"The Transformation of the World Into Music" "Bayreuth before the premiere" "Camera Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein" "Sound Ekkehart Baumung" "Editor Rainer Standke" "A film by Werner Herzog" "I'm now going to show you our 'inner sanctum', our vault." "You have alarm systems here." "We have alarm systems here, we have a fire extinguishing system, a CO2 system which is linked to smoke alarms, which is immediately activated if anything happens that shouldn't happen in there and which will put out any fire within seconds." "We've already made some preparations for you." "Normally, it takes two people to open this steel vault." "So if you were taken hostage, then the hostage-takers..." "That would be pointless." "So, now I've got to give it a bit of a heave, because this door weighs two tonnes." "Here we are now, in the heart of Richard Wagner's legacy, so to speak." "This is where his manuscripts, letters and composition autographs are kept." "I'd now like to show you some scores, original scores." "Sorry we've had to dim the lights a little, but these scores are highly sensitive and can't tolerate bright light." "This here is the score of 'Tristan and Isolde'." "Here you see the first page, the Tristan chord." "And this one here is especially sensitive." "This is the original script of 'Parsifal'," "Wagner's final work." "It's written in violet ink, which is characteristic of his later work, and it's especially light-sensitive." "What you see collected here is possibly one of the greatest treasures of Germany's cultural heritage, and it's absolutely priceless." "Here you see the sofa on which Richard Wagner died on the afternoon of 13 February 1883 in the Palazzo Vendramin in Venice." "This sofa is very tattered." "It's one of the favourite trophies of our visitors, who are constantly pulling threads from this sofa." "For this reason, we'll have to secure it in a display case in future in order that it be preserved at all." "On the morning of that day, 13 February 1883," "Wagner had already said to his servant, Georg," ""Today I must watch out for myself."" "Later that morning, there was a jealous tiff with Cosima, who made reference to the impending visit of the singer Carrie Pringle, and Wagner excused himself from lunch." "Cosima went to him once again, but then thought it would be better to leave him alone, and during that time he worked on a manuscript, an essay with the title 'On the Womanly in the Human Race'," "which I have here with me... an outline in pencil... and he wrote the sentence," ""Nonetheless, the process of the emancipation of woman" ""is taking place only amidst ecstatic throes." ""Love... tragedy."" "And at this point, if one looks really closely, one can see that the pencil stroke slides downward." "At this moment," "Richard Wagner suffered a severe heart spasm and rang his bell loudly." "The doctor was called for, and Richard's wife." "When Cosima received the news, she jumped up and rushed to Wagner, who had meanwhile gone from his desk to this sofa." "She sat down beside him and cradled him in her arms whereupon the cramp seemed to ease somewhat, and Cosima thought, as it was 3:30 in the afternoon, that Richard Wagner had fallen asleep," "and it took the doctor to convince her that he had meanwhile died very peacefully." "Mr Wagner, it has always especially fascinated me and also terrified me that there's a particular mythos regarding this house." "How do you perceive this mythos?" "It must, after all, affect you as well." "Well, you see, the mythos comes partly from Wagner himself, of course." "Wolfgang Wagner Grandson of Richard Wagner Director of the Bayreuth Festival" "He speaks, for instance, of the "mystic chasm", the hidden orchestra, and this mythos and mystery and so on... these are also things..." "You can get fairly unfriendly about that." "Yes." "I know you..." "you've had a bit of a go at me." "Yes, the thing is..." "Of course that's just "thinking on the job"." "The thing is that one has to do everything in order that the work is effective only in itself, and not go and elegantly transfer the mythos onto everything else..." "We stand as historical beings in the here and now, and it's from the here and now that a 'something' needs to be added by means of musical drama in a superelevated form." "But if one enters this same mythical or mystical fog oneself, that's what I don't want at all costs, at least from the external perspective, because then we'd be returning to the state of the Old Wagnerians" "who saw in Wagner the solution to all problems." "So, again, please." "Seven, OK?" "Thanks." "Seven again, please." "OK, once more, from the top, please." "Seven now, please." "Number seven." "'The Flying Dutchmar Sailors' Chorus" "It's