HAVE GERMAN WILL TRAVEL FESTSPIEL

"Bei uns ist immer was los!"

Bayreuther Festspiele / Bayreuth Richard Wagner Opera Festival (annual month-long summer music festival held in Bavarian town of Bayreuth from end of July to end of August) The Week in Germany: Culture

Golden Summer Weeks: Wagner Opera Draws 17,000 In Bayreuth

To opera aficionados around the world, the gentle green hill on which composer Richard Wagner's custom-built opera house sits is the zenith of sung drama. For four golden, late-summer weeks, Wagner's epic dramas command the attention of the arts world, stir the small Bavarian city of Bayreuth into a glamorous swirl of celebrity-studded activity and fill the air with rich and impassioned tones and voices.

On July 27, 17,000 people attended a special public viewing event: Spectators gathered at the Festplatz square to follow a production of the opera "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" - performed nearby in the famous Festspie/haus opera house - on a 90-square-meter (968-square-foot) screen.

It was performed as part of the Bayreuth Festival, an annual music extravaganza featuring performances of operas by acclaimed the 19th century German composer. First held in 1876, it opened this year on July 17 and runs until August 28.

Getting tickets for performances at the Bayreuth Festival is notoriously difficult, with waiting times varying between five and 10 years. So the organizers decided to broadcast one of the performances live to an outdoor audience. This proved so popular that security personnel even had to close the Festplatz and turn people away.

To participate in the festival is a tremendous honor, not only for guests, but for the artists themselves, who are paid considerably less to appear here than elsewhere. The words of the great composer, perpetually penurious himself, seem still to echo over the soft green hills of Bayreuth: "Those who do not come to me with honor and enthusiasm should stay where they are."

Directors • Richard Wagner (1876-1883) • Cosima Liszt Wagner ( 1883-1908) • Siegfried Wagner (1908-1930) • Winifred Williams Wagner (1930-1945) • Wieland Wagner and Wolfgang Wagner (1951- 1966) • Wolfgang Wagner (1967-2008) • Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner (2008 - 2015) • Katharina Wagner (2015 - today)

German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived with her husband Joachim Sauer at the opening of the Bayreuth Festspiele, July 25, 2013. The festival opened with "The Flying Dutchman". - - -