Encounters: At Wilhelmine’s Opera House – Bayreuth

We had wanted to visit the Margravial Opera House for a long time.

A few years ago, we even had tickets for a concert there. It was an anniversary event featuring works by Beethoven, something we had been greatly looking forward to. But then the pandemic came, the performance was canceled, and the visit was postponed indefinitely.

Now we finally used the long holiday weekend to spend a beautiful day in Bayreuth. And this time, it finally happened.

From the outside, the opera house appears almost surprisingly modest. Especially if you pass by it often, you would hardly guess what lies behind those walls. But that impression disappears the moment the doors to the auditorium open during the guided tour.

Golden ornaments. The tiers. The stage. The light. Everything immediately draws your gaze into the room.

And suddenly, you are no longer simply standing inside an opera house.

You feel transported into another era.

As the museum guide spoke about the origins of the building and the conditions of that time, the old Bayreuth slowly began to take shape in my imagination. People in elegant clothing. Music. Conversations. Carriages in front of the opera house. For a brief moment, it all felt remarkably close.

The longer I stood in that auditorium, the more the pure historical facts faded into the background. Again and again, my eyes wandered across the ornaments, the figures, the painted boxes, and the countless details. You constantly discover something new and can hardly stop looking.

And that was exactly what impressed me.

This beauty. This attention to detail. And perhaps also the thought that people once took far more time to create places like this.

Today, everything moves faster. Louder. Often more superficially.

That is why I value moments like these all the more. Moments in which you step out of everyday life for a short while. Moments when you are not looking at news, appointments, or screens, but simply allowing a place to have an effect on you.

Places like this inspire me.

They bring me calm, slow my thoughts down, and in their own way, give me strength again.

The opera house was very well attended that day. And when the doors to the auditorium opened, you could hear astonished “wow”s and enthusiastic reactions from all around.

I liked that.

Because despite all the rush and noise of modern life, the longing for beauty, art, and history still seems to exist.

B.