clear, we have a total of two minutes, and if there's any mistake, whether it's with the ship or with the flies, the whole thing's ruined." "So please concentrate, and if anything's the matter, get over there immediately and help your colleague." "The most important thing is that we move forward slowly with the first float." "It's got to move slowly." "The same goes for the black cover... if it crashes to the ground, it's too loud." "Try to make it quiet." "When wheeling back the ship, the yellow one, look out for the spinning room..." "the spinning room has right of way." "If the spinning room is faster, the yellow ship has to wait." "If the spinning room is going more slowly, the yellow ship goes first." "Shh!" "Down!" "Giuseppe Sinopoli Musical director, 'The Flying Dutchmar" "Hey, what's with xenon 31?" "X enon 31 is right down low." "Say again." "X enon 31 is right down low." "X enon..." "Yeah." "You can hear a bit of something when..." "But while the music's going, you can't hear a thing." "You really don't hear anything." "But this is something new, which I've never seen on a stage before, here on the set of the 'Dutchmar." "How did you come up with that?" "Dieter Dorn Producer, 'The Flying Dutchmar" "The problem is that these two in this major love scene simply sort of pass one another by, or, in any case, don't..." "It's not her in her life, nor him in his seven-year cycle where he tries to find his way to a house like this, that they meet, but rather something extraterrestrial that happens, like two parallel lines that meet at infinity." "We wanted to show that." "And the house suddenly becomes independent, it no longer has any gravity..." "No gravity... that is to say that the utopia where they both believe they can be at home can, in fact, only revolve and can actually only be in their minds." "And up there lies the hat, and it stays there." "It even gets put down, one sees it." "It's previously been put down." "That's the litmus test..." "that it doesn't fall down... like the wedding dress, though that's affixed." "But in the hat, one can really see that gravity that the laws of the earth no longer hold." "So how's that done technically?" "Can you show me?" "It's a huge mechanism." "In the technical regard, the major problem is not that it rises." "It starts rising really slowly, so that one at first perceives it more as one's own feeling than as something that one is really seeing with one's eyes." "And then, once it goes higher, one comes to realise it." "And there's a hydraulic system that raises it, which is quite common on a stage, but there's usually a prop in front." "The main problem here is that the house, since it's hanging freely, needs massive counterweights, you see, so that even when the characters are standing in there... the two of them are standing in there, even when it's up high... that it doesn't tip." "It gets wheeled in here really quickly during the set change." "We worked on it for three or four years, I think." "So it's a huge mechanism." "The fact that you have so much time here..." " At another venue you'd never..." " No, you can only do that here." "To do it in a studio theatre would be unthinkable." "Unthinkable." "As it is, you can only do it in the winter months in a fur coat and heavy shoes, testing it out, bit by bit." "And the technicians have done it wonderfully." "I think it's also something special here at this venue that it's not just all these people here doing the technical work, but the fireman as well, and the lighting man up here... everyone knows every note of the score" "and knows what's being put on here." "Yes, that's the crucial point." "The rehearsal times are really tight and really squeezed, because there are usually at least five works being performed here, but that's all made up for by the fact that everybody... and I mean everybody... knows the piece, right down to the last note." "That really is exciting." "And you've probably never seen that anywhere else in the world." "No." "That's the basis for saying that working here, as regards Wagner, is the pinnacle." "Fantastic!" "It's turning." "And we have..." "You can even get up on it." "And the house comes back down again." "Now we've removed gravity." "James Levine Musical director, 'Parsifal'" "Not so mean." "She has a relatively positive attitude." "Yes, yes, that's no problem at all." "If we stagger over, then it's no..." "Wolfgang Wagner Producer, 'Parsifal'" "It's always like that." "If there's an enemy, you face them front-on, not with the rear." "If you begin from behind..." "It's a primal instinct." "When you see a threat, you go forward with your head, you put your head down." "You identify a threat with your head, not your behind." "Do you know what I mean?" "Yes." "That's