Boos at Bayreuth 2022

[Rach3]

Fww, watch the very end of " Gotterdammerung" thru the end of curtain calls , starting 2:13:00 into this YT , about 20 mins. until 2:33:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1YXAhwkQAw

The audience liked the singers, not the production.

[Rach3]

Update from Lebrecht Aug.31:

At last night’s final curtain calls for the end of the current Ring cycle, the Swedish soprano Irene Theorin was seen giving a one-finger salute to the audience, which was booing the cack-handed production.

The gesture may mean something different in Swedish.

One hopes.



UPDATE: Barbara Roeder writes: First some Boos for her, then pointing to people in the audience with a finger, and then her one finger… whole house booed back. I was speechless.

[Rach3]

Per Lebrecht today:

"The Bayreuth audience and the festival management have been suddenly brought into the political spotlight.

After the worst summer of audience hostility and singer dismay, the federal German culture minister Claudia Roth has made a statement that cracks the complacency of the Wagner family and points to a different direction.

Frau Roth called for major reforms and made it clear she was targeting Katharina Wagner. The festival, she said, is ‘not a reflection of our diverse, colourful society.’ It needed to a attract younger, broader public. ‘The directors of the festival will have to do more to attract their audience in the coming years.’

And she was critical of misguided new productions, without specifically mentioning the Ring. Bayreuth needed, she said, to ‘design the general conditions of the festival in such a way that artistic excellence can be achieved.’

Under Angela Merkel, Katharina Wagner had protection in Berlin. No more."

[barney]

Update from Lebrecht Aug.31:

At last night’s final curtain calls for the end of the current Ring cycle, the Swedish soprano Irene Theorin was seen giving a one-finger salute to the audience, which was booing the cack-handed production.

The gesture may mean something different in Swedish.

One hopes.



UPDATE: Barbara Roeder writes: First some Boos for her, then pointing to people in the audience with a finger, and then her one finger… whole house booed back. I was speechless.

How utterly delightful. Opera joins the mosh pit era. (sarcasm alert - but it's certainly amusing)

[barney]

Fww, watch the very end of " Gotterdammerung" thru the end of curtain calls , starting 2:13:00 into this YT , about 20 mins. until 2:33:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1YXAhwkQAw

The audience liked the singers, not the production.

Thanks Steve. I went to 2:13.00 as advised, and turned off after 2:13.35. I'm sorry if this is body shamist, but a very overweight soprano should not be rolling around the stage in a rictus of ecstasy. She simply can't do it; she looks clumsy and stupid. The impression I got in my 35 seconds is the reminder that Wagner's is fabulous.

[Belle]

Both male and female looked like beached whales in various stages of decomposition in that sequence. It's all so YESTERDAY.

[jserraglio]

Both male and female looked like beached whales.

Grossly rotund orca matriarchs are known to teach similarly blubbery young orcas of both sexes how to beach themselves while hunting baby seals.

[lennygoran]

Thanks Steve. I went to 2:13.00 as advised, and turned off after 2:13.35. I'm sorry if this is body shamist, but a very overweight soprano should not be rolling around the stage in a rictus of ecstasy.

The worst-rolling with that head. Regards, Len

[Rach3]

From Lebrecht:

German and Austrian media are reporting that a conflict has flared between Katharina Wagner and conductor Christian Thielemann over the use of the word ‘Führer’ in a production of Lohengrin.

According to Der Standard in Vienna:

After this year’s dress rehearsal, Katharina Wagner asked tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, who sang the title role, to replace the word “Führer” with “Schützer” at the end of Richard Wagner’s opera about the Swan Knight. “It’s a common substitute,” Wagner said on Wednesday. “A lot of houses use the word ‘Protector’, and we in Bayreuth should be particularly sensitive because we have a special political background and therefore a special responsibility.”

Thielemann reportedly told Die Welt: ‘Then you can no longer play ‘Tosca’ with the attempted rape, murder and so on.’

[Rach3]

More from Lebrecht:

The Bayreuth audience and the festival management have been suddenly brought into the political spotlight.

After the worst summer of audience hostility and singer dismay, the federal German culture minister Claudia Roth has made a statement that cracks the complacency of the Wagner family and points to a different direction.

Frau Roth called for major reforms and made it clear she was targeting Katharina Wagner. The festival, she said, is ‘not a reflection of our diverse, colourful society.’ It needed to a attract younger, broader public. ‘The directors of the festival will have to do more to attract their audience in the coming years.’

And she was critical of misguided new productions, without specifically mentioning the Ring. Bayreuth needed, she said, to ‘design the general conditions of the festival in such a way that artistic excellence can be achieved.’

Under Angela Merkel, Katharina Wagner had protection in Berlin. No more.

[maestrob]

From Lebrecht:

German and Austrian media are reporting that a conflict has flared between Katharina Wagner and conductor Christian Thielemann over the use of the word ‘Führer’ in a production of Lohengrin.

According to Der Standard in Vienna:

After this year’s dress rehearsal, Katharina Wagner asked tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, who sang the title role, to replace the word “Führer” with “Schützer” at the end of Richard Wagner’s opera about the Swan Knight. “It’s a common substitute,” Wagner said on Wednesday. “A lot of houses use the word ‘Protector’, and we in Bayreuth should be particularly sensitive because we have a special political background and therefore a special responsibility.”

Thielemann reportedly told Die Welt: ‘Then you can no longer play ‘Tosca’ with the attempted rape, murder and so on.’

Thielemann again reveals his questionable politics. His argument is a total non sequiter.

[barney]

Quite right, Brian. I love his book on Wagner operas, and have used quotes in many an article, but I reckon if he were American he'd be right at home at the alt right end of the MAGA crew.