For all Wagner fans, Bayreuth Festival, together with BR-KLASSIK and 3sat, will stage Wagner’s works as a Gesamtkunstwerk starting July 25 – the original opening day of Bayreuth Festival. With COVID-compatible live events, exclusive archive treasures, and special broadcasts, Germany’s oldest music festival will be celebrated appropriately this cultural summer.
A highlight of the program: three historically groundbreaking productions of the “Ring des Nibelungen” across different distribution channels. These are the Ring productions by Frank Castorf (premiered 2013), Harry Kupfer (premiered 1988), and Patrice Chéreau (premiered 1976).
BR-KLASSIK will exclusively broadcast the previously unreleased recording of Frank Castorf and Kirill Petrenko’s highly praised and intensely debated Ring production (recorded in 2015) daily from July 25 to 28 at 6:05 PM, which will also be part of this year’s ARD Radiofestival (starting July 18).
ARD-alpha and the streaming service “BR-KLASSIK Concert”, together with the Bayreuth Festival, present Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez’s Centennial Ring. For the first time, this production can be experienced again on free TV on August 7 from 8:15 PM in the grand “Ring Night”.
The Bayreuth Festival on 3sat
3sat celebrates the Bayreuth Festival with the “Ring des Nibelungen” in Harry Kupfer’s production. Daniel Barenboim, who significantly shaped the Bayreuth Festival for 18 years, conducts. With the “Rheingold”, the prelude to the Ring tetralogy, followed by a documentary about singer Günther Groissböck, the television evening on July 25 from 8:15 PM will be entirely dedicated to Wotan. The other parts of this Ring by Harry Kupfer will be available in the 3sat media library, on br-klassik.de, and on www.festspiele-online.de.
Despite difficult circumstances due to Corona, the city of Bayreuth and the Bayreuth Festival will host a concert on July 25, marking the opening of the festival. Music director Christian Thielemann and members of the Festival Orchestra, along with Bayreuth singing stars Camilla Nylund and Klaus Florian Vogt, will perform works by Wagner. BR-KLASSIK will broadcast the concert live on radio from 4 PM. This summer, the video work “The Loop of the Nibelung” by Simon Steen-Andersen offers insights into the Festival Hall. The multi-award-winning Danish composer and performance artist embarks on an audiovisual exploration of the mythical Bayreuth Festival Hall and Wagner’s work with singers and musicians from the Festival Orchestra. The video work will be available from July 28 on the streaming service BR-KLASSIK Concert and on www.festspiele-online.de.
In “Hier gilt’s der Kunst,” Daniel Barenboim, Barrie Kosky, András Schiff, Martina Gedeck, and Thea Dorn, among others, will dedicate themselves to the topic of “Wagner, Music, and Politics” in a discussion series from the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. The discussions from the “Diskurs Bayreuth” series will be published on BR-KLASSIK Concert starting July 28.
Archive Gems and Video Extras
BR-KLASSIK will also broadcast two special archive treasures on the radio: André Cluytens’ “Lohengrin” from 1958 on July 29 at 6:05 PM, and “Tristan und Isolde” conducted by Herbert von Karajan from 1952 on July 30 at 6:05 PM. The interpretative comparison offers listeners an exciting and compact insight into a selection of interpretations of the “Flying Holländer” on July 31 at 6:05 PM.
On the websites of BR-KLASSIK and the Bayreuth Festival, exciting video formats such as the “Opera Crash Course Wagner”, the “classical shorts”, the “Ring Profiles”, and the “Wagner ABC” invite you to learn more about the power of Wagner’s music and immerse yourself in the mythical worlds of the “Ring”.
Further information on the program highlights at bayreuther-festspiele.de, www.festspiele-online.de,
br-klassik.de/bayreuther-festspiele and 3sat.de/kultur/festspielsommer/bayreuther-festspiele-2020.