On the day the Bayreuth Festival opens, the Wagner sisters have provided the customary annual glimpse at future Festival plans. The sisters' contract provisionally expires in 2015, but with operatic schedules being what they are, new productions up to 2020 are already in the planning stage.
2016's new Parsifal will be directed by artist Jonathan Meese. Meese designed the sets for Wolfgang Rihm's Salzburg Festival Dionysus but otherwise has little stage experience. Andris Nelsons will conduct, with Klaus Florian Vogt as Parsifal, Petra Lang as Kundry and Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz.
2017 will see a new Meistersinger and 2018 a Lohengrin, conducted by Christian Thielemann. 2019 is Tannhäuser time and in 2020 there will be a new Ring.
They also revealed the Bayreuth door is not entirely closed to Evgeny Nikitin pending a satisfactory explanation from the singer for his tattoos.
