Bayreuth: The Impossible Vision and The Vision Renewed (excerpts)

Original listing from the Radio Times:

Sat 22nd May 1976, 21:10 on BBC Two England
BAYREUTH: THE IMPOSSIBLE VISION
The first of two special programmes to mark the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival and the opening 100 years ago of the theatre that Wagner designed for the first complete performance of the four operas that make up The Ring.
Written and narrated by John Culshaw, this programme traces the origin and development of the Festival and includes rare archive film of productions over 40 years, and of the Wagner family including Siegfried, Winifred, Wieland and the present director, Wolfgang Wagner.
Singers appearing in the programme include: Jean Cox, Josef Greindl, Gwyneth Jones, Frieda Leider, Max Lorenz, Donald McIntyre, Franz Mazura, Marita Napier, Birgit Nilsson, Anna Reynolds, Karl Ridderbusch, Thomas Stewart
with the Chorus and Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival, conducted by Hermann Abendroth, Karl Elmendorff, Karl Bohm and Horst Stein.

Sun 23rd May 1976, 21:00 on BBC Two England
BAYREUTH: THE VISION RENEWED
On 23 July 1976, the Bayreuth Festival will celebrate its 100th Anniversary with a performance of the last scene of Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
As a prelude, BBC2 presents a programme about Die Meistersinger and the place it has held in the Bayreuth Festivals over the last 100 years.
The programme, written and narrated by John Culshaw , includes excerpts from several previous productions and culminates in a full performance of the 'Festwiese ' scene from Act 3, designed and directed by Wolfgang Wagner , the present Director, and recorded on the stage of the Festspielhaus in 1975 starring and with The Bayreuth Festival Chorus chorus-master NORBERT BALATSCH The Bavreuth Festival Orchestra conductor Heinrich Hollreiser
Film cameraman EUGENE CARR Film recordist BILL CRESNEAU Film editors JESS PALMER
Producer BRIAN LARGE

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Huge thanks are due to whoever transferred this BBC documentary from John Culshaw and Brian Large, 'Bayreuth: The Impossible Vision', made to commemorate the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival and broadcast on Sat 22nd May 1976 on BBC2 (repeated on 21st April 1979 with an introduction by Humphrey Burton). Unfortunately, the audio and video were badly out of synch after 20 minutes, and became progressively worse. I've tried to fix this, and for the first documentary I've been mostly successful - some minor issues do occur, but nothing too severe.

On the second night, BBC Two showed a second documentary called 'The Vision Renewed' about Die Meistersinger and featuring a performance of the 'Festwiese ' scene from Act 3 in the then current Wolfgang Wagner production, premiered in 1968, possibly the first time a current Bayreuth production had been shown at length on British TV. Unfortunately, here synchronisation problems remain, but I left these parts in for interest as this production was never filmed in its entirety and this footage might well be missing from BBC Archives. (The main documentary 'The Impossible Vision' still exists and is listed in the BFI archive).

I do not own this video nor did I transfer it. Posted here for historical interest only. The documentary is a little dated but there's some interesting footage, including our only glimpse of the elderly Winifred Wagner in colour (but she doesn't speak - this was just after the infamous Hans-Jurgen Syberberg interview with her. Presumably after this controversy, the BBC stood no chance of talking to her!)