Diskurs Bayreuth

When you hear the name Richard Wagner, “comedy” might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Indeed, well-known critics simply denied him the talent for “uninhibited cheerfulness”. Diskurs Bayreuth puts on rose-tinted glasses, throws pathos and profundity overboard, and illuminates Richard Wagner the entertainer. With Nietzsche in mind, who praised the Parsifal as “splendid operetta material”, Diskurs Bayreuth delves into Wagner’s wordplay and asks about the difference between a cage full of fools and legends of pure fools. At the same time, Diskurs Bayreuth this year reads the term ‘Lust-Spiel’ (play of pleasure) literally: because “supreme pleasure” is repeatedly at the heart of Wagner’s work. The prospect of “months of bliss” was a significant driving force in Wagner’s biography, as well as for his heroes, and the discharges of his music are also repeatedly experienced as very physical pleasure. A discourse between forbidden love and love-death, between Eros and Thalia.

* = Contributions marked with an asterisk take place hybrid

August 5, 2024
2-6 PM

2 PM
Woman’s Love and Life. How Wagner’s Heroines Love
Prof. Dr. phil habil. Friederike Wißmann
University of Music and Theatre Rostock

Wagner’s female characters have one thing in common: they are unattainable by earthly standards. The semantics of love that Wagner composes for them are extremely diverse. Musicologist Friederike Wißmann exemplarily describes Wagner’s concept of loving female figures – and their musical design.

Special Guest: TBD

3 PM*
As long as I love, no one dies. Lust as a death drive in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson*
Reykjavik

The Bayreuth Festival 2024 will open with a new production of Tristan und Isolde by Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson. In conversation, the director explains how he approached the complex of love, lust, and death drive.

4 PM*
Ecstasy – or the state of “highest pleasure”
Georg Friedrich Haas*
Columbia University, New York

Wagner’s “Lust-Spiele” (plays of pleasure/comedies) are composed in the spirit of the second half of the 19th century. What would composed “Lust-Spiele” look like at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century? What does the term “Lust-Spiel” mean in a world where more people watch pornography than World Cup broadcasts? In conversation and with examples, Georg Friedrich Haas, one of the most distinguished opera composers of our time, explains his approach to the topic. Like Richard Wagner, Georg Friedrich Haas views opera holistically. The musicality of the extramusical – e.g., darkness, but also generally the use of visual elements as a silent musical instrument – is a fundamental component of his music theater.

5 PM*
We are all Richard Wagner
Alex Ross*
New York

In his major book on the reception history of Richard Wagner through modernity, the American star music author Alex Ross traces various paths in Wagner’s thought and work. For Ross, Wagner is a German drama that draws from reality, but also from delusion. Is it possible to heal the wounds of modernity with the means of modernity? And what role does the “erotic impulse” play in this?
Co-moderation: Kai Hinrich Müller
In cooperation with the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles

August 6, 2024
10 AM – 2 PM

10 AM
Pleasure, Loss, and the Humorous in Richard Wagner’s Work
Prof. Dr. Jochen Hörisch
University of Mannheim

Wagner had a genuine sense of the comical, the grotesque, and certainly of higher absurdities. Many of his works explicitly bear parodistic features (foremost Meistersinger and Siegfried). It is also striking that Wagner’s works are often ambitious paraphrases of old material (Edda, Nibelungenlied, Tristan, Parzival, etc.). This short lecture aims to highlight the para-like features of Wagner’s work, thus making it clear that in Wagner, pleasure, loss, and the humorous stand in a sometimes parodistic, sometimes paraphrasing, sometimes parasitic relationship to each other.

11 AM
Wagner’s Wordplay
Victor Henle
Munich

With “Wagner’s Words”, Victor Henle has presented a book that unlocks Richard Wagner’s linguistic cosmos for both enthusiasts and experts. In conversation, he offers insights into Richard Wagner’s thinking and writing – with the magic formulas of etymology and other special instruments.
Special Guest: Michael Kupfer-Radecky

12 PM
Wagner Parodies as Strategies of Democratization
Dr. phil. habil. Kai-Hinrich Müller
Cologne University of Music and Dance

The number of Wagner parodies now far exceeds the number of Wagner’s own works. Such adaptations did not exclusively serve as persiflage – often, the humorous adaptation served as a medium to “democratize” Richard Wagner’s work and introduce it to new target groups. Kai-Hinrich Müller presents three different Wagner appropriations that approach Wagner in various ways, often with humor.
In cooperation with the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles

1 PM*
Is he always pathetic? Wagner and the comical in the Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Matthias Davids*
Linz

In the upcoming festival year, director Matthias Davids will stage Wagner’s Meistersinger. A work often read as Wagner’s intense engagement with William Shakespeare and his comedies. How does Wagner musically create “comedy”? And how does one stage it?

In Richard Wagner’s work, technical and aesthetic innovation often went hand in hand. The Gesamtkunstwerker delved into the details of theater machinery. To this day, he is the only composer in music history who can boast that a patent for a stage curtain bears his name. Diskurs Bayreuth is about the WAGNER MACHINE, in encounters between artists, researchers, and the audience on the Green Hill. What innovations has the history of Bayreuth Festival brought forth? What were Wagner’s own ideas about an innovative theater? What perspectives do technologies like Augmented Reality offer? What ethical and aesthetic consequences does the use of such technologies have? How are they used by composers today? What prerequisites does the “human” machine need to realize the challenges of a Wagner score?

With: Markus Poschner, Jay Scheib, Nathalie Stutzmann, Georg Zeppenfeld
Johanna Dombois, Jochen Hörisch, Gundula Kreuzer, Moritz Lobeck, Kai Hinrich Müller, Brigitta Muntendorf, Wolfgang Struck, Øyvind Torvund

Concept and Moderation: Patrick Hahn, Marie Luise Maintz

The Program

August 5, 2023

10:00 AM
Archaism and High-Tech. Composer in the Age of Media Revolutions
Jochen Hörisch

11:00 AM
Singing Wagner. How one becomes the Other – and the role the orchestra plays in it
Nathalie Stutzmann and Georg Zeppenfeld

12:30 PM
Sounding Bodies. On the Divisibility of the Indivisible
Brigitta Muntendorf

Oh Wonder! How to visualize the most sacred
Jay Scheib

1:30 PM
Machine in the Light. Another Green Hill and its Media
Moritz Lobeck

August 6, 2023

10:00 AM
Impossible Sounds. Of Grail Bells and Gut Strings
Kai-Hinrich Müller

The Abyss as a Mixing Desk. The Conductor in the Machine Room
Markus Poschner

11:30 AM
Unstageable? On Stage Directions and the History of Special Effects
Wolfgang Struck

Eye, Curtain, Glasses. From Old Media to New Media
Johanna Dombois

12:45 PM
A Steam Engine. Stage Illusions from the Boiler
Gundula Kreuzer

1:30 PM
Just Not So Finished. Plans for future operas
Øyvind Torvund

Topics and Participants

August 5, 2023

0:00 AM
Archaism and High-Tech. Composer in the Age of Media Revolutions
Prof. Dr. Jochen Hörisch, University of Mannheim

The 19th century was an age of media revolutions: Richard Wagner experienced the advent of photography and sound recording. In the medium of theater, he seems to have anticipated cinema in many respects, which was invented only twelve years after his death. Media theorist and loyal Wagnerian Jochen Hörisch is interested in the tensions in Wagner’s work: between invented archaism and desired high technology, between genius and engineering.

11:00 AM
Singing Wagner. How one becomes the Other – and the role the orchestra plays in it
Nathalie Stutzmann and Georg Zeppenfeld

Wagnerian roles pose very special challenges for singers, both technically and interpretively. How does one succeed in creating another identity on stage? What technical aspects are involved? And what else? Georg Zeppenfeld reports on the very real joys and struggles in battling stage fog, blinding spotlights, and sweat-inducing costumes. In Wagner’s music, the orchestra often seems to know more than the characters on stage. Nathalie Stutzmann discusses how the orchestra becomes a narrator in Wagner’s works.

12:30 PM
Sounding Bodies. On the Divisibility of the Indivisible
Prof. Brigitta Muntendorf, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln

In her compositions, Brigitta Muntendorf uses artificial intelligence to virtually or synthetically clone voices. Can a voice, an expression of identity in all cultures, even be artificially reproduced? And what does it mean if it could? What is artistically interesting about it? On the fine line between fiction and deepfake.

Oh Wonder! How to visualize the most sacred
Prof. Jay Scheib, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jay Scheib is a director and media artist. He stages Parsifal with “Augmented Reality” technology. How does staging change when incorporating the “infinite possibilities” of new machines? What challenges arise from the use of new technologies? What opportunities do they offer in the future? What barriers still need to be removed?

1:30 PM
Machine in the Light. Another Green Hill and its Media
Moritz Lobeck, Dresden

Dresden also has a festival hall on a Green Hill, built in 1911 in Dresden-Hellerau, a garden city. The theater hall was designed by the reformer Adolphe Appia: a space with a fluid boundary between stage and auditorium, without a proscenium arch, but with state-of-the-art lighting technology. Moritz Lobeck is program director in Hellerau, where the use of new technologies has been common practice for many years. Where is the experimental music theater scene heading? A conversation about media and trends and performances without a curtain.

August 6, 2023

0:00 AM
Impossible Sounds. Of Grail Bells and Gut Strings
PD Dr. Kai-Hinrich Müller, Hochschule für Musik Köln

As a composer, Richard Wagner also refused to be confined by the limitations of the instruments of his time and repeatedly encouraged new inventions, among which the Grail piano by Steingraeber is probably the best known. Over the last 150 years, instrumentation has evolved. What consequences has this had for Wagner interpretation and especially for Wagner singing? How did Wagner hear his own music? Questions that Cologne musicologist Kai-Hinrich Müller researches.

The Abyss as a Mixing Desk. The Conductor in the Machine Room
Markus Poschner, Chief Conductor Bruckner Orchester Linz, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana

Is the Wagner orchestra like a Pink Floyd PA system, as media theorist Friedrich Kittler once surmised? Tristan conductor Markus Poschner offers a glimpse into his mixing desk, explaining which faders he needs to operate to really crank up this system and how Wagner tuned it to transcend the limits of temporality.

11:30 AM
Unstageable? On Stage Directions and the History of Special Effects
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Struck, University of Erfurt

Machines have always been used in theater to create surprise effects and magic, to realize the seemingly impossible. Wolfgang Struck researches the art of spectacular special effects that captivate the audience. At the same time, he is fascinated by “impossible” designs by authors. What if, through new technologies, “everything” becomes possible?

Eye, Curtain, Glasses. From Old Media to New Media
Dr. Johanna Dombois, Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf

Non-linearity, interactivity, biofeedback, parallel-worldliness and projection technology, simulation and immanent self-reference: In her works on Richard Wagner and his media, the author Johanna Dombois has repeatedly shown how Richard Wagner, in his creative work, sought new forms of seeing, hearing, and feeling – and found new interfaces for them. As a machine-breaker, she reflects on the use of new media on the opera stage as critically as she makes them fruitful for productions. In 1999, she began experimenting with virtual, interactive, and old new media (such as the Laterna Magica, Argand lamps, curtain pulls) for the opera stage. In 2009, she presented a production of the Rheingold prelude (Ring Study 01), in which she used the online computer game platform SecondLife® as staging material. A conversation about the pros and cons of “media changes”.

