By this time next week I'll be in Bayreuth, home of the Richard Wagner Festival, to review a new production of Parsifal. Christoph Schlingensief, long-reigning chief provocateur of the German theater, is directing the show, which, well in advance of its opening, has already provoked nervous chatter in the press. I haven't been able to find any preview of the staging, but I did find a site devoted to Schlingensief's "Wagner Rally" in the Ruhr region, which sent into the streets ten Wagnermobiles blasting passages from the operas. Each car was tricked out in Wagner regalia and had an assigned part in the orchestral score (trombones, for example). There was a gala finale in Recklinghausen, with dancing cheerleaders and cars busting through paper walls. "Richie says only music survives" was the banner over the stage. If this mise en scène anticipates what we'll be seeing atop the Green Hill in Bayreuth, one of the great "boo concerts" of modern German opera history may be in the offing. I feel a strange mix of excitement and dread.