how it is, isn't it?" "Yes." "You'd never..." "Well, if I lie down like this, it's far too dangerous." "I'm open, I'm vulnerable." "Yeah, yeah." "So, because you're there, if the other person comes from behind..." "He can't move you." "You're lying in an unfavourable position." ""Hey, what are you doing lying there?"" "Like this here." "You can instinctively curl up like this." "And like this." "Are you comfortable...?" "What?" "Perhaps they sat a bit closer." "No, we can let them sit there." "Yeah, leave it." "They're different women." "These are different women, they sit differently." "She was like this, wasrt she?" "It doesn't matter." "Let's do it again, shall we?" "That's right." "Don't let it go back." "About here, above the edge." "Here." "Yes, about here, please." "About halfway." "So it's, "I bring it back to you"" "and then, "O such..."" "Yes." "Maybe it will work out..." "if we don't... sort of..." "That we hold it more over here, almost like a blessing." "Not too showy." "Here." "They don't have any idea yet what this is about, after all." "Here." "A brief..." "Huh?" "A brief ritardando here, when you reach the old gentleman, so they let you set off with the spear." "As if it were sort of... above..." "Go ahead, look up as if to say, "What does he want with it?" Get it?" ""We haven't seen this thing for a long time." Get it?" "Yeah." "Hold it up." "Fix your gaze on the spearhead." "Then he arrives here." "So, let's do another lap." "Starting from "pity's highest power"?" "Yes." "'Parsifal', dress rehearsal" "Henning, you're a painter by trade." "From the designs that we see here, we immediately notice, of course, that your highly stylised artistic solution for 'Lohengrir was there." "These things over here, for example, are essentially costume designs." "To me, it comes across more as an altarpiece." "This is Elsa, Lohengrin." "Here, for example..." "Henning von Gierke Stage and costume design, 'Lohengrir ...Elsa in the four acts is combined as a single picture." "Here's Act 1, with Elsa in a snow coat." "The ground is ice." "Act 2, a water dress." "Here's the sunrise dress for Act 3, and here, for the nuptial chamber, a nightgown painted with grass, like the ground in the picture as well." "The same is repeated in Lohengrin." "Lohengrin as a mirror of the heavens is how I imagined it." "Act 1, Act 2, and here's Act 3, all dark, his nightgown with stars." "As regards the basic designs, we were aiming for much more than what can actually be seen here." "Can we take a look?" "This is a model." "Here, one has to say, this is the stage, this is where the audience sits, and this the entire landscape." "We did want to include the entire landscape, after all." "This here is the site plan of the venue." "Here's where it goes down to the alley and the hill." "This triangle is where the audience sits." "And this here is the stage." "A small circle of stones on the stage set of 'Lohengrir." "A law court shown as a circle of stones." "And surrounding the entire venue is another large circle of stones." "So Lohengrin appears in a laser tunnel, and it was actually planned that we would place gigantic torches all around here, like in a large prehistoric cult circle." "You can see it here too, for example." "That's how it was actually supposed to look, and we'd already been to a quarry and selected the giant stones." "These would have been about 80 tonnes each, I think." "I think that one's 110 tonnes." "And they'd never have got them out of there again." "They would have got them in there and got them out again at some point, but then Mr Wagner said, "We're doing indoor theatre, not outdoor."" "And therefore this grandiose idea unfortunately remained just a concept." "Yes." "There's also something else behind that refusal." "Wolfgang Wagner immediately realised, of course, that this here was going to be some sort of a cult-like place, the venue in Bayreuth, the Festspielhaus." "And he has, after all, vigorously opposed that time after time since the 1950s, together with his brother." "We would have presented this as a prehistoric venue or a cult meeting place." "But this laser would have shone from the building over this stone and then onto a facing slope 14 kilometres away, where there's a pilgrims' chapel." "And, in fact, always at the moment when Lohengrin would appear." "So not only the audience itself, but the whole of Bayreuth would have seen, by way of the laser cannon up here on the roof." "They would have seen it." ""Here comes Lohengrin." ""This is the moment where" ""the audience up at the Festspielhaus experiences this miracle."" "And all of Bayreuth shares the experience." "During the transubstantiation in the church, that is." "Yes." "Incidentally, we also wanted to forge maps