Rixon Thomas reflects on becoming the first Cor Anglais player to ever take a bow in front of the Bayreuth curtain at this year's festival on the Green Hill.

This year, Australian Cor Anglais player Rixon Thomas was invited to the Bayreuth Festival to perform the famous English Horn solo in Tristan und Isolde. A former oboist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and now with the Royal Danish Orchestra, Thomas looks back on his history-making performance.

Rixon Thomas in front of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Photo supplied

The biggest solo that exists for the Cor Anglais starts softly on a middle C and ends forte on a low C. This unaccompanied solo lasts for almost four minutes and is in the third act of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. Every year, Wagner fans gather in Germany for the Bayreuth Festival, where these mega-operas are performed over a month in Wagner’s purpose-built Festspielhaus (the Bayreuth Festival Theatre). There’s always a scramble to buy tickets. They’re expensive and very difficult to get.

To be invited to play in Bayreuth was never something I had wished for. It would simply never happen. Germany has the best orchestras in the world and plenty of great oboists. Like most festival orchestras, there’s no audition process. It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. So when I got the call and they also wanted me to play the ‘Tristan solo’ on stage and in costume, well, my first reaction was that they must be really desperate. But there’s no way I could turn down that kind of offer.

When I got the call it was March and rehearsals started in June. I live and work in The Royal Danish Orchestra (Det Kongelige Kapel) in Copenhagen, so Bayreuth is not too far away. My wife and I plus our three children had planned to spend July in Sydney visiting family for the first time since the pandemic began. Hurriedly, those plans were rearranged and I managed a short trip with our two girls. Then I started preparing for 10 weeks in Bavaria playing eight Wagner operas.

Tristan was the premiere of the Bayreuth Festival on 25 July. It was 35 degrees that day, which is fine if the air conditioning is good. It’s not. So in my three-piece suit costume, I wished I’d brought a towel on stage. Then I saw my counterpart shepherd (the singer) and his costume was a sheepskin coat!

As we began the first act of Tristan, I had a really hard time keeping my emotions in check. It was all just too much – this gorgeous music, my wife in the audience. I get like that at intense moments. It’s hard to convince yourself that your job is to make the audience cry, not yourself.

In the first interval, I had an interview live on radio about the upcoming solo. They had originally wanted me to do this in the second break, but I convinced them I’d be too busy getting into costume. That was a lie. Changing only takes takes minutes, but I’d be way too nervous to speak fluently about anything. The interview took place out where the audience was, so I met my wife Ida who was already in tears. For fear of making an embarrassing scene, we agreed that she couldn’t watch me do the interview. So she went to the other side of the theatre to meet friends. Luckily the interview was in English. My spoken German is still a work in progress.

Catherine Foster (Isolde) and Stephen Gould (Tristan). Photo © Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

There are 10 oboists playing in Bayreuth this year and all rotate around to cover for each other should someone test positive. And they did. A month before the Tristan premiere, at the first rehearsal for Siegfried, I found out I’d be playing for 11 days straight in order to fill in for an oboist. Luckily, she recovered quickly. After two and a half hours of rehearsing Siegfried in the rehearsal room, I was escorted onto the stage for a rehearsal of Tristan und Isolde with just singers, conductor and piano (instead of the full orchestra). Then back to the rehearsal room for another two and a half hours of Siegfried. That was a big day one.

I’ve played this ‘Tristan solo’ many times. Every English Horn player knows it, as it’s on the excerpt list for every audition. It’s known for testing one’s stamina. You have to play for a long time while climbing to the high note and then climax forte on the next to lowest note. But for me that’s not the hard part.

In auditions, you only play the four-minute monologue. When you play the full opera, the English Horn player plays the first act for one and a half hours and then the second act. The big solo comes in the third act and you head up to the stage before returning to the pit to play the rest of the third act. But in the full opera the solo comes back five times, and then you’re not alone. On these occasions, you have to project over the orchestra, as well as playing in time with the conductor and not least Tristan the tenor (who by then has been awoken by the dulcet tones of the shepherd/English horn player).