12:45 PM
A Steam Engine. Stage Illusions from the Boiler
Prof. Dr. Gundula Kreuzer, Yale University, New Haven

Richard Wagner wanted to leave the chimneys of modern metropolises behind when he retreated to the Green Hill. However, he realized his stage ideas with the help of two steam locomotives. Musicologist Gundula Kreuzer offers a historical perspective on Wagnerian theater.

1:30 PM
Just not so finished. Plans for future operas
Øyvind Torvund

Reading List

What will the art of the future look like? Every work of art already contains an answer to this. But do you really want to commit yourself so firmly? In his series of works “Plans”, the composer Øyvind Torvund presents plans for pieces in an interplay of sketches and musical realization, which, in their finished incompleteness, have utopian potential.

Archaeology of Special Effects.
Edited by Natascha Adamowsky and Nicola Gess, Munich 2017

Richard Wagner and His Media. For a Critical Practice of Music Theater.
Johanna Dombois and Richard Klein, Stuttgart 2012

Woman’s Delight and Worth. Richard Wagner’s Theory Theater.
Jochen Hörisch, Berlin 2015

Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera.
Gundula Kreuzer, University of California 2018

Theater Machines – Machine Theater. On Mechanics, Machinations, and Spectacles.
Edited by Bettine Menke and Wolfgang Struck, Bielefeld 2022

Wagner Readings. Volumes 1-3.
Edited by Kai Hinrich Müller, Cologne 2019-2022
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-343518

At the end of “Götterdämmerung”, the world ash tree is just firewood. Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” is full of images that link the downfall of the gods with the destruction of nature. As early as 1850, Richard Wagner reacted to the relationship between art and the environment in his writing “Art and Climate” – not least meaning the intellectual climate. “Diskurs Bayreuth” explores the interactions: What demands are placed on art today? Has it gambled away its autonomy? Was it ever autonomous? What potential for renewal can be found from today’s perspective in Wagner’s “artwork of the future”, which he imagined as the “conceivable common work of mankind”? Did he realize this in the “Ring des Nibelungen”?

“Diskurs Bayreuth” leaves the closed study rooms this year and goes out into the city and into nature. On four discursive pilgrimage trails, which can be explored by the audience for the duration of the festival with smartphones and headphones, the festival city is transformed into a theory area where artists and scientists question the relationship between art and society, autonomy and Gesamtkunstwerk.

With excerpts from conversations and thoughts by Chaya Czernowin, Ulrich Konrad, Gundula Kreuzer, Konrad Kuhn, Thomas Macho, Cornelius Meister, Herfried Münkler, Isabel Mundry, Sergej Newski, Holger Noltze, Roland Schwab, Valentin Schwarz and Wolfgang Ullrich

Conception, interviews, editing: Patrick Hahn, Marie Luise Maintz

How it Works

What do I need for it?
A smartphone connected to the Internet, ideally headphones (enhances the experience, but also works without), a desire for walks, on foot and mentally.

How do I get to the content?
If you see one of our posters, scan the QR code with your smartphone’s camera and play the opening post.

How do I find the QR codes?
We have stored the locations of our QR codes in the navigation app Komoot (free download) for you.

To the audio walk overview on komoot.de

Biographies

Chaya Czernowin was born and raised in Israel. After studying in Israel, she continued her studies in Germany (DAAD scholarship) and in the USA at the age of 25 and then lived in Tokyo, Japan (Asahi Shimbun scholarship and American NEA scholarship), and in Germany (scholarship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude). Her music is performed worldwide by the best orchestras and performers of new music. She held a professorship at UCSD and was the first woman to be appointed as a composition professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (2006-2009) and at Harvard University, USA (2009 – present), where she is the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music. Together with Steven Kazuo Takasugi and Jean-Baptiste Joly, the director of the Akademie Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart, she founded the Summer Academy at Schloss Solitude, a course for composers held every two years (2003-2019). Takasugi and Czernowin also taught at Tzlil Meudcan, an international course in Israel founded by Yaron Deutsch of the Ensemble Nikel.

Patrick Hahn is an author, dramaturge and music manager. He studied musicology, German literature and philosophy at the University of Cologne and also worked as a journalist for radio stations such as WDR and for magazines such as the Neue Musikzeitung. In 2012 he was awarded the Reinhard Schulz Prize for contemporary music journalism. From 2011-15 dramaturge at the Oper Stuttgart, since 2015 Artistic Program Planner of the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln. One focus of his work is the development of new intermediate forms between concert and theater and he wrote libretti for opera and concert works for composers such as Mark Andre or Vito Žuraj.

Ulrich Konrad studied musicology, German language and literature and history in Bonn and Vienna. 1983 doctorate, 1991 habilitation, 1993 professor at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, since 1996 full professor at the University of Würzburg. Konrad has published numerous publications on the music history of the 17th to 20th centuries and publishes the historical-critical edition “Richard Wagner Schriften (RWS)”. Konrad is a member of several national and international scientific organizations and academies.

Gundula Kreuzer is Professor of Music History at Yale University. Her research focuses on 19th-century opera and issues of historiography, production history, stage technology, and contemporary experimental music theater. Her many award-winning writings include the monographs “Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich” (Cambridge 2010) and “Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera” (Oakland 2018).

Konrad Kuhn studied comparative literature and theater studies in Berlin and initially worked as a theater dramaturge, including at the Burgtheater Vienna. From 1999 to 2003, he was engaged at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, and from 2009 to 2012 at the Opernhaus Zürich. Guest engagements led him to the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Opéra national de Paris, the Vienna State Opera (Tannhäuser), the Theater an der Wien, the Teatro Real Madrid, the Teatro Comunale Bologna, the Baden-Baden Easter Festival, and the Salzburg Festival. He has collaborated with directors such as Achim Freyer, Harry Kupfer (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Zurich), and Luc Bondy, as well as with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Daniele Gatti, Nello Santi, and Philippe Jordan. He maintains continuous collaborations with Tobias Kratzer, Claus Guth, and Robert Wilson. Since 2015, Konrad Kuhn has been a dramaturge at the Oper Frankfurt. He also works as a literary translator and editor.

From 1993 to 2016, Thomas Macho researched and taught as a professor of cultural history at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1976, he received his doctorate from the University of Vienna with a dissertation on the philosophy of music; in 1984, he habilitated in philosophy at the University of Klagenfurt with a habilitation thesis on death metaphors. Since 2016, he has headed the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) of the University of Art and Design Linz in Vienna. In 2019, he was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scientific Prose by the German Academy for Language and Literature, and in 2020, the Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism.

Marie Luise Maintz is a musicologist and dramaturge. She studied and received her doctorate in Bonn. As an opera and concert dramaturge, she worked at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, as well as in Darmstadt, Bonn, and Aachen, among others. Since 2007, she has been a project manager for contemporary music and dramaturgy at Bärenreiter Verlag Kassel and works as an author and program designer. Since 2017, she has been a program planner for the “Diskurs Bayreuth” series of Bayreuth Festival. In 2021, she realized the online program “Is the Future Digital? Music Theater and Virtual Space”.

Cornelius Meister has been General Music Director of the Staatsoper and Staatsorchester Stuttgart since 2018 and was Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Tokyo from 2017-2020. He studied with K. Meister, M. Brauß, E. Ōue, D. R. Davies, J. Rotter, and K. Kamper. Since 2001, he has conducted at the State Operas of Hamburg, Vienna, Munich, Covent Garden London, La Scala Milan, Semperoper Dresden, Metropolitan Opera New York, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Zurich, Copenhagen, San Francisco, Tokyo. Concerts with leading orchestras in Amsterdam, Rome, Washington, Helsinki, Zurich, Tokyo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich. In 2022, he will conduct the “Ring des Nibelungen” at the Bayreuth Festival.

From April 1992 to September 2018, Herfried Münkler held the chair for Political Theory at Humboldt University in Berlin. Since 1993, he has been a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on political theory and intellectual history, political culture research, theory and history of war, and risk and security as socio-political categories. For his book “Die Deutschen und ihre Mythen” (The Germans and their Myths), he received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2009. His work “Der Dreißigjährige Krieg” (The Thirty Years’ War) attracted great interest in the media and public. In 2019, he published the book “Abschied vom Abstieg” (Farewell to Decline) together with his wife. In 2021, the book “Marx, Wagner Nietzsche. Welt im Umbruch” (Marx, Wagner Nietzsche. World in Upheaval) was released.
Isabel Mundry studied composition with Frank Michael Beyer, Gösta Neuwirth, and Hans Zender in Berlin and Frankfurt. From 1996-2004, she was a professor of composition and music theory in Frankfurt a. M. Since 2004, she has taught composition at the Zurich University of the Arts. Since 2011, she has also taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. In 2002/3, she was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. She has been Composer in Residence at the Lucerne Festival, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Biennale Lyon, and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, among others. She is a member of the Academies of Arts in Berlin and Munich. Her works have been interpreted by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Dresden, among others. She has received numerous awards, including the Siemens Förderpreis and the Busoni Prize.

Sergej Newski was born in Moscow and attended the college at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory there. In Dresden and Berlin, he studied composition with Jörg Herchet and Friedrich Goldmann, as well as music theory and music education with Hartmut Fladt. He received composition commissions from international opera houses and festivals and was awarded numerous prizes and scholarships, including the Berlin Art Prize in 2014 and the 1st prize in the composition competition of the state capital Stuttgart for the piece Fluss (Version 2005) in 2006. In 2012, his opera Franziskus premiered at the Bolshoi Theater Moscow, and in 2020, the opera Secondhand-Zeit (Boris) premiered at the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

Holger Noltze is a music journalist and has been a professor of music and media at TU Dortmund since 2005, where he established the music journalism program. He studied German language and literature and history in Bochum and Madrid and received his doctorate on Wolfram’s “Parzival”. From 2000 to 2005, Holger Noltze was head of the current culture department at Deutschlandfunk. Holger Noltze can be heard with features and contributions on WDR and writes for Opernwelt and DIE ZEIT, among others. Noltze has published, among others, the opera and cultural-historical account “Liebestod. Wagner, Verdi, Wir” (2013). Also “Die Leichtigkeitslüge. Über Musik, Medien und Komplexität” (2010). Most recently, “World Wide Wunderkammer. Ästhetische Erfahrung in der digitalen Revolution.” (2020) was published. Holger Noltze is a co-founder of the online platform takt1.de for classical music.

