Kate Connolly writes in the Guardian about Eva and Katharina Wagner's first Bayreuth season, which opens on Sunday: "Fresh touches introduced by the sisters will include a new production of
Lohengrin [by Hans Neuenfels], in which, Katharina Wagner has let slip, rats will be let
loose on a set designed to resemble an animal research laboratory." Perhaps the rats will discover the rotting rabbits from Schlingensief's Parsifal. Progressives are unimpressed, preemptively attacking the new regime as "stuffy" and "out of date." You can listen to Sunday's Lohengrin via Internet radio; heading the cast is Jonas Kaufmann. Salzburg, meanwhile, is gearing up for the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's new opera Dionysos, on Tuesday; it seems to be a fantasia on the life of Nietzsche. Tom Service notes that the vocal score can be viewed online, courtesy of Universal Edition. Austrian Radio broadcasts the opera next Friday.
Previously: Bayreuth pilgrimage.
Update: Intermezzo has pictures from the Lohengrin. Eek!
Further update: AC Douglas is disheartened.
