The Machinery

The original technical plans of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus are lost. In 1916, Hans Küfner drew new plans for a fire safety investigation. There are some earlier plans, among others by Wagner and by Sachs, but unfortunately they provide little specific details on the machinery. Nevertheless, quite some information can be gathered, most notably form fire safety reports (for example, the ‘fire insurance estimation report of the supplementaries’ dating from 1876) and inventories, and some press releases.

One thing is certain: if one wishes to execute Wagner’s operas in a realistic manner, one needs elaborate technical facilities. Large forests, castles, the bottom of the Rhine or Valkuries riding through the air have to be depicted on stage and, moreover, the locations should change quickly (sometimes even in very demanding ‘changements-a-vue’or transformation scenes such as the change from first to second scene in Rheingold). It is because of these technical demands that the Festspielhaus has a very large stage area and the highest flytower (29 metres high at the time) in Europe. The flytower had to be that high to maintain perfect illusion: Wagner didn’t want the spectators on the front rows to see the equipment and the sets hanging in the flytower. Moreover, the spectators were not to see the ‘end’ of the scenery, for, in the case of exterior settings, this would destroy the illusion of infinite space.

The ground plan of the theatre makes clear how the stage is surrounded by vast technical spaces. At the time a separate boiler-house was erected next to the theatre in order to create the necessary steam for the stage effects and for a while, Wagner and Brandt even considered having their own gas factory for the lighting of stage and auditorium. Finally, however it was decided that a special built pipeline to the existing factory would be more cost effective. So there were considerable technical efforts to create the virtual realities Wagner envisioned, and Carl Brandt devised most of the original equipment. Although no new technical systems were developed it should be noted that the scale on which the theatre was decked out with the most modern technical appliances of the time was unsurpassed.

The Festspielhaus stage floor was divided in seven sections or ‘streets’. The set pieces that were raised and lowered fitted in the floor grooves. In six of the streets, there ran a sort of lift; it was 13 metres long and could be lowered. The opening could be camouflaged with panels. The lifts were necessary to raise and lower set pieces. For the same reason, there were also a number of shutters in the floor. The moveable traps and shutters not only accommodated set changes but also the appearance or disappearance of characters (sometimes by means of a spectacular drop into the floor). There was an additional, smaller stage behind the main stage. From this back stage, equipment could be brought on and off. The passageway between the main stage and the back stage was 13.4 metres wide.

In Bayreuth, one also made use of stage wagons that carried pieces of scenery or machinery and could be rolled on and off quickly. The wagons were used, for example, for boats, and for the swimming of the Rinemaidens in Rheingold. Of both cases, a picture is provided. An elaborate description of the swimming device, as given by Lehman (who played a rhinemaiden in the first Ring) can be read in the text-module called ‘Staging the Ring’.

There was a lot of additional equipment for special effects, such as thunder machines, wind machines, a lightning device and a wave machine to imitate a sea. This equipment was common practice on the nineteenth century stage and derived from the eighteenth-century stage developments (see also the description of the Drottningholm and La Scala machinery)

Most of the equipment was stored in the huge fly-tower and controlled from the flyways, small galleries near the side walls, and bridges. Nevertheless, it seems that these galleries and connections were not yet present in 1876 but were installed later; the first document to show such a connection is a 1913 drawing by Küfner (Baumann, 1980, 144).

In the 10 metres of space beneath the stage floor was also inserted a large part of the machinery. Big winches and counterweights were used to control the lifts and traps. Later on, hydraulic and electrical devices would replace the manually operated equipment.

After 1882, a type of movable sets called ‘Wandeldekorationen’ was installed. It was a moving backcloth used to give the impression of transgression. While the actor it stood still but pretended to walk, the scenery moved behind him. This cyclorama-like set consisted of a double sized (in length) backdrop that was wrapped on rolls. Several of these sets were placed behind each other (the picture called ‘moveable sets’ clearly shows how it worked). Not all spectators were convinced but it was a popular effect.

During the twentieth century, the use of flat-wing perspective scenery became increasingly outdated. The Festspielhaus stage floor was flattened in the 1920’s to accommodate the use of stage rostrums and modern scenery.

In the early years, the scenery mainly consisted of the traditional nineteenth-century flats and flying devices. Kranich Jr. replaced them by modern three dimensional sets in the 1920’s, however the stage designs of the earliest festivals were maintained very long. The technical equipment of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was modernised thoroughly in 1933 and again during the 1960’s.