Bayreuth Festival 2026
The 2026 Bayreuth Festival presents performances of Rienzi, Der fliegende Holländer, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, and Parsifal. In addition, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Christian Thielemann and featuring Elza van den Heever, Christa Mayer, Piotr Beczała, and Georg Zeppenfeld) will be performed. The program also includes the stage work Brünnhilde brennt (at Friedrichsforum Bayreuth), and several open-air concerts.
Calendar 2026
24 July 2026 Festspiel Open Air
25 July 2026 IX. Symphonie
26 July 2026 Rienzi
27 July 2026 Das Rheingold
28 July 2026 Die Walküre
29 July 2026 Der fliegende Holländer
30 July 2026 Siegfried
31 July 2026 Parsifal
1 August 2026 Götterdämmerung
2 August 2026 Festspiel Open Air
2 August 2026 Brünnhilde brennt
3 August 2026 Rienzi
4 August 2026 Das Rheingold
4 August 2026 Brünnhilde brennt
5 August 2026 Die Walküre
6 August 2026 Der fliegende Holländer
6 August 2026 Brünnhilde brennt
7 August 2026 Siegfried
8 August 2026 Rienzi
9 August 2026 Götterdämmerung
10 August 2026 Parsifal
12 August 2026 Das Rheingold
13 August 2026 Die Walküre
14 August 2026 Rienzi
15 August 2026 Siegfried
16 August 2026 Götterdämmerung
17 August 2026 Rienzi
18 August 2026 Der fliegende Holländer
19 August 2026 Rienzi
20 August 2026 Parsifal
22 August 2026 Rienzi
23 August 2026 Der fliegende Holländer
24 August 2026 Rienzi
25 August 2026 Parsifal
26 August 2026 Rienzi
Rienzi 2026
Conductor: Nathalie Stutzmann
Director: Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka
Stage design: Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka
Costumes: Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka
Dramaturgy: Markus Kiesel
Choral Conducting: Thomas Eitler-de Lint
Cola Rienzi, päpstlicher Notar: Andreas Schager
Irene, seine Schwester: Gabriela Scherer
Steffano Colonna, Haupt der Familie Colonna: Andreas Bauer Kanabas
Adriano, sein Sohn: Jennifer Holloway
Paolo Orsini, Haupt der Familie Orsini: Michael Nagy
Baroncelli: Matthias Stier
Cecco del Vecchio: Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Der Ring des Nibelungen 2026 (“Ring 10010110”) - a new production for the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival
Musikalische Leitung: Christian Thielemann
Curator: Marcus Lobbes
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival, audiences are presented with an experiment of visionary ambition: a mise-en-scène that not only stages Richard Wagner’s music drama, but foregrounds its reception history. This is achieved through a visual stratum that is in constant flux—expanding, recomposing, contradicting itself. For the first time in the history of the Festival, artificial intelligence will appear on stage—not as a character, but as a generative visual force.
Between Embodied Presence and Visual Projection
The vocal performers occupy the focal point of the staging, exuding a calm, almost sculptural presence. Their bodies serve as anchoring coordinates within a visually dynamic cosmos of light, texture, historical reference, and associative meaning—within projections that rupture, continually shift, and merge into one another. What remains tangible, and what is illusion? Where does memory begin, and where does interpretation end? These projections exceed the role of traditional stage design; they constitute a reflective surface for 150 years of interpretive discourse. The AI responsible for generating them has drawn on a vast corpus of images, voices, documents, and stagings. It does not present a singular Ring, but multiple manifestations: the national mythos, socio-political upheaval, artistic subversion, romantic utopia, and deconstructed afterimage. Each performance will be unique, as the visuals and associations remain in perpetual transformation.
The Ring as Resonant Space
This project conceptualizes the Ring as an open resonant space—a work that insists on being continually retold, not in spite of, but precisely because of its historical burden. Here, artificial intelligence becomes both a mirror of collective memory and a surface upon which contemporary questions are projected: Who narrates history? Who constructs images? And to whom do they belong? In this convergence, Wagner’s claim to timeless validity intersects with the ephemerality of digital transformation. Sound encounters code, myth meets machine, the festival tradition engages with futurity. The stage becomes a laboratory of perception—a site where music theatre is not only performed, but interrogated. This Ring poses a challenge; it invites contemplation, disorientation, and intellectual curiosity. It is a Ring of inquiry, not of resolution—and a Ring that seeks to illuminate Bayreuth, a place saturated with history and projection, in a new light. Experience a music theatre that embodies both past and future—a Ring des Nibelungen that interrogates its own foundations. And, perhaps, interrogates us as well.
The “curator” Marcus Lobbes is the Director of the Academy for Theater and Digitality, the sixth division at Theater Dortmund.
