BAYREUTH DREAMS

In the summer of 2022, violinist Thomas Eisner fulfilled a long-held aspiration to play in the orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival. He recounts his experience

The Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Thomas Eisner sets out for Bayreuth from his London home

FESTSPIELHAUS PHOTO GETTY

The earliest memories I have of Wagner’s music are somewhat mixed. I recall my paternal grandmother sitting at our upright piano in the north of England attempting to sing ‘Hojotoho!’ from Die Walküre. Although she was a trained singer, her career seems to have abruptly finished at the age of 21, when my father was born. My mother didn’t have the same love for Wagner. She remembered only too well the fanfares from Act 3 of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg being broadcast through the streets of Berlin shortly before Hitler addressed the nation. At music college we performed Das Rheingold. Long and difficult, I thought, and easy to fall asleep in.

One of the many perks of my job in the first violins of the London Philharmonic Orchestra is the annual residency at Glyndebourne. John Christie, Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s founder, adored Wagner’s music and was a regular visitor in the 1920s to the annual Wagner festival in Bayreuth. His original plan was to have those operas performed at a newly built opera house in Sussex, but owing to cost implications the house seated only 300 and so Glyndebourne’s first music director, Fritz Busch, insisted that smaller-scale Mozart was more appropriate, and that there should be no Wagner.

Almost 70 years later, in 2003, Glyndebourne finally put Wagner on the performance schedule, resulting in a beautiful production of Tristan und Isolde by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. I recall, after playing on the opening night, with all the incredible themes swirling round my head, thinking, ‘Now I’ve got Wagner.’ Since then there have been several revivals, allowing me to revisit the many technical challenges of this great work, each time feeling more secure than before.

The 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth fell in 2013, and that year I was lucky enough to play most of his operas at the Bavarian State Opera’s annual festival. The Munich orchestra works in detail on its operas in the winter season, as – owing to the density of its schedule – by the time the festival comes round in late June and July there is much less rehearsal time. I diligently practised the many taxing passages, but playing Wagner is all about experience – knowing what to play and what to miss out. Playing Götterdämmerung for the first time on two-and-a-half hours’ rehearsal is pretty terrifying.

In recent years Vladimir Jurowski put the LPO through its paces on the first three operas of the Ring. The entire cycle had been planned, but then the pandemic arrived.

For most of this century it had always been an ambition of mine to play at Bayreuth. To be part of the best Wagner orchestra in the world was my dream. On several occasions I had even applied, but I didn’t get a reply. However, in March 2022, as I was walking through Trafalgar Square in London, my mobile phone lit up with an incoming call from Bayreuth. It was one of those moments to remember – several minutes later something sparkling was opened in celebration.

After being granted leave of absence to miss the LPO Glyndebourne season, I started to make plans for spending the summer in northern Bavaria. As Covid was still at the forefront of people’s minds, the Bayreuth Festival had made the unusual decision to produce eight operas performed by two separate orchestras. On the basis that anything could happen, my contract stated the need to prepare all eight.

How do you learn hundreds of pages of Wagner operas in two and a half months? How do you get to Bayreuth? Practice, and lots of it.

Luckily, I had played all the operas before, so the foundations were already in place. We live in an age where everything ever recorded is readily available, so I set about listening to Georg Solti’s, Daniel Barenboim’s and Andris Nelsons’ recordings, wherever possible attempting to play along. My wife, who works from home, made it clear on day one that my modus operandi was not compatible with her sanity, so loudspeakers were swiftly exchanged for headphones; I also acquired a practice mute. Next I equipped myself with a large iPad and foot pedal, something I had so far resisted.

As far as possible, I allowed five days for studying each opera. I already knew that in the infamous semiquaver passages that pepper Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, it is futile to try to practise every note – usually the first semiquaver of each group suffices. It was quite an obsessive time for me, and I found myself resenting interference from my other orchestral commitments. The sheer technical demands of Wagner’s music required getting my playing into top shape. To this end, I found practising Paganini’s caprices nos.5 and 17 to be most helpful. Paganini’s indirect influence on Wagner can’t be underestimated – indeed, the career of Wagner’s father-in-law Liszt was transformed after he heard Paganini perform: he later composed many piano compositions inspired by Paganini’s violin works. Equally, there are many examples of Liszt’s influence on Wagner’s operas.

