A special Ring Cycle will be performed in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival in 2026, the annual Richard Wagner showcase said as this season’s schedule ended with sold-out performances for all 30 performances
A special Ring Cycle will be staged to mark the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival in 2026, the annual Richard Wagner showcase said as this season’s program ended with sold-out performances for all 30 performances.
In conjunction with the end of this season on Tuesday evening, Bayreuth announced that its new production of “Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg” will open the 113th festival on July 25.
Valentin Schwarz’s staging of the four-night 2022 “Der Ring des Nibelungen” will be revived for the final time next summer and the 2026 Ring will be “not purely a concert version,” according to festival spokesman Hubertus Herrmann. He said festival head Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great-granddaughter, will reveal more details next year and that there will be a new staging of the Ring in 2028.
The 150th anniversary festival will feature Bayreuth’s first production of ‘Rienzi’, Wagner’s third opera, along with all ten of his mature works traditionally performed in the opera house built in Bavaria to the composer’s specifications. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony will also be heard, conducted by Wagner during the concert after the foundation stone ceremony in 1872 and played at the reopening of Bayreuth in 1951 after the Second World War.
Bayreuth said 58,000 people attended this season’s performances. Last season, total attendance for 31 performances dropped to 97% and only 92% of tickets were sold for the three Ring cycles.
“Meistersinger” will be conducted by Daniele Gatti and directed by Matthias Davids next year, and the cast will include Georg Zeppenfeld, Michael Spyres, Christina Nilsson and Michael Nagy. It replaces Barrie Kosky’s 2017 production.
The schedule for next season 29 also includes revivals of Jay Scheib’s 2023 staging of “Parsifal” (opening July 28), Yuval Sharon’s 2018 production of “Lohengrin” conducted by Christian Thielemann and starring Piotr Beczala (August 1 ) and Thorleifur Ă–rn Arnarsson’s 2024 production of “Tristan and Isolde” (August 3). Simone Young will return to conduct the Schwarz Ring in two cycles, July 26-31 and August 15-20.
