RELUBBUS TO HOST BAYREUTH WAGNERFEST!!

By Literary and Theatre Correspondent Emily Bindweed

For the first time in its history, the annual Wagner festival traditionally held at Bayreuth in Germany is to be held in Cornwall -- in fact, in Relubbus. Two productions -- Tristan und Isolde and Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) -- are to be staged in Relubbus.

Speaking at the Panopticon theatre in Boswedden Lane yesterday, the director of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, Herr Doktor Hans Flick, was enthusiastic about the move:

"Cornwall is the natural place in which to stage Tristan und Isolde. After all, this greatest of European love stories is set here, and it will be a privilege for us to bring the opera back to its roots.

"And our Cornish production of Der fliegende Holländer will be the greatest ever staged! We are going to put it on, at night, at the Minack theatre, on the cliffs above Porthcurno. However, our "killer" ingredient is that we shall wait for a storm force 12 -- hurricane force -- before staging the opera. And, at the climax of the production, we shall have a three-masted "tall ship", with sails torn, be buffeted by the 60 foot waves towards the terrible granite cliffs.

The Minack theatre at night

"Unfortunately, everyone is bound by Health and Safety regulations these days. However, by employing only a skeleton crew of experienced sailors we hope to keep loss of life to a minimum. We shall, of course, have a helicopter from RNAS Culdrose standing by (assuming it is able to fly in these conditions)."

Herr Flick went on to say that it was a little known fact that Richard Wagner visited Cornwall in his youth, as a young merchant seaman on the schooner Holländer. He was wrecked in ferocious seas off Lamorna, rescued by breeches-buoy, and taken to Newlyn, where he met and fell in love with local girl "Shingles" Bodinnar. It was this experience that was his inspiration in writing Der fliegende Holländer.

Richard Wagner as a young merchant seaman