Das Land der Oper

Hello, all. This weekend I took another daytrip to Bayreuth. All of you who have ever claimed to know anything at all about opera, you should all be just full of anticipation for the following picture:

After the 2 and a half hour long train ride, I arrived in Bayreuth. As I walked down the streets, I was excited as I crossed an 18th-century row of buildings along Operstrasse. During the Allied bombings, this historic row of buildings (leading well past the Neue Schloss) was miraculously preserved. In this row was a rococo opera house. The words to describe it can me summed up here: exquisite, ridiculous, small.

So the inside was everything anybody had ever heard about Rococo. Gold everywhere, ornate wood carvings everywhere, shimmering reflections from the chandeliers, and a small stage with a completely open orchestra area. All of this would be in stark contrast to my next operahouse experience.

The Festspielhaus (the first picture) was built for Richard Wagner, the infamous opera composer who influenced a whole generation of theater. Every impression I've ever had is that this would be a gigantic opera house to house the gigantic productions of Wagner. A 15-hour long cycle just had to illicit an opera house worth sitting in for 15 hours. This was most definitely an opera house intended for the art of opera (as opposed to the art of impression) in that the floors were acoustically designed to bring resonance to every square meter of the audience and the seats were designed to give the most absolute clarity and devotion to the performance. However, King Ludwig II could have spared a bit more dough to make the seats hospitable to a 15-hour long run of sopranos in viking helmets. The seats were stadium-style: Individual seats made of wood, a cloth cover on the bottom (not padded) and no armrests. The legroom situation would be terribly unfortunate for me and possibly even more unfortunate for the person in front of me and on either side of me. Good thing people were shorter back then, right?

The orchestra pit was just elating. Mostly because I'm a nerd and like that kind of stuff. The seats recessed into a pit, the orchestra was almost completely covered by the stage - in stark contrast to the rococo stage. It's amazing to think that this innovation was at one point in time completely new. And now, almost every stage with an orchestra pit is built in this manner. It's just mind-bending to think about the consequences of one man who was a bit full of himself.

So I leave you with one last picture (and a quote by Mark Twain.) This is a picture of the auditorium - still elaborate, but significantly toned down from the Rococo house.

"I've heard that Richard Wagner's music is much better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

Interesting that somebody of such operatic fame not known for his music, but his impact on theater and the design of buildings. Cool.