The Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth, Germany

20-26 August, 2024

For almost one hundred and fifty years, the Bayreuth Festival has been an unmissable event in musical life. Commissioned by Wagner himself (and made possible by the patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria), the event is devoted every summer to the operas of the composer of Tristan und Isolde. Located on a “sacred hill”, the theatre is the place of all legends. The greatest artists (Nietzsche, Debussy, Boulez…) have gone there on pilgrimage, and there is a unique atmosphere in this hall, where the orchestra is invisible in the pit (“the mystical abyss” say the Wagnerians!) creating an absolutely incomparable acoustic.

There are countless legendary productions that have punctuated the history of the Festival, and it is to one of them that we invite you for the end of this month of July. Director Valentin Schwarz‘s Ring Cycle (Rhinegold, Valkyrie, Siegfried, Twilight of the Gods) was praised when it premiered in 2022: it is being performed here under the musical direction of the great Australian conductor Simone Young. Among the stars of this Ring 2024 are great Wagnerians such as Klaus Florian Vogt, Michael Spyres and Catherine Foster.

While the Ring is the common thread of the Festival, other works by the composer are in the spotlight, including the return of the beautiful Tannhäuser conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann, the superb Flying Dutchman directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov and the now famous Parsifal by Jay Scheib with its “augmented reality” glasses that caused a sensation last year. An unforgettable experience, a dizzying ocean of music.