When the Bayreuth Festival opens tomorrow for its 150th season, it will open with a work never presented there before: Richard Wagner’s Rienzi, his third opera, which premiered in Dresden in 1842 and was for many years his most popular opera in Europe (to his considerable chagrin later in life; indeed, he himself barred any production of it at the Festival during his lifetime). Its plot, per Wikipedia:

The opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzo (1313–1354), a late medieval Italian populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles’ rebellion against the people’s power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which had urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents have made a last stand.

Rarely performed, the curtain rises in Bayreuth tomorrow, July 26, at 4:00 pm local time. Wagnerians of the United States, however, can turn to Deutsche Grammophone’s Stage+ service to watch it live tomorrow at 10:00 am Eastern time, with repeats at 6:00 pm tomorrow night and 5:00 am on Monday morning. (A Vienna friend offers a few more options.) The production is directed by Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka, while Nathalie Stutzmann takes the podium.

One of the most moving moments of my last trip to Vienna was my attendance at Mass at the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle on my birthday, where Caldara’s Missa Dolorosa was on the program. So I’m delighted to report that radio klassik Stephansdom‘s music director Ursula Magnes, with whom I had the delight of exchanging a few pleasantries about Heinrich Schütz last year, has been named the new director of the Hofmusikkapelle, beginning on September 1. This is the first time a woman has been named director to the post. Rector Peter Schipka said, “As rector of the Hofburgkapelle and thus as the ecclesiastical responsible for the services in this place, I congratulate Mrs. Ursula Magnes very warmly on her appointment as director of the Hofmusikkapelle, as the first woman in this function. I am delighted by her appointment and look forward to working with her.” I congratulate her too, for what it’s worth; the Hofmusikkapelle is in good hands.