Dinner after the show

At the end of act III of Tannhauser with the orchestra wailing and over 100 men and women singing on stage and the two main characters lying dead at our feet the crowd erupted in a frenzy of pent-up applause for in Wagner music there is no applauding until the curtain has fallen. They cheer and stomp their feet on the bare wooden floor and it's deafening and exciting to be a part of it.

Due to the ingenious theater design you get out of there as fast as you got in as each side door serves only 4 rows of seats, and only half of that as there are matching doors on the other side of the theater. There is no center aisle which forces people into a long bottleneck as in other opera houses. You are out of there in about 3 minutes tops and into the fresh night air. The opera which began at 4 pm sharp is over by 9.30 pm and that included two 1 hour intermissions-so it's a short Wagner opera as some last over 5 hours and get out around 11 p.m. If you have a short attention span it may not be for you.

So you are out there on a warm August evening, catching smatters of chatter from excited people who got what they came for- an unforgettable, emotion-drenched evening of fascinating music.
People are smiling, elated, refreshed.

They are also hungry and so are we. We had made a reservation at a restaurant just up the hill a 5 minute walk. It is called the Burgerreuth. No it doesn't serve burgers. It serves Italian food but not the Mamma's Tomato Sauce kind. Northern Italian I would say. We chose it for it's proximity (singers go there after the show) and it's vast outdoor dining patio. Great ambience. I would go back for that.
It is pricier than a typical German pub/restaurant like Weihenstephan- 20 Euro plates as opposed to 12 E with a somewhat limited menu which made choosing a two-beer affair. The food wasn't as stellar as Weihenstephan but we were too pumped up after the show to let it bother us.

Ciaran was exhilarated after his first Bayreuth experience. We had tickets for one more performance-the opera that started it all for me with Wagner-Lohengrin which everyone in the Western Word has heard at least one tune from...we know it as "here comes the Bride" as it is played at weddings.

Now it was time to unwind over a few beers and some hearty food.

We drove back to the hotel and once there Ciaran and I felt the need for a nightcap so we bade Carol goodnight and set off on foot for Weihenstephan. There we sat outside and had a couple of beers and relived the performance we had just seen. We made a plan to meet up in the morning and go downtown for a walk, which would inevitably lead to Wagner's house again. It's not where he died-he died while visiting Venice in 1883-but it's where he lived from 1872 and put together the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 where the "Ring" was first played in it's entirety (15 hours of new music that is still playing around the World.) It's the most expensive undertaking for an opera company-both Los Angeles and new York's Metropolitan Opera have recently mounted $30 million productions and are now taking in laundry to help pay for the bank loans.

We parted at the restaurant and each made his way home over dark but safe streets.

Apologies

My apologies to anyone who breathlessly clicked on this blog today, anticipating video treats, only to find that the videos were "private". That's my default setting on Youtube and when I found out, Your Honor, I was away from my desk and unable to make public the videos via my phone.

So please come back to the blog and view. I'll make some tea and sandwiches for you.

Norris

Intermission

Tannhauser is the story of a medieval singer who is torn between being a nice normal likable guy and a man who wallows in debauchery in the realm of Venus, a femme fatale in a world of wild music and I imagine mind and libido expanding drugs. It's a gripping yarn, indeed, with a lot of passion and soul searching.

Emotionally you are put through a wringer full of highs and lows and it's hard not to feel sympathetic for his plight. He wants to do the right thing but man-that Venus is smoking' hot!

People are in tears at Wagner operas- I am one of them, even before the singing starts as the Wagner Orchestra is reading black dots on the page which, when arranged in the right order by a craftsman make tears fall, hard as you might try to hold them back. Once the singers chime in with their big human voices and a story-well it's all over for keeping your composure.

So, even though you would love the Opera to just keep going (even though you know exactly how it's going to end) an intermission is maybe a good thing, just to get your breath back and maybe visit a bathroom, get a beer or a delicious bratwurst (grilled sausage in crispy fresh bread with mustard) and return for one hour of life back in 21st Century Germany.

Ciaran went off to get in line for some beers and as the Germans are experts in feeding the masses he wasn't gone long. In the USA I often don't bother trying got get a drink in the 25 minute intermissions as there is usually one lonely guy trying to serve up drinks from a stand or through a little window.
The Germans have a team of servers at a long counter and work furiously to keep the line moving.

In Germany you ask for a beer and get the brew they are serving from a local brewery so don't waste your time (or their's) asking for an Old Shipmate Honey-Toasted Microwbrew Malt. They will give you the beer you deserve and you WILL enjoy it. They have been making beer in Germany long before you or your ancestors were born-and doing it well.

