Musical journeys
From €3,150 per person
Bayreuth is a myth. In 1876, Richard Wagner inaugurated a unique festival that would play exclusively his own works. It was the composer himself who drew up the plans for the new hall. Since nothing was to distract the audience’s attention from the music, an unprecedented orchestra pit was conceived: the musicians were hidden beneath the stage, offering a sound that was absolutely unique in the world. The Wagnerians spoke of a ‘mystical abyss’, and today the Bayreuth Festival is one of the most prestigious opera events on the planet.
In 2025, Bayreuth will be offering a veritable firework display. Of course, all eyes are already on the 150th anniversary edition, but the present festival appears to be a dazzling condensation of the work of Katharina Wagner (the composer’s great-granddaughter), who has been at the helm of the event since 2015. There will be the famous Ring directed by Valentin Schwarz, the astonishing Parsifal in ‘augmented reality’ with 3D glasses, and Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson‘s recent Tristan and Isolde. Among the new productions is the eagerly-awaited The Master Singers of Nuremberg by Matthias Davids, an expert in musicals! The guest musicians include some of the finest Wagnerians of our time: conductors Daniele Gatti, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young and singers as illustrious asAndreas Schager, Elīna Garanča, Michael Spyres, Camilla Nylund and Piotr Beczala.
THE RING – Tetralogy by Richard Wagner
Wagner’s Ring is a monolith in the history of music. This fabulous four-part epic took up almost twenty years of Wagner’s life. For some fifteen hours (spread over four evenings), the German composer draws on the sources of Germanic mythology to create a spectacle of total art, a miraculous fusion of theatre and music. A special festival palace had to be created in Bayreuth to host such a monument!
For the last time, the Festival 2025 will be staging the work of Austrian director Valentin Schwarz, who makes the story of the Nibelungen a passionately human affair. Here, it’s less a question of magic than of a family curse passed down through several generations. The great Australian conductor Simone Young is once again at the helm of this production, which will go down in the legend of Bayreuth’s great stagings. Come and witness the flamboyant twilight of a production that has already been compared to the legendary in loco productions by Wieland Wagner and Patrice Chéreau.
