern fishing port with an oil tanker, a nuclear submarine and the women gutting fish (same dreary mind-numbing work as spinning), as it followed the words given a little flexibility. I absent myself when people are clearly not doing what they sing they're doing, and that seems to be the general idea these days.

[BBMmk2]

I don't like opera productions very much and the Wagner Clan, do seem to have gone off their rocker of late. It is tiome they took a backseat or even relinquish control as it has gone beyond the pale.