In German opera houses the coat-check is a huge affair with again a long line of expert coat-checkers so you are in and out in a trice.  No little window with poor old Doris having to take each coat separately and log it in a notebook. Then she does a pencil sketch of you so that she can put a face to the coat. Germany-fast, efficient and some thought has gone into the process. They have done this before and will do it even better next time!

So, let me see where I am...I am wearing a nice suit, Cologne (Armani) is working it's magic. I am hungry but know that I will be eating dinner after the show so that can wait. I am with my two favorite people in the world. I have beer.  I have just seen act I of Tannhauser in the best theater on Earth. Time to take a walk, away from the crowds and down to the pond to sit and reflect and anticipate what will come in act II. A warm, windless August evening. Can it get any better than this?? (rhetorical)

I am in Bayreuth and specifically I am in the one place where the word Bayreuth means more than just a small university town- I am at the Festspielhaus, center of the Wagner Universe. I have a ticket!
Ciaran has a ticket too! Huzzah! Carol has a ticket and is beaming, happier than I have ever seen her.

Tickets? Looking for tickets?

Wednesday morning- Tannhauser day. Tannhauser was a very popular opera in it's day (1845 onwards) and was the one I was most looking forward to.

As was my custom I enjoyed a small breakfast and two pots of good coffee from the buffet and ate it outdoors, rather than in the huge buffet room. A day which began cloudy later blossomed into full sun with temperatures in the mid 80s F.

I texted Ciaran to suggest I pick him up and we drive up to the theater box-office to see if there were any ticket turn-backs for tonight. His text told me that he was already up there, on foot and the cupboard was bare. He said he would go back when they reopened after lunch and try again.

We drove up and collected him then drove downtown via the Ring road to avoid the pedestrian zone.
Parked the huge beast in a tight spot in Franz Liszt Street and walked to Wagner's house and grave so Ciaran could pay his respects.

The morning was wearing on and so it was a good idea to get lunch out of the way, outdoors (of course as it was sunny) in the pedestrian zone from a little pub we hadn't tried before (but will return to). I haven't had a meal in Germany yet where I didn't lick the plate and sometimes it is so good I go over to the next table and lick their plates-they are too polite to say anything.

I dropped Ciaran back up to the Festspielhaus after lunch and returned to our hotel. I was sitting outside on the Wagner bench before going up to the room when I got a text from Ciaran saying a tout was offering him a ticket at 75 Euros over face value. He asked if he should take it? YES!!! was my reply. The face value was I think 180 E.

So now tonight's Opera would be really special as I had been telling Ciaran about Bayreuth since 1999 and now he was going to finally see what all the fuss was about.

Once again the well-oiled machine that is us on holiday clicked into gear. No rush, no panic, no forgetting anything-just a smooth process of getting where we need to be without drama.

It helps to start the day in the Arvena's breakfast patio......

It's our decompression time to sit and wait for 4 o'clock to come around. Most patrons have the same idea and are standing around in their finery with glasses of champagne or beer, talking-mostly in German but other nationalities voices filter through. My ear is of course tuned to English so I hear the many Brits and few Americans in the crowd. Some still down to the pond or visit the then current exhibit focusing on Jewish singers and musicians whose lives were changed by the Third Reich back in the 1930s and 40s. Very sobering to read each story.

We are in the here and now, drawn by the lure of the music and musical theater at it's sublime apogee.

All we need is for Ciaran to show up with his ticket (which he did) and we await the summons to take our seats for Tannhauser. 

Great night of theater!

I can't describe the Flying Dutchman to you or describe Wagner's music in a blog. There are books that do this and videos of all his major operas. He is apparently the 3rd most written-about person in history.

You could always do what I did- just be curious enough to buy an Opera CD or DVD and play it once. I did that in 1994 with an opera called Lohengrin.

Wagner operas are played live all over the world and I have never seen an empty seat.  We have flown to Germany three times now to hear some and have spent a week each in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Flagstaff AZ, Los Angeles, Vienna, Edinburgh and many of those were multiple weeks over a period of years. There were always people from far off places there too- Japan, Australia, South Africa, the UK, Russia etc.

The tickets you receive for Bayreuth have your name on them and they can ask for I.D.

Inside the theater is unlike any other in the way it looks and sounds. The interior is wooden and so the sound is bright and alive. The orchestra is hidden from the audience and the pit goes under the stage.
The band can play very loud but the hood hiding them from view moderates the sound so the singers don't have to scream to be heard-quite the opposite.

The seats have very little cushion but you can rent a cushion from the coat-check. We don't bother.

