"THE MASTERSINGERS"—from the 1956 Bayreuth Festival

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 902, 16 November 1956, Page 8

"THE MASTERSINGERS"—from the 1956 Bayreuth Festival

\With a flourish of trumpets, listeners to 2YC and 4YC at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday,: November 25, will be taken inside the Festival Theatre at Bayreuth in Bavaria for a complete performance of Wagner’s Mastersingers from the 1956 Festival. This is a new production by Wieland Wagner, for when it was performed in 1951 the pre-war sets and costumes were used. It is conducted by André Cluytens, and the cast includes Gustav Neidlinger, Josef Greindl, Wolfgang Windgassen, Gerhard Stolze, Lore Wissmann and Georgine von Milinkovic. It will be heard from 1YC and 3YC at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday, December 2. The Bayreuth Festival under Wolfgang and Wieland Wagner has now set out on new and illustrious paths. It was in 1876 that the Festival began with a performance of The Ring of the Nibelung. Since then it has fought its way through numerous difficulties until during the last wat it was forced to close down. Even before the war it had become somewhat discredited in the eyes of the rest of the world, as the Nazis found Wagner a convenient symbol for their reign and when Hitler began to attend performances many eminent conductors such as Toscanini fu; to take part. After the outbreak of war the performances continued until 1941, when with the Russian offensive the struggle became grimmer and all luxuries disappeared. Much of the scenery from Bayreuth was sent to Berlin for performances of opera, *and there most of it was lost in air-raids. At Bayreuth, Wagner’s villa was partly demolished, and the end of the war

found the theatre about to be turned into a movie house for American troops. During the occupation years it was used for a wide variety of shows-from Madam Butterfly to Bing Crosby. As order was restored plans began to emerge for the reopening of the theatre. The authorities were willing to grant permission on one condition, howeverthat Winifred Wagner, who had run the Festivals during the difficult years after her husband’s and Cosima’s death, should. relinquish control and let her

sons Wieland and Wolfgang take over. This she gladly agreed to do. Wieland Wagner, Wagner’s grandson, who has produced most of the first operas, reopened the theatre with a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony conducted by Furtwangler. He chose it because it was a favourite of Wagner’s, and one which Wagner himself had conducted in Bayreuth on his 60th birthday, the day he laid the foundation stone of the theatre. On -the following day Wieland Wagner’s new production of Parsifal was performed, and when this was succeeded by The Ring the Festival was truly in motion again. Audiences who knew the pre-war performances saw a completely different style of production. Gone were the detailed, sumptuous sets and all the trappings of what had become known as "realism." Instead, Wieland Wagner, a gifted and courageous man: of the Theatre, had gone back to the beginning, and, using all the modern devices he could, including a complex light organ, staged these music dramas with simple settings, imaginative lighting and new stage technique. " Gradually the other operas were added and he managed to secure many of the best artists in Europe and overseas, Last year, for instance, Dietrich FischerDieskau made his Bayreuth début. Visitors noticed an improvement in the productions each year, but sometimes Wieland and Wolfgang did not find it altogether ‘easy to abandon the old ideas completely. Some of them lingered on and in last year’s Tannhauser there was an unhappy combination of two

styles of production, the pre-war and the post-war.. Even the lighting displayed uncertainties. At the end of the 1954 Tannhauser a visitor described how Elisabeth’s bier was represented by a pyramid of angels that, dimly lit, "gave a dramatic poignant touch." Last year it was so brightly lit "that one inevitably began to count the angels, or to examine their carved features." " How Wieland would stage The Mastersingers was a question that was eagerly discussed by followers of the Festival, for this opera has a larger proportion of everyday scenes in it than the others, and would fit less easily into Wieland’s new style of production. The answer was fairly unanimousand definitely in favour of radio audiences rather than those who were in the theatre, "Musically it was one of the finest performances I have heard -being much better than in 1951," wrote Gerard Bourke in Musical Opinion, but he complained that the staging .was an unfortunate mixture, "The finale, which the producer’s grandfather set by the fragrant banks of the Pegnitz River, took place in what amounted to a lecture theatre. Pale yellow and light grey costumes were worn by all, and with the Mastersingers wearing academic gowns seated around a yellow dais, the effect of a conversazione, or of an operating theatre was complete. . . The visual effect of this extraordinary setting left me unable to concentrate on the music for several minutes. . ." Undistracted, radio listeners may well feel that for once it was better not have been there in person.