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Bayreuth Festspielhaus: Enchaining the Audience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Simon Williams
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Extract

In order to recuperate from the rigors of the first production of The Ring at Bayreuth, Richard and Cosima Wagner took an Italian vacation. During their travels they visited the Sistine Chapel. After he had observed the interior, Richard pronounced, “This is like my theatre, one feels it is no place for jokes.” Cosima, never one to contradict her husband, reserved comment. In fact, there can be little doubt that she agreed with him, for in her Diaries she consistently invests the Festspielhaus with an aura of sanctity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , May 1992 , pp. 65 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1992

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References

1 Wagner, Cosima, Diaries, ed. Gregor-Dellin, Martin and Mack, Dietrich, trans. Skelton, Geoffrey, 2 vols. (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977–1980), 1: 934.Google Scholar

2 See for example Borchmeyer, Dieter, “Die Künstler und die Öffentlichkeit,” in Das Theater Richard Wagners (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982), 19–74Google Scholar; Habel, Heinrich, “Die Idee eines Festspielhaus,” in Detta, and Petzet, Michael, Die Richard Wagner-Bohne König Ludwigs II (Munich: Prestel, 1970)Google Scholar; Hartford, Robert, “Richard Wagner and the Idea of the Festival,” Bayreuih: The Early Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 15–41Google Scholar; and Müller, Ulrich, “Richard Wagner und die Antike” in Wagner-Handbuch, ed. Müller, Ulrich and Wapnewski, Peter (Stuttgart: Kroner, 1986).Google Scholar

3 Wagner, Richard, My Life, ed. Whitall, Mary, trans. Gray, Andrew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 13–14.Google Scholar

4 Wagner, Richard, Selected Letters, ed. & trans. Spencer, Stewart and Millington, Barry (London & Melbourne: Dent, 1987), 137.Google Scholar

5 Correspondence of Wagner and Liszs, ed. Ashton Ellis, W., trans. Francis Hueffer, 2 vols. (1897; rpt. New York: Haskell House, 1969), 1: 188–9.Google Scholar

6 Wagner, Richard, Prose Works, tr. Ellis, William Ashton (1896; rpt. New York; Boude, 1966), 5: 335.Google Scholar

7 Interestingly enough, though experiments in darkened auditoria had been made before (e.g., at the first performance of Verdi's Il trovatore at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, on 19 January 1853), the darkened auditorium at the first performance of the Ring Bayreuth was an accident, and the subsequent two performances of the cycle were given in an auditorium with the gas lights slightly on (Prose Works, 6: 104).