Roland Schwab was born in Saint Cloud in 1969 and grew up in Munich. After semesters studying physics and German language and literature, he began studying music theater directing at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Hamburg in 1992 under Prof. Götz Friedrich. He owed important impulses particularly to Ruth Berghaus, whose master student he became in 1994. In 1997, a guest performance brought him to the Berliner Ensemble, where he staged “Frank Alert meets Brecht.” After completing his studies in Hamburg with distinction, Roland Schwab worked as an assistant to Christine Mielitz at the Meininger Theater (“Der Ring des Nibelungen”) from 1998, where he eventually became chief director. In the following years, Roland Schwab worked as a freelance director at numerous theaters in Germany and abroad. Important recent works include “A Rake’s Progress” at the Oper Dortmund, “Guillaume Tell” at the Saarländisches Staatstheater, “Oberst Chabert” at the Oper Bonn, “Otello” at the Aalto-Theater, “Aida” at the Danish National Opera, “Ulenspiegel” at the International Brucknerfest Linz, and “Lohengrin” at the Felsenreitschule Salzburg. His works for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, “Mozart-Fragmente,” “Tiefland,” and “Don Giovanni,” as well as “Mefistofele” at the Bayerische Staatsoper, received particular attention.

Austrian director Valentin Schwarz studied music theater directing, economics, and philosophy in Vienna. During his directing studies, which he completed with distinction, he debuted with Debussy’s “Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien” and Lehár’s “Giuditta”. In 2017, he won the main prize, the audience award, and numerous special prizes in the form of staging offers at the international directing competition “Ring Award Graz” together with his set designer Andrea Cozzi. Their award-winning concept for Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” was realized as a co-production at the Opéra National de Montpellier and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Subsequently, he directed at the Oper Köln (M. Kagel: “Mare nostrum” and Y. Höller: “Der Meister und Margarita”), the Staatstheater Darmstadt (Verdi’s “Un ballo in maschera” and Puccini’s “Turandot”), and the Staatsoperette Dresden (Offenbach: “Die Banditen”), among others. Further invitations lead him to the Staatsoper Stuttgart (“Demo[kratie]”), the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar (Bizet: “Carmen” and Bartók: “Herzog Blaubarts Burg”), and the Theater an der Wien (Mozart: “Così fan tutte” at the Kammeroper). He gained important artistic impulses as an assistant in collaboration with Jossi Wieler, Armin Petras, and Kirill Serebrennikov. In 2022, Valentin Schwarz will direct the new production of Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” for Bayreuth Festival.

Wolfgang Ullrich, after periods in Munich and Karlsruhe, lives in Leipzig as a cultural scholar and freelance author. In his publications, he deals with the history and critique of the concept of art, with image-sociological topics, and with consumer theory. Together with Annekathrin Kohout, he publishes the book series “Digitale Bildkulturen” (Digital Image Cultures) with Klaus Wagenbach Verlag. – Recent books: Selfies. Die Rückkehr des öffentlichen Lebens (2019); Feindbild werden. Ein Bericht (2020); Die Kunst nach dem Ende ihrer Autonomie (2022).

A multimedia project by Bayreuth Festival, realized by BF Medien GmbH

Artistic Director: Prof. Katharina Wagner
Program Booklet: Dr. Marie Luise Maintz

Bayreuth Festival is preparing a special event with the “Ring 20.21”: The performances of “Walküre” in the Festspielhaus, designed by action artist Hermann Nitsch, are framed by commissioned works in various art forms that reflect, comment on, continue, or make newly experienceable all parts of the “Ring des Nibelungen”. A music theater piece on “Das Rheingold – Immer noch Loge”, which reveals some surprises, opens in the Festspielpark with a composition by Gordon Kampe based on the libretto by Paulus Hochgatterer, staged and realized with puppets by Nikolaus Habjan. In a multimedia work by Jay Scheib, the viewer can immerse themselves in “Siegfried” and fight the dragon. An installation for “Götterdämmerung” by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota will conclude the cycle in the Festspielpark as delicately as it is overwhelming and visionary.

Individual Projects

The Rheingold – Still Loge

Opera by Gordon Kampe
based on a text by Paulus Hochgatterer

Commissioned work by the Bayreuth Festival
Composition commission funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
Realized by BF Medien GmbH

The Bayreuth project “Ring 20.21” opens with the opera “Rheingold – Still Loge” by composer Gordon Kampe based on a libretto by Paulus Hochgatterer.

On a green hill, immediately after the great fire of Valhalla: The survivors of the catastrophe, Erda and the Rhinemaidens, hold court over the arsonist Loge, who is trapped in a cage. Only nightmares and memories remain in the smoking ruins: “What remains when heroes and gods burn?”

In “Rheingold – Still Loge”, everything is at stake: With some surprises, the continuation of the story is told by Gordon Kampe and Paulus Hochgatterer, staged and realized with puppets by Nikolaus Habjan. The short opera with three vocal soloists, hand puppets, and an instrumental ensemble will be performed in a setting by Julius Semmelmann at and in the “pond” below the Festspielhaus.

Gordon Kampe on the composition: “The music follows, on the one hand, the idea of a court hearing: ritualized moments, sudden objections, and arioso pleas characterize large parts of the action. On the other hand, there are always wild outbursts, driving pulses, and false musical trails – from the smoke of the aria, something can emerge that could almost be a naive folk song, followed by a dry song in which Loge laments the envy of those involved – and these chords here and there, could they have been saved from Wagner’s Rheingold? Who can be trusted in these nightmarish ruins? Certainly not the music.”

The Walküre

The action artist Hermann Nitsch will design “The Valkyrie”: “I was invited as an action artist to stage an actionist event on stage during the musical performance of all three acts of The Valkyrie. I would like to realize a painting action. The poured and smeared colors of the entire rainbow spectrum will try to compete in a positive sense with the colorfulness of Wagner’s music. The painting actions are preliminary stages of my own Orgies Mysteries Theatre, which I developed in Prinzendorf. I am particularly pleased when continuously luminous colors will trickle from top to bottom in the three acts. The painting processes should be like music. Sounds become colors.” (Hermann Nitsch)

Ten experienced Nitsch actors and extras, under the direction of the action artist, will be the performers for painting, actions and processions, while the vocal soloists stand at the edge of the stage as in an oratorio.

Be Siegfried

A snapshot from Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” becomes an experience in a virtual world: Jay Scheib, director and professor at the legendary MIT research institute in Massachusetts, transforms the Festspielhaus into a unique experiential space. The dragon fight as an interactive artwork takes place in extended reality, “Virtual Reality”.

With new technologies, Jay Scheib develops the art of illusions, of artificial spaces, in which the viewer’s imagination can experience the narrated stories. Richard Wagner’s mythical narrative in Ring des Nibelungen invites this. “Wagner invented the invisible orchestra; now we are taking up his vision of the invisible theater. We see working with the technology of so-called ‘Extended’, ‘Virtual’, or ‘Augmented Reality’ as a continuation of Wagner’s mission to enable complete stage illusion”, says Jay Scheib. The audience can experience the virtual scene using VR glasses. In the animation, viewers enter the Festspielhaus, where a fight with the dragon awaits them…

A maximum of six visitors can simultaneously experience the dragon fight live with VR glasses as Siegfried, accompanied by appropriate music. The viewers and the six output counters for the glasses will be placed on Wolfgang-Wagner-Platz in front of the “Königsbau”, and the dragon fight is designed to last approximately 3 minutes. “Sei Siegfried” is a cooperation with “NightLight Labs” (Los Angeles).

Götterdämmerung – the Thread of Fate

In the open space in the Festspielpark, on the left side of the driveway to the Festspielhügel, the installation “The Thread of Fate” by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, inspired by Götterdämmerung, will be on display. The installation will be freely accessible to all interested parties from July 29 until the end of Bayreuth Festival 2021 on August 25.

“Götterdämmerung, the final chapter of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, begins with the three Norns spinning the thread of fate. I wonder… Is the fate of Siegfried and Brünnhilde unchangeable? Or is the world hopeless? The Norns represent past, present, and future, weaving their time into the rope of fate. I see my work in this scene as well. It is similar with my thread installations. I want to connect the past of the space with the present and create something new for the future that people will remember through the thread. I believe that objects and the space around us accumulate our existence. When you stand in a room, you feel the existence of the people who spend time in that room. The red sculpture embodies the accumulation of relationships with each other. These connections expand in time and space, while the simplicity of the ring symbolizes unity, infinity, and eternity.” (Chiharu Shiota)

“is the Future Digital? Music Theater and Virtual Space”

Since the art of theater exists, it has been about illusions, about artificial spaces in which the audience’s imagination can experience the stories being told. This year, the conversation series of Diskurs Bayreuth revolves around the imaginary spaces that Richard Wagner also dreamed of: “Having created the invisible orchestra, I would also like to invent the invisible theater.” (1878)

Complementing this year’s Bayreuth project “Ring 20.21” with the new piece “Immer noch Loge” by Gordon Kampe, staged by Nikolaus Habjan, as well as Hermann Nitsch’s pouring action for “Die Walküre”, Jay Scheib’s virtual reality work “Sei Siegfried”, and Chiharu Shiota’s installation “The Thread of Fate”, we ask the question: “Is the future digital? Music theater and virtual space”. How do theater makers view the digital future of theater in light of their artistic work? Is an “invisible stage” desirable? What challenges does the digital pose to their work? Which of these topics do they want to address? Which ones would they rather not? Diskurs Bayreuth presents answers and discussions.

Is the Future Digital? Music Theater and Virtual Space

Since the art of theater exists, it has been about illusions, about artificial spaces in which the audience’s imagination can experience the stories being told. This year, the discussions at Diskurs Bayreuth revolve around the imaginary spaces that Richard Wagner also dreamed of: “Having created the invisible orchestra, I would also like to invent the invisible theater.” (1878)

How do theater makers view the digital future of theater today against the background of their artistic work? Is an “invisible stage” desirable? What challenges does the digital world pose to their work? Which of these topics would they like to address? Which would they rather not?

Positions on the Theater of the Future – a Virtual Conversation

with Georges Aperghis, Calixto Bieito, Hannah Dübgen, Alexander Fahima, Beat Furrer, Georg Friedrich Haas, Sebastian Hannak, David Hermann, Stefan Kaegi, Philippe Manoury, Olga Neuwirth, Falk Richter, Alexander Schubert, Valentin Schwarz, Yuval Sharon, Nicolas Stemann.

Compiled by Marie Luise Maintz and Patrick Hahn.

Ring 20.21: Reports and Conversations

We document the four parts of “Ring 20.21” with reports and interviews with Nikolaus Habjan and Gordon Kampe, Hermann Nitsch and Jay Scheib, and Chiharu Shiota. Hosted by Patrick Hahn.

Diskurs Bayreuth 2021 – Concept and Project Management: Marie Luise Maintz

Premiere of “the Loop of the Nibelung” and Discussion Series “Here Art is Paramount”

“Diskurs Bayreuth” is Bayreuth Festival’s platform for premieres, discussions, and concerts. In 2020, program will be presented online. Simon Steen-Andersen’s video work “The Loop of the Nibelung” will premiere on July 28, 2020, and be available online. The discussion series “Hier gilt’s der Kunst” – Wagner, Music and Politics with Daniel Barenboim, Thea Dorn, Sir András Schiff, Martina Gedeck, Barrie Kosky, Dörte Schmidt, Dieter Grimm, as well as Björn Gottstein, Julia Spinola, and Bernhard Neuhoff is available online from July 28.

