Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Aerial view of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The Bayreuth Festspielhaus or Bayreuth Festival Theatre [1] (German: Bayreuther Festspielhaus, pronounced [baɪˈʁɔʏtɐ ˈfɛstʃpiːlˌhaʊs]) is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, built by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner and dedicated solely to the performance of his stage works.
For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of the ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house in Munich. [119] Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these include darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the ...
In April 1870, Wagner and his wife Cosima visited Bayreuth. On inspection, the opera house proved to be inadequate. It was built to accommodate the baroque orchestras of the 18th century and was therefore unsuited for the complex stagings and large orchestras that Wagner's later stage works required. Nonetheless, the burgermeisters proved open ...
In the small German town of Bayreuth, the maestro's heirs battle for succession, threatening to change Europe's most storied opera festival forever.
Front page of the Dresden score of Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser. Richard Wagner's works for the stage, representing more than 50 years of creative life, comprise his 13 completed operas and a similar number of failed or abandoned projects.
Wagner had long desired to have a special festival opera house, designed by himself, for the performance of the Ring. In 1871, he decided on a location in the Bavarian town of Bayreuth . In 1872, he moved to Bayreuth and the foundation stone was laid.
Wagner dubbed the opera a Bühnenweihfestspiel, which opera director Mike Ashman translates as a "festival work to consecrate a stage". Ashman explains this as meaning that it was intended to secure the financial future of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and allow the composer's heirs to continue running the festival profitably. [ 13 ]
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!