Around the Music Festival

It was reported in Germany that Axel Kober will be appointed as the conductor of the “Tannhäuser” at the Bayreuth Festival next year. At this year’s Festival, a new production by Tobias Kratzer’s new production will be staged on July 25 and Valery Gergiev will be appointed as the conductor. It was a music festival debut for him. However, he was exposed to intense booing on the curtain call on the first day, and has been exposed to harsh criticism from German media since then. Kober is the music director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf since 2013. In 2013 and 2014 he directed “Tannhäuser” at the Bayreuth festival.

The reason for the criticism of the performance was that Gergiev’s schedule was too crowded to communicate well with the orchestra. The festival’s orchestra is a temporary organization that gathers players from all over Germany. The practice starts from the end of June to the beginning of July. However, Gergiev has held the Verbier Festival, the Salzburg Festival, and the PMF (Pacific Music Festival) only this summer, and he can only rehearse “Tannhäuser” three times.

Photo：Deutsche Oper am Rhein　/　Susanne Diesner