Wolfgang Wagner & Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III (middle) at Bayreuth Festival, handsigned by Wolfgang Wagner
(privat collection)(click photo to enlarge).
Bayreuth Festival
The Begum Aga Khan III at Bayreuth Music Festival, 1963
The Festival ideal
Wagner’s Festival ideal was closely bound up with the genesis of his principal work, Der Ring des Nibelungen, each element in the equation fructifying the other. Both are rooted in the events leading up to the revolutions of 1848-9, a period when Wagner was Court Kapellmeister in Dresden. His reflections on a fundamental reform of existing theatrical conditions finally led him to side with the revolutionaries and to play an active role in the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849. Following the Uprising’s brutal suppression, Wagner was forced to flee from Dresden and to seek refuge in Switzerland. Even while he was still in Dresden, he had already sketched out a Nibelung drama, Siegfried’s Death, which he later revised as Götterdämmerung.
It was on 14 September 1850 that Wagner first sketched out the idea of a festival, an idea that continued to obsess him throughout the years that followed….
The crowd applauds, as Her Highness The Begum Aga Khan III arrives at the Bayreuth Festival in Bayreuth, Germany in 1963 (Click photo to enlatge).
It is since that time that the world-famous music festival attracts many famous (and less famous) people, like the Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan III, who was a great Wagner fan, and came every year as a guest of honer.
Even today, the festival is vèry populair, and still attracts many visitors, of all ages, from all over the world.
Programme 2015
| Saturday | 25. July, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Sunday | 26. July, 04:00 PM | Lohengrin |
| Monday | 27. July, 06:00 PM | Das Rheingold |
| Tuesday | 28. July, 04:00 PM | Die Walküre |
| Thursday | 30. July, 04:00 PM | Siegfried |
| Friday | 31. July, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
| Saturday | 01. August, 04:00 PM | Götterdämmerung |
| Sunday | 02. August, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Monday | 03. August, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
| Tuesday | 04. August, 04:00 PM | Lohengrin |
| Wednesday | 05. August, 04:00 PM | Siegfried |
| Friday | 07. August, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Saturday | 08. August, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
| Sunday | 09. August, 06:00 PM | Das Rheingold |
| Monday | 10. August, 04:00 PM | Die Walküre |
| Wednesday | 12. August, 04:00 PM | Siegfried |
| Thursday | 13. August, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Friday | 14. August, 04:00 PM | Götterdämmerung |
| Saturday | 15. August, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
| Sunday | 16. August, 04:00 PM | Lohengrin |
| Tuesday | 18. August, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Wednesday | 19. August, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
| Thursday | 20. August, 04:00 PM | Lohengrin |
| Friday | 21. August, 06:00 PM | Das Rheingold |
| Saturday | 22. August, 04:00 PM | Die Walküre |
| Sunday | 23. August, 04:00 PM | Tristan und Isolde |
| Monday | 24. August, 04:00 PM | Siegfried |
| Wednesday | 26. August, 04:00 PM | Götterdämmerung |
| Thursday | 27. August, 04:00 PM | Lohengrin |
| Friday | 28. August, 06:00 PM | Der fliegende Holländer |
Yakymour 