News from Bayreuth

Rats!

Photos Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH/Enrico Nawrath

First it was rotting rabbits in Parsifal and now it's lab rats in Lohengrin.

Here's an email I received from long-time member Sally Eastwood just back from Bayreuth and presumably wishing she'd stayed home:

Made my third and final trip to Bayreuth last month and was saddened and deeply disappointed that there is not a trace of Wagner there anymore. The whole experience was defiled beyond recognition. Since I have lived so long "out of the loop", perhaps I'm the last to know. I had been forewarned about the Meistersinger, which was the last of the seven operas I attended, but by that time I had been assaulted by so much pornography, ugliness, pointless violence and distracting nonsense that I was numb. I like to think it is ignorance rather than intentional that his own family is trivializing and ridiculing his work. Have the audience and the directors even read the texts? Wagner wanted all the elements of his work (musical, text and visual aspects) to work together for an experience deeper than "entertainment" or "distraction." I was always moved by the beauty which touched the depths of my soul and took me to a deep place of no time/ space. Where I always experienced it as an antidote to the world's insanity, I now saw it as a REFLECTION of the world's insanity. During the few moments when the distracting, pointless busyness ceased and the words and music were allowed to simply speak for them selves, I noticed the audience looking at their watches. Young people now are "wired" differently seeking outer satisfaction and an overabundance of input coming from all sides or else they are "bored." It all depends what one is seeking...depth and stillness or stimulation and "entertainment", an inner experience or an outer one. It is also generational I suppose as I am not "wired" to have my senses bombarded with ugliness, frivolity and chaos, especially when it involves something that has meant so much to me for so long. Enough kvetching already. Suffice it to say that if I want a Ring where technology is used to enhance not detract from the text and which still retains its beauty, depth, meaning and humanity, you'll find me in Seattle rather than Bayreuth.

And in a followup email, Sally remarked about the Lohengrin:

I was in the far-most Loge seat for this where half the stage was blocked from view. I considered myself LUCKY!

Festspielhaus infestation!

The embryonic thing in the eggshell is supposed to be Gottfried. Perhaps this is why Jonas Kaufmann was sick and canceled his last two performances.

Not too hard to figure out who's supposed to be naughty and nice here:

I wonder why the caged rat sings (with apologies to Maya Angelou):

I'd love to hear from others who attended and what they thought. Is there any redemption to be had? Perhaps we should have a caption contest?

Completely off topic

Ok, this has nothing to do with music of any sort, but I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. As someone who currently has a huge watermelon rocking and rolling around the bottom shelf of her fridge, this idea seems like pure genius and that sort of head-slapping "Why has no one come up with this before?"

Space in Japan is always at a premium, so smart farmers have begun creating square watermelon; the melons are grown inside rigid containers. Brilliant!

They, of course, fetch a premium price at 10000 ¥ (about $118), roughly the 4 times the cost of a traditional watermelon, but everything in Japan fetches premium prices.

This article is from 2001, so perhaps the prices have changed since then - the exchange rate certainly has!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1390088.stm