BAYREUTH – CHAPTER I
I. FROM A CONCEPT (THE TOTAL ART) TO BUILDING PROJECTS (A FESTIVAL THEATRE) 1- From the idea of an exceptional musical drama to the concept of a theatre specifically dedicated to it What could be called "The Bayreuth adventure" was above everything the adventure of The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen), a unique music cycle of...
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER II
II. BAYREUTH, or "BUILDING AN OUTSTANDING THEATRE FOR AN IMMODERATE WORK" 1- Munich-Bayreuth: projects, talks and tugs of war between an artist and his patron And the work in all of this? Because if it is a matter of buildings, architecture, future "Festival Theatre" or Festspielhaus, it is all to welcome a work: The Ring....
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER III
III. RICHARD WAGNER’S FESTIVAL (1876-1882) 1 - The first Bayreuth Festival (1876) Despite the rehearsals being started a year earlier... the singers were still not ready. Even worse, just a few days before the premiere, there was chaos. Wagner clashed with Richter on the tempi to follow in the score, creating discomfort among the musicians....
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER IV
IV. BAYREUTH AFTER RICHARD WAGNER: WHAT FUTURE? 1 - Cosima’s Bayreuth, guardian of the Temple When the composer died in 1883, the Bayreuth Festival management team felt like it was evolving in a kingdom that had suddenly lost its sovereign. He, who built the temple by the strength of his will, was no more. He...
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER V
V. BAYREUTH ACCORDING TO WINIFRED WAGNER … AND ADOLF HITLER The Bayreuth era was a singular adventure, under the reign of Winifred, where the little history mingled with the great, where individual personalities, their particular sympathy and ideologies far surpassed the framework of Art for Art and merged with politics and the most delusional compromises. In...
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER VI
VI. THE POST-WAR YEARS AND THE "NEUE BAYREUTH" (NEW BAYREUTH) The image of the Third Reich was, at the end of the war, strongly associated with Bayreuth, even with Wagner’s work itself, whose initial scope Nazism lead astray. And the management of the Festival in the person of Winifred had shown its personal sympathies too much...
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER VII
VII. WOLFGANG WAGNER’S "WERKSTATT BAYREUTH" (Bayreuth workshop) After the premature death of his brother Wieland in 1966, Wolfgang found himself in command, alone, to manage all the responsibilities of a festival that had regained all its pre-war glory. But the younger brother who grew up in the shadow of the man who had carved out...
BAYREUTH – CHAPTER VIII
THE BAYREUTH FESTIVAL OF THE 21th CENTURY (Section curently being drafted ) List of reference materials consulted for the realization of Section IV : BAYREUTH If you wish to share further information about this article, please feel free to contact us !
BAYREUTH – Appendix – BAYREUTH… BEFORE RICHARD WAGNER
Appendix : BAYREUTH BEFORE WAGNER Bayreuth before Wagner... is it imaginable? Well yes, the little town had its very own story before its destiny and Wagner’s became irremediably bound. Documents created by Bishop Otto II of Bamberg mentioned for the first time in 1194 the current capital of Upper Franconia; the small town then bore the...
BIBLIOGRAPHY : Bayreuth (Section IV)
BIBLIOGRAPHY List of reference materials consulted for the realization of Section IV: Bayreuth BARTHOU Louis, La Vie ardente de Wagner (Flammarion, 1925 - Fr) BEAUFILS Marcel, Wagner et le wagnérisme (Aubier/Musique, 1980- Fr) DE DECKER Jacques, Wagner (Folio/Biographies, 2010- Fr) DUMESNIL René, Richard Wagner (Plon, « Ars et Historia », 1954 - Fr) FLINOIS Pierre, Le Festival de Bayreuth, Histoire, mythologies, renseignements pratiques (Sand,...