Added to that, there are 20 minutes of rests between the second and third onstage solos. That’s fine if you’re backstage or in the pit, but if you’re on stage and in costume, you’re in character. And that’s still not the hardest bit. Every time the shepherd’s melody returns it’s different, so doing it from memory is really tricky. That being said, I’m still not sure which makes me more nervous: playing alone on stage, or sitting in the pit surrounded by your colleagues, who sit in silence hearing every aspect of your playing. Either way, after three hours of playing at the end of the second act, I was like, “Let’s do this!”

Costume on, I changed the bell of my instrument to a special one made for this solo and headed upstairs. In this new production, my directions were to stand side on, about five metres high, on a balcony overlooking the stage and out to the audience. Luckily, I’m not afraid of heights. As I was side on, I couldn’t see the conductor. So I had a little monitor and my iPad out of sight by my feet, neither of which I could properly see, but it was reassuring having them there. I’d been working for months and years memorising what to play and what to listen out for. When you play a concerto as a soloist, everyone follows you. In the pit you follow the conductor. Here it was a bit of both.

Stephen Gould (Tristan) and Markus Eiche (Kurwenal). Photo © Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

Like in every theatre around the world, COVID has played havoc with planning. The Bayreuth Festival is directed by Katharina Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner and great-great-granddaughter of Franz Liszt. This year, Katharina Wagner decided there would be two complete orchestras, each on standby for the other. That meant that even though I had to be prepared to play eight operas, I might only play four. However, at the time of writing, I’ve already jumped in to play Götterdämmerung, because of a positive test in the oboe group. Three weeks into rehearsals, the conductor for the Ring Cycle, Pietari Inkinen tested positive. Quick negotiations behind closed doors led to Cornelius Meister jumping in from Tristan to the Ring, while Markus Poschner was booked for Tristan with only one rehearsal remaining.

Now, prior to this I’d had intensive rehearsals alone with the then conductor for Tristan. Cornelius Meister was very specific with how he wanted me to play the solo: lots of circular breathing and very detailed articulation. I worked hard to play as he asked; an orchestra is not a democracy. But when the change of conductor happened, I didn’t even have the time to meet the new conductor. I just got a message from the assistant conductor that I should have fun and play as I wished.

The orchestra pit and the acoustic in Bayreuth is very unique. Wagner was insistent that the audience not be disturbed by the lights on the music stands. For this reason, the orchestra is unseen and almost completely covered. On the plus side, the orchestra has no dress code and opts for shorts and thongs. As a product of the covered pit, the orchestra’s sound reflects back onto the stage before reaching the audience mixed with the singers. So from five metres above the stage, I heard the orchestra really well.

In the pit however, I have never heard a brass section that loud. Spectacular and awesome, but oh so loud. The violins are typically on either side of the conductor, but uniquely here in Bayreuth the violas and cellos span the breadth of the pit in two rows. Even stranger are the four basses and two or three harps on either side. Like a staircase, the orchestra pit steps down from violins to violas, then cellos, oboes and flutes, clarinets and bassoons and horns, the trumpets, trombones and finally percussion at the lowest level at the back of the pit. For this reason, from the audience’s perspective, the brass can never really play too loud. Honestly. And when you’re sitting in the audience, you realise that in this acoustic the violas can easily drown out the entire trumpet and trombone sections, because they’re in the opening whereas the brass are completely covered. Every awesome crescendo is led by the swell of the strings with a fundament of brass behind. It’s a wonder to hear. Try imagining what the stormy opening of Die Walküre sounds like. From the audience it’s awesome. In the pit, everything around me is shaking with the power of this orchestra. But knowing how it sounds in the hall, I smile and enjoy every second. The trick is to write cues in my part from the orchestral players closest to me in the pit, because you can’t necessarily hear the cues from the singers.

