Bayreuth Festival – cancellation by singer Lohengrin – Bavaria

About three and a half weeks before the opening, the Wagner Festival will be there without Lohengrin. The refusal of tenor Roberto Alagna shows how much the appeal of Bayreuth has become weak.

When everything went well last year, the astonishment was great, in public, but also at the Bayreuth Festival itself: no short-term cancellations, no usual quarrel shortly before the start of the festival. Now it seems that the rule has returned: Three and a half weeks before the opening of the "Lohengrin" on July 25, the tenor Roberto Alagna canceled the title role. Due to the overload, his agency explained, he had not been able to study them enough.

The fact that things could go wrong had become obvious. Alagna, son of Italian immigrants who grew up in France, is considered a man for the heavier French and Italian subjects. He has never sung an extended German game before. He wondered why Bayreuth just wanted to hire him, he said at the end of May the magazine Opera! after all, he was not a tenor of Wagner. He had long hesitated to accept the game, the biggest problem was the German text. But Christian Thielemann, the leader of the first opening, had convinced him in multiple attempts. "I think they really wanted to have another guy named Lohengrin."

It is quite possible that festival director Katharina Wagner and her musical director Thielemann wanted to shed light on the occupation from Wagner to Bayreuth. Finally, it has often been pointed out lately how much Wagner owes to French models. Maybe it should be just the big shot that a first tenor was just starting with Wagner at Wagner's Erzort.

Now both sides are damaged: the tenor, whose short-term rejection is highly unprofessional. Singers usually study their games for months and years before singing them in a place like Bayreuth. But also the festival, where in the series of refusals a whole model emerges. In the direction as well as in the singers section, the line often seems to want to land the big shot, which can not be implemented in concrete practice shortly before the end of the game.

Wolfgang Wagner was able to attract Plácido Domingo in Bayreuth for the title role in "Parsifal". Domingo, who returns to Bayreuth as the head of Valkyrie this year, is also beaten with German diction as a singer, but has sung in a more enchanting tone.

However, many singers no longer submit to their efforts. play at Bayreuth. The myth of Bayreuth has lost its luster. Also with Anna Netrebko was long for the game of Elsa in "Lohengrin" this year in the conversation. Unlike Alagna, Netrebko was smart enough to try a test elsewhere. She sang Elsa under Thielemann in Dresden – and also despaired of the language. Several teleprompters have been integrated into the scenography so that she can read the text. After that, she did not sign the contract in Bayreuth at all, but for Alagna, the festival must feverishly look for a replacement. But at least that's the routine now.