The 104th Bayreuth Festival will conclude on August 28 with a performance of “Der fliegende Holländer”.
Over the past five weeks, thousands of Wagner enthusiasts from numerous countries attended the 30 sold-out performances. The participants can look back on an artistically fruitful and successful season.
The new production of “Tristan und Isolde”, under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann and directed by Katharina Wagner, was at the center of international interest. For the first time, a production of “Tristan und Isolde” was broadcast live in approximately 120 cinemas and on TV just a few days after its premiere.
The diversity and aesthetic variety of the festival were again demonstrated by “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (last conducted by Kirill Petrenko; directed by Frank Castorf), “Der fliegende Holländer” (musical direction: Axel Kober; directed by Jan Philipp Gloger), and “Lohengrin” (musical direction: Alain Altinoglu; directed by Hans Neuenfels). After six years of performances, this production will be removed from the program.
For the seventh time, as part of the “Wagner for Children” project, there were ten sold-out performances of a Wagnerian festival work in a child-friendly version, the “Parsifal”. “Der fliegende Holländer” is planned for next year.
As is known, Eva Wagner-Pasquier will retire from the management at the end of the 2015 festival season and will primarily remain connected to the Bayreuth Festival as an intermediary to the Richard Wagner Associations.
The 2016 festival season will open on July 25 with the new production of “Parsifal”. Andris Nelsons will be the musical director, and Uwe Eric Laufenberg will direct. Gisbert Jäkel will design the stage, and Jessica Karge will be responsible for the costumes. Also on the program are “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, which Marek Janowski will conduct for the first time in Bayreuth, “Der fliegende Holländer”, and “Tristan und Isolde”. *
The processing of written and online ticket orders for the coming year will begin on September 14, 2015. On January 31, 2016, the sale of online instant-purchase tickets will start, for which a portion of the nearly 60,000 tickets tickets is again reserved.
After the necessary extensive preparations have been completed, the planned renovation of the Festspielhaus’s south facade can begin on August 31, 2015. The shareholders of Bayreuth Festival GmbH (Federal Republic of Germany, Free State of Bavaria, City of Bayreuth, and Gesellschaft der Freunde von Bayreuth e.V.) are providing 30 million euros for the renovation, and the work is expected to extend over several years until 2023.