From Pilgrim to Professional
Colin Bayliss
Clemens Bieber
Bea and Alec Bobotek
Stephen Charitan
Jerry Floyd
Diana Herbst
Hildegaard Arnold Kiel
Walter Meyer
Anne Midgette
John F. Runciman
Per-Erik Skramstad
Julia Thornton
Mark Twain
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When this is written, I have had the pleasure of attending the Bayreuth Festival three times: In 1990, 1997 and 2008.
1990
Seven years I had waited for a ticket when I in 1990 received a letter from the Box Office, saying that I had gotten tickets for the Kupfer Ring.
At that time I had very little idea about what was to be expected from the Kupfer Ring. My interest for "modern" interpretations was slowly awakened when I saw Norwegian director Stein Winge's awesome production of Hamlet in Oslo with Bjørn Sundquist in the title role. Having seen this I remember thinking that there's no way back to the lame traditional productions with little or no stage directing.
And Harry Kupfer confirmed this with a Ring I today rank among the very best of Wagner productions.
Apart from Kupfer's rich and illuminating directing of the singers, three singers made an enormous impact on me: John Tomlinson (Wotan), Anne Evans (Brünnhilde) and Graham Clark (Loge and Mime).
John Tomlinson and Anne Evans in Harry Kupfer's production of Die Walküre.
John Tomlinson's portrayal of Wotan with an emotional register I had never seen before in any singer actor, or later. Tomlinson's Wotan is in my opinion one of the great post-war achievements at Bayreuth. And then there was Anne Evans's tender and lyrical Brünnhilde, without the vibrato one unfortunately expects from a dramatic soprano. And lastly Graham Clark's hilarious Loge and Mime. I feel so lucky that I later have had the chance to interview these great artists and icons.
1997
In 1997 I returned to the scene of the crime, this time as an assistant journalist to my friend Erling E. Guldbrandsen. The Bayreuth Festival summer of 1997 was totally crazy, and today I have no idea how we got the energy to interview Wolfgang Wagner, John Tomlinson, Poul Elming, Rosalie and Alfred Kirchner and attending the Kirchner / Rosalie Ring, Wolfgang Wagner's Meistersinger and Heiner Müller's Tristan.
Although I had experienced Waltraud Meier as a great Waltraute in Harry Kupfer's Götterdämmerung, now experiencing her as Isolde was a truly shattering experience. Twelve years later I have still not recovered from this Tristan performance.
2008
In 2008 I returned to see Stefan Herheim's Parsifal, Katharina Wagner's Meistersinger and Tancred Dorst's Ring.
Thomas Jesatko as Klingsor in Stefan Herheim's production of Parsifal. Photo from 2009: Enrico Nawrath
Parsifal and Meistersinger have been covered here on Wagneropera.net; the Dorst Ring is best forgotten, except for one thing: Christian Thielemann's outstanding conducting