The 15th September 2024 marked my 20th performance of a staged opera this year with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset—it is actually 23 if you count ticketed dress rehearsals, and even more if you count concert versions. Ten performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte took place at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in February, six performances of Salieri’s Cublai gran kan de' Tartari took place at the Theater an der Wien in April, and four performances of Nicola Antonio Porpora’s Ifigenia in Aulide (originally written for London’s Haymarket Theatre) took place at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus (Margravial Opera House) in Bayreuth in Germany as part of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival on the 5th, 7th, 13th, and 15th September 2024.

Les Talens Lyriques was the orchestra in residence for the festival but the trumpets were only involved in the opera project; the orchestra was involved in numerous other programmes in the festival. Therefore, I visited Bayreuth twice: firstly for two opera performances at the beginning of the festival and finally for two more at the end of the festival. The first visit was during the blazing hot summer and the second was in dramatically cooler, more autumnal conditions. I visited the amazing Kreuzsteinbad outdoor swimming pool every day on the first trip; by the second trip that was closed for winter. Therefore, I took the opportunity to visit the Germanisches National Museum in Nuremberg, where J. L. Ehe III's so-called Bishop’s trumpets of 1746 are kept—my trumpet is a replica of one of the three of them. I last visited this museum in 2019, after I recorded Bach’s second Brandenburg concerto in Ansbach, but on that occasion the museum’s musical instrument collection was closed due to high humidity. On this occasion, I found that the musical instrument collection was again closed, this time for refurbishment work: it will not reopen until 2030. I was disappointed not to be able to see these original Ehe III trumpets. However, I did at least manage to see one Baroque trumpet on this trip: a trumpet without a maker’s name, made in Berlin in 1721 was on display in the music room in the Neues Schloss in Bayreuth. I strongly suspect that this silver trumpet was made by Carl Ludwig Blanvalet, as it is remarkably similar to the examples I saw in Vienna earlier this year. 

Bayreuth is known to many for its association with Richard Wagner: Parsifal and the Ring were both premiered in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the brainchild of Wagner. Wagner had been attracted to Bayreuth because of the size of the stage in the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, and he apparently performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony there on his own birthday, 22 May, in 1872. I came to Bayreuth very soon after a (memorised) performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony at the BBC Proms. Wagner’s house was very near where I was staying, and I walked past his grave on my way to the gardens of the Neues Schloss. 

The Bayreuth Festspielhaus that Wagner commissioned in the 19th century is not to be confused with the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, a UNESCO World Heritage site (it predates the Festspielhaus by around 125 years). The Markgräfliches Opernhaus is an incredibly ornate venue; it seats around 500 people and the highly intricate wooden interior is ornamented with symbols of the house of Brandenburg, gold accents, and a magnificent trompe-l'œil ceiling painting. A margravial theatre company, which was established and directed by Princess Wilhelmine (Frederick the Great’s sister), closed after her death in 1758: it is for this reason that the theatre remains such a well preserved example of a baroque theatre. It was wonderful to play there. X user @cntftpn captured our final encore on video: 

古代ギリシャをハイセンスに現代化した舞台は説得力があり照明がまたうまい。この歓声で十分か。アンコールとして最終合唱を舞台で指揮するルセ pic.twitter.com/5lRb6JpSmF

— c.f. (@cntftpn) September 15, 2024

The opera featured the cast: Jasmin Delfs (Ifigenia & Diana), Max Emanuel Cencic (Agammennone), Maayan Licht (Achille), Mary-Ellen Nesi (Clitennestra), Nicolò Balducci (Ulisse) and Riccardo Novaro (Calcante), with Les Talens Lyriques directed by Christophe Rousset and led by Gilone Gaubert.