Posts Tagged ‘bayreuth festival’

More Random Thoughts on Bayreuth

Tuesday, September 1st, 2015

By: Frank Cadenhead The Austrian newspaper, Der Kurier, let drop a great deal of information about what to expect in the future for the Bayreuth Festival. The new Ring in 2020, to the surprise of many, will not be conducted by the new Music Director of the festival, Christian Thielemann, but rather the Boston Symphony’s […]

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Random Thoughts on the Bayreuth Festival

Tuesday, August 25th, 2015

By Frank Cadenhead The book isn’t next to me in my hotel room at Bayreuth, but otherwise it is always within arm’s reach. Nicolas Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective, an illuminating collection of music criticism at its worse, is a vast parade of bonehead reviews of the great classics. It is an obvious reminder that […]

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Expunged ‘Tannhäuser’ opens Debate on Artistic Freedom

Friday, May 17th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid The tolerance of German audiences for extreme stage productions is a source of national pride and the envy of many abroad. But a production of Tannhäuser at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein which had to be stripped down to concert performance last week has set off a national debate about the sanctity […]

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In Bayreuth, Persisting with the New

Friday, August 31st, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid „Kinder, schaff Neues,“ (Children, create something new) Wagner wrote in an adage frequently quoted by stage directors in Germany. In Bayreuth, 136 years after the founding of his festival, the spirit is alive and well. Provocatively-minded Regietheater, for lack of a better blanket term, has come to stamp the recently installed administration […]

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Impressions from the Green Hill: Tattoos, Rats and Embryos

Friday, August 24th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The Bayreuth Festival has had its share of scandal to contend with as Wagner’s bicentenary approaches next season. An international investigation into exclusive ticketing practices; the publicized struggle to find the director for a new Ring cycle; administrative policies that have reportedly shortened rehearsal time; widely reviled productions; and—most recently—the last-minute withdrawal […]

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