as though this laser beam were precisely striking a pilgrims' chapel, and the beam would shine another 1,500 kilometres further to the south." "All the way to Sicily." "Yes, into a prehistoric burial site." "The handles, yes." "It's essential that you know what's going on here." "It's like this..." "there's a tunnel of light here, in which the swan and Lohengrin appear." "And when it's all dark, this here is raised... it's quite rudimentary, just with a string." "And in here is a ray, a light ray, which is aimed onto a little mirror..." "it's only the size of my thumbnail." "Werner Herzog Producer, 'Lohengrir" "And this mirror rotates really quickly." "It's a single light ray." "You have to imagine it as a knitting needle, a knitting needle pointed here like this." "And it begins to rotate, faster and faster, really fast." "And to the audience, to the human eye, it looks like one single tunnel of light." "And if you, as a swan, now dive in here..." "While you're down here, you're outside this funnel and you can't be seen." "The moment you dive in, suddenly the swars head and then the whole swan is visible." "Then you move forward, and you're in the middle of this light tube." "The important thing here is, of course, that you enter here very carefully, without wobbling, if possible." "You have to practise this at home, and so do you." "You kneel on one knee, whichever is your steadiest side, and rise very steadily." "And then you're in there." "'Lohengrir, dress rehearsal" ""A mi-racle, a miracle, a miracle."" "Keep it tight." "Again..."Behold, he comes, behold, he comes, look, he comes."" "Or, "Look, here he comes, look, here he comes."" "Let's go." "Someone's singing, "Lo-ok, here he co-mes."" ""Look, here he comes!", please." "Get straight to the end." "Again, "Look." And..." "Norbert Balatsch Festival Choir director" "Careful." "It needs to be "ba-beeee, ba," yeah?" "Don't force it." "We have to go through." "Let's go from "Greetings"." "One and..." "There it is again... that Wagner tango." ""Greetings, greetings, greetings."" "It's dreadful, people!" "It's got to be, "Greetings, greetings, greetings!"" "Follow through, please." "No jumping with your voices." ""Greetings", please." "One and..." "Peter Schneider Musical director, 'Lohengrir" "May I interrupt?" "Thanks." "Overall, among the violins..." "Is one of the violins a lady?" "Yes, there is one." "So, ladies and gentlemen, the violins... please, a little less force." "It does sound very very intense now, but it needs to be really floating and well, chaste." "There mustrt be too much passion in the vibrato." "Seven..." "One, two, three, four, five, six..." "Seven before one, please." "That was too loud, too loud." "Make it really quiet." "And another thing..." "could someone hear..." "I mean to say, a listener who isn't familiar with it couldn't hear the tremolo." "One needs to hear this shimmering... with the exception of the four soloists, but for everyone else... one needs to be able to hear that a bit more clearly." "But not too fast!" "Don't tremolo too fast." "Just so one can hear that it's a tremolo." "It sounds just like a normal chord." "From the same place, please." "Seven before one." "Don't come back too fast!" "Now it stands still, unfazed by what's over there." "No dragging!" "Thank you very much." "Good." "Thanks." "So, Act 1, please." "Number seven." "And..." "Number 10 together!" "Softly now, softly as you can!" "The hairstyle is much better now, especially the colour." "The hairstyle is much better now, especially the colour." "It was so strangely golden before, and now it looks better." "The make-up's lasted too." " Yeah, up till now." " Yeah." "We've now got a break between Act 1 and Act 2." "You have 40 minutes or so." "What I really liked today was the unbelievable power in the sword." "Without really doing much, you move it really, really well, and one senses this physical power that you don't even have to exert." "That's because you really were an athlete." "An ice-hockey player, that is." "Yes, I grew up in Canada and played an awful lot of ice-hockey, and then I injured myself playing ice-hockey." "You had a bad foul committed on you." "Yes." "I was unable to work for quite a while." "And the fellow who hurt me gave me a Mario Lanza record as a present, and that was..." "That changed your life." "...my first encounter with classical music." "And I was so taken by his voice, and I thought to myself, "Maybe I could sing too."" "And so I..." " You sang along, did you?" " Yes." "And you were singing as you were driving your truck across Canada?" "That's right." "And did you do a musical?" "I did that too." "How did you get to be Lohengrin?" "I do know the story, but tell it again, it's so lovely." "Well, I then