There is no ornamentation to the inside of the theater-no glitter and luxury. It was just designed to sound good and let everyone see the stage. The audience is steeply raked for this reason.

The stage is big and because half the orchestra is under it the singers and action is closer than in a normal Opera house. They are also at eye level to those at the front (which we were) so no craning your neck looking up at them.

The staging has all the modern technology a theater could wish for and magic happens before your eyes and ears.

Before going in I checked my cameras and would do this on subsequent evenings.

As there is no Air Conditioning in the theater and it was 87 deg. F when we went in, jackets were removed and ties loosened.

You can hear a pin drop as the audience is very attentive. After the performance they cheer wildly or boo if they didn't like the staging. They certainly don't boo the orchestra or chorus which are of a legendary high caliber.

The Bayreuth experience for us is the epitome of a night at the theater.

We exited the building through different doors as I had to swim against the tide to get to the coat-check where my camera bag was held. When I came out to the area where Ciaran was to be waiting I saw that there was a huge rainstorm happening. Thunder and lightning and a sickly yellow sky. No Ciaran and no Carol. I used the umbrella that I had secured in the tripod section so that I could stand out in the rain and be visible. People were huddled under any available shelter and their numbers were dwindling by the minute as fleets of taxis and excursion busses loaded up. I checked my rented Euro phone and there was a text from Ciaran saying that because of the weather when his train arrived he had gone straight to Weihenstephan a 5 minute stroll away. Good thinking!

After ten minutes of walking back and forth I found Carol huddled in a group outside the front door and we shared the umbrella back to the car in the now emptied parking lot. Sanctuary!

The rain stopped a few minutes later and we drove the half mile to Bahnhof Strasse. There was no parking spaces in front of the restaurant so we parked in a nearby side street. No one was dining outdoors tonight as the furniture was soaked and when we checked in the waitress told us our reservation had been moved indoors and there was someone waiting at our table for us.

Ciaran was sharing the table with two German gentlemen who had also been to the Opera. They were eating quietly while we were babbling away, excitedly, talking about the Opera and Bamberg. Plates of hot hearty food arrived and were quickly dispatched.

We got into conversation with the two men at the table who had driven down from Hamburg to see the same three operas as us but they had already been here for a week and would go home the next morning. We talked for about an hour. They were staying at our hotel but declined an offer of a ride home as they wanted to walk. Ditto Ciaran whose hotel was a short walk away.

Back at the hotel I stopped into the bar which is open until 2 a.m or when the last guest staggers off to bed and had a beer while I chatted to Herr Hemmel about finding a ticket for Ciaran for Tannhauser, tomorrow night's Opera. Nothing yet but he was working on it.

A great night of theater, not spoiled by the weather afterwards and made greater by finding our old friend waiting for us at dinner. He had joined us on several of our European trips-in Berlin, on driving tours through Germany and France and on a trip we took to Austria via Munich in 2008. He was now living and working in Lyon, France and had a 13 hour train trek under his belt. It was his first time in Bayreuth.

Time for bed a the end of another great day.....

E Mail subscribing

Just an FYI....I subscribe to this blog via e mail to see what you see and have noticed that video doesn't always appear there. When you get the e mail you may want to use it as an alert and go to the web to view, that way you'll see all the post, as intended.

Norris

Showtime!

Lunch. Walk. Nap and Dress and we were ready by 2.50 to drive the mile or so to the Bayreuth Festspielhaus-the Wagner Theater. Parking is free and once the performance starts the road (Siegfried Wagner Allee) is closed to traffic so that car noise doesn't intrude.

We are an hour early so we have time to sit on a bench and relax. There are bars where one can get a drink outdoors and beautiful gardens with willow trees and a lily pond to help you find tranquility before the show and during intermissions which are one hour long, so plenty of time for bathroom breaks and food gathering. So civilized.

Carol has the handy "Bench-finder" App on her phone....

Next to her is another Wagner figurine and these appeared all over the place, sometimes in great numbers. There were many of them by the road leading up to the theater...

This is the front of the theater and it is covered by a likeness of itself as it is being renovated. Work was stopped while the Festival was running. Out of shot to the right is a large restaurant where the orchestra rehearses and where we had a reservation to celebrate our last night which would be Thursday. We had booked an outdoor table as the weather seemed so good.

As the 4 p.m start time approaches all eyes are on the front of the theater and the space above is filled with people chatting and nursing drinks.

Brass musicians will assemble to musically count-down the minutes until curtain, in 5 minute intervals. This can be heard all the way down by the lily pond giving you time to get to your seat.

They play a tune from the next act at each intermission but as Flying Dutchman only has one act and it's two and a half hours long this would be our our only call.