“Here Art is Paramount” – Discussions on Wagner, Music, and Politics

The discussion series “Diskurs Bayreuth” addresses current questions: Can, must, should art be a
statement on politics and current events? Isn’t it always? What can art achieve?
Shouldn’t it stand freely for itself, be autonomous? What role in democracy, what
task, what obligation falls to artists and cultural institutions? Do artworks have a
(social) function, are they “systemically relevant”?

“Here Art is Paramount” – In Bayreuth’s history, this quote from the “Meistersinger”
has repeatedly relegated art and politics to different spheres: in 1924, during the nascent
National Socialism, and in 1951, in New Bayreuth after World War II, open political
statements on the hill were not desired. Yet, the commandment itself can be understood as a highly
political act.

Can art have a political impact?
Daniel Barenboim, Thea Dorn

Wagner’s Music Theater and Politics
Barrie Kosky, Julia Spinola, Moderation: Bernhard Neuhoff (BR)

Must an artist take a political stance? Can art develop freely?
András Schiff, Martina Gedeck, Moderation: Björn Gottstein (SWR)

Artistic Autonomy and/as Social Function
Dörte Schmidt, Dieter Grimm, Moderation: Bernhard Neuhoff (BR)

Simon Steen-Andersen: the Loop of the Nibelung

Video, 36 min.
Commissioned work by Bayreuth Festival
Online premiere: 29.7.2020, Bayreuth Festival /Bayerischer Rundfunk

An audiovisual exploration of the mythical Bayreuth Festival Theatre: Simon Steen-Andersen, composer and media artist, takes musicians from Bayreuth Festival into a “chain reaction machine” in the Festival Theatre, which becomes both instrument and stage set.

Simon Steen-Andersen ingeniously combines sound and image in his works. Based on his concept “Run Time Error”, which is always related to specific locations, he stages perplexing games with offset sounds and images.

In his video work with singers and musicians of the Festival Orchestra, he encounters Wagner’s work in a historical place. Unheard, unseen, unusual things become a fast-paced, sensual performance, reaching down into the “mystical abyss” of the Bayreuth orchestra pit “and beyond”.

Simon Steen-Andersen, concept, composition, direction and performance
Peter Tinning, camera performer
Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Nadine Weissmann, mezzo-soprano
Olafur Sigurdarson, baritone
Musicians of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Composition commission financed by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
A production of Bayreuth Festival as part of “Diskurs Bayreuth”

Simon Steen-Andersen was born in Denmark in 1976 and studied composition from 1998 to 2006 in Aarhus, Freiburg, Copenhagen, and Buenos Aires with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Mathias Spahlinger, Bent Sørensen, and Gabriel Valverde. He has received numerous awards and prizes, including from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation in 2017, the Mauricio Kagel Music Prize of the Kunststiftung NRW in 2017, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Prize in 2019 and 2014, the Berlin Art Prize of the Akademie der Künste, and the Carl Nielsen Prize in 2013, the Kranichsteiner Music Prize (2008), and the Tribune internationale des compositeurs in 2010. He was also a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. Since 2018, he has been a professor in the Composition and Musical Theater department at the Bern University of the Arts. He lives in Berlin.

“Scene Makers”

Since 2017, the DISKURS BAYREUTH accompanying program has expanded the spectrum of Bayreuth Festival. program reflects the phenomenon of “Richard Wagner” in concerts, staged productions, and discussion events.

In 2019, the Diskurs is themed “Scene Makers”. As a groundbreaking re-thinker of musical theater, Richard Wagner redefined the relationship between sounds, images, words, and drama. The events trace the innovations and their effects into the future: from Wagner’s predecessors to Cage, Kagel & Co, up to Simon Steen-Andersen.

The commissioned work SIEGFRIED by Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel will premiere as a staged production at the Kulturbühne “Reichshof”.

Cast

Authors: Feridun Zaimoglu & Günter Senkel
Performers: Felix Römer & Felix Axel Preißler
Director: Philipp Preuss
Stage & Costume: Ramallah Aubrecht
Dramaturgy: Constanze Fröhlich
Lighting design: Carsten Rüger
Sound design: Alexander Nemitz
Video design: Konny Keller
Production management: Katharina Wagner, Jonathan Danigel
Technical direction: Matthias Lippert
Stage manager: Matthias Feistkorn
Video operator: Thilo David Heins
Mask: Daniel Riedl
Costume assistance: Ulrike Feibig
Dramaturgy assistance: Hauke Pockrandt
Curator: Marie Luise Maintz

Plot

Siegfried speaks: In a monologue, Bayreuth’s first heir himself has his say. Authors Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel pay artistic tribute to Siegfried Wagner on the occasion of his 150th birthday. Richard Wagner’s son was a composer, conductor, director, scenographer, and festival director from 1908 to 1930. An artist who, with tireless creativity, was as versatile as hardly anyone else in his profession. The authors show him in two groundbreaking situations – on the day of the German declaration of war on August 1, 1914, and on August 4, 1930, immediately before his death. “He becomes visible as someone who tells his story. He takes the floor and explains himself,” says Feridun Zaimoglu: “We are concerned with the artist who said: ‘I served art alone’, it is about showing him as an autonomous actor who acts in various contexts of contemporary history, as someone who is driven by the continued existence of art, as an artist and fighter.”

The commissioned work SIEGFRIED by Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel will premiere on August 13, 2019, at the Kulturbühne Reichshof. Siegfried Wagner may have visited the former cinema, built in 1927 in the heart of Bayreuth, as a spectator himself.

Beforehand, Bayreuth Festival will host a panel discussion at Haus Wahnfried.

Production and Performers

Philipp Preuss
Director

Born in Bregenz in 1974, grew up in Vienna. Studied directing and acting at the Mozarteum Salzburg. His pieces ran at Schauspielhaus Bochum, Theater Dortmund, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Schauspiel Leipzig, Theater Kosmos Bregenz, Schaubühne Berlin, and Deutsches Theater Berlin, among others. Since 2001, visual artist and director. Since 2015, resident director at Schauspiel Leipzig.

Invited to the Festival Radikal jung in 2005 with Dantons Tod by Georg Büchner (Schauspiel Frankfurt), as well as in 2012 and 2013 with Der Geizige by Molière and Kein Licht/ Prometheus by Jelinek/Aischylos (both Schlosstheater Moers), in 2014 Der Reigen oder Vivre sa vie after Arthur Schnitzler and Jean-Luc Godard and in 2017 Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (both Schauspiel Leipzig) to the Saxon Theater Meeting, in 2019 with AmKönigsweg#UbuRoi by Jelinek/Jarry (Theater an der Ruhr) to the NRW Theater Meeting and with the world premiere of Atlas by Thomas Köck to the Mülheim Plays, as well as to the Author Days at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.

Other productions include the European premiere of Persona by Ingmar Bergman (Deutsches Theater Berlin, 2009), Das Käthchen von Heilbronn by Heinrich von Kleist (Schauspiel Frankfurt, 2014), Mann ist Mann by Bertolt Brecht (Schlosstheater Moers, 2014), Faust by J.W. Goethe (Theater Heidelberg, 2018), Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Staatstheater Nürnberg, 2018), Torquato Tasso (Residenztheater München, 2016), Kasimir und Karoline by Horvath (Volkstheater Wien, 2017), Gespenster oder Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken by Ibsen/Schreber (Schauspiel Leipzig, 2018), as well as Das Kalkwerk by Thomas Bernhard (2015), Der Fremde (2017) by Albert Camus and the mashup project Voyage (2018) at the Schaubühne Berlin.

Awarded the Prize of the International Lake Constance Conference for Visual Arts in 2003 and the Advancement Award of the State of NRW in 2007 for his production of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (Theater Dortmund, 2006), exhibitions and performances in Bregenz, Leipzig, Milan and at Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016), among others.

Ramallah Sara Aubrecht
Stage and costume

Ramallah Sara Aubrecht, born in Bregenz in 1975, studied stage design at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz with Hans Schavernoch. As a stage and costume designer, she has worked at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Theater Basel, the Theater Dortmund, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, among others. Since 2001 she has worked regularly with the director Philipp Preuss, including at the Residenztheater München, the Schauspiel Frankfurt, Theater an der Ruhr, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Staatstheater Braunschweig, the Volkstheater Wien, the Schauspiel Leipzig and the Schaubühne Berlin.

Felix Römer
Siegfried

Born in Vienna in 1960, has been an ensemble member of the Schaubühne since 2003. Studied acting in Vienna, followed by engagements at the Burgtheater Vienna, Schauspielhaus Graz (including as Mozart in “Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, directed by Peter Lotschak, 1983), Staatstheater Kassel (including as Shlink in Brecht’s “In the Jungle of Cities”, directed by: Elias Perrig), Theater Dortmund (including as Christian in the world premiere of Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration – directed by: Burkhard C. Kosminski, 2000).

Further works include with Dieter Giesing, Otto Schenk, Augosto Boal, Markus Imhoof, Elias Perrig, Michael Gruner, Luc Perceval (including as Nikolaj Trilezkij in Platonow by Anton Chekhov), Thomas Ostermeier (including as Hauptmann in Büchner’s Woyzeck), Volker Lösch, Michael Thalheimer (including as actor in Gorki’s Night Asylum), Tom Kühnel, Katie Mitchell as Fritz Haber in The Forbidden Zone by Duncan Macmillan, Milo Rau as Trotsky in Lenin world premiere, 2017; Philipp Preuss in Das Kalkwerk by Thomas Bernhard (monologue), in Der Fremde by Albert Camus, in Voyage (monologue about traveling) – all three productions by Philipp Preuss currently on the Schaubühne program.

Film work includes Dreileben – One Minute of Darkness (directed by: Christoph Hochhäusler, 2010), Forget My Self (directed by: Jan Schomburg, 2012), Blood Glacier (directed by: Marvin Kren, 2014), Phoenix (directed by: Christian Petzold, 2014) and My Daughter Anne Frank (directed by: Raymond Ley, 2015); Radegund (directed by: Terence Malick, 2017); M – A City Searches for a Murderer (directed by: David Schalko, 2019).

Felix Axel Preissler
Siegfried

Felix Axel Preißler was born in Heidelberg in 1984 and grew up in the Palatinate on the Southern Wine Route. After a two-year interlude at the Schloß Salem boarding school, he began training at the Schauspielschule Mainz during his state Abitur. Parallel to the last year of his training, he began his first engagement at the Stadttheater Bamberg in the 2007/08 season. This was followed by 5 years in the ensemble of the Staatstheater Nürnberg, where he worked regularly with the directors Stefan Otteni, Michael Schlecht and Christoph Mehler. Felix Axel Preißler has been a permanent ensemble member of the Schauspiel Leipzig since August 2013. Here began the collaboration with Philipp Preuss – joint works were Der Reigen oder Vivre sa vie after Arthur Schnitzler and Jean-Luc Godard, Wolokolamsker Chaussee I-V by Heiner Müller, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen, Gespenster oder Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken after Henrik Ibsen and Daniel Paul Schreber and most recently Prinz Friedrich von Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist.

