6 - The Bayreuth Concept and the Significance of Performance

Summary

The premiere of the Ring and the opening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 was the most significant European cultural event of the later nineteenth century. The idea of a festival after the model of classical Greek theatre was integral to the Ring. Performances were to be given free of charge under ideal conditions in a temporary theatre constructed for the purpose in a location away from the corrupting influence of modern industrial civilisation. The festival idea as finally realized was, however, far removed from the utopian ideals of the original conception. The scale and practical demands of Wagner’s enterprise forced him to compromise with shifting political paradigms and harsh economic reality. The first Bayreuth Festival thus became a meeting place not for Wagner’s classless society dedicated to the ideals of art, but of aristocracies and plutocratic elites. The democratic festival, originally conceived in the white heat of revolutionary fervour, became a symbol of artistic hegemony and the aggrandisement of the newly founded German Reich. The resulting artistic, cultural and highly potent political legacy was to extend far beyond the historical context in which the festival first came about.