BAYREUTH FESTIVAL 2026 TICKETS!

The Wagner Society of Washington DC is thrilled to again offer its members the opportunity to acquire tickets to the Bayreuth Festival! This is the 150th anniversary of the festival, and tickets are expected to be harder to acquire than usual.

This year's process is different from prior years, and we urge you to read this information carefully. APPLICATIONS FOR TICKETS ARE DUE BY OCTOBER 9th.

Ticket Sales for 2026 Season and 150th Anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival

The Bayreuth Festival Is celebrating its 150th Anniversary! The 2026 Bayreuth Festival will feature revivals of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Der fliegende Holländer and Jay Scheib’s Parsifal, but these are likely to be overshadowed by two major events: the Festival’s first-ever production of Rienzi and an entirely new staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen (“RING 10010110”) — created with the help of artificial intelligence.  The new Ring Cycle production will combine images from prior Ring productions, supplemented by AI to create a coherent story.  “The vocal performers occupy the focal point of the staging, exuding a calm, almost sculptural presence. Their bodies serve as anchoring coordinates within a visually dynamic cosmos of light, texture, historical reference, and associative meaning—within projections that rupture, continually shift, and merge into one another. What remains tangible, and what is illusion? Where does memory begin, and where does interpretation end? These projections exceed the role of traditional stage design; they constitute a reflective surface for 150 years of interpretive discourse. The AI responsible for generating them has drawn on a vast corpus of images, voices, documents, and stagings. It does not present a singular Ring, but multiple manifestations: the national mythos, socio-political upheaval, artistic subversion, romantic utopia, and deconstructed afterimage. Each performance will be unique, as the visuals and associations remain in perpetual transformation.” -  WagnerOpera.Net Christian Thielemann will conduct the Ring.  Rienzi will be performed during the 2026 season only and conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann.  Andreas Schager is singing the role of Rienzi.

A NEW APPROACH TO TICKET SALES

This year we are taking a different approach to ticket sales to allow you to select the operas you wish to attend.  The selections available to you are as follows:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

• Parsifal Monday, 08/10/26, 4 pm

• Ring Cycle III (which are sold as a set only)

  • Das Rheingold Wednesday, 08/12/26, 6 pm

  • Die Walküre Thursday, 08/13/26, 4 pm

  • Siegfried Saturday, 08/15/26, 4 pm

  • Götterdämmerung Sunday, 08/16/26, 4 pm

• Rienzi Friday, 08/14/26, 4 pm

• Rienzi Monday, 08/17/26, 4 pm

• Der fliegende Holländer Tuesday, 08/18/26, 6 pm

• Rienzi Wednesday, 08/19/26, 4 pm

• Parsifal Thursday, 08/20/26, 4 pm

Currently available cast and production information is further below, or on the Bayreuth Festival website.

Why secure your Bayreuth tickets through the Wagner Society of Washington DC?

• We offer you the best opportunity to make your dream of going to Bayreuth come true.  If you choose to order tickets directly, you will not be able to place your order until after the other organizations (such as the Friends of Bayreuth, the Richard Wagner Verband International, and the applicants who are still part of the old Box Office process to receive theirs. Only after all these orders are fulfilled will the remaining tickets be sold to the public on a first come-first served basis, beginning November 30, 2025. 

• Uncomfortable about travel to an unfamiliar destination?  We will again be seeking to have all WSWDC members seated together or in close proximity with ample opportunities to connect and interact if they wish. 

• A pre-travel briefing will be held to allow all WSWDC attendees to meet each other and provide tips on travel arrangements prior to the Festival.

The date of your registration may impact our ability to fulfill your wishes.

Bayreuth tickets are probably going to be in the highest in demand for years. Once we receive our allocation of tickets, orders will be filled in the order the applications were received, with priority given based on years in membership in the Wagner Society of Washington DC, and level of support.

Please make your application today to maximize your chances of making your dream of attending the Bayreuth Festival a reality. 

The Fine Print:

We cannot guarantee ticket availability until the Festival box office completes the Society’s order.

Firm pricing cannot be quoted until the Festival box office completes the Society’s order and will be based on the currency exchange rate at the time of the confirmation and depending on the seating areas assigned by Bayreuth.  We will request prime seating in Section A1.  Currently the A1 seating price is Euros is

Ring Cycle:  1,692  Euros

Rienzi:              423 Euros

Parsifal and Holländer:  352 Euros each

[NOTE: The final pricing will include a 15% surcharge as has been charged in prior years, and which does not cover the expenses undertaken by the WSWDC to make these tickets available to our members.]

Membership in the Wagner Society of Washington DC is required to secure tickets through this offer. If you are not already a member, we urge you to join now . Qualifying new memberships will be accepted until firm orders can be placed. Members at the Patron Level and above will be given preference in ticket assignments.