came to Europe, and I initially sang in Basel, and then I did a guest performance in Heidelberg, where an agent heard me, and he said, "How about Lohengrin?"" "I had to go to Karlsruhe to audition for Lohengrin, so I had to learn the narrative of the Grail in a real hurry on the way." "From the audio cassette." "You never had the sheet music." "No." "And then I..." "I believe there were 270 applicants who wanted the part of Lohengrin." "I can't remember exactly, but it's possible." "I know it's so." "And so I sang the narrative of the Grail, and I thought it had gone really well." "You caught their attention..." "I know that too." "Yes, and then they asked me from the gallery whether I had 'Supreme Confidence'." "That's the title of an aria, of course." "Yes, that's an aria." "But you didn't know that at the time, so you just went right on in and..." "And I said, "Sure, I've got supreme confidence." ""I have supreme confidence!"" "And with that, you became Lohengrin." "With that, I got the part." "...stands a castle." "Mr Junold, you've been working here as a fireman for forty years." "Yes." "How often have you seen this here?" "Oh, I don't know, maybe a hundred times." "Werner Junold Bayreuth Volunteer Fire Brigade" " And all the other productions?" " Just as many times." "'The Ring' perhaps a little less." "Of course, you always wanted to sit in this spot here." "That was your wish." "You werert ordered to come here, were you?" "Well, this is the position where the duty fireman sits." "And you like being here because you like Wagner's music?" "Oh, yes!" "That has always been my dream." "Has anything ever happened here?" "Has there ever been a fire?" "Oh, yes!" "Tell me about it." "You have to bear in mind that the fly tower, which these days is built of metal, used to be made entirely of wood, and all the wiring was in there." "One time there was a short circuit above where the audience sits." "There was a section about two metres long, and it was glowing." "We didn't want to give the audience a dousing, so we had to try and switch it off so it would go out again." "And how were you paid here?" "Well, when I started here, not as a fireman, but as a young lad, we'd sometimes get a ham sandwich during the break." "But now the pay is better." "You're able to sing along to everything, I've noticed that." "The narrative of the Grail." "Yes, I know it." "I can't sing it." "If I were a singer, I wouldn't be a fireman!" "Keep going." "That was too loud!" "King Ludwig II of Bavaria" "If one looks at Lindehof Palace and the grotto which King Ludwig had built specially for one single private performance of 'Lohengrir... he himself designed the boat in which he personally rowed Lohengrin to land... then there's probably a misunderstanding regarding" "the accessibility of Wagner's work." "Richard Wagner was, in fact, plagued by misunderstandings throughout his whole life." "Take a look... when the Munich 'Tristar, the premiere, took place in 1865, the press speaks of shamelessness, absurdity and a sophisticated brew from a sick imagination." "Yes." " Of Richard's." " Indeed." "Ludwig, who is present at the same performance, is left almost speechless and writes a stammering letter to Richard Wagner." "He writes, and I quote, "Unique one!"" "All with exclamation marks and dashes." ""Unique one!" "Holy one!" ""How blissful." "Consummate." ""So smitten with delight!" ""To drown, to sink!" "Oblivious, supreme joy!" ""A divine work!" ""Forever loyal to you, even beyond death, Ludwig."" "He was 18 or 19 years old at the time and had just been crowned." "Yes, only a pubescent youth can be so enraptured." "That's an exaggeration, but a mature person has to have a degree of objective distance, especially if he's in a position of leadership." "He's only right in the assessment of his time." "Sure." "Despite all the misjudgments, he was correct here." "That's the terrific thing." "Yes, and one of the great historical paradoxes is that the revolutionary, in the democratic sense, managed to complete his work at all, especially the scores, with the help of the last of the absolutists." "Fancy that!" "That's the great paradox." "Should I... just now..." "I think that wasrt so bad." "Oh, yes, we don't have the things." "Yeah, that's problematic." "Yohji Yamamoto Costume design, 'Tristan and Isolde'" "This thing, of course..." "That's what's so nice, that it's..." "Gone." "Yes." "And in the second... then, too." "The others still have it." "And from the second on, in any case, we're freed." "Yes." "Yes, that's good." "Then we can take these off." "Is it always like this?" "Isolde from the right?" "Yes, when I take her, then it's like that." " Only like that?" "Not from the left?" " No." "Then we can cut off this bit here