Stefan Herheim interviewed by Wagneropera.net
An honour to take part - Stefan Herheim on working at the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth still offers a completely unique athmosphere for working on Wagner, compared to any other opera house with their normal opera seasons and routines. Herheim tells about aggressive journalism and extreme public expectations around Bayreuth, and describes the situation of working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week in a team where everybody sacrifice their summer holiday to reach for the virtually unattainable in art.
Stefan Herheim, what is it like to work as a director at Bayreuth?
This is the second of a series of interviews with Norwegian director Stefan Herheim.
More Herheim interviews
Stefan Herheim on Daniele Gatti, tempi and staging of preludes
Herheim on Parsifal: The Theatre is my Temple
Stefan Herheim links
To start with, there’s nothing to match the Festival when it comes to producing in a focussed and efficient way. Everyone working at Bayreuth sacrifices their summer holidays to be part of something special, something that you just don’t experience as a normal worker at a normal opera house in a normal season. Everyone is there to act and sing Wagner, in Wagner's own house. It’s considered an honour to take part, and all are experts in their own field. And for me, this is exactly where the real importance of the Festival lies. Here, more than anywhere else, everything that you have prepared yourself for, everything you say and do really counts. The technical equipment in Bayreuth also offers tremendous possibilities, and you have greater means available than normally.
Do you get more rehearsal time in Bayreuth than elsewhere?
No, it's a myth that there are such long rehearsal periods in Bayreuth. In fact, you have fewer days and weeks than in most other places. But the motivation and work ethic are unmatched, and more is achieved in less time than in other opera houses, where there are often long waiting times, fatigue and a certain ignorance across the range of rehearsal activities. But Bayreuth is also a very tiring system to work within: the public’s expectations are so high, some of the journalists come across very aggressively, and the cult around the Wagner management and celebrity hysteria brings things to an embarrassing low tabloid level. But when you rehearse up to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, you become immune to such things. And for a workaholic like me, being pressed for time often has a positive effect. It has been a great experience to stage Parsifal at Bayreuth; I am humbled by the Festival idea, grateful to my many colleagues, and pleased that I took this opportunity.
Had you been in Bayreuth before you put on Parsifal there?
No. As a 15-year-old I bought the Chéreau Ring on video and studied books on the stage techniques behind Peter Hall’s Ring production – the one where the Rhine Daughters swam in a real pool that took up half the stage. I found it all absolutely fascinating and had enormous reverence for this place. There’s nothing to compare with the theatrical vision behind this house.
When and how did you get the offer to put on Parsifal in Bayreuth?
While I was holding rehearsals for Giulio Cesare in Oslo in December 2005, I received a phone call: "Hier spricht Wolfgang Wagner – spreche ich mit dem Regisseur Stefan Herheim?" I said yes. "Mögen Sie Parsifal?" The whole thing was weird as just two months before I had, for personal reasons, cancelled Parsifal with Daniel Barenboim in Berlin. So, it seemed as if I had unfinished business with this work. Wolfgang Wagner put me on to his secretary, a meeting was agreed and two weeks later we were dining together in Berlin. Gudrun let Wolfgang speak for five minutes before she took over. An odd couple ... the following summer, I sat for the first time in Bayreuth and watched Schlingensief’s Parsifal.
What did you think? Did you know Schlingensief’s work from before?
I had seen some of his projects in Hamburg and Berlin and got to know him personally some time after that. Christoph is an incredibly strong person and a very special artist who goes his own way, with admirable results. His multimedia installation theatre isn’t really my cup of tea, but Parsifal had power and fascinated me as much as it confused me. Undoubtedly, this production was very important for Bayreuth's image and developing the tolerance levels of the audience.
You have said that Parsifal caused you anxiety. What did you mean by that?
I was a 16-year old extra when Parsifal was put on at the Opera in Oslo. It was the first time that, as an extra, I avoided being near the stage and was sitting in the cafeteria waiting for my entrance. I felt that there was something sinister about the music, something disturbing, which made me feel wary and anxious. Maybe I was afraid of the extra dimensions in this work, perhaps overly sensible to the relativity of time and space that you so clearly hear in Parsifal.
What are the plans for your Parsifal in Bayreuth?
This production will certainly play through to 2012. Bayreuth is producing a new Ring in the bicentennial year of 2013, so there will be a break for Parsifal - and a summer holiday for me for the first time in five years. I don’t know what will happen after that. I have many other major challenges before me in new houses, so I try as best I can to live in the present.
Translated by Jonathan Scott-Kiddie