Bamberg Charms, The Ring Confuses

Bamberger Dom

           We set out early to explore Bamberg before we our performance in Bayreuth. Bamberg is a lovely town that was spared most of the ravages of war, but unfortunately was actively addressing the ravages of time during our visit! Almost every site we visited was coated in scaffolding, construction equipment, and/ or restoration experts hard at work cleaning frescoes, repaving stone bridges, and just generally patching up. The steeply winding streets of the UNESCO World Heritage alt-stadt invite investigation at every twist and turn, and the river at the heart of the town allows for a picturesque series of bridges and a most unique location for the town hall – sited mid-river, precisely between two arches (currently undergoing re-enforcement).

Bamberg Horseman

            We started at the cathedral, Bamberger Dom. The first church on this hillside was founded in 1004, but the current look is from the 13^th century. It’s a mash up of Romanesque and gothic styles such as one might get from a committee of church architects. It is made of a light colored local sandstone with four squared steeple towers capped with green copper roofs. Just inside the door is the grave of Pope Clemens II, the only pope buried north of the Alps. There is a dark, narrow, and steep set of stairs that leads underneath the altar to a crypt containing the former bishops of the Dom. The most curious object within is the Bamberger Reiter, a statue of a young man riding a horse set high up on one of the columns. No one is sure who it is supposed to be, but the cathedral children’s brochure says the best guess is that he is King Stefan of Hungary who married Gisela, the sister of Emperor Heinrich. Heinrich ruled Germany 1000 years ago.

            Next we visited the Residenz. Ludwig II has rather spoiled us for this kind of thing and even though the entire suite of Electors’ rooms boasted absolutely magnificent tapestries, and the Imperial suite featured an impressive trompe l’oeil audience chamber (complete with wonderfully unsubtle allusions to the power, prestige, and prerogatives of the ruling family) and a room full of exquisite Venetian canal scenes, we were most impressed with the views it afforded over the city and the wonderful rose garden! 

            We trekked up to Kloster St. Michael, but were deeply disappointed to find it in the throes of such extensive restoration that it was almost entirely closed off and whole portions of the exterior were behind wooden barricades.

            I feel like I have used up my life-time supply of the word “charming” on this trip, but it really is the most apt term for this captivating little town! Its greatest attraction is just wandering its streets searching out the ideal café!

            We could scarcely contain our excitement for the start of our 4^th complete Ring Cycle and at the Wagner Mecca, Bayreuth! Wagner, although a creative genius of breathtaking proportions, was undoubtedly a complete mess in almost every other arena. His myriad moral, personal, financial, and intellectual failings are well documented elsewhere, so we are not even going to think about wading into that morass here.

Bamberg Rathaus

            The Bayreuth Festspiele had sent us an email detailing changes for this year due to enhanced security measures – the entrances gated off and manned by armed police, no red carpet, no bags (ladies evening clutch exemption!), no cushions (a BIG deal as the seats are these little wooden things reminiscent of 1950’s elementary school desks without the writing surface), and the need to arrive an hour early. That is kind of a big deal too as most of the Ring Cycle is already several hours long. We found on arrival these measures were related to threats received due to their new production of Parsifal – set in an IS controlled portion of Iraq! Apparently everyone was incensed initially by the changes, but the whole crowd was meek as little lambs – showing their tickets 5-6 times to get into their seats and all. Possibly the multiple horrific incidents around Bavaria this last week made it seem less excessive.

            Das Rheingold is the shortest piece of the cycle at two and a half hours long, but it is written to be performed without intermission. This was our fifth Rheingold and while we had heard that the production was “challenging”, we were eager to hear the famed acoustics, celebrated orchestra, and internationally acclaimed soloists. Well, we got all of that. The sound was magnificent – entirely making up for the two and a half hours in the equivalent of the medieval “little ease” torture instrument. The theater is indeed a cramped, airless, sweat box. The seats are sloped to provide excellent sightlines, but no leg room.

            We didn’t want to “spoil” our experience so we assiduously avoided reviews of our production, which opened for the 250^th anniversary in 2013. Well, it was certainly one way to interpret the story. It was set in some depressed, sleazy Route 66 town in Texas at a gas station/ no-tell motel. The Rhein was an above ground pool next to the barbecue deck. The cast seemed to be taken from a range of late 70’s early 80’s TV – Wotan looked like a pimp/ crime boss from Starsky and Hutch, The rest of the gods looked like refugees from Dallas or Dynasty. Fafner was played as a sadistic psychopath, beating up random people and breaking windows and trashing the gas station with his baseball bat. The Rheinmaidens were somewhere between gone-to-seed Vegas showgirls and 80’s Madonna.

            The stage was a bit cramped for the action – primarily throwing furniture and shoving each other. The stage rotated to afford better a view of either the motel or the gas station as needed. Although build in several levels, a great deal of the action took place inside the motel room on the second level over the pool area. It was somewhat small for five gods and two construction gangsters and the staging called for lots of jostling in the window and jumping onto the bed.

            A Jumbotron hangs over the motel and a camera man dodges in and out capturing close-up content; another video screen provided images of Albrect’s transformations (inside an airstream) and showed snippets of what the actors who weren’t in the ongoing scene were doing. We’re old fashioned in that we prefer a director to an invisible, magical force – they should cast whatever spell to bring their version of the story to life, but I shouldn’t have to see the eye of newt or whatever. Frank Castorf doesn’t seem able to get off the stage – many of his conceits detract from the story and serve as nothing more than a kind of theatrical “tagging” his name emblazoned 20 feet high in puffy, faux gothic letters all over the place.

            Again, the voices were phenomenal, the orchestra sublime, and overall we are thrilled to be here, but if this had been our first Ring Cycle we might not have made so much effort to see more. This take on the story works enough for Rheingold, but we cannot begin to imagine how it can be carried through the remainder of the story. Brunhilde as Wotan’s daughter from his “nice” first wife, who has become a petroleum engineer? Siegfried as an EPA inspector? We really don’t see it, but I guess we will – starting tomorrow at Die Walkure!