Das Rheingold
Wotan: Michael Volle
Donner: Alexander Grassauer
Loge: Klaus Florian Vogt
Fricka: Anna Kissjudit
Freia: Evelin Novak
Erda: Christa Mayer
Mime: Gerhard Siegel
Fasolt: Mika Kares
Fafner: Peter Rose
Die Walküre
Siegmund: Klaus Florian Vogt
Hunding: Mika Kares
Wotan: Michael Volle
Sieglinde: Elza van den Heever
Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund
Fricka: Anna Kissjudit
Siegfried
Siegfried: Klaus Florian Vogt
Mime: Gerhard Siegel
Der Wanderer: Michael Volle
Fafner: Peter Rose
Erda: Christa Mayer
Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund
Götterdämmerung
Siegfried: Klaus Florian Vogt
Gunther: Michael Kupfer-Radecky
Hagen: Mika Kares
Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund
Waltraute: Christa Mayer
Ring I
Monday, July 27 Rheingold
Tuesday, July 28 Die Walküre
Thursday, July 30 Siegfried
Saturday, August 1 Götterdämmerung
Ring II
Tuesday, August 4 Rheingold
Wednesday, August 5 Die Walküre
Friday, August 7 Siegfried
Sunday, August 9 Götterdämmerung
Ring III
Wednesday, August 12 Rheingold
Thursday, August 13 Die Walküre
Saturday, August 15 Siegfried
Sunday, August 16 Götterdämmerung
Der fliegende Holländer 2026
Conductor: Oksana Lyniv
Director: Dmitri Tcherniakov
Daland: Mika Kares
Senta: Asmik Grigorian (6.8. and 18.8.)
Erik: Benjamin Bruns
Der Holländer: Nicolas Brownlee
Parsifal
Conductor Leitung: Pablo Heras-Casado
Director: Jay Scheib
Amfortas: Michael Volle
Gurnemanz: Georg Zeppenfeld
Parsifal: Andreas Schager
Klingsor: Jordan Shanahan
Kundry: Miina-Liisa Värelä
2024
In 2024, for the first time in the history of the Bayreuth Festival, there were more female than male conductors in the pit. In 2024, Simone Young conducted the Ring. The lineup that year also included Oksana Lyniv (Der fliegende Holländer), Nathalie Stutzmann (Tannhäuser), Semyon Bychkov (Tristan und Isolde), and Pablo Heras-Casado (Parsifal), and Simone Young (Der Ring des Nibelungen).
Photo: Per-Erik Skramstad
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Act 1 Vorspiel
| 07.18 | Leo Blech, Musikstadt Berlin Tonfilm 1929 |
| 08.XX | Richard Wagner, concert in Mannheim, 20.12.1871 (a few seconds more than 8 minutes, according to Richard Pohl) |
| 08.06 | Albert Coates, London, 1921 |
| 08.18 | Fritz Reiner, Pittsburgh, 1941 |
| 08.20 | Karl Muck, Berlin State Opera, 1927 |
| 08.28 | Karl Böhm, New York, 1959 |
| 08.30 | Hans Knappertsbusch, München, 1955 |
| 08.31 | Albert Coates, London, 1926 |
| 08.36 | Felix Weingartner, Wien, 1935 |
| 08.38 | Wilhelm Furtwängler, Berliner Philharmoniker, AEG Worker Concert, 26.02.1942 |
| 08.41 | Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony, 1946 |
| 08.42 | Fritz Reiner. New York, 1938 |
| 08.42 | Bruno Walter, New York, 1946 |
| 08.43 | Artur Bodanzky, New York, 1936 |
| 08.45 | Karl Böhm, Toronto Symphony, 1965 |
| 08.47 | Karl Böhm, Sächsische Staatskapelle, 1939 |
| 08.50 | Bruno Walter, Symphony Orchestra, 1930 |
| 08.53 | Artur Bodanzky, Berliner Staatsoper Orchester, 10.9.1927 |
| 08.53 | Hans Knappertsbusch, Wien, 1950 |
| 08.54 | Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony, 1954 |
| 08.54 | Karl Böhm, Bayreuth, 1964 |
| 08.55 | Arturo Toscanini, Salzburg, 1936 |
| 08.58 | Arturo Toscanini, La Scala, 1952 |
| 09.00 | Hans Richter, London, 1879 |
| 09.00 | Gustav Mahler, Brooklyn, New York, 1910 |
| 09.11 | George Solti, Vienna Philharmonic (3.10.1994, Suntory hall, Tokyo) |
| 09.11 | Herbert von Karajan, Bayreuth Festival 1951 |
| 09.24 | Herbert von Karajan, Dresden |
| 09.37 | Hans Knappertsbusch (N/A) |
| 09.49 | Christian Thielemann, recorded at Schloss Herrenchiemsee, Münchner Philharmoniker |
| 09.53 | Alain Altinoglu, Frankfurt Radio Symphony (20.3.2022) |
| 10.55 | Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia |
Sources: Jonathan Brown (Great Wagner Conductors), Per-Erik Skramstad
“Wagner says that the Meistersinger prelude will without exception be taken too slowly. It should be a strong march tempo.” (Felix Mottl, Diary, 26.5.1876)