The application is binding.  Our new ticket procurement process will allow you to select the operas you wish to see.  Submit your request along with a $100 deposit for each ticket desired.   Please use this link to make your application and submit your deposit payment by October 9th.  If your request is fulfilled, you will have seven days after you receive your invoice to pay your remaining balance.  If your order is not fulfilled, you will receive a refund of your deposit.  If less than 50% of your ticket request is fulfilled, you may choose not to accept any tickets and fees will be refunded to you.  (For this purpose, the Ring Cycle counts as four tickets.)  IF YOU WISH TO MAKE YOUR APPLICATION and/or PAYMENT BY MAIL IT MUST BE RECEIVED no later than October 9th. Please print and complete this form to submit your request by mail.

If you have any questions, please contact Ann Albin at 301-523-8379 ASAP.

Please let us know today if you would like to make your dream of attending the Bayreuth Festival a reality.

Additional information about the Festival productions and casts is below.

Rienzi 2026

Conductor: Nathalie Stutzmann

Director, stage design and costumes: Magdolna Parditka / Alexandra Szemeredy

Rienzi: Andreas Schager

Irene: Gabriela Scherer

Adriano: Jennifer Holloway

Paolo Orsini: Michael Nagy

Baroncelli: Matthias Stier

Der Ring des Nibelungen 2026 (“Ring 10010110”) - a new production for the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival

Conductor: Christian Thielemann

Curator: Marcus Lobbes

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival, audiences are presented with an experiment of visionary ambition: a mise-en-scène that not only stages Richard Wagner’s music drama, but foregrounds its reception history. This is achieved through a visual stratum that is in constant flux—expanding, recomposing, contradicting itself. For the first time in the history of the Festival, artificial intelligence will appear on stage—not as a character, but as a generative visual force.

Between Embodied Presence and Visual Projection

The vocal performers occupy the focal point of the staging, exuding a calm, almost sculptural presence. Their bodies serve as anchoring coordinates within a visually dynamic cosmos of light, texture, historical reference, and associative meaning—within projections that rupture, continually shift, and merge into one another. What remains tangible, and what is illusion? Where does memory begin, and where does interpretation end? These projections exceed the role of traditional stage design; they constitute a reflective surface for 150 years of interpretive discourse. The AI responsible for generating them has drawn on a vast corpus of images, voices, documents, and stagings. It does not present a singular Ring, but multiple manifestations: the national mythos, socio-political upheaval, artistic subversion, romantic utopia, and deconstructed afterimage. Each performance will be unique, as the visuals and associations remain in perpetual transformation.

The Ring as Resonant Space

This project conceptualizes the Ring as an open resonant space—a work that insists on being continually retold, not in spite of, but precisely because of its historical burden. Here, artificial intelligence becomes both a mirror of collective memory and a surface upon which contemporary questions are projected: Who narrates history? Who constructs images? And to whom do they belong? In this convergence, Wagner’s claim to timeless validity intersects with the ephemerality of digital transformation. Sound encounters code, myth meets machine, the festival tradition engages with futurity. The stage becomes a laboratory of perception—a site where music theatre is not only performed, but interrogated. This Ring poses a challenge; it invites contemplation, disorientation, and intellectual curiosity. It is a Ring of inquiry, not of resolution—and a Ring that seeks to illuminate Bayreuth, a place saturated with history and projection, in a new light. Experience a music theatre that embodies both past and future—a Ring des Nibelungen that interrogates its own foundations. And, perhaps, interrogates us as well.

The “curator” Marcus Lobbes is the Director of the Academy for Theater and Digitality, the sixth division at Theater Dortmund.

Das Rheingold

Wotan: Michael Volle

Donner: Alexander Grassauer

Loge: Klaus Florian Vogt

Fricka: Anna Kissjudit

Freia: Evelin Novak

Erda: Christa Mayer

Mime: Gerhard Siegel

Fasolt: Mika Kares

Fafner: Peter Rose

Die Walküre

Siegmund: Klaus Florian Vogt

Hunding: Mika Kares

Wotan: Michael Volle

Sieglinde: Elza van den Heever

Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund

Fricka: Anna Kissjudit

Siegfried

Siegfried: Klaus Florian Vogt

Mime: Gerhard Siegel

Der Wanderer: Michael Volle

Fafner: Peter Rose

Erda: Christa Mayer

Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund

Götterdämmerung

Siegfried: Klaus Florian Vogt

Gunther: Michael Kupfer-Radecky

Hagen: Mika Kares

Brünnhilde: Camilla Nylund

Waltraute: Christa Mayer

Der fliegende Holländer 2026

Conductor: Oksana Lyniv

Director: Dmitri Tcherniakov

Daland: Mika Kares

Senta: Asmik Grigorian (Aug 6 and 8)

Erik: Benjamin Bruns

Der Holländer: Nicolas Brownlee

Parsifal

Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado

Director: Jay Scheib

Amfortas: Michael Volle

Gurnemanz: Georg Zeppenfeld

Parsifal: Andreas Schager

Klingsor: Jordan Shanahan

Kundry: Miina-Liisa Värelä