and remove it." "It's only a short section." "Yes, one can surely find a shape." "For example, if you..." "It's usually the case that..." "See, that's simple anyway." "It isn't tight." "Could you stretch out fully?" "Like this?" "Yes, and... yes." "That's the most extreme movement?" "Yes." "It always seems to be lacking length at the back." "Then perhaps we should just leave it." "I don't think it's a bother, because I don't need that little bit of freedom of movement." "So we can loosen this here, he says, but here of course we can't..." "No, we can't." "But we can loosen this, and she'll be able to move better." "Of course, we've done it exactly according to the cut of his trousers." "Nobody knew we'd have to take it off." "Yes, he did the cut so that it wouldn't come off." "So, there's the audience." "We drink kneel..." "Then we look at one another." "Now we move further apart." "I take off my coat." "And we come together." "'Tristan and Isolde', dress rehearsal" "Heiner Müller, these are cubes of light, almost like aquariums." "It comes across as an entirely strange, extraterrestrial world you've created, or an underwater world." "How did you plan this?" "Firstly, I've already worked with Erich Wonder a lot." "The stage-set maker." "Yes, which I always found to be really good." "We often prepared together." "Heiner Müller Stage set, 'Tristan and Isolde'" "What I always found really good and helpful was this geometry, because it forces one into certain arrangements, a certain choreography, even certain gestures, and it excludes a large amount of naturalism." "On the other hand, I've now noticed during the rehearsals that the geometry of these rooms also needs a lot of detailed realism." "But you can only have your characters, the singers, go down certain aisles or in these horizontal lines." "In Act 2, yes." "And in Act 1 there are also..." " There's no room." " There are pre-set places." "It makes the work easier, it's a defence." "A defence against ideas." "One can only work within a pre-set framework." "It reminds me very strongly of..." "There's this definition of Shakespeare by Wagner." "He says that the Shakespeare principle is mimic improvisation within a pre-drawn outline." "And these spaces on the stage are a pre-drawn outline which is no longer changeable." "And you have to orient yourself in it." "There was, of course, a fateful period here in Bayreuth, during the Nazi period, when this slant was introduced, and Wagner basically still suffers from that today, also through his own fault, of course," "through his writings and programmatic utterances." "That's still not quite over." "German history has always been involved, even now, with this highly complicated story with East Germany, which you've also experienced." "And you will, of course, be caught in the crossfire." "How are you going to prepare for that?" "How will that go?" "How do you envisage it?" "Well, I don't need to prepare for it." "I expect it, and I'm already familiar with it." "That doesn't frighten me." "That's not the problem." "But as regards the history of Bayreuth and the history of East Germany, there's always a tendency to equate art with the politics under which it flourishes or doesn't flourish." "Whereas, of course, the history of art has an entirely different course from political history." "One can say Michelangelo worked for the Borgias, and they werert nice folks." "But that doesn't change anything about the quality of his art." "For example, after he had finished the Pieta, one of those numbskulls, one of the Medici, I think, told him after a snowfall that he had to build a snowman." "And he actually built a snowman in the park at the villa in Florence." "You have to imagine that." "Yes, I've built the odd snowman myself in East Germany, in that sense, that's for sure." "But I mean to say, the first attacks have already been launched." " Yes, they've come." " In the newspaper 'Die Welt'." "What did it say?" "It said, "Stasi Troupe in Wagner's Mythological World", but at that stage, there was still a question mark placed after it." "Sooner or later, that question mark will be removed." "One has to be ready for that." "And as regards the history of Bayreuth with Hitler and so on," "I recently read something which I found very interesting, written by the editor of the Nietzsche edition." "He said "Through Stalin we know what Marx was not," ""and through Hitler we know what Nietzsche was not."" "And through Hitler we also know what Wagner was not." "I think that's an important distinction." "Art is always exploitable, but eventually the difference becomes apparent." "You are the first Israeli conductor to conduct here in Bayreuth." "Do you think it's conceivable that you yourself might travel to Israel with