Symposium
RICHARD WAGNER – DRAMA AND PRODUCTION

What is interpretation allowed, able, required to do – and what is it not? How do productions change the views on Richard Wagner and on history? As “scene-makers”, directors, conductors, festival directors, performers and their work are at the center of the discussions at DISKURS BAYREUTH.

Friday, August 2, 10 AM – 3 PM

Markus Kiesel | Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach
BEYOND GERMAN FORTIFICATION GAMES: SIEGFRIED WAGNER

Rebecca Grotjahn
A TRULY GERMAN THEATRICAL ART: WILHELMINE SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT AND THE WAGNER PRODUCTION

Kerstin Schüssler-Bach
“WOMEN’S ROOM POLITICS”? – THE FESTIVAL DIRECTORS COSIMA AND WINIFRED WAGNER

Rebecca Grotjahn and Kerstin Schüssler-Bach in conversation

Kai Köpp
THE SCORE DIRECTS – STAGE PRACTICE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Matthias Pasdzierny
“THE MUSICAL IS DRAMATICALLY-SCENICALLY NECESSARY!” – Heinz Tietjen AS A WAGNER DIRECTOR

Kai Köpp and Matthias Pasdzierny in conversation

Saturday, August 3, 10 AM – 3 PM

Stephan Mösch | N.N.
“APRÈS CHÉREAU” – CHANGE OF TIMES IN BAYREUTH

Johannes Erath | Wolfgang Nägele
PARADIGM SHIFT IN WAGNER DIRECTION

Tobias Kratzer | Kristel Pappel
“ON THE USE AND DISADVANTAGE OF HISTORY FOR WAGNER DIRECTION”

Sunday, August 4, 2018, 10 AM – 3 PM

Francis Hüsers | Michael Schulz
WAGNER OUTSIDE OF BAYREUTH

Paul Esterhazy | Valentin Schwarz
“CHILDREN! MAKE NEW THINGS!” – DILEMMA OF RENEWAL

Moderation: Marie Luise Maintz

Participants of the Symposium

Markus Kiesel studied musicology, art history, and German studies in Heidelberg, and theater studies and architectural history in the USA. In 1992, at the suggestion of Friedelind Wagner, he received his doctorate on the instrumental work of Siegfried Wagner. Between 1991 and 2012, he was, among other things, chief scheduler and operations director at the opera houses in Frankfurt am Main, Cottbus, and Dortmund, as well as operations director at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden and managing director of the Hessian Theater Commission. From 2013 to 2016, Kiesel was artistic director of the Essen Philharmonic at the Aalto Music Theater Essen. Since 2016, he has been head of program planning for the International Beethovenfest Bonn (Artistic Director: Nike Wagner). Teaching assignments regularly take him to the universities in Bayreuth, Munich (LMU), Heidelberg, Zurich, Bonn, and Vienna. Until 2018, Kiesel was a member of the advisory board of the Richard Wagner Museum in Haus Wahnfried in Bayreuth.

Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach received his doctorate after studying American Studies, German Studies, Pedagogy, and Art History, focusing on Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, and modern art. From 2008 to 2012, he was a junior professor of American Studies at the University of Hamburg. He also taught dramaturgy at HAW Hamburg and at the University of Music. From 2012 to 2015, he was chief dramaturge of the Aalto-Theater and the Essen Philharmonic. However, his work as a permanent production dramaturge for Stefan Herheim remains significant: with him, he developed, among others, Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, Salome and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Salzburg Festival, Les Vêpres siciliennes in London, Eugen Onegin and Pique Dame in Amsterdam, La Bohème in Oslo, Pelléas et Mélisande at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 2020, a joint new production of Ring des Nibelungen will follow at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.

Rebecca Grotjahn was appointed professor of musicology with a focus on gender studies at the musicology seminar of the University of Paderborn and the Detmold University of Music in 2006, after initially studying music and German for teaching and singing and musicology in Hanover and then receiving her doctorate in 1998 at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. In Detmold, she has been head of the DFG project Technologies of Singing (together with Malte Kob and Karin Martensen) since 2016. Her research focuses on: History of singing and singers, song and song singing, Robert and Clara Schumann, Johann Sebastian Bach, media history, everyday history, music and material culture. Most recently published is Das Geschlecht musikalischer Dinge, ed. by Rebecca Grotjahn, Sarah Schauberger, Johanna Imm and Nina Jaeschke (= Jahrbuch Musik und Gender 11 [2018]), Hildesheim 2018.

Kerstin Schüssler-Bach worked from 1990 to 2015 as a dramaturge at the Oper Köln, the Aalto-Theater Essen and as a leading dramaturge at the Hamburg State Opera. She received her doctorate on the stage works of Frank Martin and taught at the Hamburg University of Music and the University of Cologne. Since 2015 she has been working for the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes Berlin. She writes work essays for, among others, the WDR, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Salzburger Festspiele and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. She is co-editor of the Brahms-Studien and has published scientific articles on Verdi, Brahms, Mahler, Henze, Reimann and Brett Dean, among others. Another focus is the conception of literary-musical programs, such as this year for the Mozartfest Würzburg on Clara Schumann. She curated an extensive accompanying program for Claus Guth and Simone Young’s Hamburg Ring (2008 to 2010).

Kai Köpp, Professor of Music Research and Interpretation Practice at the Bern University of the Arts since 2010, studied musicology, art history and law in Bonn and Freiburg and received his habilitation at the University Mozarteum Salzburg. After a parallel viola diploma at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and three years at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, he was a member of leading ensembles for historical performance practice with over 40 recordings. Since 2008 he has been teaching in Bern and has been in charge of numerous third-party funded projects, for example 2011 to 2016 as a promotion professor for applied interpretation research of the Swiss National Fund. His work as ensemble director and interpretation coach for orchestra and stage productions is linked to numerous publications on music and interpretation history, on methods of interpretation research and on editorial criticism.

Matthias Pasdzierny studied school music, musicology and German studies in Stuttgart, Berlin and Krakow. He has been a research assistant at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2009, and in 2013 he received his doctorate there with the work Wiederaufnahme? Return from exile and West German musical life after 1945. Since 2016 he has been head of the Berlin office of the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Complete Edition at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. He is co-founder of the international research network Trayectorias / Cultural Exchanges: Music between Latin America and Europe and a member of the Arab-German Young Academy of Science. His research focuses on: Music history after 1945, audio- and/as media philology, music and migration/exile/remigration, international relations and music after 1945 (especially Europe, USA, Latin America, Arab countries), techno-historical writing, music and digitality.

Stephan Mösch, Professor of Aesthetics, History and Artistic Practice of Music Theater at the Karlsruhe University of Music since 2013, studied musicology, theater and literature in Berlin, as well as singing in Berlin and Stuttgart. In 2001 he received his doctorate on Boris Blacher. His habilitation thesis Weihe, Werkstatt, Wirklichkeit. Wagner’s “Parsifal” in Bayreuth 1882–1933 was published in 2012 by Bärenreiter in its second edition. In 2010/11 he represented the chair of music theater studies at the University of Bayreuth. Teaching assignments have taken him to the universities in Berlin (UdK), Vienna and Zurich. He taught at the Dresdner Meisterkursen Musik (DMM) and the Weimarer Meisterkursen. From 1994 to 2013 he was the editor responsible for the trade journal Opernwelt (Berlin) and co-editor of the yearbook OPER. He is an author in the Feuilleton of the F.A.Z. and a jury member at numerous competitions for singing, directing and stage design as well as for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Johannes Erath works as a director. He initially assisted Willy Decker, Nicolas Brieger, Christine Mielitz, Guy Joosten, Peter Konwitschny, Marco Arturo Marelli, and Graham Vick at theaters throughout Europe. Recent productions of his own include Szymanowski’s Król Roger at the Oper Frankfurt, Micha Hamel’s Caruso a Cuba (UA) at the National Opera Amsterdam, Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci at the Bregenz Festival, Arnulf Herrmann’s Der Mieter (UA) at the Oper Frankfurt, Manon at the Oper Köln, Joby Talbot’s Everest at the Theater Hagen, and Le nozze di Figaro and Hoffmanns Erzählungen at the Semperoper in Dresden. A long collaboration connected him with the Oper Graz, where Die tote Stadt, Lulu, Don Giovanni, Elektra, and Lohengrin were created. Future projects include a new production of Spontini’s La Vestale and Verdi’s I masnadieri at the Bavarian State Opera, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

Wolfgang Nägele is a music theater and drama director. He studied literature and philosophy in Munich. His works have been seen at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Hamburgische Staatsoper, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Theater Bielefeld, the Musikbiennale Venedig, the Philharmonie Luxemburg and the Theater für Niedersachsen in Hildesheim. He has also been working regularly in Russia since 2014. From 2007 to 2016 he worked closely with the director Hans Neuenfels, with whom he worked at the Bayreuth Festival, the Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Oper Frankfurt, the Opernhaus Zürich and the Aalto-Theater Essen. From 2014 to 2016 he was a fellow of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute. With his concept of Don Pasquale he was a semi-finalist of the Ring Award 2017 and won the Tischlerei Preis of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Tobias Kratzer studied art history and philosophy in Munich and Bern, as well as acting and opera directing at the Bavarian Theater Academy August Everding. In 2008, he participated in the international directing competition Ring Award Graz under two pseudonyms and won – under both identities – all special prizes awarded within the competition, as well as the 1st prize. Since then, he has worked as a director under his own name. He has directed, among others, at the Brussels Opera House La Monnaie, in Amsterdam, at the Komische Oper and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, with the opera studio of the Bavarian State Opera, at the Estonian National Opera, the Oper Graz, at the Schwetzingen Festival and the Theater Basel, as well as several times at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar and the Luzerner Theater. For the Wermland Opera in Karlstad, Sweden, he developed a revolution trilogy consisting of Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Beethoven’s Fidelio. In Nuremberg and Nice (Les Huguenots), Karlsruhe (Le prophète), and Frankfurt (L “Africaine/Vasco de Gama), he realized a cycle with Giacomo Meyerbeer’s three historical Grand opéras from 2014–2018. His Wagner productions in Bremen, Weimar, and at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Götterdämmerung) were repeatedly nominated as ‘Performance of the Year’ and for the German theater prize DER FAUST. For his productions of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Meyerbeer’s L” Africaine, he was also awarded “Opera Director of the Year 2018” by the trade magazine Die deutsche Bühne. In 2019, he directed Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival.

