Wagner's city — the opera pilgrimage that world music lovers queue years for
Bayreuth is one of the world's most concentrated single-composer music destinations — Richard Wagner built his own opera house here in 1876 specifically to stage his Ring Cycle, and the Bayreuth Festival tickets remain among the hardest to obtain in the performing arts, with waiting lists of 10 years. Beyond Wagner, the town has a magnificent Baroque Margravial Opera House (UNESCO World Heritage Site, built 1748) and a pleasant Franconian old town with beer cellars and sausages.
Bayreuth was developed by Wilhelmine of Prussia, sister of Frederick the Great, who turned it into a Baroque showpiece. The Margravial Opera House she commissioned in 1748 is the best-preserved Baroque court theatre in the world and was the reason Wagner initially came here — though he ultimately found it too small for his Ring Cycle and built the Festspielhaus on a hill above the town instead. Wagner's Villa Wahnfried and his grave are open to visitors; the annual Bayreuth Festival (July–August) has been running since 1876.