Stephen Gould (Tristan). Photo © Bayreuther Festspiele / Enrico Nawrath

On the day of the performance, 20 minutes up on stage was enough time for a warm-up. I wanted to save my stamina for the performance. Now was the time to calm my thoughts and remember I’d played this solo a hundred times. I just had to play it again. As I stood still in profile up above the stage and the curtain went up for the third act, I could suddenly hear and feel the audience, but I had to wait five long minutes before I played the biggest solo of my career. Surprisingly, the first and most stressful solo went better than I had hoped. I took my time and even added some small spontaneous nuances. From that point on however, I wasn’t completely alone when I played. So I blinked the sweet out of my eyes and tried to focus on the 10-inch monitor by my feet, unseen by the audience. I didn’t play for 22 minutes between the second and third recurrence of my solo, the ‘Shepherds Lament’, so I focused on not missing my next entry. As per the script, my solo wakes the dying Tristan and Stephen Gould was singing the part brilliantly. He took a bit of time on some phrases we have together, and the conductor was a bit off guard, but I could hear so well from where I was that I could follow.

The acoustic is not the only magical thing in Bayreuth. As you walk to the orchestra pit along a long sloping hallway, both sides are lined with the photos of 150 years of conductors, who have worked here in Bayreuth.

You’re surrounded by the history of this epic music and its creator. Scattered throughout Bayreuth are mini statues, only four feet high, of the great composer with his arms outstretched, as if he were conducting the final chord. Or is he wanting a hug? These mini-Wagners have always struck me as a clever marketing technique.

I struggle with loving Wagner’s music while detesting his beliefs. Am I perpetuating past atrocities by being here? I reckon if I ever had met Mozart, he would have been the most annoying person imaginable. His music however wasn’t an inspiration to Adolf Hitler. And what did Adolf think of Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator when he saw it (which he did). These were the thoughts that popped into my head while counting the 20-minute rest, sweating in my costume and trying to look composed on stage.

After my stint in the limelight was done, I slowly backed out of the spotlight and, carrying my instrument, carefully walked back down to the pit. As the pit is completely hidden from the audience, many of the players saw me and silently applauded. I felt a little odd, as they were all in shorts and thongs and I was in tails, but there were still 45 minutes left to play, so I got to it.

I’ve never worked in Germany until now. I was never successful at auditions here. The Hochschule music professors churn out more brilliant young musicians every year. I don’t envy my students going for jobs these days, so I’ve always felt a little inadequate here. How can an Australian mix with the likes of these musicians, I ask myself. But I’ve also learnt something about how lucky I was growing up in Sydney. Here in Europe, music is only taught in schools up to Year 7. I was lucky enough to go to the Conservatorium High. The integration of music in primary and high-school education I now see as paramount to the Aussie musicians around the world today. Not just that, but the NSW Public Schools Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Northern Sydney Youth Orchestra, Sydney Youth Orchestras, Australian Youth Orchestra … I can’t think of another city in the world, where I could have had that training and experience as a teenager. I was also lucky to have “Mum’s taxi” getting me to and from rehearsals all over the city. These days, you see the results in the Australian World Orchestra.

Rixon Thomas (right) taking his curtain call at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Photo supplied

The Cor Anglais is the only instrument in the orchestra that does not play the final chord of Tristan und Isolde. I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief and exhaustion. As the applause began, I waited for the “Boo” to come (this is quite normal for a new production), but it didn’t. The director would be pleased, I thought. The oboist next to me smiled and said, “Well done”.

On stage, the conductor had changed from T-shirt to tails in under a minute and was taking his curtain call. All the singers were hugging each other behind the curtain and praising each other’s performance. Now it was my turn and I still play that moment over and over in my mind.

Together with my colleague playing the backstage wooden trumpet, we walk in front of the curtain to take our bows (I later find out this is a first in Bayreuth). My lungs are suddenly filled and I can’t exhale. I can’t see her, but I imagine my lovely wife clapping with tears in her eyes. None of this would have been possible without her. It’s a lot, and it’s a feeling I will never forget – like being “winded” with joy. When we’re back safely behind the curtain, I realise I’m gasping for breath but smiling. There’s a guy handing out champagne, but tomorrow we play Das Rheingold – aargh! She’ll be right.

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