Reader RC can no longer use the "modest 3 star" Bayreuth hotel room he has booked (via booking.com) for 3 nights from 13 to 16 August 2013.
If anyone is looking for a bed on those dates and would like the reservation transferred into their name, please email me and I will put you in touch. The booking is not cancellable, by the way.
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With early snow dusting the ground, the scaffolding went up around Bayreuth's Festspielhaus yesterday. Although nobody's yet sure where the money for urgently-needed renovation will come from, the scaffold will at least help protect the facade from further wear (and passers-by from falling masonry).
With no agreement between the Festival's shareholders on financing, the Kurier wonders whether the work will be completed before the 2013 anniversary Festival - or if operagoers will be greeted with scaffolding.
Perhaps Festival management will follow the example of the Wagner museum. Although the ongoing refurbishment of Wahnfried is far from finished, the dust sheets will be temporarily whipped off during the Festival month to allow visitors in.
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Were you one of those hopefuls who tried (and failed) to buy tickets for the open-to-all Bayreuth Rheingold that went on sale on 10 October?
Then you will be infuriated to learn that you may have missed out purely because of a system balls-up of Covent Garden proportions.
According to the Nordbayerische Kurier, the process failed to work on the promised 'first-come-first-served' basis because of the method used to cope with the expected demand blizzard.
The system was designed to establish a holding pattern similar to the old ROH online queue. Whenever the server was busy with orders, each new client saw an on-screen clock which told them the waiting time until the server would have enough computing power available.
The problem was that this waiting time was merely an estimate, and it didn't correspond to the actual load on the server. The software engineers assumed each order would take about 20 minutes, when in reality they were processed much faster. As a result, many customers were put on hold much longer than technically necessary.
After 30 minutes, around half of the 2000 tickets were already sold out. And because any tickets left for more than 20 minutes in the online shopping cart without being ordered were released, it was possible a whole 90 minutes after booking started to sign in and buy tickets without waiting - while customers who signed in at the start were still hung in the queue - and other, earlier, customers had given up in disgust after receiving the message that the performance was sold out (because at that moment all the remaining tickets were in the cart).
Needless to say, Festival management were "showered with complaints, both digital and analog."
In allegedly unrelated news, Katharina Wagner is pictured above landing in Buenos Aires today with what looks like enough luggage for a very, very long stay.
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For the first time ever, the Bayreuth Festival is making tickets available on a first-come-first-served basis. That's right - no ten year waiting list.
The downside - only one performance is available - Das Rheingold on 10 August 2013.
Online-only sales begin on the 10th October 2012 at 18.00 CET - book via this link, and find more information here.
Should prove a bonanza for the resellers - so let's hope a few genuine Wagner fans manage to get in first.
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The Liceu is this week hosting a rare series of tour dates from the Bayreuth Festival, on its first visit to Barcelona since 1955.
El holandés errante, Lohengrin and Tristán e Isolda (as they're known locally) are being presented in concert version, featuring broadly the same personnel as they did in Bayreuth last month. The most notable exception is that the former Liceu music director Sebastian Weigle replaces Christian Thielemann and Andris Nelsons in the pit.
Despite massive public funding cuts this season, the Liceu will finance the venture without digging into its precious subsidies. Instead the 1.5m euro cost is expected to be covered by a mixture of box office income and private backing. 92% should come from the sale of around 11,000 tickets at higher-than-usual prices of 28 to 282 euros per seat. Sponsorship from Siemens, Agbar and Banesto should take care of the balance.
Early reports like this one from local blog In fernem land suggest the Barcelona audience think it was worth the 57 year wait.
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Katharina Wagner has confirmed that the opening night of next year's Bayreuth Festival will be shown live in cinemas. The screening of Der Fliegender Holländer follows this year's successful experiment with Parsifal.
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In case you weren't able to watch yesterday's Arte broadcast of Stefan Herheim's Parsifal live from Bayreuth, here it is in full. It's possible these videos may get pulled, so get in quickly.
Continue reading "Watch Stefan Herheim's Bayreuth Parsifal " »
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Artist Jonathan Meese explains on his website exactly why he accepted the job of directing Parsifal at Bayreuth in 2016.
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The Met joins the Bavarian State Opera in backing Evgeny Nikitin over his 'Nazi tattoo' controversy, Peter Gelb has told the New York Times.
In a phone interview with the paper, arranged by the Met, Nikitin clarified the incomplete and sometimes contradictory statements which have been made by him or on his behalf since the scandal broke. He said he had given Bayreuth Festival management "carte blanche to say what they wanted to preserve the festival".
Nikitin explained that the swastika-like symbol seen on his chest in old photos was just an incomplete eight-pointed star of his own design which had to be stopped part way through when he began to bleed, and supplied the paper with the sketch above.
He said he had never had any connection to a neo-Nazi or fascist movement.
"“It would be really a shame if an artist’s career was destroyed over something that isn’t true,” Mr. Gelb said."
Nikitin remains booked to appear in next year's Met Parsifal.
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It appears the federal budget doesn't stretch to tights these days.
Not only did the 'austerity chancellor' revive her 2008 Bayreuth Festival opening frock for yesterday's performance, she also committed the unpardonable fashion crime of sporting pop socks beneath it (as the keen eyes of Heute picked up).
On the plus side, there are no visible tattoos. Festival management must be breathing a sigh of relief.
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OK, it's only a fake one.
But as these rehearsal photos show, Bayreuth's replacement Dutchman Samuel Youn has been made up with a map-like tattoo on the side of his head. Has anybody checked his chest?
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Never mind the singers, what about the sets?
