The traditional festival used artificial intelligence in the sets: No one apologizes, says Panu Eskola Saaristo, who visited the festival

“Disappointment or disaster, maybe a scandal. The singers and the orchestra were fantastic, but otherwise the experience was extremely painful,” Eskola Saaristo tells HS.

The reason for the strong reaction was the special solution of the music festival. In the event celebrating its 150th anniversary, a staging concept based on artificial intelligence was presented by Richard Wagner From the ring cycle.

Except the event culminated on Saturday evening Destruction of the Gods -opera also to the audience’s boos.

A masterpiece there was no stage manager at all in the production, instead the singers performed under the direction of the director By Marcus Lobbes in production in a holographic, three-dimensional environment.

The program produced a continuous image stream in real time, which is projected onto the curtain. The singers stand motionless behind the curtain in black outfits.

Eskola Saaristo has never experienced anything similar. In his opinion, everything went to the forest.

“I couldn’t have been more disappointed if Destruction of the Gods would have been done as a puppet theater or in sign language.”

Escola Archipelago is not alone in his opinions.

For example Financial Times (FT) reports that the music festival solution turned the piece into a “giant screen saver”. The performers received praise from FT, but the newspaper describes the staging as catastrophic.

The event has justified the solution with financial reasons. According to Eskola Saaristo, the explanation is rather lazy, because there was no dialogue between the event and the audience.

“It would have been much more honest to openly tell the audience that the situation is that the Bayreuth festival does not have the money and cannot afford a large production. They would have received all the support from the audience,” he says.

Now the whole thing resembled the concert version, for which the audience paid for hundreds of euros worth of tickets.

Escola Archipelago the verdict is unequivocal: the use of artificial intelligence was a major failure of the event, which may at worst affect the future of the entire festival.

According to Eskola Saaristo, Bayreuth now has to look in the mirror. In the past, the event has even been rude to its audience: Bayreuth’s operas, for example, have not had subtitles, and you have not been able to bring your own seat cushions to the theater, which is famous for its discomfort.

“It’s like they’ve done whatever they want, that’s been their way of doing things.”

Eskola Saaristo cannot assess whether it is even possible for the event to continue operating. He believes that Bayreuth may remain stagnant in the future: the public will vote with their feet if there is no artistic backbone and honesty.

“The worst thing is if the festival management imagines that the matter will be forgotten and forgiven. Such a completely unique experience will not be forgotten, and no one will forgive.”