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A brief return to the Bayreuth-like acoustics of the top balcony at the San Francisco Opera: when I saw Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love last Saturday night, I was somewhat surprised and amused that Adina’s story of the elixir was actually a version of Isolde’s love potion – and was written decades before Wagner’s supreme creation, with a very different outcome, indeed!
Last year I finally joined the local Wagner Society –many years after I probably should have. I figured it’s the only way I’ll ever afford to go to Bayreuth. The year before last, my Australian friend Jeffrey Hardy looked into my getting tickets to the Bayreuther Festspiele in August before returning to Venezia with some of Dennis’ ashes. It turned out the price for a single ticket was greater than the roundtrip airfare from San Francisco to Munich! But as a member of the Northern California Wagner Society, I would actually be able to afford to go someday. Next year’s program would be ideal: Tristan und Isolde, Meistersinger, the complete Ring, and Parsifal, of course (which was written especially for that theater, and for many years restricted to be performed only there.) Alas, this year won’t be financially feasible or fit into my planned schedule! I also haven’t been a member long enough to be eligible, I think.
A few months ago at coffee hour after the Sunday morning service at Grace Cathedral, I mentioned to Dr. Jeffrey Smith, organist and choir director, that I noticed he had quite a collection of books on Richard Wagner and Bayreuth. He stopped and beamed and then began an extended discourse on the wonders of Bayreuth. He had been there a few summer’s before with his wife, who is a journalist. Almost all the Wagner operas are long – indeed endurance events for the singers and for the audience. But at Bayreuth, the operas begin in the early afternoon— with hour intermissions between acts for lunch, tea or dinner— so even though extending through-out the day, there is sufficient rest between acts for singers and audience alike to appreciate the grandeur and majesty of Wagner’s art.
At Bayreuth there are no center or side aisles between rows of seats. Instead there are separate doors for each row, I imagine a little like the doors on English trains. Dr. Smith described how at the end of each intermission, patrons silently line up in order, and then return to their seats without a sound. Whenever I go to a performance here in the States and hear hacking and coughing, particularly at quiet moments— when I conclude the audience is really only bored— I think how that would never happen at Bayreuth. Patrons who are actually sick choose not to attend. And others, who need to cough, somehow do it in a way that is totally inaudible!
Tomorrow night I go with my friend Max to hear the Brahms Violin Concerto with Nikolaj Znaider and the San Francisco Symphony. It’s one of my all time favorites!
Last year I finally joined the local Wagner Society –many years after I probably should have. I figured it’s the only way I’ll ever afford to go to Bayreuth. The year before last, my Australian friend Jeffrey Hardy looked into my getting tickets to the Bayreuther Festspiele in August before returning to Venezia with some of Dennis’ ashes. It turned out the price for a single ticket was greater than the roundtrip airfare from San Francisco to Munich! But as a member of the Northern California Wagner Society, I would actually be able to afford to go someday. Next year’s program would be ideal: Tristan und Isolde, Meistersinger, the complete Ring, and Parsifal, of course (which was written especially for that theater, and for many years restricted to be performed only there.) Alas, this year won’t be financially feasible or fit into my planned schedule! I also haven’t been a member long enough to be eligible, I think.
A few months ago at coffee hour after the Sunday morning service at Grace Cathedral, I mentioned to Dr. Jeffrey Smith, organist and choir director, that I noticed he had quite a collection of books on Richard Wagner and Bayreuth. He stopped and beamed and then began an extended discourse on the wonders of Bayreuth. He had been there a few summer’s before with his wife, who is a journalist. Almost all the Wagner operas are long – indeed endurance events for the singers and for the audience. But at Bayreuth, the operas begin in the early afternoon— with hour intermissions between acts for lunch, tea or dinner— so even though extending through-out the day, there is sufficient rest between acts for singers and audience alike to appreciate the grandeur and majesty of Wagner’s art.
At Bayreuth there are no center or side aisles between rows of seats. Instead there are separate doors for each row, I imagine a little like the doors on English trains. Dr. Smith described how at the end of each intermission, patrons silently line up in order, and then return to their seats without a sound. Whenever I go to a performance here in the States and hear hacking and coughing, particularly at quiet moments— when I conclude the audience is really only bored— I think how that would never happen at Bayreuth. Patrons who are actually sick choose not to attend. And others, who need to cough, somehow do it in a way that is totally inaudible!
Tomorrow night I go with my friend Max to hear the Brahms Violin Concerto with Nikolaj Znaider and the San Francisco Symphony. It’s one of my all time favorites!
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