Programme

… A quarter of an hour before the start, the so-called intermission musicians step onto the balcony of the Festspielhaus for the first time – and intonate a fanfare composed especially for the occasion. Matched with a motif of the next act or scene: once a novelty like the Festival itself.

This tradition goes back to Richard Wagner’s time. The intermission fanfares have sounded since 1876 at all performances, in almost any weather. Always at the same time, because even at the first Bayreuth Festival, the performance start time was set at 4 p.m. (except for Holländer and Rheingold) and the intermission length at sixty minutes.

The canon of ten Wagner works that make up the repertoire has also remained: “Der fliegende Holländer,” “Tannhäuser,” “Lohengrin,” the four-part cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” and “Parsifal.