The Bayreuth Festival has announced its 2022 season. The festival will open with a production of “Tristan und Isolde” conducted by Cornelius Meister. The production by Roland Schwab will star Stephen Gould and Catherine Foster in the title roles as well as Georg Zeppenfeld, Markus Eiche, and Ekaterina Gubanova. Performance Dates: July 25 & August 12, 2022 The festival will present {…}
With anticipation building for the new Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival this summer, director Valentin Schwarz has dropped details about the upcoming production. In an interview with the German Press Agency, the director said that he is planning the next Bayreuth Ring as a Netflix series. He added, “The fact that the ‘Ring’ in Bayreuth will be performed in {…}
As the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival 2021 came to a close on Sept. 12, 2021, the Festival announced its 2022 Festival showcase opera, Leonardo Vinci’s “Alessandro nell’Indie.” The Bayreuth Baroque staging of the work about Alexander the Great’s Indian campaign represents the first time in 300 years the opera will be performed in its entirety. A decade ago, Bayreuth Baroque staged {…}
(Credit: Uwe Arens) The Bayreuth Festival has announced a cast change for its August 19 performance of “Die Walküre.” The company announced that for health reasons, Iréne Theorin has had to cancel her participation in the performance. As a result, Catherine Foster will take over the role on a short notice. Foster has performed six consecutive years as Bayreuth’s Brünnhilde {…}
The Bayreuth Festival has announced a cast change for its upcoming 2022 Ring Cycle. The festival management announced that John Lundgren will sing Wotan in “Die Walküre” and Wanderer in “Siegfried” in the new “Ring des Nibelungen” in 2022. Lundgren will take over for Austrian bass Günther Groissböck who also canceled this summer’s production of “Walküre.” In a statement, the {…}
The President of the Richard Wagner Association International, Rainer Fineske said he does not expect the festival to be sold out again until the 2023-24 season. Fineske said that due to the Coronavirus, the number of visitors to the prestigious festival will be affected. He added, “We have to think positively. After the festival had to be canceled due to {…}
The Bayreuth Festival has announced a cast change for its upcoming production of “Die Walküre.” The company announced that Tomasz Konieczny will sing the role of Wotan in “Die Walküre” on July 29, August 3, and 19 replacing Günther Groissböck. Konieczny made his Bayreuth debut in 2018 in “Lohengrin” and had a big break out at the Metropolitan Opera in 2019 {…}
The Bayreuth Festival has announced the cast and director of the new production of “Ring des Nibelungen” slated for 2022. Pietari Inkinen is set to conduct the new production by Valentin Schwarz with stage design by Andrea Cozzi and costumes by Andy Besuch. “Das Rheingold” will star Daniel Kirch, Christa Mayer, and Olafur Sigurdarson while “Die Walkure” Klaus Florian Vogt, Georg {…}
Christian Thielemann is no longer the music director of the Bayreuth Festival. According to the festival, the conductor’s contract expired on Jan. 1, 2021 and discussions are in the process as to whether the festival will continue to have the acclaimed conductor as its music director. In a press statement, the festival said, “He has not been a music director {…}
The Bayreuth Festival has announced programming for the 2021 season. The season will open with “Die Fliegende Hollander” with Oksana Lyniv becoming the first woman conductor to lead an opera at the festival. Dmitri Tcherniakov directs the new production, which will star Eric Cutler, Georg Zeppenfeld, Asmik Grigorian, and Marina Prudenskaya. Performance Dates: July 25 – August 20, 2021 The festival {…}
(Credit: Tobias Koch) The German federal government intends to review the structures of the Bayreuth Festival, per the German Frankenpost media. The German federal government is one of the largest shareholders of the Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH, owning 29 percent of the shares in the organization. The State of Bavaria and the Society of Friends of Bayreuth have the same stake {…}