Smoked beer, ETA Hoffmann and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra: Tony explores the picturesque Upper Franconian town of Bamberg

Schlenkerla tavern, Bamberg (Photo Schlenkerla tavern)

In between performances at the Bayreuth Festival, Tony Cooper recalls time out exploring the picturesque Upper Franconian town of Bamberg, from historic breweries and smoked beer to ETA Hoffmann, and looks forward to the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra's new season.

I’ve heard a lot of good things said about Bamberg - located in Upper Franconia and situated on the Regnitz which flows gently into the river Main - not least by the fame of its breweries. So while I was staying in the vicinity attending the Bayreuth Festival, I thought a day in Bamberg would embrace a nice rail excursion on one of my days off from Wagner. My presumption proved correct. I had a wonderful time. The journey from Bayreuth to Bamberg only takes about an hour and the Old Town (Altstadt) - the area to head for - is within easy walking distance of the railway-station.

I think it goes without saying that Germany’s renowned for good beer whichever city you find yourself be it Munich, Berlin, Nuremberg et al. But in Bamberg they have a ‘brew’ that’s very special to the town - smoked beer (rauchbier). It’s their pride and joy! On booking my ticket, the counter clerk at Bayreuth station immediately told me: ‘Try the smoked beer. It’s delicious! It’s famous!’ How right he was. ‘Wagner,’ he shouted, ‘liked it, too.’ True or false? Tick the box.

Within an hour of arriving at Bamberg meandering through the Old Town with its abundance of eye-catching half-timbered houses I found myself in Dominikanerstraße. It took me no time at all to log on to the fact that I was in the right vicinity and, really, at the epicentre to the smoked-beer industry.

Adventures on the Green Hill: Tony Cooper explores Richard Wagner's villa Wahnfried at Bayreuth

Engraving of Wagner's motto over the front portal to Wahnfried (Photo Wikipedia)

Richard Wagner’s beloved villa at Bayreuth, Wahnfried, provided the perfect home for him and his family as Wagner aficionado, Tony Cooper, found out

The Wagner Family and friends in front of Villa Wahnfried in 1881. Above, from left to right:
Blandine von Bülow, Heinrich von Stein (Siegfried's teacher), Cosima & Richard Wagner, Paul von Joukowsky (friend)
below, from l to r: Isolde, Daniela von Bülow, Eva and Siegfried (Photo Public Domain: Wikipedia)

I simply love Bayreuth and so did Richard Wagner, by all accounts, as he eventually made his home here while establishing the famous Bayreuth Festival in 1876. And by selecting Bayreuth, Wagner made it abundantly clear that his summer opera festival would be far removed from the routine and complacency of urban cultural life.

Wagner made his first visit to Bayreuth in April 1870 because he had read about the Margravial Opera House, an ornate and beautifully-designed baroque theatre which he thought would be ideal for hosting the Bayreuth Festival. But it was not to be. For a start the orchestra pit was inadequate and so, too, was the size of the stage while the auditorium was far too small with seating for only 500.

Always a thinker - and a free-thinker, too! - Wagner then toyed with the idea of building his own Festival Hall (Festspielhaus) in Bayreuth. This idea fitted perfectly the thinking of the town’s burgher-master who fully supported Wagner in his endeavours and set aside a piece of land for him to build his ‘dream’ theatre on the edge of the town but close to the railway-station on top of the Grüner Hügel (Green Hill).

An alternative to the theatres of Wagner’s day, the construction of the Festspielhaus began on the composer’s 59th birthday (22nd May 1872) - the same year in which he located to the picturesque town of Bayreuth in Upper Franconia now part of the Federal State of Bavaria. Planning and construction were in the capable hands of Leipzig architect, Otto Brückwald, who had already made a name for himself in building theatres in Leipzig and Altenburg.

Four years after the start of construction on 13th August 1876 the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was ready for performance officially hosting the first Bayreuth Festival. Sadly, it turned out to be a financial disaster thereby forcing a six-year closure of the theatre.

Adventures on the Green Hill: with no Bayreuth Festival this year, Tony Cooper looks back at previous festivals

The Festspielhaus at Bayreuth in 1900

With no Bayreuth Festival this year because of the Coronavirus outbreak - which has also put Valentin Schwarz’ new Ring cycle on hold to 2022 - Tony Cooper reflects on past adventures walking up the famous Grüner Hügel (Green Hill) in search of Wagner

The last leg of my journey to Bayreuth from the medieval city of Nürnberg, birthplace of the famed printmaker, Albrecht Dürer, is always by train, an idyllic 90-minute journey snaking through miles and miles of lovely and inviting Bavarian countryside. When you alight at Bayreuth, it’s then that you can catch your first glimpse of the famed Bayreuth Festspielhaus bursting through a densely-wooded area as if hovering in the clouds. With vivid imagination - and Wagner is quoted as saying that ‘imagination creates reality’ - the vision of Valhalla swirls in my mind!

My innermost thoughts, however, turn to previous visits to the Bayreuth Festival and the leisurely stroll that one has to take up the steeply-inclined Siegfried Wagner Allee - commonly known as the Grüner Hügel (Green Hill) - to reach Wagner’s ‘dream’ theatre, the grand and imposing Festspielhaus, personally designed by the composer just for the presentation of his Teutonic operas especially that momentous four-work cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and other works such as Parsifal, his final and ‘farewell’ work to the world completed on 26th July 1882.

Wagner described Parsifal not as an opera but as ‘Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel’ (A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage) and the work is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s13th-century epic poem, Parzival, surrounding the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail.

In composing Parsifal, Wagner took advantage of the particular acoustics of the Festspielhaus and conceived the work in April 1857 but, surprisingly, didn’t finish it until 25 years later. It was first performed at the second Bayreuth Festival conducted by the German-Jewish conductor, Hermann Levi.

However, Wagner worked on the Ring’s libretto and score practically over the same period of time from 1848 to 1874. He completed Das Rheingold in 1854 and Die Walküre two years later but, overall, found writing the cycle a bit hard-going and during the course of working on Siegfried decided to take a long break - seven years, in fact - to give himself a breather.

Wagner's Das Rheingold at Bayreuth in 1876

During this time he wrote Tristan und Isolde (completed in 1859 but not performed until 10th June 1865 in Munich) with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg following. What a breather! Completed in 1867 Meistersinger received its first performance the following year on 2nd November 1862, also in Munich. Wagner then dutifully returned to Siegfried completing the cycle with Götterdämmerung in 1874.

Modelled on Greek dramas that were presented as three tragedies and one satyr play, the works of the Ring are loosely based on characters from Norse sagas such as the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga as well as the German epic poem, The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs) an anonymous poem written in Middle High German circa 1200 probably coming from the region of Passau.