TwilighT of The TickeTs
Robert Turnbull investigates upheaval at wagner societies worldwide
t’s vital that you help us expand our horizons in Africa. This was the mission Richard wagner’s grandson wolfgang bequeathed to herbert glöckner, a south African who ihad worked for the international Air Transport Association in geneva but in retirement had returned to cape Town in 1992. glöckner had been a regular visitor to the Bayreuth festival during wolfgang’s long regime as its director. ‘it wasn’t as if i really had a choice,’ he recalls. The previous secretary of the small south African wagner society had died, so it seemed ‘logical’ to accept. Attached was a little sweetener: an allocation of 20 tickets to the festival. with this carrot, membership jumped from 24 to 80 within a few months. Twenty years on, glöckner runs a flourishing society with 160 members from as far afield as Mozambique, Morocco and Namibia. Another instance of wolfgang’s particular interest in expanding wagner’s global reach comes from Thailand. hearing that somtow sucharitkul was planning the first ever Ring cycle in southeast Asia in Bangkok, wolfgang invited the Thai conductor to Bayreuth. During the interval of Die Walküre , wolfgang suggested somtow create the first wagner society in southeast Asia. somtow cordially offered wolfgang reciprocal hospitality: in 2003, at the age of 83, he and his wife gudrun were put up in the Bangkok sheraton. They attended a concert that included bleeding chunks of wagner before officially inaugurating the society. for over a century, a network of wagner societies around the world has furthered the Meister’s cult and provided a focus for his devotees. As the examples above suggest, Bayreuth took these societies seriously. Now, suddenly, it has turned its back on them—with a letter sent out on ■ Wolfgang Wagner in Bangkok in November 2003 at the inauguraion of the first Wagner society in December 14 last year with - southeast Asia, with HRH Princess Galyani drawing one of their time- Vadhana, patroness of Bangkok Opera honoured privileges: tickets, the wagner-lover’s longed-for gold. This issue has created deep divisions and put the very existence of the societies at risk. so what’s going on? some background is neces - sary here. There are currently approximately 23,000 members of 135 wagner societies world - wide. even Asia, historically resistant to wagner’s power, has caught the bug, with two branches in Japan and one taking shape in shanghai. Are there comparable numbers of Mozart and shakespeare
916 Opera, August 2012 ■ The green hill in Bayreuth, place of pilgrimage for Wagnerians societies? it’s doubtful. Most outings to salzburg or stratford-upon-Avon are little more than obligatory stops on a tourist agenda, but for many wagnerians a trip to Bayreuth represents the operatic equivalent of the haj, an expensive pilgrimage and often a once-in- a-lifetime experience. shakespeare and Mozart embody, arguably, a rational humanism. wagner, on the other hand, deals in walls of fire, magic swords and forest dragons. But for all the fantasy, there is also a didactic element that aims to seduce and persuade. wagner is cabbalistic, waiting to be decoded but open to multiple interpretations. when people talk of being ‘initiated’ into wagner, the societies provide them with parish church, priest and congregation. The first wagner society was launched in Munich in 1871, one year after the premiere of Die Walküre . wagner was initially unenthusiastic, finally warming to the idea much later as his vision for Bayreuth expanded. But it was only once the festival had been passed to wagner’s widow, cosima, that the societies proliferated, and the first one with any fundraising potential was set up in 1909 in leipzig. who joins? The popular notion that wagner societies are bastions of (in the words of one Berlin-based journalist) ‘right- wing nutters’, has a lot to do with one of the composer’s most notorious fans—Adolf hitler. if wagner societies generally err on the side of conservatism, it is perhaps more the result of age than ideology. This is not something for the facebook generation: wagner societies are greying societies. An average of 75 per cent of Us members are seniors. every year the wagner society of Northern california loses ‘two to three dozen due to attrition’. The societies struggle to escape being branded as a ‘cult’, or even worse, ‘elitist’. humbler, low-income, self-educated wagnerites seem to outnumber the middle-class intellectuals; but as in any operatic institution there are personality clashes, power struggles and old-fashioned snobberies. And, as in every ‘religion’, there is a sacred text. To be a fully-committed wagnerite in some people’s books, one must know one’s cosima’s Diaries, and it isn’t good enough have read only the abridged version. Taking london as an example there is certainly a scholarly aspect to its activities. lectures from academic authorities complement a published Wagner News . But much of
