Sun and up to 35 degrees outside – several hours “Tristan and Isolde” inside: The Richard Wagner Festival begins today in Bayreuth. Before that, prominent guests will walk the red carpet to the Festspielhaus – Angela Merkel will remain a loyal visitor to Bayreuth even after her chancellorship, and presenter Thomas Gottschalk is also expected.
In the past few days, however, the debates surrounding the world-famous festival have been less about art and more about accusations of sexism.
The festival announced the consequences. “These are outrageous allegations,” said the chairman of the board of directors, Georg von Waldenfels. There is “no mistake at all that we will pursue this with all seriousness and intransigence”.
In the “North Bavarian Kurier” women had reported anonymously that they had been touched on the Green Hill or had to listen to sexual innuendos. Festival boss Wagner confirmed that she was also affected: “Sexual innuendos and some assaults in a way, yes,” she told the German Press Agency. “But I knew how to defend myself.”
“Tristan und Isolde” ushers in a festival of superlatives, because this year there will be a total of five newly staged works, more than ever before in the history of the festival. The four parts of the “Ring des Nibelungen” are also celebrating their premiere. The reinterpretation of the mammoth work by director Valentin Schwarz should have been on the schedule in 2020, but was postponed twice due to the corona pandemic. “It has become a wonderful job,” said Wagner.
She also praised the team from “Tristan und Isolde”, director Roland Schwab and conductor Markus Poschner at the weekend: “You can look forward to Monday.” Corona had really messed up the rehearsal process. “Ring” conductor Pietari Inkinen had to stop rehearsals because of a corona disease, and Cornelius Meister, who was actually in Bayreuth for “Tristan”, took over for him. Poschner stepped in for him at short notice.
Caution is still the order of the day at the festival when it comes to Corona. There are no restrictions for the audience, but Wagner and the commercial director Ulrich Jagels still appealed to the viewers to wear an FFP2 mask. In this context, Katharina Wagner also criticized the plans of the Bavarian state government for the traditional state reception after the premiere. She urgently advises all participants not to attend the reception in the New Palace in downtown Bayreuth. She herself will go there briefly and thank the Free State, which is one of the festival partners – but with an FFP3 mask.
Schwab described “Tristan und Isolde”, which premiered in Munich in 1865, as “the most famous escapist opus in all of music history”. He also said in an interview with the dpa: “And if a time knows the need to escape from the world, then that’s ours. Everyone wants to make this journey: break away from the world, overcome borders, lose yourself, lose yourself in the other. There is no longer an I and you. Losing oneself in the universe, in a universal love. I would like to allow this longing. Especially in our current time context, that is very, very important to me.”