Kristel Pappel studied violin and musicology at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater in Tallinn. She then received her doctorate with a thesis on opera in Tallinn in the 19th century. She is Professor of Music History at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater. Her versatile teaching activities have taken her to universities in Vienna and Göttingen, among others, with guest lectures and seminars. Pappel has received several research grants, including from the city of Lübeck and from the TEMPUS program of the EU (for a study visit to the Research Institute for Music Theater, Thurnau). In 1991 she was the first fellow of the International Wagner Association from Estonia in Bayreuth. Her publications deal primarily with the theory and history of music theater and with musical life in the 19th century. She is co-editor of selected writings by Joachim Herz (with Michael Heinemann, 3 volumes, 2010–2011).

Francis Hüsers was chief dramaturge of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and opera director of the Hamburg State Opera before taking over the directorship of the Theater Hagen in summer 2017. He also worked freelance as an author and lecturer, as well as a production dramaturge at numerous opera houses in Europe, particularly with directors Johannes Erath (e.g., Lohengrin), Jochen Biganzoli, Alexander Schulin (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Dmitri Tcherniakov, Magdalena Fuchsberger, and Vincent Boussard (e.g., Lohengrin). Francis Hüsers studied German, sociology, and English at the University of Cologne and published numerous essays on music theater as well as social science studies, e.g., on topics such as xenophobia, anti-Semitism, or bisexuality.

Michael Schulz studied directing at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg. After positions at the Staatstheater Kassel, Aalto-Theater Essen, and most recently as opera director of the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, where he staged a much-acclaimed Ring des Nibelungen among many other productions, he has been General Director of the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen since 2008. For his production Dialogues des Carmélites, he received the Götz-Friedrich-Stiftung award in 1998. As a guest director, he has worked at the Komische Oper Berlin, the Aalto-Theater, and the Semperoper Dresden, among others. In the Wagner Year 2013, Schulz staged Parsifal at the Salzburg Easter Festival, which was performed in the same year as the first Parsifal production in China (Beijing). During the Wagner Weeks at the Palace of Arts Budapest, he staged Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in the same year and Tristan und Isolde at the Musiktheater im Revier in 2018.

Paul Esterhazy is a director and dramaturge. He studied law and theater studies in Vienna; in 1979, he received his doctorate in law. From 1993 to 1996, he was chief dramaturge at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and from 1996 to 2000 in the same position at the Oper Bonn. There, he initiated the internationally renowned series bonn chance! Experimental Music Theater. In 2000, he was appointed General Director of the Theater Aachen (until 2005). Paul Esterhazy has made a name for himself as a translator of opera texts. Since 1996, he has regularly worked as an opera director, focusing not only on the standard repertoire but also particularly on works of new music theater. From 2009 to 2011, he was a visiting professor for music dramatic performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In 2018, with the opera “der verschwundene hochzeiter” by Klaus Lang, he staged the first premiere within Bayreuth Festival since 1882 (Parsifal).

Valentin Schwarz studied music theater directing at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In the 2017 international directing competition Ring Award, he and his set designer Andrea Cozzi won the main prize, the audience award, and special prizes in the form of staging offers for their concept of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. At the Staatstheater Darmstadt, he staged Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera and will open the 2019/20 season there with Puccini’s Turandot, as well as staging Offenbach’s Die Banditen at the Staatsoperette Dresden under new direction. In the course of his artistic development, he assisted Jossi Wieler, Armin Petras, and Kirill Serebrennikov, among others, at the opera houses in Weimar, Mannheim, and Stuttgart. During his studies, he debuted with Debussy’s stage mystery Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and the award-winning diploma production Giuditta by Lehár, after which he presented Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Bizet’s Carmen to the Weimar audience. Valentin Schwarz received several scholarships and awards. In 2020, he will direct Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.

Concerts

Tuesday, July 30, 2019, 8 P.M.
at Richard Wagner’s Grave. Departure into Modernity

Works by Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho and others

Directed by: Peter Tilling

I. Violin: Alexander Bartha
II. Violin: Wolfgang Hammar
Viola: Laurent Verney
I. Violoncello: Arthur Hornig
II. Violoncello: Johann Ludwig
Double bass: Matthias Weber
Flute & alto flute: Sebastian Wittiber
Oboe: Jérémy Sassano
Clarinet: Matthias Höfer
Drums: Christian Wissel
Piano: Jacopo Salvatori

Richard Wagner’s work stands for the departure into a new era. In the first concert in Haus Wahnfried, i.e. near his grave, Diskurs Bayreuth traces his footsteps into the future. The works of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel bring the scenic into the concert. They combine music, space and gesture in a new way. Wagner’s father-in-law Franz Liszt was also a visionary of modernism. His composition “Am Grabe Richard Wagners” (At Richard Wagner’s Grave) gives the program its title.

program

Franz Liszt
At the Grave of R. Wagner for piano

Karlheinz Stockhausen
Refrain for piano, celesta, percussion

Richard Wagner
Arrival at the black swans for piano solo

Pierre Boulez
Boulez – Dérive I for six instruments

John Cage
Atlas eclipticalis

Kaija Saariaho
Couleurs du vents for alto flute solo

Birke Bertelsmeier
beschwingt for ensemble

Friedrich Nietzsche
The fragment itself for piano

Richard Wagner
Elegy (yearning) for piano

Mauricio Kagel
Match for three players

Saturday, August 3, 2019, 8 P.M.
Simon Steen-Andersen Goes Bayreuth

Concert and live performance
Directed by: Simon Steen-Andersen

Simon Steen-Andersen masterfully plays with perception in his works. The Danish composer and media artist provides a counterpoint to Wagner with two works as part of Diskurs Bayreuth of Bayreuth Festival. In Haus Wahnfried, he creates a staged evening. In a premiere, he allows the history of the place and Wagner’s music to enter into a playful, exciting exchange.

Works by Simon Steen-Andersen (world premiere)

Composition/video: Simon Steen-Andersen
Singer/host: Andreas Hörl
Clarinet/bass clarinet: Heni Hyunjung Kim
Violoncello/flute: Niklas Seidl
Piano: Stefan Schreiber

Supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

Contributors

Simon Steen-Andersen, born in 1976, is a composer and installation artist living in Berlin whose work moves between instrumental music, electronics, video and performance, symphonic and chamber music (with and without multimedia), solo performances and installations. The works of the past seven years mainly incorporate concrete elements into the music and emphasize physical and choreographic aspects of instrumental performance. Often, amplified acoustic instruments are used in conjunction with samplers, videos, simple everyday objects or self-made objects. Steen-Andersen has received numerous awards and grants – most recently the Nordic Council Music Prize and the prize of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg 2014, the Carl Nielsen Prize and the Art Prize Music of the Academy of Arts in Berlin 2013, the Tribune internationale des compositeurs, the DAAD Berlin Artists Program Residency 2010 and the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis 2008. He has been a member of the Academy of Arts since 2016. He has received commissions from ensembles, orchestras and festivals such as ensemble recherche, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, SWR Symphonieorchester, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Ascolta, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Modern, Oslo Sinfonietta, 2e2m, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Ultraschall, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik and ECLAT. He has also worked with ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Collegium Novum Zürich, ICTUS, Arditti. Steen-Andersen studied composition with Karl Aage Rasmussen, Mathias Spahlinger, Gabriel Valverde and Bent Sorensen in Aarhus, Freiburg, Buenos Aires and Copenhagen from 1998 to 2006. Since 2008, Simon Steen-Andersen has been a composition lecturer at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Aarhus. From 2013 to 2014 he was a visiting professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and from 2014 to 2016 a lecturer at the International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt. Most of his works have been published by Edition S (Copenhagen). In Germany, Edition S is represented by Ricordi.

Stefan Schreiber is a pianist and conductor. He was born in Duisburg. From 2001 to 2006 he was head of studies at the Staatsoper Hannover and from 2006 to 2012 and from 2015 to 2018 at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. He teaches at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Society for Music History Baden-Württemberg (20th – 21st centuries). Schreiber specializes in performances of contemporary concert and opera repertoires. In recent years he has worked with composers Hans-Joachim Hespos, Chaya Czernowin, Hans Thomalla and Helmut Lachenmann, among others. He has also appeared on stage as a performer in music theater productions by Anna Viebrock, Christoph Marthaler, Thomas Bischoff and Peter Konwitschny. In the spring of 2020, he will premiere Schubert’s “Winterreise” – a composed interpretation by Hans Zender at the Stuttgart Opera, where he will be the musical director.

Niklas Seidl is a cellist and composer. He makes regular guest appearances with Klangforum Wien, musikFabrik, Stuttgarter Vocalsolisten, Ensemble ascolta, ensemble SurPlus, Thürmchen Ensemble, mam, SCHOLA Heidelberg, ensemble SMASH, the HR-Symphonieorchester, Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra and others. He is a founding member of hand werk and leise dröhnung. He is a member of ensemble mosaik. Together with Paul Hübner, he has created several music video works in a series of so-called entertainment videos. Since 2005, Seidl has been working on radio plays and instrumental compositions that have been performed at the Eclat Festival, Wien Modern, Lucerne Festival, Acht Brücken Köln, at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, at Schloss Solitude and on Deutschlandfunk Köln and as part of the Zukunftsmusik festival of the Netzwerk Süd by ensembles such as Schlagquartett Köln, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble Ascolta, SCHOLA Heidelberg, musikFabrik, Thürmchen Ensemble, IEMA Frankfurt, exaudi London, Ensemble Garage, SurPlus, Ensemble Apparat and MAM. He is the first prize winner at the Ensemblia Composition Competition Mönchengladbach and has received several scholarships, including the Bernd Alois Zimmermann Scholarship (2012), the Staubach Honoraria Darmstadt (2012), the Artist Scholarship in Schreyahn (2014), the Scholarship of the Kunststiftung NRW in Istanbul (2015), the Scholarship of the Academy of Arts (2016) and the Artist in Residence Scholarship of the Federal Environment Agency (2017).

Heni Hyunjung Kim is a clarinetist. She has been involved in contemporary music for many years. After graduating with a diploma in artistic training from the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Wuppertal location), she completed a master’s degree in New Music at the Folkwang Universität der Künste and was a scholarship holder at the Ensemble Modern Akademie in Frankfurt. In 2013, as a member of the Folkwang Modern Ensemble, she won the Interpretation Prize for Mikrophonie I at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten. She has also participated in various festivals and projects, including Manifeste IRCAM, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Time of Music Festival in Viitasaari, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, KunstFestSpiele, NOW-Festival, International New Music Festival in Daegu, Korea. She is a founding member of Ensemble S201 and a member of Ensemble hand werk and consord. In the 2018 to 2020 seasons, she will be a guest in two different productions at the Theater Münster, where she will work as both a musician and a performer.

Liederabend Günther Groissböck
Monday, August 12, 2019, 8 P.M.