Opera, August 2012 917 what goes on is purely convivial. Among the many dinners, award ceremonies and symposiums, seasoned wagnerians take long trips down memory lane, and even celebrities who’ve caught the bug, like stephen fry, can impress members by dropping choice names from one of knappertsbusch’s star-studded Parsifal s. it has become more interesting with the emergence of factionalism and philosophical fault-lines. once in a while members lose their cool, with large doses of venom reserved for conceptual productions which some see as desecrating the master’s texts. in london, the stage director Richard Jones was verbally attacked during an interview after his Royal opera house Ring proved too much for at least one individual. Protests also went beyond the meeting hall when society members disrupted a hamburg production of Tannhäuser at Barcelona’s gran Teatre del liceu with catcalls and whistles. what isn’t always recognized, though, is that wagner societies work hard to further the composer’s cause with little or no financial reward. Many contribute to Bayreuth’s Stipendienstiftung , where selected artists and technicians convene at Bayreuth for three performances at the festspielhaus and a series of lectures and tours. The idea was created by wagner himself, but it has been left to individual societies around the world to hold the bursary competition and fork out for tickets, accommodation and travelling expenses. it costs the wagner society of great Britain well over £1,000 to send a scholar. This is not to mention live performances. london manages a series of concerts and recitals. The south African society has staged four operas in five years. A wagner society created last year in israel by the son of an Auschwitz survivor, the lawyer Jonathan livny, is even planning a Ring for Tel Aviv in 2013 (although a recent spat with the University there makes this seem unlikely). The organization linking these societies is the Richard-wagner-Verband international, under its president, the Munich-based Professor eva Märtson. each member of an affiliated wagner society donates €2 towards administrative costs and an annual congress. setting
■ Party faithful: the audience at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth up a society could not be easier—all you need is a chairperson and an accountant, and, says Märtson touchingly, ‘a real love of wagner’. But the more mater ial reason for joining wagner societies is tickets. it’s notoriously difficult to get into Bayreuth. of the 300,000 applications for tickets every year, only a fraction succeed, some people having to wait eight or nine years on a crowded waiting list. it wasn’t always that way. in the ’50s, when the festival was re-established after its disgraceful collusion with hitler, only the Ring sold out; Tristan , Meistersinger and Parsifal performances were rarely full, despite exemplary casts. Being a member of a wagner society can cut that time by many years or, in some cases, remove the wait altogether. of the 55,000 of tickets available for 60 performances last year, between 1,500 and 1,600 were allocated to wagner societies. Non-european societies benefited most; it was hardly necessary to include german societies in wolfgang’s global network. But all societies are entitled to an allocation for their bursary winners. They can also augment the number of tickets they receive by joining the gesellschaft der freunde, a powerful 5,400-strong group that over 20 years has contributed more than €30m towards the festival, mostly to fund technical improvements to the festspielhaus. A membership fee of €205 for the gesellschaft will get you nearer the front of the queue. As for the criteria for all this, only Bayreuth can tell you—and it won’t. The sole artistic director between 1966 and his death in 2010 was wolfgang wagner, but his relationship with his beneficiaries was sometimes whimsical and always informal. what they received didn’t necessarily relate to either the number of members or to the age of the societies. with over 900 members, the prestigious wagner society of New York enjoyed a large allocation and offered in return an english-language lecture series at Bayreuth, with proceeds going to the gesellschaft. Yet there were years when scotland’s 320-strong society received double the allocation received by london, which is twice its size. individual societies had their own methods of distribution. when, typically, southern california received around 12 sets of tickets annually, it prioritized first-timers to Bayreuth. Northern california, on the other hand, favoured the oldest members. london put all its tickets, including the chair’s allocation, into a ballot. Members had a roughly one-in-ten chance of winning one. But should these wagner societies continue to take advantage of what is a publicly-funded institution, 40 per cent of its budget coming from a combination of the federal Republic, the state of Bavaria and the city of Bayreuth? Their detractors, which include newspapers such Die Zeit and Die Welt , have complained that ‘ordinary’ germans struggle to get into the festival while large numbers of tickets are farmed out to fans in far-flung places. The bombshell arrived on 14 December 2011. Bayreuth issued a statement, signed by eva and katharina wagner, joint directors after wolfgang’s death, that there would no longer be a ticket allocation for wagner societies. Bayreuth’s administrative board, it seems, was responding to pressure from the audit offices of both the federal and local governments in 2011 that explicitly criticized certain aspects of the way tickets were allocated. since Bayreuth moved from being a family-led enterprise to a company with a board of trustees, the calls for transparency have been getting louder, especially since wolfgang’s death. in a way the move made sense. A figure of 40 per cent of the 55,000 tickets available to the public has now jumped to 67 per cent, a significant rise. A reduction in the number of tickets handed out to politicians as well as festival employees has been one factor. The
