Bayreuth Festival And talks about reopening of the Wagnerian Festival started. Finally it reopened on 29 July 1951 with, as always, a performance by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra under conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, followed by the first post-war premiere of Wagner's opera, "Parsifal". Under the direction of Wieland Wagner, the "New Bayreuth" ushered in an era that was no less than revolutionary. Gone were the elaborate naturalistic sets, replaced with minimalist modern productions. In comparison, the pre-war changes seemed tame. For the first time in its history, the Bayreuth audience booed at the end of productions. Wieland was particularly
Bayreuth Altstadt–Kulmbach railway 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 with the line to Jena. But after the Forchheim–Plankenfels–Bayreuth railway project went into a concrete planning stage in