Wagner?" "No." "I tried." "The Philharmonic Orchestra in Israel wanted to do a concert, and I was prepared to do it..." "Daniel Barenboim, Musical director, 'Tristan and Isolde' ...but there are people who don't want that sort of thing at all." "I'm not talking about the immediate future here." "You started out as a piano prodigy, and you've had a really long life with music." "Let's talk 30 years down the track, 40 years down the track, when you're old, grey and beautiful." "Do you think it's possible?" "Or your children?" "Yes, it is possible." "The generation of your children or your grandchildren?" "Yes, it's possible, but I don't have a a special aspiration to do that." "And I also find that that's overdoing it." "I mean, when..." "The time will come when it's played there, and I might be involved or I might not." "But what's more important is that when it's played there... as stupid as this sounds... that it's rehearsed and played properly." "The question of who does it is less important." "One can't and mustrt hold Wagner responsible for what the Third Reich made of him and his music." "They also played Beethovers 'Fifth', and Liszt's 'Prelude' upon every Nazi victory." "I think you can't hold him responsible." "As regards these terrible things in the concentration camps," "I've heard two opposite things from different survivors of the concentration camps... that they would play Wagner there while taking the people to be gassed." "That's true." "But there were other concentration camps where there were Jewish musicians, and they were allowed to play anything but Wagner, because that was supposedly too good for Jews." "That's really another topic altogether." "And when I think of how Toscanini turned down his post in Bayreuth in 1938 because of National Socialism and instead flew to Tel Aviv and gave a concert there..." "And what did he play?" "Wagner." "Because that association was not there at the time." "Could we play the beginning with everyone really conscious of the vibrato, but beginning the long note almost without vibrato, and then..." "So that it's first established, and only then..." "Especially the first time." "And I think we could somehow have it rise even more." "Let's play the beginning again." "No!" "The 'F' has to sound foreign." "That doesn't sound foreign." "I wouldn't start the last bit so softly." "So it really increases from one to the next." "One gets the feeling that it's coming back, a little less each time." "And the chord..." "The instruments which are just holding the harmony, as it were... the bassoon starts the diminuendo sooner." "So, for example, the first chord, the oboe is the last to do the diminuendo, the English horn is second-last, all the others go sooner." "Don't do the diminuendo simultaneously, so it really stays." "Again, please!" "Mr Wonder, this is your stage set for Act 3 of 'Tristan and Isolde'." "I'm very impressed by it, especially when I look at everything that's been performed on stage here in Bayreuth over the past 100 years." "I think there's a crucial leap in 1951, '52, '53, starting from the era of Wolfgang and Wieland Wagner." "This here appears to me to be a step forward which describes entirely new paths." "Can you tell me something about it?" "Yes, well..." "Erich Wonder Stage set, 'Tristan and Isolde'" "This beginning in the early fifties interested me too, and I've studied the photos very carefully." "And I also found that there were things going on that were not going on in other places." "I studied that period a lot." "And in the course of our work, we arrived at a solution which... is very abstract and yet shows a lot of passion and has a lot to do with passion, dealing with death." "And to me it's a fundamental opera which actually has no plot and has no obligation to show certain things." "And from this there arose a basic shape... for me the cube is the basic space... and everything arises from these cubes." "And there are three acts, and I've tried to emotionalise each of the three acts using a cube, I'd say." "Thank you." "For you too, Heiner, as is the custom on the occasion of the debut," "I present you with flowers." "Wolfgang, shall I come to you?" "Yes, come down." "Mr Wonder." "Flowers for the debut." "It's a tradition." "Thank you." "Producer Lucki Stipetic" "Lights Lutz Reitemeier" "Camera Assistant Martin Manz" "Assistant Editor Jenny Erpenbeck" "Sound Mixing Klaus Handstein" "Bayreuth Festival Choir and Orchestra" "Our thanks to all those working at the Bayreuth Festival," "Sven Friedrich of the Richard-Wagner-Museum, Bayreuth" "Special thanks to Wolfgang Wagner" "Paintings of scenes from R. Wagner's operas" "Ferdinand Leeke" "Editor Evelyn Paulmann" "A Werner Herzog Film Production for ARTE/Unitel and ZDF"