Bayreuth Wagner festival: another year, another walk-out

If it’s July in Germany, it must be Bayreuth. And if it’s Bayreuth, there must be a scandal. And, sure enough, a week before the curtain goes up on this year’s Richard Wagner Festival, the musical melodrama on-stage has been overshadowed by the real-life drama of the festival itself, first held 140 years ago.

Festival artistic director Katharina Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter has scrambled to find a replacement conductor after her first choice – Andris Nelsons – threw in his baton. Or, more accurately, left his baton behind in his Bayreuth dressing room and left for his native Latvia, refusing to return. In his wake in Bayreuth, a conductor-less production of Parsifal, opening on July 25th.

“Owing to a differing approach in various matters, the atmosphere at this year’s Bayreuth festival did not develop in a mutually comfortable way for all parties,” said Mr Nelsons in a statement issued by his management.

References to Islam

Festival insiders say Mr Nelsons was worried about references to Islam in director Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s

Parsifal

. That surprised Mr Laufenberg, who said Islam was only referenced in passing in a production that reportedly revolves around Christianity.

Another reported concern for Mr Nelsons was Bayreuth’s musical director Christian Thielemann, who sat in on rehearsals and reportedly offered his own suggestions – a no-no in the classical music world.

A spokesman for the Wagner festival said it had accepted Mr Nelsons’s resignation “with regret” and confirmed Mr Thielemann’s presence during some rehearsals – but in his capacity as festival musical director and reportedly at Mr Nelsons’s request.

Mr Thielemann said he was mystified that his colleague was not returning to Bayreuth and denied that he had interfered in the Latvian’s work.

Mr Nelsons's replacement is 73-year-old Hartmut Haenchen who, with just two musical rehearsals before opening night, said "not to expect miracles" from this year's Parsifal.

The Latvian conductor’s departure was the latest in a fine tradition of angry departures from Bayreuth, which attracts 60,000 music-lovers – many of whom have been waiting years for tickets.

Among previous departees: conductor Arturo Toscanini, who snapped his baton in 1931 and stormed out in disgust at the festival’s increasingly fascist focus, assisted by Winifred Wagner’s close friendship with Adolf Hitler.

This year’s director, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, wasn’t first choice either: the festival rescinded its invitation to German performance artist Jonathan Meese in horror at the running costs for his proposed staging.

Film directors have a terrible record in Bayreuth: in 2004 Lars von Trier pulled out of a new production of the Ring cycle while Wim Wenders walked out of his Ring production in 2011, citing irreconcilable differences with the Wagner family. Festival insiders accused the German director of being more interested in marketing his production than directing it.