It looks as if director Jan Philipp Gloger has saved the Bayreuth Festival a few bob with those cardboard boxes. His new production of Der fliegende Holländer premieres today at 18.00 CET (5pm UK) - listen to it live here.
Continue reading "Bayreuth Flying Dutchman - first photos" »
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The announcement earlier today that radical artist Jonathan Meese will direct Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival in 2016 means that the Nikitin affair takes another turn.
After Nikitin's recent sacking for the crime of having once borne a swastika-like tattoo, it may come as a surprise to learn that Meese, pictured above, is notorious for his use of swastikas and other Nazi imagery in his work, some of which is shown below.
Continue reading "New Bayreuth director is a swastika fan" »
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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.
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Not everyone is as sympathetic to Evgeny Nikitin as Munich's Intendant.
Christian Thielemann, conductor of the Holländer in which Nikitin was to appear, is fiercely critical of the singer, whose tattoo he only learned about on Friday night.
"A swastika is a no-go, and not only in Bayreuth," he told BZ. "It wouldn't be acceptable in Australia."
Thielemann, who claimed he doesn't like to see swastikas on stage either, said he didn't understand how Nikitin's agents could allow the singer to make the mistake.
And, no, he doesn't have any tattoos himself.
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One of the many opera houses Evgeny Nikitin's career has taken him to is Munich. And the Intendant of the Bavarian State Opera, Nikolaus Bachler, can see no reason to cancel any of the singer's future appearances there, he tells the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Instead Bachler, whose house runs one of the most effective press/PR operations in the business, accuses the Wagner family of hypocrisy and poor incident management.
"I view the 'Nikitin Affair' primarily as a problem with Bayreuth and the Wagner family, not with the singer," he said. "I find it dishonest that the folly of a 16-year-old rock singer who has long since repented and tried to undo the problem should be punished by the Wagner family. People often point the finger at someone else when they have a problem with their own history."
Pointing out that Nikitin had apologised and shown remorse, Bachler added: "I have never heard the Wagner family regret anything in the last 50 years ."
Bachler criticized not only Nikitin's departure, but also the manner in which he left Bayreuth: "A joint press conference would have been more appropriate than making Nikitin withdraw and damaging his reputation. " He described the affair as an ugly tale that demonstrates "how the past is still present."
Another major German newspaper, FAZ, has run an editorial piece along similar lines.
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The publicity storm surrounding Evgeny Nikitin and his swastika tattoo couldn't have come at a more embarrassing time for the Bayreuth Festival.
For today sees the opening of 'Silenced Voices' in Bayreuth. Subtitled 'The Bayreuth Festival and the Jews 1876-1945', the acclaimed touring exhibition investigates anti-Semitism in the German opera world, and is tailored to each place it visits. These include Dresden, where I saw it last year.
The wordy exhibits (as shown in the photo above) cover anti-Semitic abuses of the festival (which predate the Third Reich), the defamation and exclusion of Jewish artists, and biographies of 44 artists expelled or murdered as a result.
With the Wahnfried Museum currently closed for renovation, the exhibition is likely to prove a popular draw for Festival visitors. Perhaps even more so now.
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It seems not everyone cares for Evgeny Nikitin's tattoos, as pictured in the post below.
Just five days before the premiere of the new Bayreuth production of Der Fliegende Holländer, Festival management have sent him home after taking exception to an alleged Nazi symbol on his upper body.
Looking at a recent photo of Nikitin (above), it's hard to understand what the problem is.
But an older shot, taken during his days as a heavy metal drummer (below) gives a clue. Beneath what is now a colourful coat-of-arms lies something that looks like a swastika - in other words, an embarrassing mistake that he's now covered up.
Whether this is indicative of Nikitin's current or past political opinions is something only he himself could confirm.
But his tattoos have never been any secret. He has sung in all the world's major houses, including Covent Garden and the Met, and nobody to my knowledge has ever complained about them or suggested that he holds any unsavoury beliefs. Of course the tattoos are generally covered up for aesthetic reasons, but in some productions he has openly flaunted them. Thousands of people have seen them. No-one has said anything.
Bayreuth's sudden decision is bizarre. Not just because it appears to relate to a problem that no longer exists. And not just because the evidence was available long before they booked him. It's bizarre because Bayreuth have actively centred pre-production marketing around ....Nikitin's tattoos.
You can see the TV interview which allegedly alerted Festival management to the problem here. A brief section (lifted from this old video) shows the younger Nikitin barechested at the drums.
Nikitin's parting shot: "I did not realise how much irritation and injury such signs and symbols could cause, particularly at the Bayreuth Festival. I had these tattoos done when I was young. It was one of the great mistakes of my life and I wish I had never done it."
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Bayreuth's new Russian Dutchman Evgeny Nikitin nobly flashed his tats for today's Bild in the interests of PR.
To the relief of his choirmaster father, Nikitin's heavy metal days are over. But the ex-drummer revealed that he wouldn't say no to another tattoo or two.
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A survey by the German newspaper Handelsblatt finds that the black market in Bayreuth Festival tickets is flourishing.
The open sale of tickets increased this year from 40% to 65%. When the newspaper analysed ticket sales on Ebay it found that black market sales have risen too.
So far, 524 tickets have been sold on Ebay. This is already more than the entire total for the previous year, and the Festival is still a month away.
The average premium on the original price has increased slightly from 136% to 139%. The highest surcharge (217%) is for the new production of Der Fliegende Holländer. In comparison Tristan und Isolde tickets are fetching around 80% more than the original price.
For the cheapest tickets, costing less than 35 €, the average premium was 550 %. For the most expensive category, originally € 280, the corresponding uplift was 50%.
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