Illustration of Cosima and Richard Wagner with Franz Liszt and writer Hans von Wolzogen at their home Wahnfried

THE SHEER TECHNICAL DEMANDS OF WAGNER’S MUSIC REQUIRED GETTING MY PLAYING INTO TOP SHAPE. I FOUND PRACTISING PAGANINI’S CAPRICES NOS.5 AND 17 TO BE MOST HELPFUL

For the performers, the Bayreuth Festival lasts eleven weeks – the first five being rehearsals. On 20 June I flew to Germany with my violin and stuffed suitcase, not entirely knowing what to expect. The festival office had sent me a list of available accommodation, through which I was able to rent a decent-sized flat in Richard-Wagner-Strasse, right beside Wahnfried – the house built for the composer with the help of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. After a long day of travelling, I finally arrived to discover that I was not only next to Wahnfried, but also two minutes’ walk from Wagner’s grave.

I had one day to prepare for my first Siegfried rehearsal. After a couple of hours’ practice I asked one of my retired neighbours if I was disturbing them – ‘Not at all,’ came the answer, ‘but I do prefer Tannhäuser to Siegfried!’ Welcome to Bayreuth, I thought.

Wahnfried, Wagner’s house in Bayreuth

GETTY

That night, I wondered what the following day had in store for me. What would it feel like to play, at last, in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra?

Iwalked across town up to the Festspielhaus. Wagner had his opera house built on a hill. Maybe the idea was to make his audience slightly breathless as they arrived, thus making them more submissive to his demands (my imagination was in overdrive as I arrived).

Each section of the orchestra has its own room to unpack instruments. I was slightly wary as to where I should place mine – my long experience of orchestral musicians had taught me how territorial they can be, but luckily my new first violin colleagues seemed very relaxed about such things. Four of us in the first violins were new members, but most of the section were veterans of countless seasons, people for whom quoting chunks of the libretto came as second nature.

Each string section has its own Diensteinteiler (rota organiser), whose job is to position everyone in an equitable fashion. As is the case in the LPO, we would remain with the same desk partner for the entire run of each opera. Before we started rehearsing, the chair of the orchestra warmly introduced all the new members individually, telling everyone which city and orchestra we were from. The orchestra is very well represented from most top German orchestras, and a few foreign ones too, though there were only two of us who came from the UK.

AT THAT FIRST REHE ARSAL I WAS STRUCK BY THE EXTROVERT SOUND OF THE STRINGS – THERE SEEMED TO BE NO CEILING ON HOW EXPRESSIVELY WE WERE ALLOWED TO PLAY

I was looking forward to seeing the famous orchestra pit, but I would have to wait a few more weeks until we were allowed in. The initial rehearsals took place in a 1950s building – later to be transformed into the festival restaurant – that reminded me of my youth orchestra days.

The rehearsal schedule seemed deeply civilised since it built in free afternoons: in German opera houses there exists the unwritten right to a postprandial nap. It was also a luxury living only 30 minutes’ walk away from my place of work. Owing to Covid restrictions, we had to wear masks the entire time, which took some getting used to – but even so, several of us caught Covid, including the conductor of the Ring cycle, Pietari Inkinen, who had to be replaced.

At that first rehearsal I was struck by the extrovert sound of the strings – there seemed to be no ceiling on how expressively we were allowed to play. Much attention was also given to the pianissimo areas: dynamic awareness was taken very seriously, which is vital for an orchestra of more than a hundred. The lower strings were supported by the wonderful double bass section, the German bow hold clearly producing a richer sound than one would hear elsewhere.

Leaders of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra Konradin Seitzer and Hartmut Schill

Thomas Eisner (centre) with the first violins outside the Bayreuth Festspielhaus

LEADERS PHOTO THOMAS EISNER. GROUP PHOTO RICCARDO CARACENI

From the start, I felt musically welcome. I was surrounded by people who, notwithstanding their knowledge and experience of playing it over many years, still got satisfaction from getting Wagner right in 2022, at the same time loving playing some of the best music ever written.

At long last we were ready to rehearse in the Festspielhaus. To get to the orchestra pit from the dressing rooms, one has to walk through a long tunnel, the walls of which boast a photograph of every conductor who has ever worked there, beginning with Hans Richter, who conducted the first complete Ring there in 1876. I counted at least eleven with whom I have worked in my 36 years at the LPO.

The basses and cellos are positioned nearest to the exit, so they have to be as accommodating as possible to the many players who pass by them. Every section of the 105-piece orchestra is on a different level, the violins positioned highest, the heavy brass the lowest. From my vantage point, I seemed to be peering down into the depths of a cave.

