The Bayreuth Festival.
July 23, 1904.
Apart from the Wagner Theatre and the undertakings connected therewith, Bayreuth is a decayed "Residenzstadt," with an "Old Castle" of the fifteenth century, a "New Castle" of the eighteenth, and other not very carefully preserved relics of the Court which Franconian Margraves long kept here. Of country residences and "pleasaunces" too, designed in the over-fantastic manner of the South German potentate, there is more than one in the neighbourhood, and no doubt such things help to create an atmosphere that is favourable to artistic enjoyment. The smoke of modern industrial enterprise is not unknown here, but in the fulfilment of the part of its destiny which is connected with Wagnerian drama Bayreuth is aided by the leafy dells and dingles and the stately avenues of the Hofgarten, if not by the fantastic waterworks of the "Eremitage."
The Festival, which stands as a concrete symbol of Wagner's artistic mission, is just now at the zenith of its prosperity. It is twenty-eight years since the theatre was opened and twenty-one since Wagner's death, and the only thing which Bayreuth now fears is American piracy. One kind of calumny after another has been silenced, and in years past the institution seems to have done nothing but gain in solidity and dignity. It has formed an international public with a somewhat higher average of intelligence than is to be found anywhere else; and if there are certain weak and wrong-headed elements in the internal organisation, they are not so bad as to ruin the combined result of the brilliant and exceptional talent with which nearly every department—musical, dramatic, scenic, architectural, mechanical, and administrative—is worked. One might make a long list of the points in which the Wagner Theatre is somewhat better than any other of the kind. For example, the situation and approaches are more agreeable, the exits and entrances are more convenient, the ventilation is much more satisfactory, the acoustic is much finer, the distractions during the performance are fewer in consequence of specially good arrangements, structural and other, and by reason of the early start and long intervals the audience is less fatigued; the stage machinery works better, and the discipline behind the scenes is more thorough. The orchestra, besides being more advantageously placed, is larger, and has a higher average of executive ability. Apart, therefore, from the special Wagnerian enthusiasm, there is much to attract persons who take any kind of interest in musical drama, and as a matter of fact the audience commonly includes dozens of well-known musicians from different parts of the world whose own tendencies are anything but Wagnerian.