Bayreuth: A quite day learning about Wagner

October 1, 2017

Bayreuth is the city of Richard Wagner, there are references to him everywhere. Wagner came to Bayreuth in 1872 attracted by the Markgravial Opera House which is said to be one of the mast beautiful Baroque Opera Houses in Europe. However he dismissed it as the orchestra pit was too small for the enormous orchestras he required for his operas. Therefore he set to work and the Festspeilhugle was built to stage his operas. Hitler who was a huge fan of Wagner’s works was a very frequent visitor. In the last few weeks of WW2 two thirds of the city was destroyed by bombing but the opera house was undamaged. During the American occupation of the city it was used for army recreation. In 1946 it was handed back to the city of Bayreuth and eventually the Bayreuth Festival was reinstated. Today it is hugely popular, it takes place in late July and early August and there is awaiting list of about 10 years to get tickets. Consequently the town has a large number of quality hotels, at this time of the year they are not expensive so we are living in luxury

Today being Sunday the centre is quite but we have wandered around seeing the opera houses and getting our rail tickets from our journey to Frankfurt tomorrow. Ken has two broken spokes and I have managed to find a bike shop near our hotel so hopefully we can get the bike fixed

The Red Main hard to imagine it would ever be big enough for big barges

Lovely autumn colours in the park leading to the festival hall

Listz was living in this house when he died. He had come to live in Bayreuth because his daughter who was Wagner's wife lived here

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0