Around the Music Festival

Germany’s Bayreuth Festival has announced its schedule for 2024. Simone Young will make her festival debut and become the first female conductor in the festival’s history to conduct “The Ring of the Nibelung,” and with Nathalie Stutzmann and Oksana Lyniv, who will return to the festival, there will be three women, surpassing the number of male conductors.

According to the announcement, the 112th edition of the festival, in 2024, will run from July 25 to August 27. The festival will open with a new production of “Tristan und Isolde” conducted by Semyon Bychkov.

In addition to “The Ring of the Nibelung,” “Parsifal,” “Tannhäuser,” and “The Flying Dutchman” will be performed again. The conductors are Pablo Elas-Casado, Stutzmann, and Lyniv.

Young, 62, was born in Sydney, Australia. She studied composition, conducting, and piano at the New South Wales Conservatory of Music, and made her conducting debut at the Sydney Opera House in 1985.

After then she won the “Best Newcomer to Australia” award in 1986 and went to Germany to study. She studied with James Conlon at the Cologne Opera and with Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera.

In 1993, she became the first female conductor to conduct at the Vienna State Opera. She has also served as Principal Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (1998-2002) and Opera Australia (2001-2003), and conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the performance of the National Anthem at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

She was the first woman to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005, as well as the general director of the Hamburg State Opera (2005-2010).

The “Ring of the Nibelung” in 2024 was originally scheduled to be conducted by Philippe Jordan, the music director of the Vienna State Opera, but when he canceled, Young, who had specialized in Wagner, was hastily chosen to conduct the production.

The festival, which was founded by Wagner himself and has performed only his works, will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2026. The festival is a “sacred place” for Wagner’s fans, “Wagnerians,” and has been the subject of a worldwide battle for tickets.

Last year, the number of visitors exceeded 58,000, and for the first time in its history, 3% of the tickets (out of a total of 31 performances) remained unsold.

Photo：Sydney Symphony Orchestra


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