Bayreuth, 13th August 1876
Festspielhaus, Bayreuth, around 1900. Wikimedia Commons
It is a sweltering hot August day in 1876, and a mass of keen Wagner fans are crammed into the small Bavarian town of Bayreuth, spilling over the sides of the streets. Traffic jams of horse and ox carriages block the roads. The queues of people here to experience Wagner’s newest opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungenare keen to catch a glimpse of one of Bayreuth’s esteemed guests – or even the Master himself – but the sheer number of them make navigating the roads a challenge. Fronting these crowded streets are shops on all sides selling photographs of Wagner, as well as Wagner branded wine, cigars, clothes, hats, and pipes. This array of merchandise reflects just how adored he is by his fans here at the festival, which he has established to produce and celebrate his monumental operas.
The occasion of the first ever Bayreuth festival has brought to the city the likes of King Ludwig of Bavaria and the Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm I, as well as musical royalty such as Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, and Liszt. Liszt, the father of Wagner’s wife Cosima, has played an important role over the past few weeks in helping the rehearsals and other preparations to run smoothly. Out of windows above the streets, it is possible to hear singers doing their final practices before the show, and snatches of motifs from the works float above the pulsing roads. The town is buzzing, lively, and ringing with anxious expectation.
Just before four o’clock in the afternoon, the crowds meander up the path away from the town towards the Festspielhaus. The heat makes the walk difficult, but generous and sheltered lounge areas give the crowds a chance to cool and catch their breath before the beginning of the production. The theatre stands atop a small hill, overlooking the valley of the Red Main River and the fields that stretch beyond it.The Festspielhaus itself is newly built after Wagner’s own design; it lacks the frills expected of an opera house exterior and is instead simple and not ornamented or ostentatious. Inside, the seating arrangement does not follow an operatic standard horseshoe shape, instead appearing more like a Greek amphitheatre, with each seat angled towards the stage. The orchestra is seated in a pit so low that the musicians (and conductor) are invisible to the audience. The lights are dimmed once the audience is sat. Hans Richter, the conductor, is standing in the pit with a sheet of black fabric pinned behind him so that the singers on stage can see his shirtsleeves as he conducts. Motifs from the work about to be performed are played on the trumpets to call everybody to attention and silence. Then, the music begins to swell from somewhere out of sight.
The music that cascades over the audience is just as rich and lush as Wagner’s fans have come to expect from him. The curtain rises and the audience takes a breath at the artistry and realism of the stage design. Each member of the audience feels as though they are in their own world, as the darkness in the hall makes it impossible to see any other concertgoers; the only thing visible is the stage…
The inauguration of the Bayreuth festival had been Wagner’s vision for many years, and the sheer amount of money, time, and effort that went into the project were a testament to how dedicated he was to this vision, and how dedicated his fans were to him. He introduced many innovative features during the festival, such as: dimming the lights during the concert; requesting silent attention throughout; placing the musicians out of sight to avoid distraction; putting a particular emphasis on set-design and costumes; and using new machinery – for example a machine in Das Rheingold, used to give the impression of the Rhinemaidens swimming, which took three people to operate for each Rhinemaiden. Additionally, the enormous role that Wagner played in producing the works for the stage was unusual, and this stemmed from the fact that he felt he was the only person who truly understood his own artistic vision and the essence of his works. He was involved with the set design, costumes, machinery, architecture, acting, singing, instrumental and conductorial coaching, and wrote all his own libretti. He even founded a monthly journal called the Bayreuther Blätter which was intended for visitors of the festival and published articles on all manner of subjects (some substantial ones by Wagner himself). Wagner hoped that the Bayreuth festival and his operas could lay the foundations for a new German national music, after the unification of Germany in 1871.
The premiere of his four opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth was an example of Wagner’s vision of a Gesamtkunstwerk: a total-artwork, a spectacle that involved all possible artistic outlets melded seamlessly together, with none given more importance than another. While the premiere did not run perfectly smoothly (with the backdrop falling at one point, and the dim lighting sometimes failing altogether and turning the hall completely dark), the effect on its audience was powerful and lasting. Altogether, with Wagner’s many technical innovations, it achieved his goal of total submersion in music and in the storytelling of the worlds that he created.
Despite changing the way that we enjoy music today, the classical music world continues to battle with Wagner’s complicated legacy. It is difficult to separate his work from his rampant racism, anti-Semitism, and association with Nazism and Hitler, which has, in the eyes of many, placed him on the wrong side of history. The continued success of the Bayreuth festival almost 150 years after its inauguration is a testament to Wagner’s popularity in the face of such difficult moral questions about art and its creators, and represents the commitment of many to the appreciation of Wagner’s innovations in music.
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Two and a half hours later and the monumental work is over. The crowd files back out of the Festspielhaus and into town, struggling to adjust to the light outside and still totally lost in another world. The buzzing atmosphere continues into the night, with spontaneous song breaking out at inns and bars across the town. Later that week, at his house in Bayreuth, Wagner welcomes the esteemed guests, and everybody involved in production (totaling over 700 people), to a feast, to thank and share his love and appreciation. His vision had finally come to life.
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