There's barely time for this quick hello I'm not dead, yet.
The Bayreuth experience is quite extraordinary. There's the experience of the Festival, the town, the people, the opera glitterati, the dressing up and showing off, the intervals, the drinks, the gardens, the dinners afterwards, the late nights. And this year there is the installation "Silenced Voices" in the gardens of the Festspielhaus.
Then there are the performances. We didn't see Dutchman (but went to Nurenberg for an exceptional Elektra that night).
Sequentially we saw Tristan, Lohengrin, TannhaΓΌser, and Parsifal. It's the things which affect me most that I find the hardest to describe and with just a few exceptions I have never been more affected by performance. The week was a high point I may not ever again reach, and I am quite happy with that.
So from New York, on the way home - hello, I'm not dead yet. Just quickly, I always thought New York a city constantly renewing itself, a surviving living organism. Now (here for the first time since the first election of GWB) I wonder if it is struggling to keep up with itself. That is a very superficial judgement. It is as always palpably the 'entry point' where people come and cling on, hoping to survive.
And there is much still to impress.
