For the first time since Hitler, opera fans are trooping once again into the big red brick Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, the Bavarian shrine Richard Wagner built to honor his own music.
For many, the 7 5-year-old festival is like old times: the same uncomfortable wicker seats, the same kind of program, as heavy and nourishing as Sauerbraten. The opener this week was Beethoven's hour-long choral Symphony No. 9,* be followed by Parsifal, Die Meistersinger and the four operas of the Ring cycle.
But in contrast to the days when Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Ribbentrop and...