Opera, August 2012 919 festival’s opening performance was always heavily ‘papered’ for officials from the city of Bayreuth, even though they had to pay for the tickets. But, significantly, the gesellschaft’s allocation has survived the changes, remaining at 22 per cent of the total (13,996 tickets in 2012). According to the gesellschaft’s ina Bessler-eichler, ‘we indicated very clearly that cutting our allocation would result in a huge reduction of income for the festival. i should point out that there are years when we have given €3m, considerably more than the federal government.’ As for the abuses hinted at in the letter, rumours of fans taking out multiple memberships to increase their chances of getting tickets have been legion. There have also been claims that older members have been slow to admit newcomers if it meant giving up their ticket privileges. wagner societies have not helped allay these suspicions by being somewhat opaque over the numbers of tickets allocated. As a letter signed by 14 North American societies was quick to point out, wagner societies pay full price for their tickets and were ‘scrupulous in following the dictates of the festival’s management with regard to the ticket allocation process’. Making them scapegoats is hardly a solution, they say, especially given that their allocation of tickets represents such a small fraction of the total. wagner societies were unanimously enraged by the manner and abruptness of the letter, sent out at least one month after the decision was made and well after applications had been sent to the kartenbüro. The change was passed on october 18 but, according to Andrea Buchanan, then acting secretary of the wagner society of great Britain, ‘we had to wait until December 14 to find out that we weren’t going to get our tickets’. Moreover, the letter’s lumping together of non-profit wagner societies with self-interested tour operators, wolfgang’s other ‘historical’ allocation, only added insult to injury. in this case it seems that Bayreuth was trying to regain control of black-market tickets, offered on the internet at sky-high prices. At the Verband’s congress in Prague in May, feelings were running high. concern that the funding bodies had misunderstood the nature of the societies was compounded by what appeared to be some equivocation from both the Bayreuth festival and the Verband. Bayreuth insists it no longer has any control over ticket policy, but it didn’t help that the festival’s spokesman Peter emmerich failed to turn up as scheduled to explain the situation. eva wagner-Pasquier did eventually address delegates, alongside the mayor of Bayreuth, to reassure them that Bayreuth and Märtson were working hard on their behalf. Not every - one was convinced. The feeling that hung over Prague was one of betrayal and, in the words of the finnish wagner society chairman heikke Virri, ‘lack of clear leadership on the part of the Presidium of the Verband’. in Prague Märtson outlined her efforts to find the source of the decision about tickets. she had tried to set up a meeting with Toni schmid, chairman of the supervisory board, but was told in no uncertain terms to refer the matter to the ministry of culture in Berlin, which then referred her back to schmid. Among the general buck-passing, Märtson suggested to general approval that ‘all parties have to be informed who is responsible for these decisions’. she did, at least, manage to force a U-turn on ticket allocations for bursary holders. in a letter dated December 21, Dr stefan sprecht, secretary of the stipendienstiftung, declared that 1,000 tickets would be issued, 750 for students, leaving 250 for ‘mentors’ accompanying them. with that, sprecht asked the delegates to ‘refrain from public expression of displeasure, criticism or other adverse reactions towards the administrative board members of the management of the festspiele’. That has not satisfied delegates. when will scott, the secretary of the wagner society of scotland, made a vociferous defence of the aims and rights of wagner societies, stating
920 Opera, August 2012 ■ At loggerheads with the Wagner societies: Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner, co-directors of the Bayreuth Festival that the new ticket rules would result ‘in a drop in membership and a loss of revenue from subscriptions that would have funded a variety of initiatives’, Märtson told him she was embarrassed by the suggestion that ‘what we do in wagner societies is about ticket allocation’. This was countered by shirley Breese, in Prague on behalf of the several Australasian wagner societies. ‘for those who travel 16,000 kilometres to get to Bayreuth, it is very much a ticket issue,’ she insisted. ‘Promotion and education is our primary purpose but the tickets also attract some members.’ Märtson did pen a separate letter, on behalf of the Verband, to the federal government’s minister of culture. signed by delegates in Prague, it explained the important role wagner societies play and described the distress the ticket change had caused. she announced that the administrative board was to have another meet - ing on May 29, but the outcome of this event, if indeed it happened, has not yet emerged. Märtson expressed frustration that ‘most societies haven’t communicated to me what allocation they were given’. here she had a point: societies were suspiciously loath to share this information, even with the Verband. however, the view in Prague was that the decision on ticket allocation cannot be rescinded without special negotiations between Bayreuth and Berlin. To quote one german delegate present, ‘it won’t happen for two reasons: the wagner sisters do not care one iota about wagner societies, and Märtson is afraid of losing her special relationship with the wagner family’. frustration with the Verband had been growing among non-german members even before the ticket issue surfaced, triggered by the hike in fees last year. ‘it was €200 for the society, but now we pay member: a 300 to 400 per cent increase for us at the wagner society of Northern california here in san francisco,’ says Terri stuart. ‘with 200 members, we were paying €200 per year but then suddenly it was €600. what do we get? we get our
