Bayreuth

Town in Bavaria, south Germany, on the Red Main River, 65 km/40 mi northeast of Nuremberg; population (2005 est) 74,000. There are cotton textile, porcelain, cigarette, and optical industries. Bayreuth was the home of the composer Richard Wagner, and the Wagner theatre was established in 1876 as a performing centre for his operas. Opera festivals are held here every summer.

The theatre introduced new concepts of opera house design, including provision of an enlarged orchestra pit extending below the stage and projecting the sound outwards and upwards. Bayreuth has a university (founded in 1975).

Bayreuth's baroque buildings and rococo palaces recall its former status as residence of the margraves of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. Wagner himself designed the theatre, the Festspielhaus. There is also a baroque opera house (1748), as well as fine old churches, and a notable 18th-century castle (now a museum). The Eremitage, a rococo castle, was often visited by Frederick the Great, whose sister was margravine of Bayreuth. Wagner is buried in the garden of his former villa.