Bayreuth Festival talented conductor Hermann Levi, who was personally chosen by Richard Wagner to conduct the debut of "Parsifal" in 1882 with the assistance of the young Engelbert Humperdinck. Following Wagner's death, his widow Cosima continued running the festival at one or, more frequently, two-year intervals. She gradually introduced the remaining operas which complete the Bayreuth canon of Wagner's last ten completed operas. Levi, the son of a rabbi, remained the festival's principal conductor for the next two decades. Felix Mottl, who was involved with the festival from 1876 to 1901, conducted "Tristan und Isolde" there in 1886. Until the 1920s, performances
Bayreuth Altstadt–Kulmbach railway like a stroppy little billy goat" ("hie und da etwas eigenwillig bockte und stieß wie ein gereiztes Böcklein"). Bayreuth Altstadt–Kulmbach railway The Bayreuth Altstadt–Kulmbach railway was a branch line in the Bavarian province of Upper Franconia in southern Germany. It was also known colloquially as the "Thurnauer Bockela" (which roughly translates as "Little Thurnau Goat"). On 17 August 1872 the market town of Thurnau applied for the envisaged railway line from Forchheim through Hollfeld to Bayreuth not to be routed to Bayreuth but via Thurnau to Kulmbach, and to extend it via Nordhalben to Eichicht (de) and thus link it