Bayreuth Since the War

Extract

Having visited the Bayreuth festival during each of its five post-war seasons, I have now seen all Wagner's music dramas staged in the festival theatre of his own design by his grandsons, Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner. The repertory was completed this summer by the addition of Der Fliegende Holländer, since in accordance with Wagner's wish, Rienbzi is never staged there, being too powerful an indictment of monarchy as represented by King Ludwig II, munificent patron and joint instigator of Bayreuth. The youthful essays Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot have, of course, never been staged there, and rarely elsewhere.