Bayreuth, << by ROYT or BY royt, >> Festival is an opera festival held every July and August in Bayreuth, Germany. The festival features the operas of the German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner supervised the construction of the Festspielhaus (Festival Theater), which opened in 1876. In the same year, Wagner established and directed an opera festival at the Festspielhaus for performances of his four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. The Bayreuth Festival became an annual event in 1892.
The theater holds 1,925 spectators and is unusual in having the orchestra concealed in a covered pit beneath the stage. Wagner and his wife, Cosima, settled in Bayreuth in 1874 in a villa he named Wahnfried. Since Wagner’s death in 1883, his family has continued to direct the festival.
See also Wagner, Richard .
