Built for, and according to the vision of, Richard Wagner. Home to the world renowned annual…read moreFestspielwochen. Being able to attend an opera can take decades of fruitless applications for tickets. We managed to get a pair for Parsifal this year for EUR 210 each through membership of the Bayreuther Wagner association. Seats were located on the Balcony, which had - surprise - cushions and, as it was first row, I could stretch my legs! View of the stage was fantastic! Acoustics was fine. Singers, including chorus, were superb through out. Orchestra was in perfect harmony. Staging was ... memorable. Atmosphere before and during breaks was very pleasant. All in all a fantastic event with just the right dose of scandals e.g. the conductor Andris Nelsons throwing in the towel weeks before the premiere : )

Looks like the Bayreuth crowd is not a big Yelp crowd! Or maybe Richard is censoring all from…read morebeyond the grave.... In any case I wanted to review my swing-through in June on the ride between Nuremberg and Munich: it was a long June day so we had time and light to visit the exterior only. It was a little difficult to find as the GPS seemed to short circuit in this town, and when we got to the theater there was no clear parking, so we pulled over in an odd lot. The festival grounds are meticulously maintained and the flowers are highly arranged, clearly people put a lot of love into this park. I was happy to see that surrounding the bust of Wagner in the front was a surrounding poster display of all the Jewish musicians that in some way suffered discrimination in the hands of Wagner and his festival, justice is served in some small way. One day I will be back to see the show, when I'm richer, older, too old to write a review on whatever website exists in the future.....