150 years of the Bayreuth Festival: Confronting a troubled legacy

Confronting Bayreuth Festival's troubled legacy at 150 July 15, 2026The Bayreuth Festival celebrates its 150th anniversary beginning July 25. But in the lead-up to the milestone, some observers have criticized how Bayreuth deals with the festival's antisemitic legacy. Jewish public intellectual Michel Friedman was invited to speak at a memorial ceremony honoring victims of National Socialism at the opening of the festival. Scheduled to discuss Richard Wagner's antisemitism and the festival's historical ties with the Nazis, Friedman was suddenly disinvited — only to be reinstated after public backlash and a series of reversals. German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung described the episode as reflecting a "chronic German desire to be spared from confronting its own history." Anno Mungen, director of the Research Institute for Music Theater Studies at the University of Bayreuth, also criticized the festival's leadership in an interview with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, accusing the organization of being "historically oblivious." His criticism centers on the decision to stage Wagner's opera "Rienzi" in Bayreuth for the first time during the 150th anniversary season, despite the fact that it was Adolf Hitler's favorite opera. And Richard Wagner himself remains a controversial figure. He was not only a revolutionary opera composer, but also an outspoken antisemite. What makes the Bayreuth Festival unique? Richard Wagner (1813-1883) envisioned his operas as Gesamtkunstwerke — "total works of art" in which music, drama, staging and design formed a unified whole under a single artistic vision. To realize that concept, he built his own opera house, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. He inaugurated the venue in 1876 with the 16-hour opera cycle "The Ring of the Nibelung." Wagner designed the theater's architecture, wrote his own librettos, directed productions and oversaw the stage design. He drew many of his heroes from Germanic and Norse mythology, particularly in "The Ring of the Nibelung." Unconditional love carried through to death is another recurring theme throughout his works. Bayreuth's enduring appeal In keeping with Wagner's wishes, only a selection of his 10 mature operas is performed each year at the festival. Around 60,000 visitors from around the world make the pilgrimage to the festival on Bayreuth's "Green Hill" to experience the venue, much as Wagner intended. Audiences willingly endure hard wooden seats without cushions, limited legroom and a stuffy auditorium with no air conditioning — despite the high ticket prices. The orchestra is hidden beneath the stage, the performers are illuminated while the audience sits in complete darkness, and the wood-paneled auditorium creates remarkably clear acoustics, even in the uppermost seats. Together, these elements create the Festspielhaus' distinctive atmosphere. "In an age of short, snappy reels watched on a smartphone from the couch, that may seem anachronistic," said Sven Friedrich, director of the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth. "But perhaps that's exactly what makes it fascinating again." Wagner's influence on Hitler Long after Wagner's death, Hitler became captivated by Wagner's dramatic use of light and darkness in his productions. Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer, and "Rienzi" was his favorite opera. "What appealed to Hitler about 'Rienzi' was the central figure — a man who rises to great power through his charisma," Friedrich told DW. Hitler admired Wagner's monumental musical style and its recurring leitmotifs. The Nazi regime appropriated Wagner's music for propaganda films and used it as part of the psychological torment inflicted in concentration camps. About 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, in concentration camps and through mass executions carried out by the Nazi regime. Wagner's opera "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" was traditionally performed on the eve of the Nazis' annual Nuremberg Party Rally. These associations continue to cast a long shadow over Bayreuth, alongside Wagner's own antisemitism. This is an issue artistic director Katharina Wagner has addressed on several occasions —notably by inviting the German-Australian director Barrie Kosky in 2017. In his production of "Die Meistersinger," Kosky demonstrated that, in his view, Richard Wagner’s character "Beckmesser" bears the stereotypical attributes of Jew and the singer is forced to serve as a "scapegoat for the trauma of an entire people." Wagner and antisemitism Richard Wagner was a committed antisemite. In 1850, he published the essay "Judaism in Music," in which he argued that Jews lacked an authentic artistic identity and merely imitated others. "There has always been an undercurrent of antisemitism in Bayreuth, and Cosima, Wagner's wife, was antisemitic as well," Friedrich said. "The children and grandchildren growing up here in provincial Franconia, with few outside influences, partially absorbed those attitudes." Hitler developed a close friendship with Wagner's son Siegfried and, especially, Siegfried's wife, Winifred Wagner. The dictator frequently visited the Wagner family's villa — now home to the Richard Wagner Museum — where he found both refuge and a sense of belonging. "The Festspielhaus was something like his royal court theater," explained Friedrich. The festival after World War II After World War II, Winifred Wagner and her son Wieland underwent the Allied denazification process. To save the festival from its Nazi associations, Winifred officially ceded her rights to her sons, Wieland and Wolfgang, But the decision to have the brothers take over the artistic leadership of the festival also proved controversial, because Hitler had granted Wieland special privileges during the war. Facing financial difficulties and eager to distance the festival from its past, Wieland Wagner reinvented his grandfather's operas with sparse, minimalist productions that came to define the "New Bayreuth" style. After Wieland's death, Wolfgang Wagner assumed sole leadership and began inviting outside directors to stage productions. "He opened the festival to external directors and paved the way for a much broader range of artistic styles," Friedrich said. Bayreuth looks to the future In recent years, Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner has sought to bring the festival into the 21st century. In 2022, she invited director Valentin Schwarz to reinterpret "The Ring" as a contemporary family saga inspired by the storytelling style of Netflix. A year later, director Jay Scheib staged "Parsifal" using augmented reality to add a digital visual layer to the production. This year's new "Ring" production features stage design created with the help of artificial intelligence. As for the new production of "Rienzi," it remains to be seen how Hungarian directors Alexandra Szemeredy and Magdolna Parditka will approach the opera. They plan to reinterpret "the Rienzi case" as a courtroom drama, while drawing parallels to today's populist societies. Before the performance, the festival will host a concert featuring music by Jewish composers, followed by Michel Friedman's lecture. This article was originally written in German.