I thought at first it couldn’t be true when I discovered that the first violins sit on the right of the conductor. How on earth was I supposed to deal with using no more than two inches of bow when I was right up against the pit wall? My helpful desk partner explained that one had to place the back of the chair flush against the pit wall, glancing leftwards at the conductor. Even after adopting this position, it was inevitable that with a little too much enthusiasm there was a real risk of smashing the point of the bow into the wall. I would have loved to have used my nice Hill bow, but, like everyone else on the left of the stands, I took a carbon fibre one instead. A good £99 investment.

Nearly everything in the pit is original and designed to enhance the sound. Most of it is made of wood, from the magnificent broad oak floorboards to the upright chairs (with a little padding). The conductor’s chair is the original one on which Wagner’s favourite conductor Hermann Levi sat to conduct the premiere of Parsifal in 1882.

Leader Konradin Seitzer playing in the pit

LOHENGRIN PHOTO ENRICO NAWRATH

Camilla Nylund as Elsa von Brabant in the 2022 Bayreuth Festival production of Lohengrin

PLAYING LOHENGRIN WITH CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN CONDUCTING WAS UNDOUBTEDLY THE MUSICAL HIGHLIGHT OF THE FESTIVAL FOR ME

I have never heard singers’ voices as clearly as in Bayreuth – the absence of any soft fabric evidently is the reason. When the stage curtain rises, it is lifted into the stratosphere, totally out of view. After 146 years, very few surfaces are level, so thin blocks are available to wedge under the chair legs to give more stability – alifesaver in tremolo passages. The first seven desks sit behind each other, cleverly descending to the leader’s first desk. The eighth desk, however, is placed behind the viola section on the lower level. This is the least desirable place to sit, as not only does one feel disconnected from the rest of the section, but confusion inevitably arises when the immediate view ahead is a violist. Not that I have anything against violists…

Unlike most opera houses, the Festspielhaus has no air conditioning. Wagner deliberately designed a pit that wasn’t visible to the audience, so there is no requirement for the musicians to dress up – T-shirts and sandals are de rigueur. When the temperature reached 38C outside it was slightly cooler in the pit, presumably because the building is so vast.

Playing Lohengrin with Christian Thielemann conducting was undoubtedly the musical highlight of the festival for me. In rehearsals he was a tough taskmaster, not averse to telling us occasionally that our playing simply wasn’t of the requisite standard for Bayreuth. By the time of the performances, however, he exuded confidence in us, and we knew we could rely on him one hundred per cent. Thielemann’s strength is undoubtedly his ability to focus on and support whatever is currently happening on the stage.

The orchestra pit at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Yuval Sharon’s production of Lohengrin at the 2022 Bayreuth Festival

WAGNER IMAGE GETTY. PIT PHOTO BAYREUTH FESTIVAL. LOHENGRIN PHOTO ENRICO NAWRATH

Although the schedule was civilised, with many free days, there is something all-consuming about playing Wagner. I was always aware on performance days of the importance of pacing myself, making sure I had had enough to eat. Nevertheless, it was vital not to consume too much liquid before two hours and 20 minutes of Rheingold.

Post-performance, I would sometimes come home and walk round the grounds of Wahnfried, reflecting on Wagner the man and his legacy. With my background, it was impossible not to do this. My family had been brutally hounded out of Germany in the late 1930s by the Nazi regime, which had adopted Wagner’s music as its signature tune. My parents had been fortunate to escape; many of their relatives were deported and murdered. The viciousness of Wagner’s anti-Semitism is obvious in his correspondence and various treatises.

Richard Wagner

Despite all that, though, I think it is important to remember that, notwithstanding his shortcomings, Wagner never killed anyone and he died six years before Hitler was born.

IT WOULD BE WEEKS BEFORE THE EARWORMS OF SIEGFRIED AND TRISTAN FINALLY LEFT MY CONSCIOUSNESS

The writings of the composer’s English son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s were a large influence on the evolving Nazi racial theories; and his daughter-in-law Winifred, who was born in Hastings in 1897, became a close friend of Hitler. All of that happened well after Wagner’s death. Wagner the man was complicated, but after a lifetime of facing and considering these issues, I still separate the person from the work. I love his music to bits.

Late August came and the festival drew to a close. It was time to say goodbye to my dear colleagues who, having given up their summer holiday to play in Bayreuth, immediately had to start rehearsing with their home orchestras for their new seasons. To ease me back into normality, I was lucky to have Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder – awork heavily inspired by Wagner – as the LPO’s opening concert. It would, however, be weeks before the earworms of Siegfried and Tristan finally left my consciousness, and occasionally the music even made it into my dreams. But the relief on waking was that my summer playing at Bayreuth had all been true.