The Bayreuth Festival has announced that due to budget cuts, its 2026 season will only present seven operas as opposed to the originally announced 11 works.

In a letter obtained by Slippedisc the company said, “The current cost developments pose major challenges for the Bayreuth Festival. …Due to the very high proportion of personnel costs in the overall budget, the Bayreuth Festival will not be able to generate the additional financial resources required for this from its own resources in the long term, despite a very high level of self-financing of more than 55 percent. On the other hand, the general economic situation does not currently allow the shareholders to provide significantly higher funds to offset the deficits. In view of these developments, it is necessary to adapt the original planning for the anniversary season in order to secure the season planning for the following years and at the same time to present a program for the 150th anniversary that reflects the breadth of the canon of works that Richard Wagner intended for Bayreuth.”

The company added, “‘The Flying Dutchman,’ which Richard Wagner considered worthy of being performed in the Bayreuth Festival Hall as his first opera, the tetralogy ‘The Ring of the Nibelung,’ with which the Festival Hall was ceremoniously opened in 1876, and the stage consecration festival play ‘Parsifal,’ which was composed especially for this venue, will be performed. In addition, for the first time and only in the anniversary season, there will be a new production of ‘Rienzi’ in the Festival Hall. The 150th Bayreuth Festival will open with Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which Richard Wagner himself conducted on May 22, 1872 in the Margravial Opera House.”

When the festival announced its 150th anniversary season, it said it would be presentations of 10 of his mature works that have traditionally been performed at the opera house. From the letter, it seems that “Tristan and Isolde,” “Meistersinger,” “Lohengrin,” and “Tannhäuser” will not be performed.

Additionally, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” will be revived in “not purely a concert version” of the tetralogy.