Tickets for Bayreuth's opera festival are almost as rare as hen's teeth, so David Riceis thrilled to find some.
FOR YEARS I dreamed of going to Bayreuth. That near-mythical town in Germany, where Wagner in 1876 built his celebrated theatre, site of the annual August Wagner festival, is like a Lourdes for Wagner nuts. No, more like Mecca, a place you have to visit at least once in a lifetime.
Except it's a lot harder than getting to Mecca. For starters, you have to wait 10 years for a ticket. And that's if you're lucky. Or you just might buy one off the internet for up to €5,000. That's for a single performance. And strictly unofficial, of course (the official price being €159). Croker's only trotting after Bayreuth.
Then one wonderful day a wonderful German friend, who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew . . . Well, anyhow, that friend weaselled me a ticket to an afternoon performance of Lohengrin. And so the dream came true.
Bring your monkey suit, people told me. You'll never get in without a monkey suit. And for heaven's sake the black bow tie. They'd never let you in without that, they said. Oh yes, and bring a cushion, for those ghastly hard seats in the auditorium. Your bottom stays flattened for weeks, they said.
All in all it was getting more and more like a pilgrimage - and a penitential one at that.
German friends at Bayreuth University invited me to stay for a week, which gave me lots of time to savour the atmosphere and take all the photos I wanted. The performance would be on my second afternoon there.
So here's what the Bayreuth experience was like for me.
The first thing I spotted when I stepped from the train at Bayreuth was the Festspielhaus, the extraordinary theatre that Wagner designed for his music dramas and that poor mad King Ludwig had to pay for. I recognised it from many photographs. The unmistakeable red-bricked outline rose from the trees on a wooded hillside a kilometre or so away.
After lunch with my hosts, that afternoon I headed with my camera straight across town to the magic hillside. First thing I noticed were the crowds swarming around the Festspielhaus, and it could have been a scene from 1876: elegant German Frauen in evening gowns or the occasional dirndl, bewhiskered gentlemen in evening dress, some even twirling walking sticks. The effect was somewhat diluted by the occasional hairy-legged gentleman in lederhosen or khaki shorts - somewhat like myself, that is.
I went into the foyer and met a lovely lady in charge of overcoats and bags, who spotted my forbidden camera and promptly sent me upstairs to the balcony over the door to get a better picture of the crowds. "Where Adolf Hitler once stood," she whispered conspiratorially.
Suddenly people began moving into the theatre, and very soon I was all alone outside with the great doors slammed in my face, like the wedding guest without his garment. But then I realised that even the folks in lederhosen and khaki shorts had got inside, so I needn't have bothered packing my monkey suit for my great occasion on the morrow.
As I explored around the side of the building I realised I was not alone after all. There's a canopied area outside the box office where people were walking up and down, with doleful begging looks on their faces, holding handwritten notices, all with the same two words: "Suche Karte!", or Seeking a ticket!
When people poured out for the interval the effect was similar to the paseo of Spain, folks promenading up and down, with the ladies glaring at each other's outfits and the men admiring them.
After eavesdropping on bits of conversations, it became clear that some people come here year after year and don't have to wait decades for a ticket. The in crowd, presumably.
The following afternoon, sweltering in tux and black tie, I presented myself for the great experience. And an experience it was. There was no orchestra to be seen (it's banished beneath the stage), the seats were nothing as awful as I had been told, and there was that vibrant anticipation you get before an Ireland-Wales match.
When all the doors clanged shut - were we actually locked in? I never found out - the sound from the audience was like a giant kettle coming to the boil. And, like a boiling kettle, it suddenly became terribly quiet.
Then began that shimmering overture, and I went on to experience Lohengrin in the greatest Wagner setting of all. It is overwhelming, with music, words, lights, colour, costumes and drama combining for sensory immersion.
"Für Deutsches Land das Deutsche Schwert" sing the warriors of Brabant. Here now is Elsa summoning her champion; now the great wedding march, not joyful as in churches at home but tinged with the grief to come; Ortrud, that quintessence of pagan evil uttering her hateful song; Lohengrin's heart-rending In fernem Land, revealing the Forbidden Name to the ruin of all. And when the swan fades away, and Elsa's little lost brother appears, I found tears at the corner of my eyes.
The next day my hostess asked if I would like another ticket, for Tannhäuser this time. Would I what? But how? She mentioned casually that Frau Wagner was a friend and that she had arranged for a ticket to await me at the box office.
Presumably, this would be a somewhat later Frau Wagner than the original Cosima - probably the controversial Katharina - but it's still the biggest name I've ever dropped.
A dozen ways to find those elusive tickets
1 Write to the ticket office (Kartenbüro der Bayreuther Festspiele, Postfach 10 02 62, D-95402, Bayreuth, Germany) and ask for tickets. Or phone 00-49-921-78780. Then wait 10 years. And pray.
2 Write again every year after that. And continue to pray.
3 After five years, call the ticket office again and burst into tears. They say it sometimes works.
4 Contact Ticket Finders at info@ticketfinders.com, or on 00-44-20-71938557, and be prepared to pay between €2,500 and €5,000 per ticket for one performance. (But see no 9.)
5 Google "Tickets for Bayreuth" and you'll find lots of black-market offers. (Again, see no 9.)
6 Go to Bayreuth, then walk up and down outside the theatre with a card marked "Suche Karte!" or Looking for a ticket!
7 Go to German eBay and look for tickets there, and be prepared to pay through the nose - although bear in mind the warning on the back of every ticket: "We wish to point out that tickets which are acquired through unauthorised advance booking agencies or intermediaries etc, or at exorbitant prices, cease to be valid." This is enforced from time to time, which means you might pay €5,000 for a ticket only to have it rejected when you arrive. There is no redress.
8 Go to Bayreuth and queue at the ticket office for a cancellation. A few often become available about two hours before a performance, for about €160. This is considered one of the best legit ways to get a ticket.
9 Go to the field behind the Festspielhaus, where ticket touts often gather.
10 Join a Wagner society. Or found one yourself. Societies get tickets more easily.
11 If you're really rich, join the Friends of Bayreuth and support the festival at considerable cost. They're the people who really get the tickets. It's all a bit like Croker.
12 Get The Irish Timesto send you as a correspondent.
The shadow of Hitler
PERHAPS THE WORST thing ever to happen to Wagner was for Hitler to like his music, a fact that has turned many people against the composer and his incredible work.
The two overriding themes in Wagner's music dramas are those of redemption through love and of the self-destruction that comes through lust for power - the antithesis of all the Nazis stood for.
But Wagner was hatefully anti-Semitic, and some people see cruel caricatures of Jewish people in the characters of Beckmesser and Mime the Nibelung. But most of us could find those same characters matching certain Irish people we know. Or Germans, for that matter. Or any other nationalities.
Also, it is surely significant that the great Jewish composers Mahler and Schoenberg idolised Wagner.
And should we not separate personal behaviour from the art produced? Otherwise we might have to dump Picasso, Joyce, Hemingway and quite a few others.
Go there: Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com) flies daily from Dublin to Frankfurt International, a train ride, via Nuremberg, from Bayreuth.
Ryanair (www.ryanair. com) flies daily from Dublin to Frankfurt-Hahn. Take a Bohr Omnibus to Frankfurt Central Station, then trains as above.
• David Rice directs Killaloe Hedge-School of Writing (www.killaloe.ie/khs). His six books includeThe Pompeii Syndrome andShattered Vows