It would appear that the outside possibility that this was a mere fluke is, unhappily, not the case as witness this just in from Mostly Opera:
I am finally here [at the Bayreuther Festspiele] — after more than 20 years of wanting to go. I'll be reporting extensively — am now in the middle of the third Ring.[...]
And the tickets!!!: Not so difficult to get. Actually it's been far easier to get tickets here in Bayreuth this year than almost anywhere I have been in the past years: 2 hours queing before Rheingold at the box office and you get tickets for the entire Ring. Better seats than people that have been waiting 10 years....And Parsifal. And Meistersinger. An exceptionally high number of people have returned their tickets this year, they told me at the box office....
We trust the Richard Wagner Stiftung Bayreuth gets the message loud and clear, and acts accordingly when they meet this fall at which meeting they almost certainly will have to deal with the pressing question of the succession to the directorship of the Festspiele the final decision concerning which lies solely within their authority. We suggest the time has come to look outside the Wagner family for a replacement to succeed the ailing current director, the 87-year-old Wolfgang Wagner, who, at his pleasure, holds his position for life, and in whose hands the Festspiele has over the past 41 years of his sole stewardship gone off-message, off-purpose, and slid slowly down the tubes in terms of musical quality of performance.
On The Road To Prohibition