Günther Groissböck, bass
Alexandra Goloubitskaia, piano
Works by Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Peter Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff

Günther Groissböck is one of the most beloved interpreters of Bayreuth Festival. In his highly anticipated lieder recital in the magnificent setting of the Margravial Opera House, the Austrian bass presents two of the most significant song cycles of Romanticism: Johannes Brahms’ Vier ernste Gesänge and Robert Schumann’s Eichendorff-Liederkreis op. 39, as well as selected songs by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff, accompanied on the piano by Alexandra Goloubitskaia.

program

Johannes Brahms
Four Serious Songs op. 121

Robert Schumann
Song cycle op. 39

Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Selected songs

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Selected songs

Thursday, August 22, 2019, 8 P.M.
Rossini Visits Wagner’s Salon

Violin: Torsten Janicke
Violoncello: Anne Yumino Weber
Double bass: Matthias Weber
Piano: Stefan Irmer

Works by Gioacchino Rossini

The masters of Italian opera are rarely heard in the intimate setting of a chamber concert, and even more rarely in Haus Wahnfried. Gioacchino Rossini, who gave up composing operas at the age of 37, composed an original flood of pointedly short works in his later years, which he self-deprecatingly called “Sins of Old Age”. Some of these cleverly orchestrated chamber music pieces can now be heard and discovered in Wagner’s Salon.

program

Gioachino Rossini

Un rêve (A Dream) for piano
Un mot à Paganini, élégie (A Word to Paganini) for violin and piano
Hachis romantique (Romantic Hash) for piano
Duetto D major for violoncello and double bass (1824)

Pause

Memento homo (Remember Man) for piano
Assez de memento: dansons (Enough of Remembering: Let’s Dance) for piano
Une larme: thème et variations (A Tear: Theme and Variations) for violoncello and piano
Prélude inoffensif (Harmless Prelude) for piano
Gymnastique d´écartement (Spreading Gymnastics) for piano

Contributors

Torsten Janicke is a representative of the famous “Dresden School of Strings”. He studied violin with Professor Heinz Rudolf at the Dresden Academy of Music and in the master class of Professor Gustav Schmahl. Torsten Janicke has won prizes and awards at international competitions. In 1982, the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra engaged the 24-year-old as 1st concertmaster. In 1989 he went to the Essen Philharmonic in the same position, until he was engaged as first concertmaster by the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne in 1991. His solo work has taken him to many European countries, the USA and Africa. Radio recordings were made for BR, WDR and Radio de la Suisse Romande. The world’s first complete recording of all violin concertos by Hans Werner Henze at MDG (Dabringhaus & Grimm) was released in 2005. Torsten Janicke also devotes himself intensively to chamber music. He is primarius of the Gürzenich Quartet, director of the Gürzenich Chamber Orchestra Cologne and conducts various orchestras in Germany, Malaysia and China.

Anne Yumino Weber studied violoncello as a young student in Munich with Wen-Sinn Yang, then as a full-time student with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt (Weimar) and later with Frans Helmerson at the “Hanns Eisler” Academy of Music Berlin. In 2014/2015 she was a scholarship holder at the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic. This was followed by engagements as solo cellist with the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in A Coruña, Spain. Since 2018 she has been a regular member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She is a prize winner of several national and international competitions and a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, the North Czech Philharmonic and the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic Orchestra. Her active work as a chamber musician includes appearances with musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic and with the Morgenstern Trio at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the Mettlach Chamber Music Days.

Matthias Weber, after engagements as solo double bassist in Bergen/Norway and Düsseldorf, was the 1st solo double bassist of the Munich Philharmonic for 26 years, working with chief conductors Sergiu Celibidache, James Levine, and Christian Thielemann. In 2012, he left the orchestra to accept a professorship for double bass at the Stuttgart University of Music. Since 1990, Matthias Weber has been a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, where he serves as principal double bassist. Numerous international activities as a double bassist in orchestra and chamber music complement his career, such as repeated invitations to the “Super World Orchestra” in Japan and participation in Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen in Melbourne/Australia in 2016 and the Meistersinger von Nürnberg there in 2018.

Stefan Irmer has made a name for himself as a pianist and interpreter of rarely played piano music. Since 2013 he has been teaching as a professor of song interpretation at the HfMT Köln. From 1997 to 2007, he recorded Gioachino Rossini’s entire piano works from the Péchés de vieillesse for the first time on the MDG label. In 2007, the first complete performance of Rossini’s late works from the Péchés de vieillesse took place in Cologne under Irmer’s artistic direction in collaboration with the Cologne Philharmonic and WDR on eleven evenings. In November 2018, he presented selected piano pieces by Rossini under the title Völlerei at the Festival Tage Alter Musik des WDR in Herne on an Erard grand piano from 1839. Further focal points of CD and concert projects are the piano works of Muzio Clementi, Sigismund Thalberg, Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet and John Field. As a song accompanist and chamber musician, he has performed with numerous renowned singers and ensembles, such as the bass Kurt Moll, the Consortium Classicum, the WDR Rundfunkchor and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Saturday, August 24, 2019, 8 P.M.
on the Way to the New Music Drama: Richard Wagner’s Style-Forming School

Alexandra Steiner, soprano
Christa Mayer, mezzo-soprano
Hyunduk Kim, tenor
Werner Van Mechelen, baritone
Christoph Ulrich Meier, piano and moderation

The fourth concert of Diskurs Bayreuth focuses on Wagner’s role models. He included exemplary works in the program of his planned style-forming school. From Schubert’s lieder to Mozart’s “Figaro” to highly virtuosic opera scenes by Heinrich Marschner and Louis Spohr, he was equally enthusiastic about the art of singing in operas by Auber, Bellini, and Gluck, all the way to Weber. The concert, featuring four singers and moderated and accompanied by Christoph U. Meier, brings the great operatic art before Wagner to life.

program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
From: Le nozze di Figaro, Duet Susanna-Conte

Christoph Willibald Gluck/ Richard Wagner
From: Iphigenia in Aulis, Aria of Kalchas

Ludwig von Beethoven
From: Egmont, “The drum is stirring”
Intermezzo “Klärchen’s Death”

Vincenzo Bellini
From: I Capuletti e i Montecchi, Recitative and Arioso of Romeo

Francois Adrien Boieldieu
From: La dame blanche, Song of Marguerite, Aria of George

Louis Spohr
From: Jessonda, Terzett and Finale 1st act

Heinrich Marschner
From: Der Vampyr, Ballad and Duet

Franz Schubert
“Be greeted by me”

Carl Loewe
“Walpurgis Night”

Daniel Francois-Esprit Auber
From: La Muette de Portici, Masaniello’s recitative and aria

Carl Maria von Weber
From: Euryanthe, Lysiart’s aria, duet Eglantine, Lysiart

Contributors

Alexandra Steiner debuted in 2016 as 1st Squire and Flower Maiden (1st/II) in Parsifal, as well as Woglinde in Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival. The German soprano studied singing at the music academies in Stuttgart and Würzburg, as well as at the International Academy of Voice with Dennis o‘Neill and Nuccia Focile, among others. Engagements have taken her to the Vienna State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, the Hessian State Theatre Wiesbaden, as well as the Seoul Arts Center, the Athens State Orchestra, the Gasteig Munich, and the Berlin Philharmonic. She has worked with conductors such as Marek Janowski, Leo Hussain, Andris Nelsons, and Kent Nagano. Her repertoire includes coloratura and lyrical roles, most recently in concert, including Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Rossini’s Petite messe.

Christa Mayer was born in Sulzbach-Rosenberg and received her training at the Bavarian Singing Academy and at the University of Music and Theater Munich. Since then, guest appearances have taken her to the Bavarian State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the opera houses in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Venice, Florence, Bilbao, Seville, Valencia and Tokyo. In the summer of 2008, she made her debut as Erda and Waltraute under Christian Thielemann at the Bayreuth Festival, and since then the mezzo-soprano has been a permanent guest on the Green Hill. Christa Mayer is a member of the ensemble of the Semperoper Dresden and sings a wide repertoire there from Handel and Mozart to Berlioz and Strauss to Berg and Britten. At the same time, she is a sought-after guest on the concert stage and works together with Riccardo Chailly, Marek Janowski, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Jonathan Nott, Simone Young and Jaap van Zweden.

Hyunduk Kim, tenor, studied at the Kyung-Hee University in Seoul (Korea) with Professor A.-Kyung Lee, at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden with Kammersänger Professor Matthias Henneberg and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Professor Christoph Ulrich Meier and Professor Reto Nickler. There he sang, among others, Tamino in The Magic Flute, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, Lindoro in L’italiana in Algeri, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Simon in Der Bettelstudent and Rodriguez in Don Quichotte. In 2015, Kim was a finalist in the 50th International Antonín Dvořák Competition in Karlovy Vary, where he won second prize, as well as the Edition Bärenreiter Publishing Company Award and the Mozart Award. He has also made guest appearances at the Theater Freiberg, the Theater Barocco Baden, the Musikverein Wien and Tropiques Atrium in Martinique (France). In the 2018/19 season, he will sing Nemorino in The Elixir of Love in Josef Heinzelmann’s German translation at the Volkstheater Rostock.

The versatile Belgian bass-baritone Werner Van Mechelen is one of the most important singers of his field internationally, both in opera and in concert and recitals. One focus is on the German repertoire, namely the most important specialist roles in Wagner and Strauss. He has embodied Alberich with great success at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, the Vlaamse Opera Antwerp and Ghent, and the Teatro La Fenice Venice. Werner Van Mechelen has a special affection for the Lied and the concert repertoire: the latter ranges from the Passions of J. S. Bach to romantic works such as Elias or the Brahms Requiem and the song cycles and symphonies of Gustav Mahler to works of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Christoph Ulrich Meier has been associated with the Bayreuth Festival for over 25 years. Initially as a musical director and assistant to Christian Thielemann and Daniel Barenboim, among others, whose assistant he also was at the Staatsoper Berlin from 1993 to 2000. In 2007, he conducted Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival, and since 2008, he has been the Musical Supervisor there. Guest conducting engagements have taken him to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Oper Frankfurt am Main, the Teatro La Fenice Venezia, as well as to the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. As a lieder accompanist, he has performed with Peter Schreier, Waltraud Meier, and Mihoko Fujimura. From 2001 to 2010, he was a professor at the Detmold University of Music, and since 2010, he has been a professor for Musical Interpretation and Musical Director of Music Dramatic Performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Panel Discussion
Siegfried Wagner’s 150th Birthday

On the occasion of his 150th birthday, Bayreuth Festival Siegfried Wagner will be honored artistically and with a panel discussion. Richard Wagner’s son was a composer, conductor, director, and head of Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930. An artist who, with 14 completed operas based on his own texts and tireless creativity, was as versatile as hardly anyone else in his profession.

July 30, 2019, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM, Haus Wahnfried

11:00 AM: ““I believe I know how far I can go.” Siegfried Wagner – An Artist Portrait with Markus Kiesel and Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach

12:30 PM: Production discussion for the premiere of “SIEGFRIED” with authors Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel, as well as director Philipp Preuss and the performers

Since 2017, Bayreuth Festival has expanded its accompanying program with the DISKURS BAYREUTH event series. This series aims to artistically and scientifically reflect on and controversially discuss the cultural-historical phenomenon of “Richard Wagner”. In 2018, the symposium and the premiere of DISKURS BAYREUTH revolved around “Prohibitions (in) Art”.