Opera, August 2012 921 ■ Worth queuing for? Katharina Wagner’s production of ‘Die Meistersinger’ name in their annual yearbook and this year, for some unknown reason, we weren’t even listed.’ There is a layer of irony to all this: wagner societies are slowly adopting the heretical belief that Bayreuth is no longer the epicentre of wagner productions. ‘we have to consider our options and look at strong local contenders for our philanthropy,’ says Andrea Buchanan, acting chair of the wagner society of great Britain, which will be supporting the longborough Ring . ‘we wonder whether the excess of £1,000 we spend annually might be better deployed in coaching and masterclasses, something that the Bayreuth bursaries don’t offer.’ what has fuelled this conclusion is the disappointment engendered by Bayreuth’s new productions. in spite of high orchestral and choral standards and top-notch conductors, many leading wagnerians simply won’t sing there. This relates to uncompetitive fees and long rehearsal periods during the middle of summer, but also to the kinds of dissected and deconstructed productions of championed by the current regime. Jeremy Rowe, the former chair of the British society, insists that ‘wagner favoured the experimental so it’s Bayreuth’s role to push the boundaries.’ But while wagner society members try hard to accept ‘conceptual’ productions and the kind of arcane subtexts that require even opera critics to have to consult the programme notes, privately they agonize. Newcomers to the style, and this includes many Americans fed a traditional diet of wagner, are forced to watch choruses of high-fiving rats in trainers ( Lohengrin , 2010), sets made of machines that recycle human excrement ( Tannhäuser , 2012) and klingsors in drag ( Parsifal , 2008). Before the new rules came into force, wagner societies were reluctant to bite the hand that fed them. formal criticism of Bayreuth was frowned upon. ‘we think it’s inappropriate for members of societies to become embroiled in artistic discussions with Bayreuth, even if this is a hot subject at grassroots society level,’ says the wagner society of Northern california’s Terri stuart. liliana konigsman, who runs Milan’s 40-strong wagner society, begs to differ. Alluding to siemens’s backing out as a major sponsor, konigsman sees people ‘withdrawing their
922 Opera, August 2012 traditional support’. Märtson and the Verband should, she feels, start a ‘dialogue on the subject to explain our concerns about the bad productions’ and a general dropping off of quality in the name of artistic freedom. ‘The days of provocation are over,’ says konigsman. ‘we don’t walk naked in the streets any more or smoke dope in front of our parents. i think it’s time Bayreuth realized that.’ so are the gloves off? According to the president of a prominent german society, ‘it’s an open secret that recent decisions made by eva and katharina have destroyed a lot of goodwill among patrons and wagner societies. An artistic and commercial failure in 2013 could turn the tide against both of them.’ At Bayreuth it’s never easy to predict the outcome. wagner societies feel they have been badly treated, but if there is any schadenfreude on the horizon it will be misplaced. Their challenge now is to move on, cut the umbilical link to the wagner family and its festival, and prove that they have the regenerative energy to stand on their own two feet.
Readers’ letters
At sea without the sea ‘Cunning’ tempos? i had a wonderful night at eNo’s new i share Rodney Milnes’s disappointment Billy Budd —a wonderful night with one over the production and performance of exception. i felt passionately about the The Cunning Little Vixen at glyndebourne opera, which is exactly what you should (July, pp. 879-80), in particular with feel with Billy Budd ; conductor and respect to the very fast speeds. Much of orchestra were superb; chorus also; and Act 1, including the introduction and the there were old friends to be admired like dream sequence, was spoiled in the rush. gwynne howell, and new friends to be Puzzled by Vladimir Jurowski’s discovered like Benedict Nelson. The speeds, i went to the Universal edition exception was to do with something score (ed. Mackerras, 2010). The called the sea . where was it? introduction speed indicated by Janáček instead we had a soviet factory with is quaver=120. Most conductors—on the no sense at all of the world outside—that recordings i have—take it at is to say, the endless sea (referred to so approximately 90; and an interesting movingly) as a counterpoint to this tiny footnote in the score states, ‘františek claustrophobic world of the ship. i have Neumann: quaver=100’. Jurowski took it always believed that the sense of the sea at 120, from memory. similarly, in the is an essential element in this marvellous wedding sequence in Act 2, which i work. if Billy goes aloft, he is not though also too fast, and certainly so in the looking at ironworks. his body will not final two pages, Jurowski was following be consigned to a furnace or a factory Janáček’s metronome marks. floor, but the ocean. so perhaps it was a brave experiment at Antonia Fraser ‘authentic’ performance, against tradition. London W8 if so, i think that tradition wins in this case. See Rodney Milnes’s review, pp. 1010-12 Dr Sebastian Lucas —Ed. London N5
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