The Vanished Bridegroom

In 2018, on July 24, as part of DISKURS BAYREUTH, the opera “der verschwundene hochzeiter” by the renowned Austrian composer Klaus Lang will premiere in Bayreuth. With this, the Festival expands its artistic spectrum, because just as the Festspielhaus was described by Wagner as a provisional state whose development was yet to come, the Festival was not originally conceived by him solely for the preservation and cultivation of the existing, but rather also to dare new things and leave well-trodden paths. This is entirely in the spirit of his creative credo as “the never-satisfied spirit, always contemplating new things.”

With “Lohengrin”, a new production on the Festspielhaus stage in 2018, the opera “der verschwundene hochzeiter” connects the issuance of a rigid prohibition, its transgression, and fatal consequences.

Cast

Musical Direction
Klaus Lang
Concept, Direction, Space
Paul Esterhazy
Video
Friedrich Zorn
Costume
Pia Janssen

The Bridegroom I – Performer: Jiří Bubeníček
The Bridegroom II – Performer: Otto Bubeníček
The Bridegroom – Bass: Alexander Kiechle
The Stranger – Countertenor: Terry Wey
Orchestra: ensemble Ictus, Rehearsal Georges-Elie Octors
Choir: Cantando Admont, Rehearsal Cordula Bürgi

Plot

The Vanished Bridegroom.

Klaus Lang’s opera is inspired by an old legend from the Gölsen Valley in Lower Austria. It tells the unheard story of a bridegroom who is invited to a wedding by a stranger. On his journey through foreign lands, he stumbles upon the stranger’s feast and gets lost in time. He dances longer than he is allowed. Upon his return, 300 years have passed.

“once three days after the WEDDING,
a man left the village.
but he never came home again.
that was THREE HUNDRED years ago.”

The music encompasses the space, enveloping the listener, “from emptiest emptiness to fullest fullness” in the composer’s words. “It does not seek to entice or seduce, but to encourage one to enter its innermost being, to trace its countless ramifications, and to explore its unexpected expanses.” It undertakes a journey in which we, by listening, “discover the foreign in the familiar, stillness in movement, silence in sound.”

“what are we but dust in the wind”
(from the libretto by Klaus Lang)

Staging

“The Vanished Groom” is performed in the “Reichshof” Bayreuth in the heart of the city, a historic, decades-long unused cinema hall from 1925 with a varied history, where time seems to have stood still.

The story of a man who falls out of time is told in this setting. For Bayreuth, a “KLang” project is striking in several respects: Klaus Lang’s music connects directly to the Renaissance and early Baroque periods. It manages to suspend the separation of time and space. The staging plays with the space in a game of reality levels. Director Paul Esterhazy and video artist Friedrich Zorn were won over for the production.

With the brothers Jiří and Otto Bubeníček, the soloists Terry Wey and Alexander Kiechle, the Ictus Ensemble Brussels and the Austrian vocal ensemble Cantando Admont, the opera is realized by outstanding performers from the international music and theater scene.

Symposium
PROHIBITIONS (IN) ART

Symposium of “Diskurs Bayreuth” of Bayreuth Festival 2018

What is allowed, what is forbidden in art? Where are the limits of artistic freedom? In times of new iconoclasm and speech bans, questions about this touch highly sensitive areas.

Friday, August 3, 2 PM – 5 PM

“On the Use and Disadvantage of Provocation for Art”
Thea Dorn in dialogue with Feridun Zaimoglu

“How politically correct must art be in Germany?”
Eugen Gomringer in dialogue with Lucian Hölscher

Saturday, August 4, 10 AM – 5 PM

Artistic Freedom, the Basic Law, and the Enabling of Art
Gerhart Baum in dialogue with Charlotte Seither

“…still care about knowledge.” Thought bans on Wagner in the Third Reich
Hans R. Vaget

Beauty and the Command of Power. Political Entanglements of Opera
Bernd Feuchtner

Hans R. Vaget and Bernd Feuchtner in conversation

The Prohibition of Questions and Modern Society. On Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin”
Ute Frevert

“Here art is paramount; whoever understands it, let him woo me.” Political hide-and-seek with Wagner and around Wagner
Detlef Brandenburg

Ute Frevert and Detlef Brandenburg in conversation

Sunday, August 5, 2018, 10 AM – 1 PM

Freedom through Limitation: “Prohibitions” in Music around 1600 and the Art of Decision.
Klaus Lang

Seeking the Forbidden. Are there still “rules” in New Music?
Lydia Jeschke

Klaus Lang and Lydia Jeschke in conversation

the vanished bridegroom. On the 2018 Festival Production
Paul Esterhazy, Klaus Lang, Detlef Brandenburg, Lydia Jeschke

Concerts

Monday, July 30, 2018, 8 PM

Dominik Hellsberg, Karl Heinrich Niebuhr, Violin
Ivan Bezpalov, Viola
Margarethe Niebuhr, Cello
Jendrik Springer, Piano

Joseph Haydn
String Quartet Hob: III,1 C major, op. 76 No. 3 “Emperor Quartet” (1797)

Klaus Lang
schumann’s ghosts.
for string quartet and piano (2007)

Dmitri Shostakovich
String Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op. 83 (1949)

Saturday, August 4, 2017, 8 PM

Florian Hölscher, Piano
Arthur Hornig, Cello

Claude Debussy
Six Epigraphes antiques (1900/1914)

Alberto Posadas
Echoes of B. A. Zimmermann (2018)

Luciano Berio
Wasserklavier (1965)

Klaus Lang
flowing mountains
for piano (2015)

Igor Stravinsky
Suite italienne
for cello and piano (1920/1933)

Sunday, August 5, 2017, 8 PM

Sophie Rennert, Mezzo-soprano
Jendrik Springer, Piano

Sergei Prokofiev
Five Poems by Anna Akhmatova Op. 27 (1916)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Four Shakespeare Songs Op. 31 (1937–1941)

Paul Hindemith
Eight Songs Op. 18

Robert Schumann
Liederkreis Op. 24
after Heinrich Heine (1840)

Symposium

Fri, July 28, 2017
Wagner in National Socialism – on the Question of the Fall from Grace in Art

10:00 AM Welcome

10:15 The Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Discussion panel on the production by Barrie Kosky
Mitchell Ash, Micha Brumlik, Dörte Schmidt, Klaus Zehelein – Moderation: Wolfgang Fink

11:15 Hitler in Bayreuth

Film footage from the Wagner family archive

11:45 Micha Brumlik / Irmela von der Lühe

“Despite Hitler and his Bayreuth” – Richard Wagner as an Analyst of the 20th Century
Prof. Dr. Micha Brumlik

“Hitler’s Court Theater” – Thomas Mann’s Engagement with Bayreuth
Prof. Dr. Irmela von der Lühe

In Dialogue: Micha Brumlik and Irmela von der Lühe

2:30 PM Ulrich Konrad / Gerhard R. Koch

(Not) a “writer in the true sense of the word”? – Wagner’s journalistic oeuvre 1834–1883
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Konrad

Richard Wagner and the tradition of solipsistic self-glorification in Alexander Scriabin, Hans Pfitzner, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg – including minimal empathy for others
Gerhard R. Koch

In Dialogue: Ulrich Konrad and Gerhard R. Koch

4:00 PM Dieter Schnebel / Ernst Osterkamp

“Change of Times”
The composer Prof. Dr. Dieter Schnebel
in dialogue with Prof. Dr. Ernst Osterkamp

8:00 PM Concert

Sat, July 29, 2017
Opera without Wagner? – Music without Opera?
The Situation of the Arts in the Reorientation after World War II

10:00 AM Klaus Zehelein / Jürgen Schläder

“…makes new things” (?): Music theater after 1945
Prof. Klaus Zehelein in dialogue with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schläder

11:30 AM Mitchell Ash / Dörte Schmidt

Wagner as a Cultural Resource in the Post-War Period
Prof. Dr. Mitchell Ash

Wagner and “Music as a Serious Matter” or Why Emigrants Traveled to Bayreuth After World War II
Prof. Dr. Dörte Schmidt

In Dialogue: Mitchell Ash and Dörte Schmidt

2:15 PM Elisabeth Bronfen / Larry Wolff

“High-Low Wagner” – Reverence and Travesty in the Mid-20th Century
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bronfen in dialogue with Prof. Dr. Larry Wolff

3:15 PM Silke Leopold / Reinhard Kapp

Baroque Opera by Wagner’s Grace
Prof. Dr. Silke Leopold

Wagner Problems in Post-War Times
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Kapp

In Dialogue: Silke Leopold and Reinhard Kapp

4:45 PM Friedemann Pestel / Wolfgang Fink

“A program that also says something about the situation in Germany”? (Furtwängler). Wagner in the international tours of German and Austrian orchestras between the 1930s and 1960s
Dr. Friedemann Pestel

Darmstadt and (New) Bayreuth. Two prominent approaches to readjusting musical life in post-war Germany
Dr. Wolfgang Fink

In Dialogue: Wolfgang Fink and Friedemann Pestel

Concerts

Friday, July 28, 2017

Matthias Wollong, violin
Andreas Wylezol, double bass
Michael Horwath, viola
Robert Oberaigner, clarinet
Norbert Anger, violoncello
Michael Schöch, piano

Arnold Schönberg
Fantasy for violin and piano op. 47 (1949)

Hans Pfitzner
Sextet in G minor op. 55
for clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello, double bass and piano (1945)

Olivier Messiaen
Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time)
for clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano (1941)

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Daniel Behle, tenor
Stefan Schreiber, piano
Paulus van der Merwe, oboe
Gaspare BuonOmano, clarinet
Tobias Pelkner, bassoon

Erwin Schulhoff
Divertissement per oboe, clarinetto e fagotto (1927)

Theodor W. Adorno
Two Propaganda Poems for Voice and Piano (1943)
1. Brecht (In Stormy Night)
2. Song of the Pole

Hanns Eisler
Songs after Bertolt Brecht
And what did the soldier’s wife get (1942-43)
Calves’ March (1942-43)
Songs from the Hollywood Songbook (1942-43)

Ernst Krenek
From “Kehraus um St. Stephan” (1930):
Two songs by Brandstetter
for tenor, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and piano

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Jürgen Kruse, piano

Paul Hindemith
Suite “1922” op. 26

Erwin Schulhoff
Jazz Etude (1926)

Béla Bartók
Three Etudes op. 18 (1918)

Pierre Boulez
Douze Notations (1945)

Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Sonata “April 27, 1945” for piano (1945)

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Juraj Cizmarovic, violin
Pascal Théry, violin
Laurent Verney, viola
Tatjana Uhde, violoncello
Jakub Cizmarovic, piano
Peter Schweiger, speaker

Gustav Mahler
Quartet Movement in A minor
for piano and string trio (1876)

Gideon Klein
Variations on a Moravian folk song
for string trio (1944)

Karl Amadeus Hartmann
String Quartet No. 1 “Carillon” (1933)

Arnold Schönberg
“Ode to Napoleon” op. 41
for speaker, string quartet and piano (1942)